5
Melissa hadn’t protested much when Richie steered her into the hotel’s restaurant for breakfast; she’d been famished.
Any adrenaline that had carried her through the night had been spent by the time they’d reached the room. Eight hours of broken sleep in four days didn’t begin to cover it. Richie had tucked her in, kissed her on the nose, and she’d been out.
Now she was awake, hungry again, and truly frustrated. For one thing, she was alone in the room. For another, when she looked again, she was still alone in the room.
Showered and dressed, she started with the restaurant, then the weight room. She finally found him under the shade of a cloth umbrella at the side of the short pool. A low cyclone fence with those plastic privacy slats separated the bare cement from the parking lot p
