The overstuffed backpack landed on the scuffed counter with a thud.<\/p>\n
Alyssa Anderson rolled her shoulders and rang the bell. Five minutes later, she was still alone in the motel lobby. Granted, this wasn\u2019t the Ritz-Carlton or even a Holiday Inn. But someone ought to at least be manning the front desk.<\/p>\n
\u201cHello?\u201d<\/p>\n
Moments later, a young woman came from the back and stepped up to the counter, looking a little harried. \u201cSorry to keep you waiting. How can I help you?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI need a room for the night.\u201d Maybe more than one night, depending on how long it would take the mechanic to get to her hunk-of-junk car.<\/p>\n
\u201cSure thing.\u201d She made several clicks of the mouse, squinting at the computer screen.<\/p>\n
The clock on the wall behind her said almost four thirty. Alyssa shifted her weight to the other foot. Her mother\u2019s graveside service would have ended an hour ago. More than a decade had passed since she\u2019d been killed, and she was finally getting a proper burial, her death, the mourning it deserved.<\/p>\n
The service had probably been beautiful, with friends and family members remembering a life well lived but cut short. The words spoken over the casket had likely included the 23rd<\/sup> Psalm and other verses of comfort.<\/p>\n Alyssa wouldn\u2019t know. She hadn\u2019t made it. One more reason for her sisters to judge her.<\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t that she hadn\u2019t tried. She\u2019d left Atlanta in plenty of time to make the five-hour trip to Pensacola. She\u2019d only gotten as far as LaGrange when the old Tempo had made a sound resembling an explosion and started rattling as if trying to shake off all four fenders.<\/p>\n The clerk straightened and met Alyssa\u2019s gaze. \u201cI\u2019ll put you in room 106. That\u2019ll be $54.88 with tax. How did you want to pay?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDebit card.\u201d She hesitated. \u201cOn second thought, I\u2019ll pay cash.\u201d<\/p>\n She was probably being overly cautious. Maybe even a bit paranoid. No one had access to her bank account, so there was no way for anyone to follow her trail through her banking transactions.<\/p>\n Regardless, she pulled two twenties, a ten and a five from her wallet and laid them on the counter. If there was anything she\u2019d learned over the past decade, it was how to take care of herself.<\/p>\n After printing a receipt, the clerk slid the room key into its sleeve and wrote 106 on the outside. \u201cCheckout is at eleven.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThank you.\u201d Alyssa folded the receipt then palmed the room key and slipped both into the back pocket of her jeans.<\/p>\n She hoped she wouldn\u2019t have to extend her stay. Even if the mechanic didn\u2019t get her car fixed until late tomorrow, she\u2019d do what she\u2019d done today. After having her car towed, she had spent seven hours riding public transportation, roaming the LaGrange Mall and strolling the park to pass the time until check-in.<\/p>\n She hadn\u2019t bothered to call either of her sisters. One of them would have driven from Pensacola to pick her up as soon as the service was over. But she didn\u2019t want charity from anyone, least of all her uppity sisters.<\/p>\n She dragged the backpack from the counter and slid an arm through one of the straps. The pack was remarkably light considering it held all of her worldly possessions. She heaved a sigh. She was pretty pathetic\u2014twenty-five years of life and all she had to show for it fit into a space the size of a carry-on.<\/p>\n After walking out the door, she turned left and made her way along the front of the building. Her room was six doors down.<\/p>\n Her burner phone rang before she\u2019d even made it halfway. She fished it from her pocket and eyed the 706 area code. Her pulse kicked up speed. Maybe the mechanic already knew what was wrong with her car. Now if she could just get it fixed without having to wipe out her entire savings.<\/p>\n Whatever happened, going back to Atlanta wasn\u2019t an option, not if she hoped to escape the latest mess she\u2019d gotten herself into. And since her mother\u2019s graveside service was over, there was nothing for her in Pensacola. Nothing except a couple of sisters who would probably rather she not return anyway.<\/p>\n She swiped to accept the call and pressed the phone to her ear. She\u2019d guessed right. The call was from Jim\u2019s Garage, where they\u2019d towed her car, and the mechanic had already diagnosed her engine troubles. Not only that, he\u2019d fixed them.<\/p>\n \u201cHow much do I owe you?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cTwo hundred dollars.