Page 9 of Wicked Mafia Sinner

If someone told me this morning I'd be making out with a brick wall at midnight, I would have laughed. I suck in a breath. I'm not laughing.

The fifty bucks in my pocket is all I have. My wallet, credit cards and access to the little I have in my bank are all back at the shop I can't go back to.

I didn't need the detective to confirm I'm the witness. We locked eyes. He knows. But it didn’t help to have it confirmed.

So my options are I can sleep on a park bench and get murdered, or go home and get murdered in my own bed. At least the second option comes with a pillow.

Or I find a motel that takes cash and doesn't ask questions.

Five minutes later I go for option C. I triple check the locks and grab the wooden chair by a rickety desk. I shove the back of the chair under the handle then cross the room and check the locks on the third floor window. As shitty motels go, this one is at the bottom of the scale.

The heater rattles to life in the corner, pushing through warm air that smells like dust and someone else's cigarettes across the room. The mattress dips in the center where a thousand bodies have pressed the springs flat, and the pillow carries a chemical lavender scent that is trying very hard to mask something I refuse to identify.

"Home sweet home," I say to the water stain on the ceiling.

I sit on the edge of the bed and call Raine.

Again I get her freaking voicemail.

I call again and get the recording, call again and get it twice more, each ring pulling a thread of hope tight in my chest before the recording snaps it loose again.

"Okay, Cora. Options." My voice bounces off the stained ceiling. "Option one: call the police. Done that. They're dirty. Option two: call Raine. Done that. She's in freaking Seattle and her phone is either dead or in a blackout zone. Option three: call Mom.”

I stop, my eyes catching the water stain again. It looks like a melting peony.

No. Not Mom. She texts 'just checking you're alive' twice a day already. If I call her right now she'll hear the fear in my voice and she'll panic. I can't drag her into this.

I press my palms against my temples and rub, but no new ideas are magically popping into my head.

The locket is warm against my chest. I lift it, pop the clasp with my thumbnail. The pressed flower sits inside on its bed of tarnished gold. A lily of the valley from Mom's window box garden, paper-thin and fragile enough that breathing on it could turn it to dust. The last bloom before my mother’s arthritis made bending over the box too painful. I pressed it myself at fifteen, holding my breath while I smoothed it between the pages of a botany textbook. We share a love for flowers and she taught me everything I know about being strong and resourceful.

Dad left her to raise twins on her own. She found happiness in the dirt and so have I. I know it’s been years since he left, but I can’t bring myself to be the cause of a single minute of pain in her life.

I close the locket before the tightness in my throat becomes tears. Somewhere in Seattle, Raine is wearing the matching chain and has no idea I’m sitting in a motel room being hunted by killers. If she did, the cavalry would ride in and my sister would save the day. Like she always loves to do. She has the high-paying job, the powerful boss willing to do anything for her and she has the grit my father told me I would never have. Weak is what he loved to call me.

Having a heart is what I call it but whatever. He never made it a secret he wanted boys rather than girls. When he learned I wanted to be an artist and plant flowers he bounced.

“What a freaking day.”

I pull out the paper tucked inside my boot and turn it over in my fingers. If I open it I lose plausible deniability. I didn't mention the paper at the precinct. My gut instincts told me to hold onto some of my cards. Now I’m glad I did.

Before temptation has me doing something stupid, I shove the paper back into my boot and lie there with the lights on until the ceiling turns gray with early morning.

And then a cringy yellow while the sun crawls across the room.

The curtain has a gap where the two panels don't quite meet and I wear a path in the carpet between the bed and the window checking it every fifteen minutes. The parking lot stays empty except for a rusted sedan that hasn't moved since I got here and a maintenance cart no one comes back for. Every engine that passes on the road beyond the lot makes my shoulders climb toward my ears.

I try Raine again.

Voicemail.

I try again an hour later.

Voicemail.

By the fourth attempt her recording has become a song I know by heart and the familiarity makes it worse.

"Come on, Raine. Just pick up. One time. That's all I need." I check the battery just as the one percent battery bar blinks and the phone dies.