Chapter 1 - The Cheaper Motel
"Try the cheap motel down the road."
Patrick said it loudly enough for the couple behind me to hear. His palm was still up, like he was stopping a delivery truck instead of a woman carrying a sleeping child.
I had buried my husband two years earlier. I had flown across the country with our six-year-old daughter, Lily, to leave roses at the place where we'd celebrated our first anniversary. And now a man standing behind the front desk of my own hotel was telling me I didn't belong.
"I have a reservation," I said.
"I'm sure you do, ma'am." He looked at the brown paper around my damaged red roses. "But there's a difference between making a reservation online and meeting our standards."
Lily shifted on my shoulder. Her pink stuffed rabbit pressed against my throat. I slid my arm under her knees, careful not to wake her.
"Your standards?" I asked.
"We have families paying good money for a peaceful evening."
A man in a charcoal suit stood several feet behind me. His name tag read KARL. He glanced from my travel-wrinkled ivory pantsuit to my worn leather bag and made no move to help.
"Please look up Clara Vance," I said.
Patrick sighed as though I had asked him to carry my luggage upstairs. "Fine. Let's clear this up."
His fingers rattled across the keyboard. Then stopped.
I knew what he was seeing: EXECUTIVE RESERVATION. SUITE 904. CONFIRMED. I'd asked my office to book the room under my own name, with none of the usual owner alerts. I wanted one ordinary night with my daughter. Apparently that had been too much to ask.
"Is there a problem?" I said.
Patrick's mouth opened. Closed. His eyes slid to a second line on the screen.
May you like
"Who," he whispered, "authorized your arrival?"
Before I could answer, Karl reached past my shoulder and clicked the counter's discreet security button.
