Chosen Girls

Chapter 9

9

The other road into Mayflower was more of a dirt track used by tractors and harvesters. It cut a straight line through a yellow and green patchwork of fields that swept down from the surrounding hills.

As Alice steered the Honda along the bumpy lane, she had the perfect view of the town. It sat off to the left in the distance, most of it built around the imaginatively titled Main Street. The town center was lined by traditional, single-story brownstone buildings. Sun-bleached roads branched like vines into a maze of residential avenues. As Main Street broke out of town into the fields, it narrowed into a small country highway. On the opposite side, the land ran for miles, pancake-flat. Relentless country dotted with red barns and browning clumps of woodland.

Alice pulled out of the cornfield onto the main road into town. After a wide, empty intersection on green, the center of town began. Each building ran straight into the next. They were hard to distinguish other than the signs over the doors—the sheriff’s office, the Mayflower Town Hall, McNulty's Bar, the Main Street Steakhouse, Kath's Diner, Al's Bakery, Chloe's Hair & Beauty, and the General Store & Post Office.

Alice turned left at the end of the street, immediately after the General Store. She pulled the Honda into the lot of Bill's Motel, sitting just off the main drag. She parked out of sight, around the rear of the motel, and turned off the engine. She peeled herself out of the frayed, faded driver's seat. Her legs had almost forgotten how to walk. Her hands felt sticky and raw from gripping the wheel too tight.

The little green Honda ticked hot, its underbelly caked in dust, with tires coated in dry grass and dead stems.

The aromas of fresh-baked pies, and coffee wafted over from Main Street. Alice grabbed a black duffel bag and matching backpack from the trunk of her car. She walked around the front of the motel to find the office.

It was the usual kind of arrangement. A row of single-story buildings with ten rooms in a straight line. A concrete square for guest parking in front. The bell over the door tinkled as Alice stepped inside the poky reception room. Everything was under lock and key. Just a white buzzer, built into the front desk.

Alice pushed the button and heard a distant buzz.

She waited.

And waited.

As she was about to push it again, a shriveled old man appeared from a discreet door behind the counter. Red plaid shirt tucked into high-waisted black slacks. Skin and clothes hanging off his thinning bones.

"Sorry for keeping you, ma'am," he said, swinging a leather-bound guestbook onto the counter. "Had a rush on meats. Last fella wanted two lamb steaks for a cookout. I told him, we only got beef and chicken in. If you want lamb or pork, you gotta go to Ed's Butchers in the next town. Anyhow, that's that, and this is this. You need a room?"

"I think I've got one booked," Alice said. "Under Kilbride."

"Ah, you’re Mr. Kilbride's guest. Yes, he told me to expect you. Told me to book out the biggest room we got, which'll be number ten on the end. It's on a corner, see."

The old man unlocked a cupboard beneath the counter. Alice signed in toward the bottom of a long list of names scribbled in ink on a yellowing page.

"What you here for, if you don't mind me asking?" the man said, sliding a key across the counter. It was attached to a heavy slate square with a white number '10' carved in.

"Business," Alice said.

"Alrighty," the old man said. "I'll mind my P's and Q's. You want me to show you to your room?"

"No, I can manage. Thank you."

"Well, if you need anything, I'm just in the General Store. The name's Bill."

"The store’s your place too?" Alice asked.

"I used to own 'em. Now I just run 'em for Mr. Kilbride."

"Must be a bit galling," Alice said.

"Not at all. Mr. Kilbride stepped in when I was going under. If you ask me, I think he's still taking a loss on both. Town's not what it used to be."

"Does Mr. Kilbride own a lot of businesses around here?"

"A couple," Bill said. "More across the state. He's a successful man. A nice man. Terrible news about his niece."

"Why, what happened?" Alice asked, playing dumb.

"Didn't you see the missing posters on the way in? On every lamppost. Local girl, Brooke Tanner. Got snatched. Or so they reckon."

"Are there any suspects?" Alice asked.

"They're putting it down to that Homecoming Killer. We've got the police here working with the sheriff. City types in suits. You know the kind. They're all just as stumped as the next man. But you'll be quite safe during your stay, Miss, um, Parks," he said, angling his head to read Alice's name out of the book. "Mayflower's a nice place. Rotten eggs aside, cow-tipping and parking tickets are about as criminal as we get here."

"Well, that's good to know," Alice said, grabbing the room key and picking up her bags.

"Oh, I almost forgot," Bill said, producing a package wrapped in brown paper from under the counter. "Mr. Kilbride said to give you this. Somethin' to do with your business, I expect."

"Thank you," Alice said, taking the package with her.

"Enjoy your stay, now," Bill said, ducking through the staff door into the General Store.

Alice made her way to her room, package weighing heavy under one arm. She opened the door. It was stiff and needed a firm shove. A ray of sunshine broke into the darkness, dust dancing in the light. The room came with a white-sheeted bed and a coffee-color carpet. Two-star basic. Clean enough. Dark with the door closed. Alice dumped the bags on the bed and found the light switch on the wall. She flicked on the light and jumped at the sight of a stuffed goose on the wall nearest to her.

A stuffed fox stood on a heavy, varnished chest of drawers, black paws glued to a metal base. Alice removed both animals and stashed them out of sight in the bottom of the chest of drawers. She left the light on and the linen curtains closed. She looked around the rest of the room. There was a writing desk beneath the window, to the right of the doorway, which would come in handy. She locked the door behind her and kicked off her dirty-white sneakers.

It was warm inside the room and smelled of furniture polish. To Alice's relief, there was air conditioning. She turned it on and up, falling backward onto the bed next to her bags. The slab-like mattress felt like heaven.