\u201d<\/p>\n Was that all? She breathed a sigh of relief. The problem had to have been extremely minor. She would call a cab, try to get her money back from the motel clerk, pick up her car and be gone. The sooner she could get out of LaGrange, the better. Actually, the sooner she could leave Georgia behind, the safer she would feel.<\/p>\n When the cab arrived, she walked out of the lobby fifty-five dollars richer than when she\u2019d gone in. A few minutes later, the driver dropped her off at the garage. Her Tempo was parked out front, next to a Chevy Trailblazer. A Nissan pickup waited along the side of the building.<\/p>\n She stepped into the office area where a man sat at a desk that was covered in papers, a phone pressed to his ear. While she waited for him to finish, she glanced through the door leading into the side of the garage. Another man was leaning forward under the open hood of a Chevy pickup truck.<\/p>\n He straightened, and she wandered in. \u201cAre you the one who repaired the red Tempo?\u201d<\/p>\n He closed the hood and pulled a rag from the pocket of his overalls. \u201cThat was me.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSo what was wrong with it?\u201d<\/p>\n He wiped his hands on the rag. \u201cYou threw a piston rod. It\u2019s a good thing it went into the cylinder head instead of out the side of the block or you would have needed a new engine. As it was, it didn\u2019t even damage the crankshaft.\u201d<\/p>\n Her breath released in a rush. Finally, good news. For real this time.<\/p>\n Lately, she\u2019d thought everything was looking up. After years waitressing in greasy spoons where tips were often in the form of coins rather than bills, she\u2019d run into a girl she\u2019d worked with years earlier. Rachel\u2019s recommendation had gotten her a job at La Maison D\u2019Elise. It was one of those places with linen tablecloths, candlelight and live background music. And patrons who thought nothing of adding a forty- or fifty-dollar gratuity to their bill.<\/p>\n She\u2019d even had a new boyfriend, someone with some class\u2014someone who picked her up in a shiny, new Audi A5 convertible and took her places requiring attire other than holey jeans and a tank top.<\/p>\n He\u2019d been a regular patron of La Maison, a successful photographer, with some high-profile modeling clients. She\u2019d been so sure he was too good to be true, she\u2019d turned him down for a solid three weeks before she\u2019d finally agreed to go out with him.<\/p>\n Then, less than twenty-four hours ago, everything had blown up in her face. Now she had no boyfriend, no job and no home.<\/p>\n Alyssa had seen something she wasn\u2019t supposed to have seen and now some bad men wanted her dead. Her ex-boyfriend was one of them.<\/p>\n At least she still had a car and she hadn\u2019t needed to wipe out her savings to get it fixed.<\/p>\n \u201cThank you. I appreciate you getting the work done so quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo problem. Jim said it was a rush job and put two of us on it.\u201d<\/p>\n She thanked him again and stepped back into the office as the man she\u2019d seen earlier was hanging up the phone.<\/p>\n \u201cAre you Jim?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI am.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAlyssa Anderson, owner of the \u00b492 Tempo.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve got you ready to go. That\u2019ll be two hundred dollars.\u201d<\/p>\n She took the pack from her back and removed ten twenty-dollar bills from her wallet. She had hit the ATM on her way out of town and pulled out five hundred dollars. Now her cash was almost half gone.<\/p>\n In the garage, one bay door and then the other rolled down on their tracks, the metallic rumble drifting into the office. The mechanic she\u2019d spoken with earlier walked through the open door.<\/p>\n \u201c\u00b4Night, boss.\u201d He gave Alyssa a salute. \u201cSafe travels.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThanks.\u201d<\/p>\n She picked up her pack from the counter but didn\u2019t bother slipping her arms through the two straps. When she turned her attention back to Jim, he pulled a handwritten invoice from the top of one of the haphazard stacks on his desk. After writing \u201cpaid in full\u201d across the bottom, he rose and handed it to her, along with her car key. \u201cI\u2019m right behind you.\u201d<\/p>\n He followed her out and locked the door then disappeared around the side of the building, probably headed to the Nissan she\u2019d noticed earlier. The Trailblazer pulled from the parking lot, the mechanic at the wheel.<\/p>\n Alyssa glanced down at the invoice as she made her way toward her car. The top line of the description said, \u201cRepairs to 1992 Ford Tempo.\u201d The list of what was involved was lengthy.<\/p>\n Far too lengthy for the two hundred dollars she\u2019d been charged.