“I know you saw something.”

A thought, an image, flashed in her brain. It was like one of her dreams, but not a dream, because she was wide awake. A man. Holding a knife.

Drip, drip, drip. Blood hitting the carpet, falling on her feet.

The man in front of her had done something bad, something very bad, something he’d kept a secret for a long time.

“I don’t know anything.” She watched him with the intensity of a cat. When the moment came, she would fling open the door and run, all in one swift motion.

She watched him. Empty eyes in a face that was perfect angles, a face that should have been handsome, but wasn’t. She watched him. Watched the lids droop to cover his pupils.

She spun and grabbed for the doorknob.

In the way of nightmares, her body became sluggish and heavy, and no matter how her mind screamed at her to run, her legs were no match for the quicksand.

She opened the door. A hand above her head shoved it shut. Campbell ’s body slammed into hers, smashing her against the door. Lights flickered in front of her eyes.

A knife came down. But then the knife changed, turning into something else. A hypodermic needle. She opened her mouth to scream. At the same time she felt the needle plunge into her neck.

The scream died in her throat. The only sound she could emit was a choking gasp, pain robbing her of air. This room-it had warned her from the beginning, foreshadowing this very moment.

She gulped at the stagnant motel air, but couldn’t seem to pull in an adequate supply. She sank. Down, down, to the orange carpet. Down, down, until she was lying in a puddle on the floor, her face against the abrasive, stinking orange she so hated and feared.

Dr. Campbell loomed over her, smiling his dead smile. He had something in his hands. The orange bedspread. He brought it over her head. She tried to struggle, tried to scream, but the darkness swallowed her.

“She’s gone.” Jo’s voice barked from the cell phone Daniel held to his ear.

Daniel turned left on Main Street, cruising at patrol speed. “Who?” he asked, even though he knew damn well who.

“Cleo! I went to the motel to pick her up this morning and she’s gone. Her suitcase. Everything.”

Daniel felt sick. Guilty. Responsible. But it wasn’t his fault, he told himself. She was an adult. He couldn’t feel responsible for everything and everybody, couldn’t blame himself for everything that happened.

“This is where you’re supposed to tell me you were right all along.”

“I’m not going to do that.”

“Good. Then while you’re on patrol, why don’t you swing by The Palms and pick up the bill? I was so upset this morning that I forgot to get it.”

“Sure.”

Daniel disconnected and hung a right, heading in the direction of The Palms.

Before getting the bill from Willie, he decided to stop at room six.

Empty, just as Jo had said. Cleo’s suitcase plus all of her clothes were gone. He checked the bathroom.

Except for a bar of soap in the shower, it was empty too. He checked the drawer next to the bed. The pill bottle was gone.

On his knees, he looked under the bed, expecting to find the bedspread where he’d stuffed it two nights ago. Instead he found nothing but a pair of orange curtains. He got to his feet and made another perusal of the room. No bedspread.

Ordinarily he’d just think she’d taken it. But she hadn’t wanted the bedspread anywhere close to her. You don’t swipe something you hate.

In the harsh light streaming through louvered windows that probably hadn’t been washed since Millie and Babe owned the place, the room looked tackier than ever. The stains on the carpet were more obvious. The walls were smeared with handprints, grease left by a million previous occupants. He’d been against Cleo’s coming, but Christ, why hadn’t they found her a decent place to stay? A room at somebody’s house or something.

He examined the space thoroughly, not really knowing what he was looking for. Every time he passed the bed, wet carpet squished under his feet. He spotted something on the door, and leaned closer.

It looked like dried blood.

It could have been there for years. For all he knew, this could be the room where the prostitute had been murdered.

He felt something hard under the sole of his boot. He backed up, then dug in the matted carpet. Caught under the orange fibers was a clear plastic cap, the kind used to cover the needle of a syringe.

It could have been there for years too.

He left the room, closing the door behind him. At the lobby desk, he found Willie. “I need a list of phone calls made from room six,” he said.

“I don’t know if I can do that,” Willie said. “Invasion of privacy and all that.”

“Cut the crap,” Daniel said wearily. “Just get me the numbers.”

Willie went to the handprint-smeared computer and clicked a few keys. The printer hummed, then Willie tore off the paper and handed it to Daniel.

It wasn’t exactly a list. There were only two phone numbers on the paper-Daniel’s, and one with a Washington state area code. “Don’t clean room six,” he told Willie. Then he thought he’d better clarify that. “And don’t rent it to anybody.”

“That’s a waste of a perfectly good room,” Willie griped.

“The police department will pay for it.” Willie couldn’t refuse payment on a room nobody was using.

Back in the squad car, Daniel pulled out his cell phone and punched in the unknown phone number.

An answering machine. A man’s voice.

“You have reached the home of Adrian, Mavis, Macy, and Carmen Tyler. Please leave a message.”

Daniel hung up. Brother? Almost had to be.

What a strange feeling, to have made love to a woman he knew absolutely nothing about.

He started the car and headed for the police station.

Chapter Twenty-One

Drugs sang in Cleo’s veins. If she’d cared to lift her head, she couldn’t have done it.

So tired. But it was a good kind of tired, the kind of tired that was the door to oblivion, to a numbness that was deeper than the deepest sleep. That numbness welcomed her. It wrapped its arms around her, pulling her down…

Daniel took the steps in front of the police station two at a time, so preoccupied with Cleo’s disappearance that he didn’t see Burton Campbell until he almost smacked into him.

“Heard your psychic skipped town,” Campbell said.

“Maybe,” Daniel said curtly. The last thing he wanted was to chitchat with Campbell.

“What do you mean, maybe?”

“I’m not convinced she left of her own free will.”

Campbell ’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. “Yeah?” He aimed his eager Boy Scout curiosity at Daniel. “You think somebody made her leave?”

“I don’t know.”

“Who would do that? And why? I’ll bet she skipped town. She was a flake. A con artist. You said so yourself.”

“I don’t seem to recall you backing me up on it.”

Campbell shrugged.

“I gotta go. I’ve got some calls to make.”

“If you need any help, let me know.”

Cleo tried to swallow, but her throat was too dry. Her body ached from lying in one position for so long. Her skin hurt.

She opened her eyes.

Total darkness.

She rolled to her stomach, stirring up the straw beneath her, along with the smell of age and mold and dead mice. She waited for the pain to subside before shoving herself upright on bare feet. Blindly she reached out, her fingers coming in contact with rough, weathered wood. Searching for a door, her hands moved over boards and seams and corners.

No door.

She must have missed it.

She felt the walls again, panic increasing with each step, with each turn, counting four walls, going around again.