I checked my watch. Lance had less than fifteen minutes to live. The clues fit, but that might have been because we were tired and hopeless and wanted them to fit.
“Where’s the address?” I asked Harry.
“It’s on Whitnall.”
Phin started the truck. “Ten minutes, if we push it.”
I didn’t see we had any choice.
“Push it,” I told him.
We peeled out of the parking lot.
CHAPTER 28
ALEX WAKES to the ringing of the hotel phone and the homey smell of copper pennies. She gives the receiver a quick up and down, stretches, and pads over to the bathroom. Apparently Cyn had more life left in her than Alex thought, because she managed to pull herself out of the bathtub to curl up and die under the sink. There’s a good amount of blood browning on the floor, and Alex watches where she steps-it’s not wise leaving bloody footprints up and down the hotel hallway.
After using the facilities, Alex puts on a pair of fresh pan ties from Cyn’s suitcase, and also liberates some sweatpants and a Hootie and the Blowfish tee. Cyn’s shoes are too small, and the cop’s black leather shoes look stupid with sweats, so Alex heads out the door in only socks.
Sunrise is still over an hour away, and outside it’s cool and crisp with a wind that threatens winter. Alex digs her laptop out of the Hyundai and takes it back to the lobby, where complimentary continental breakfast is being served. Even this early there are three people milling about, reading papers, drinking coffee, pouring milk into bowls of cereal. Alex keeps her head down, bangs covering her face, and snatches a bagel and a small container of cream cheese without being acknowledged.
Back in the room she sets up at the desk and accesses the hotel’s WiFi, charging it to Cyn’s account. Then she activates the cell phone program and enlarges the window to the size of the laptop screen, which shows a live view of Lance at the Old Stone Inn.
Poor Lance is sleeping. He’s made quite a mess of the bed-even in the close-up Alex can see the mattress is off-kilter and the sheets under him have twisted around. She zooms the camera out, and sees the duct tape is still holding him tight, but it has bunched up on itself so it looks like gnarled gray rope. The secret to binding someone with tape is to make it as tight as possible; it stretches, and sweat and blood work against the adhesive. Lance has more than a little blood around his wrists. He fought hard. Alex feels strangely proud of him.
She zooms out farther, and sees that the rest of Lance hasn’t held up so well.
“Ouch.”
The rubber band has transformed Lance’s once proud manhood into something resembling a rotten banana, all brown and droopy. If Jack arrives in time, it’s unlikely that part of him can be saved.
Alex smiles with half of her face, using her finger to apply cream cheese to half the bagel, imagining macho Lance living out the rest of his days as a chaste monk in some Tibetan monastery. Certainly his wife wouldn’t keep him around. Infidelity can be forgiven. Having no dick would put an unrealistic strain on even the healthiest of marriages.
She zooms in, getting a close-up of the Greek letters burned into Lance’s chest, and uses her screen capture to save a JPG. Then she checks the time. Twenty minutes after five. Lance has thirteen minutes to live.
Alex transfers the picture to her cell, then sends it to Jack Daniels. At this late stage in the game, it’s unlikely Jack knows where Lance is. But there’s one clue left to give, and Alex wants to make sure Jack has every possible opportunity to figure it out and save him, so she feels even worse when she fails. Alex texts:
STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN.
Simple. Clever. Elegant. After entering the message she tucks her legs under her in the desk chair, licks cream cheese off her fingers, and waits for the big bang.
CHAPTER 29
“HOW’S OUR TIME?” Phin asked.
I checked my watch. The pigstick was set to go off at 5:33 a.m. It was 5:24.
“Not good. How close are we?”
“I’m not sure. A few miles.”
My eyes locked on the speedometer. We were already doing sixty mph in a thirty mph zone, and I stopped counting all the red lights we’d blown through.
“Go faster.”
Phin nodded. The veins on the backs of his hands bulged out from holding the wheel so hard, and I noticed my legs were braced and my fingers had death grips on the armrests. As if that would help if we crashed.
The cell phone rang, and I pried off a hand long enough to answer it. Another picture of Lance, apparently asleep. The burns on his chest had scabbed over, becoming almost black. A message accompanied the photo.
“Got another text. Stairway to heaven.” I wrinkled my nose. “What does that mean?”
“That Lance is about to die.”
The truck crept closer to seventy, which seemed a lot faster on the narrow street we were on. Each pothole we hit felt like a thunderclap.
“No…I mean-yes-that’s part of it. But I think it’s a clue. She’s telling us something about his location.”
“What does Led Zeppelin have to do with rho and zeta?”
I chewed the inside of my cheek. An earlier call to the Old Stone Inn hadn’t given us much to work with. The front desk had confirmed the motel was full, all twenty-six rooms occupied. This was one of those single-floor, park next to your room motels. I asked about a woman with scars checking in, or anything out of the ordinary, but English wasn’t the clerk’s first language, or at least he pretended it wasn’t, and I couldn’t get anything out of him.
I had also dialed 911, explaining the situation and telling them a kidnapping and murder of one of their own was being committed there. I was sure they’d send a car, but had no idea of their response time or their procedure. Even if they got there before us, it’s unlikely they’d get any more help from the clerk than I did. And no cop I ever met would kick in twenty-six doors without a warrant. Exigent circumstances and probable cause were weighty terms, but not as weighty as lawsuit and disciplinary action.
“What were the band members’ names?” I asked Phin.
He took a corner so fast the tires cried out. “Robert Plant…John Paul Jones…Jimmy Page…”
“Which one died?”
“The drummer. John Bonham. Died in his sleep. Choked on vomit.”
My heart rate jumped up even higher. “Did he die in a motel room?”
“Page’s house. Drank too much.”
Phin tapped the brakes and just missed clipping a Volvo, who laid on the horn to show his disapproval. I tried to swallow, but had no spit left.
“How about something in the lyrics?” I forced myself to focus, not the easiest thing to do when I predicted a car accident in the immediate future. “Any mention of rooms or motels?”
“It’s about a woman who thinks she can get what ever she wants.”
Phin swerved and climbed the curb, causing my body to rise up against the seat belt. I readied myself for the passenger-side air bag, but it didn’t deploy.
“We’re on the sidewalk.” I tried to sound calm, but my voice came out squeaky.
“Motel,” Phin said, eyes glancing right. I followed his gaze, saw the large Old Stone Inn sign a block ahead. A light illuminated its $49.95 a Night rates, but the i in Night was missing.
We came upon the parking lot fast-too fast-and Phin hit the brakes and still slammed into the rear of a parked SUV. Still no airbag. I wondered if the truck even had them.
I checked my watch. Five thirty.
The motel was laid out in an L shape, ground-level rooms stretching off in two perpendicular directions. Thirteen on each arm. With three minutes left, not enough time to check them all.