<\/p>\n Her breath caught and her hands started to shake. The garage hadn\u2019t discounted the charges because they\u2019d felt sorry for her. They knew nothing of her situation. No, the amount she owed was so low because someone else had paid the rest of the bill. Making sure the repair was affordable with her meager savings was the way to guarantee she would return. Otherwise, she would have abandoned the car and kept running.<\/p>\n She looked frantically around her at the empty parking lot. Nearby, the Nissan\u2019s engine roared to life. Then a car shot from the business catty-cornered, across the four lanes of traffic, barreling toward the Tempo.<\/p>\n Alyssa spun and retraced her steps at a full run, still clutching the loop on the top of the pack. She needed to reach Jim before he left.<\/p>\n As she rounded the corner of the building, the Nissan pulled onto the side road, headed away from her. Behind her, the car roared closer. Trees lined the property on the other side of the street. If she could make it across before the car hit her, she might have a chance at escape.<\/p>\n She shot into the road\u2026right into the path of an SUV. The driver braked hard, the squeal of tires setting her teeth on edge.<\/p>\n As she glanced over her other shoulder, the car that had pursued her swerved toward the highway. Relief flooded her, but only for a moment. An arm extended through the open passenger window, and sunlight glinted off the barrel of a pistol.<\/p>\n Two shots rang out as she dove and rolled, tossing the pack. A searing pain stabbed through her left shoulder. She came to a stop in the narrow stretch of patchy grass lining the side of the street, the trees she had targeted only six feet away.<\/p>\n She sat up and grasped her shoulder with her other hand. The bullet had grazed her. At least, she hoped that was all it was. The sleeve of her shirt was already wet. When she drew her hand away, her palm was covered with blood. Her wrist hurt, too. So did her knee. She\u2019d probably injured them hitting the pavement.<\/p>\n When she tried to rise, pain shot through her right knee, sending her right back to the asphalt. No, not this on top of everything else. She looked frantically around. The car was gone.<\/p>\n The SUV had stopped\u2014a later model white Land Rover. Its door swung open, and a sneaker-clad foot appeared beneath it. The driver likely wanted to make sure she wasn\u2019t hurt. She would tell him she was all right, thank him for stopping and send him on his way.<\/p>\n Alyssa pushed herself upright, hands splayed against the pavement, her weight on her left leg. After snatching up her pack, she again pressed her hand to her left shoulder. There was more blood than she\u2019d initially thought. She\u2019d deal with it later. Right now, she had more pressing things to concern herself with\u2014like staying alive.<\/p>\n She limped toward the Good Samaritan, trying hard not to wince with each step, all the while casting frequent glances at the highway behind her. Still no sign of the car.<\/p>\n How had she even wound up in this situation? The scene had seemed so harmless: four businessmen sitting around a table discussing famous works of art. But what she\u2019d witnessed had had more significance than she had initially thought. Maybe the art had been stolen. Or maybe the paintings they\u2019d been talking about had been copies or fakes and they\u2019d been marketing them as the real thing. The details didn\u2019t matter.<\/p>\n Because now some dangerous men were determined to keep her quiet.<\/p>\n She had to get out of there.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The overstuffed backpack landed on the scuffed counter with a thud. Alyssa Anderson rolled her shoulders and rang the bell. Five minutes later, she was still alone in the motel lobby. Granted, this wasn\u2019t the Ritz-Carlton or even a Holiday Inn. But someone ought to at least be manning the front desk. \u201cHello?\u201d Moments later, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":24,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2955","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/caroljpost.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/caroljpost.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/caroljpost.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caroljpost.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caroljpost.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2955"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/caroljpost.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2955\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2957,"href":"https:\/\/caroljpost.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2955\/revisions\/2957"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caroljpost.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/24"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/caroljpost.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}