Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 91146 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 456(@200wpm)___ 365(@250wpm)___ 304(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91146 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 456(@200wpm)___ 365(@250wpm)___ 304(@300wpm)
“All right.” Knox takes a moment to think before he checks the time on his watch. It is flashier than Laken’s but just as old. “I’ll send someone to”—he reads the circled hotel name—“Dusty Sky Inn to pick him up.”
“You don’t think we should go? He sounded pretty determined to stay away in his letter.” And heartbroken, but I keep that to myself.
I balk when he highlights my word. “We?” He doesn’t give me a chance to respond. “No, we don’t have time to galivant across LA. Things are progressing too quickly for that.” He bands his arm around my shoulders and guides me down the hallway. “You have an interview to conduct and a live performance to give.” He chuckles like the situation isn’t as dire as it is. “And I have a fuck ton of records to sell.”
When I’m shoved into my room to change out of my stained skirt, I spin to face him, disgusted he’s placing record sales above River’s safety. “Knox—”
“I’ll bring him home, Nicole. I promise you, by the end of tonight, he’ll be standing across from you, sorry he ever left.”
My trust is low, but since my faith in myself is even lower, I bob my head like it isn’t screaming at me to stop being so blind.
32
LAKEN
“Samson. S-A-M—”
The clerk from the umpteenth hotel I’ve called this evening cuts me off. “There’s no guest of that name at our hotel.”
I wet my lips before testing the friendliness of her tone with another name. I tried River’s before Knox’s, so there’s only one name left on my list. “What about Nicole Reed? Is she a guest?”
“Nicole Reed…” Just her saying Nicole’s name sends my heart into a frenzy. It thuds as wildly as it did this morning when Dallas pulled one of the hotel’s town cars in front of me and demanded I get in.
I was seconds from being trampled.
“Reed? Did you say Nicole Reed?” the clerk double-checks.
“Uh-huh. R-E-E-D.”
“I know how it’s spelled.” Her tone is no longer friendly. It is clipped and stern. “What did you say your name was again?”
“I didn’t—”
“Listen here, you little rat-breath punk. Even if Nicole were at our hotel, I wouldn’t tell you she was here. She deserves a—”
I hang up before she can rip me a new asshole like almost everyone I’ve encountered today. Dallas saved my hide this morning at Nicole’s original hotel, but he said I was on my own when I tried to enter the studio Nicole was meant to record at today.
I got as far as the lobby before they tossed me out.
The security guard at the restaurant on the itinerary I memorized was kind enough to batter my ego in the alleyway siding the pricy establishment. It saved my shame from being broadcast across the internet.
My endeavor to find Nicole has been recorded, uploaded, and shared millions of times. Although I’d rather not be mocked by strangers, some good came of my public humiliation. It proves Knox's claim that Nicole requested a restraining order was false.
A handful of LA’s finest added to the vault of evidence of my desperation.
After breathing out the worry that hasn’t stopped circling in my stomach, I run my finger down the outdated phone book of the two-star hotel I paid for in cash after pawning my father’s watch. I’ve called all the five-star hotels, so I shift my focus to the ones ranked half a star lower.
“Rot in hell!”
I pull the hotel’s phone from my ear in just enough time. The clerk’s phone must be corded like the one I’m using because the clang it makes when she returns it to its receiver is deafening.
Needing to take a breather before I snap, I move to the window of my room to peer out at the stars.
“Stars don’t exist in the sky in LA,” I murmur to myself when the only twinkling of lights are junkies melting their stash.
The motel clerk took one look at my arm before issuing a stern warning. “No shooting up in your room. If it can’t wait until you’re no longer staying at my fine establishment, do it in the alley.”
“I’m not a junkie,” I replied.
He scoffed at me before showing me my room and explaining how the square televisions don’t have built-in antennas, so if I want to watch something, I need to move the rabbit-shaped antennas on the top to the desired setting.
I’ve been too busy to watch anything, but I realize how stupid that was of me when my eyes lock with a television in the room across from me. It is playing an interview of the woman I’ve spent the past twelve-plus hours searching for.
“Come on,” I plead to the television in my room when it doesn’t turn on, even with my pressing the remote button on repeat.
I whack its side and check the batteries are in properly before I recall the check-in saying the remote is for the built-in DVD player.