Dream of Danger (A Brown and De Luca Novella) by MAGGIE SHAYNE Read Free Book Online Page B

sent me an I’ve-never-seen-anyone-so-rude look. I flipped the badge open and said, “I don’t have time to mess around. Whi Ks a sench room is assigned to that white pickup out there?”
    The woman blinked and altered her attitude. She flipped open her registration book and ran her finger down a column. “The Whites. Mr. and Mrs. She waited in the truck. Is something wrong? What’s going on?”
    “One man?” I asked. “I was told there were two.”
    “No. One man, all alone, and a woman, like I said.”
    One man. So the other one was either hiding or had been dropped off along the way. “Was the woman okay? When’s the last time you saw her?”
    “Last night, when they checked in. I told you, she stayed in the truck.” Then she frowned. “She in trouble?”
    “Can I have a spare key to room two?”
    Nodding, she scrambled to take one from a drawer that sounded full of them. She was alarmed. Her pupils were wide and her cheeks red. I could tell that she was already regretting that she hadn’t noticed anything amiss, thinking she should have. “Thanks, ma’am,” I said. “You stay inside now.” I sounded like a real cop just then. I headed back outside, key in hand, marched right up to Mason and handed it to him. “Room two.”
    “All right. Stay here.”
    “Give me the car keys. I want to put the heat on for Myrtle.”
    “For crying out loud, Rachel, I can’t let you have a gun. Someone gets shot with my gun in your hands, it’ll be my shield.”
    “All right, all right.” Damn him for knowing exactly what I was up to.
    I moved up beside the door to room two. I put my back to one side and he put his back to the other, his gun raised. Then he knocked.
    “What the fuck, Mason? You’re knocking? ”
    He rolled his eyes. “Open up. Police.”
    No response. Mason stuck the key in the lock, turned it and shoved. The door swung slowly inward. He held a flat hand toward me and mouthed Wait here. Then he swung around and into the room, gun first.
    When I didn’t hear anything, I ignored his warning and moved in behind him, but I knew as soon as I stepped through the doorway that the room was empty.
    I could feel it.
    Amy wasn’t there.
    * * *
     
    The bed was rumpled. A nylon gym bag sat on the floor beside it, unzipped and gaping. Inside I glimpsed some clothes, maybe a shaving bag. We’d go through it later. Or the cops would.
    On the nightstand there was a half-eaten bag of chips, barbecue style; an open Pepsi can, probably from the machine outside the office; and an overflowing ashtray. The closets and drawers were empty. Apparently the kidnappers liked living out of their bags.
    Then we went into the bathroom. Its tiny window was open, curtain flapping in the breeze. I frowned as I turned to look at Mason, but my eyes fell instead on the toilet—more specifically, on the water pipe that led from the floor up to the toilet tank. Because there was a set of handcuffs attached to it. One end was locked around the pipe. The other end lay open on the bathroom floor.
    Mason saw me staring and turned, then dropped to one knee over a small bent piece of shiny metal on the floor near the cuffs. Kr t-1"“What the hell is that?”
    I bent, too. Then I smiled a little. “It’s Amy’s nose ring.” Everything snapped into place. “She must’ve convinced him to let her use the bathroom in private. He probably cuffed her to the pipe. She took out her nose ring, straightened it out, and used it to pick the lock. Then she climbed out the window.”
    “Amy knows how to pick locks?”
    “Yes. And way not the point, Detective. When her kidnapper figured it out, he must’ve gone after her.”
    I didn’t need to tell him that. He was already leaning out the window, examining whatever signs they’d left behind. Then he took me by the hand and ran back through the motel room and out the door and around to the back. “There,” Mason said, pointing. “You can see where the grass is trodden down.” He took