Chapter 7: Chapter 7

“All right. You know my number. I haven’t changed it since we broke up. Call me when you get to the motel. Remember, the room’s in my name, and it’s paid for.”

“Won’t they want to see some ID?”

Trent gave me a disbelieving look. “This isn’t the kind of motel that cares. They have my money. They’ll hand over the key, and it probably will be a key, not a keycard, without asking questions.”

“Sounds like the one I told you about, where I stayed before I was totally broke.”

“Hopefully, it’s one step up from that.”

It was, as I found out when I got there—which took two busses and a three-block walk. The guy at the desk barely looked up when I told him I was Trent Larson and I had reserved a room for the week. He reached for a key on a pegboard behind the desk, slid a ledger over for me to sign, and told me where the room was. It turned out to be on the backside of the motel, on the second floor off an exterior walkway.