Read Online Little Pretty Things by Lori Rader-Day - Free Book Online Page A

fumbled the card in his gloved hands, glancing up at me, tried another angle. “Here, let me,” I said, pushing past the uniformed arm keeping me away and into the center of them. I took the card back, turned it, and ran it through at the speed Lu and I had come to understand as the only one that worked without fail.
    The light turned green. The lock beeped.
    Loughton pocketed the card, nodded. Someone pulled me out of the way, and Courtney and Loughton took up positions on either side of the door. I took a step backward, clutching the rail. None of us knew what might be inside. The murderer. Another body. A blood-soaked nightmare. Anything at all.
    Loughton turned the handle just before he would have had to swipe the card again, and he and Courtney jumped into the room, guns swinging into the corners.
    “Clear!” Courtney barked.
    “Clear!” Loughton agreed.
    I couldn’t help myself. I peered into the dark room past the shoulders of the cops still at the door, unable to see much of anything except that some of the bed sheets had been pulled to the floor.
    Loughton launched himself across the expanse to the bathroom.
    “Clear,” he bellowed. “Check the closet, Howard.”
    But Courtney had already raked the room with her eyes and stiffened. “Sir—”
    “Don’t touch anything, Howard,” Loughton said.
    “Jim, isn’t that—”
    I didn’t need her to finish. Neither of us could have missed it. Even from as far away as the balcony railing, I could see what had caught Courtney’s attention.
    On the dresser, bright as a beacon: Maddy’s diamond ring.
    Before I knew what I was doing, my hand reached toward it. Not pointing, but open-handed and grasping. If I’d been close enough, I might have scooped it up, just to hold it, just to have it against my palm.
    I felt Courtney’s eyes on me, and dropped my hand.

    Downstairs, I sat on the curb. I’d taken the front door keys from the desk to lock up, tight, as instructed, and then put the keys through the drop box in the door. But I’d forgotten to call for a ride. Maybe if I’d had a cell phone like everyone else, I might have called Lu to come back for me. But cell phones cost money, far more than I had to spare.
    A team of uniformed guys in rubber gloves picked over Maddy’s car. A tow truck sat in the corner of the lot, the motor running. Cops were tramping all around the motel and lot, peering closely at things on the ground and in the weeds against the fence. One of them was on his hands and knees in front of the vending and ice machines. “Do these work?” he called to me. “The ice is almost gone. Looks like someone unplugged it.”
    “We need to call for service,” I called back.
    He shrugged.
    I felt for the key card in my pocket and rubbed it with my thumb. What good did it do me? Courtney and her friends were going over the room now. It would be a long time before the room didn’t have a cop inside it. And once it didn’t? There wasn’t much for me to do but change the sheets, wipe up the bathroom. Take out the trash.
    I thought of Maddy hanging over the trash bin and shuddered.
    There might be blood.
    I didn’t know how to clean up pools of blood. I didn’t want to learn.
    The sound of a car pulling into the lot drew my attention. Yvonne’s Jeep swung into a spot near the bar, and she hopped out, tugging up her jeans and tossing a black waist apron over her shoulder. Yvonne was the kind of woman who made me think I could wear red cowboy boots, too. “Heya.”
    “Von, didn’t they call you?”
    “Billy called.” She eyed the ambulance. “Sorry about your friend.”
    I remembered the forty-two-buck tip and was ashamed—of myself instead of Maddy, this time. She was generous. I was the petty, suspicious one. “Thanks.”
    “You should see what this looks like from the overpass,” she said. “I bet you could have seen her from the southbound lanes, even—”
    “Yvonne.”
    “I’m just really surprised somebody didn’t run