“I’ll get your change,” she snapped.

“Keep it,” I said as I turned my back to her and headed out the door

I was back at square one, and I only had myself to blame.

Chapter Twelve

Marco was tapping his thumb on the steering wheel when I walked up to his Explorer, singing along to a country song I didn’t recognize. I opened the door and climbed in, grateful for the warmth of the interior.

“That took a while,” he said, turning down the volume so the music was in the background. “But I won’t complain since it looks like you brought food.”

I was about to tell him that some of it was for me, but a quick glance at his dashboard clock confirmed it was 5:02. If I walked in with food from Watson’s, Ruth would have my hide.

I shoved the bag at him. “Greta was there. She’d just started the dinner shift.”

“No shit!” he exclaimed in excitement. “What did you find out?”

“Not much.” I spilled our conversation.

“Okay,” he said. “You didn’t get confirmation that Bingham is the baby’s father, but it wasn’t nothing. We filled in a few blanks.”

“But I didn’t get anything that will help us find her,” I protested in frustration.

“Don’t you worry, little bulldog,” he said with a grin as he peered into the bag. “We’re not givin’ up. I’ll pick you up at Hank’s at nine, and we’ll drop by Watson’s for breakfast, just like we planned. I know for a fact she’s workin’ the Saturday morning breakfast shift. We’ll keep tryin’ until we wear her down. It might take a few days, but she’ll spill.”

“Thanks for not tossin’ in the towel,” I said in relief.

“Slow and steady wins the race,” he said as he popped a couple of french fries into his mouth. “Ain’t you never read the tortoise and the hare story?”

Nostalgia washed through me, sweet and sappy, tugging me back into my grief over the life I’d lost. It had been part of my third-grade language unit on fables. I’d been a good teacher, but I’d never teach again unless I found some way to deal with my father. Fat chance of that. Wyatt had changed his mind, and I couldn’t even get Greta to talk to me. Tears tracked down my cheeks, and I reached up to wipe them.

“Ah, Carly,” Marco said, pulling me into an awkward hug on the front seat of his SUV. “We’ll find her. Don’t give up yet.”

“Thank you, Marco.” As I pulled away, I gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. “I got dinner for myself too, but I think Ruth will pitch a fit since I’m late, so you can have it.”

He peered into the bag and crinkled his nose. “What’s in the cup?”

I leaned over to look. “My side salad, but there’s also a club sandwich.”

“A salad?” he said with disgust, as though I was trying to get him to snack on rat poison.

“Yes,” I teased with a groan. “You should give it a try.” I opened the door and started to get out. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Don’t overdo it tonight since you’ve been so busy today.”

“Yes, Mom,” he said with a chuckle.

I grinned back at him, rolling my eyes. When I turned around, I ran smack-dab into Junior, the mechanic who worked for Wyatt.

He grabbed my arm to keep me from falling on my butt.

“Oh hey, Junior,” I said, taking a step back. “How are you? How’s Ginger? I heard Maria had a bad cold last week.” Junior’s wife helped out with Hank sometimes, and although Hank was a sixty-eight-year-old former drug dealer, he was as big of a gossip as any female busybody. And he told me everything he learned.

“Maria’s on the mend and back at preschool, thanks for asking. Also, thanks for hiring Ginger to clean Hank’s house. We could really use the money and, well…” His cheeks flushed. “Thanks.”

Hire her to clean Hank’s house? Hank would never have made such an arrangement. For one, he didn’t have the money, and for another, I earned my room and board by cooking, cleaning, and helping take care of Hank. If someone was cleaning his house, that meant I wasn’t meeting my end of the bargain.

“Is there a problem?” Junior asked with a worried look.

“No, none at all,” I said. “And I should be thanking Ginger. With all my hours at the tavern, some days I struggle to keep up.” Was Hank unhappy with my contribution? He hadn’t said anything, and he definitely wasn’t shy about expressing his opinions.

“Wyatt said it would make it easier for you.”

That put a twist in my stomach. Had Wyatt done it to help me, or did he want to win me back? Did it matter?

Junior looked appeased, even if I was far from it. “I hate to run off on you,” I said, taking a step backward and pointing down the sidewalk toward the tavern. “But I’m already late. It was good seeing you, Junior!”

“You too, Carly.”

I hurried down the sidewalk, realizing I should have had Marco drop me off to save time and body heat. I couldn’t hightail it straight into the tavern either, because my work shirt was still in my car around back, along with Ruth’s purchases—and surely Ruth would be less pissed if I came bearing gifts—so toward my car I sprinted, working a stitch into my side. Just as I was about to turn the corner to the tavern’s back parking lot, a man in a dress coat exited one of the rooms at the Alpine Inn and got into the driver’s seat of an idling black BMW sedan.

It was Neil Carpenter, the man Bart Drummond had met for lunch.

What in the world was a guy like that doing in the negative-one-star-rated Alpine Inn?

He backed his car out and turned right, heading east, toward White Rabbit Holler and the overlook.

According to his business card, Neil Carpenter was from Nashville. What was he doing on a road that would land him in North Carolina in about fifteen minutes?

He didn’t seem to notice me as he passed, and even though I knew I needed to get to work, I was beyond curious about what he’d been doing.

On a whim, I bolted across the street and across the motel parking lot.

The brick building was L-shaped. The office was on the street, at the end of the short part of the L, but it was permanently closed, with a sign instructing guests to check in across the street at the tavern. Max ran the place for his father and rented the first two units to permanent guests—Jerry and a man they called Big Joe. Their rooms and two others were next to the office, and twelve units made up the longer section of the building. (The first room on the long side started with 8 instead of 5.) The fateful night I’d witnessed Seth’s murder, I’d been on the end in 20. Seth had been hiding in 17.

Neil Carpenter had come out of room 16.

My stomach cramped as I marched up to the door. Maybe I was acting crazy, but I wouldn’t rest until I knew why he’d been hanging out at the seedy Alpine Inn. I was sure it had something to do with Bart, and my distrust for the Drummond patriarch went beyond my broken agreement with Wyatt. I strongly suspected Bart had been involved with Carson Purdy’s scheme, which meant he was partly responsible for Seth’s death. That gave me a reason all my own for wanting him to see justice.