There's only one reason why Cristela Jordan would be staying at the hotel. There might be more, but none of the others seem applicable when stacked up with everything else. Nicolas told me Cristela came from the town over on the other side of Feathered Nest but was a regular in the area. She frequented Jake's bar and was known by just about everybody in town. Yet she ended up on the opposite side of town, three towns over, in a tiny hotel. It doesn't make sense. Until you look at it through the lens of Andrea Layne.
Andrea has two registration cards in the book. The one from this stay and one other. Going back through the cards, I can't find a single other card with her name on it. Even going back to the very beginning of the book with dates years ago, she doesn't show up anywhere else. It is only those two, both after Cristela's death. Like she got slipped into a position recently vacated.
The date on the first card with her name on it is particularly interesting to me. It's from just two days before Ron Murdock showed up. Which makes me wonder about LaRoche's story about looking into his identity. It never sat right with me that the chief said he discovered the surveillance footage of Murdock checking into the hotel after canvassing the area. The hotel is hardly in his area, and there's little reason he would go out of his way to go to that particular hotel to ask about a stranger and just happen to get security footage. Unless he already knew he was there. If LaRoche went to the hotel to meet with Andrea Layne, he might have seen Murdock coming into the hotel or even walking to his room.
I think back to the first time I spoke to the chief after finding the man dead on my porch. There was something in his eyes I didn't trust even then. It was hiding something.
There's little more to find out about Cristela that I think will help. It makes more sense to concentrate on Andrea. Learning more about her might be just the key I need. Wiping the salt and grease off my fingers, I pick up my phone and open it to the web browser. I type in her name and the name of the town she put on the registration card. There's always the chance she put down a fake one, too, but it's a place to start. Almost immediately, I find listings for her social media. The smiling face tilted into the profile picture is unmistakably her, and when I click on the link, I find several dozen more.
Not surprisingly, Andrea has a fondness of taking pictures of herself and sharing them with the thousands of supposed friends she has never met, spoken to, or interacted with on any truly meaningful level. She's far too young to be cozied up with Chief LaRoche, and that general theme pervades her platforms. There isn't a single picture or mention of him as I scroll back through her posts and shares. I go back to the day she checked into the hotel and find a vague reference to ‘hitting the road for an adventure’. It could mean literally anything from an epic cross-country road trip to spontaneously going in search of the best Indian food in town. That phrase is the common cold of obsessive social media posts. People are so wrapped up in their virtual existence and their perception that so many people care about what they are doing every moment that they can't bear to skip updating. When they come to something that can't be shared outright, they slap the 'adventure' label on it and consider it enticing.
The effect is lost on me. Partially because I have no patience for people who forego living in the actual world and experiencing life through their real senses rather than through a screen and the filter of social approval. Partially because I know exactly what adventure she's referencing. And I really don't want to think about.
The vast majority of her pages cover the minutia of her life, from what she ate to the color sunglasses she was wearing that day. But tucked among all the worthless swathes of over-information, I manage to find something valuable. Several pictures show Andrea in a black t-shirt standing behind a bar. In one, she's mixing a cocktail. In another, she's drinking a shot directly from the bottle. In another, she appears to be dancing. The caption of one simply reads 'work'.
Evergreen comes to the window and holds out a small foam cup with steam trailing up from it. I smell the rich sweetness before even taking a sip.
“I thought you could use some hot chocolate,” she says. “Since you've been sitting out here in the cold and all.”
It's the first moment I realize I never rolled the window back up after she gave me my food. I've been sitting here with the thin, sharp wind blowing in but have been so wrapped up in my thoughts and ideas I haven't even noticed the cold. But now that she's mentioned it, my brain magnifies the effect, and suddenly, I feel like I'm filled with ice. I accept the hot chocolate gratefully and take a deep sip. Expecting reliable Swiss-Miss, the thick, intense flavor takes me by surprise. I swallow and give her an approving look.
“That's delicious,” I tell her.
“My grandmother taught me to make it,” she nods. “It's one of my favorite things in the winter.”
“Well, thank you very much.”
“Absolutely. Is there anything else I can get for you?”
She takes the trash I hand out to her, then I show her the pictures from Andrea's social media.
“Do you happen to know where this picture was taken?” I ask.
She only looks at the picture for a brief second before nodding.
“That's Lacy's. It's not too far from here,” she tells me, then gives me brief directions on how to get there.
“Have you been there?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “No. Too young. But my brother has gone a few times, and I've heard him talking about it. Apparently, they have good potato skins, and the bartenders are all really cute.”
I laugh. “I don't think the potato skin angle is going to be very helpful. But the bartenders might.”
Fishing money out of my wallet, I hand her more than she needs and give her a smile that says I hope for the best for her.
“I hope your story turns out well,” the young waitress says.
“And I hope to see you on TV soon,” I tell her, and I mean it.
She beams as I pull away from the hamburger stand and head in the direction she pointed me. I'm suddenly in the mood for some potato skins.
Chapter Twenty-One
Lacy's has a completely different feeling than Teddy’s. Jake's tavern has a warm, broken-in feeling, like sitting in the same spot on a soft leather couch every day for years. It's comfortable and familiar, if somewhat awkward for someone new. This place is taut, vibrant, and alive. Even with only a few people at the tables, there's an energy about the place that makes it feel like walking into the set of a movie. At any point, I expect attractive young men to start tossing bottles of liquor in the air and suggestively clad girls to climb up on the bar like they just spontaneously know the same dance.
There are two young women behind the bar. Without patrons looking to start getting tipsy before lunchtime, they don't have much to do, so they're leaned back against the rail talking. It's not hard to tell which I'm here to see. Andrea's blonde hair is a stark contrast to the thick dark curls piled on top of the other girl's head. I cross the room and slide up onto one of the stools along the edge of the bar. Almost instantly, Andrea turns a bright smile to me. I wait to see if there is any flicker of recognition, even a question or touch of confusion when she sees my face. I don't see either. She must not have noticed me at the hotel.
“Hi, there,” she says cheerfully. “What can I get for you?”
My burger and fries are still taking up the vast majority of my stomach real estate, and most of my milkshake is keeping chilled in the car. But I don't want to look suspicious by wandering into a bar in the early afternoon and not ordering anything.