Not really.
Sassafras kept looking for you.
The cat does not give two shits about me.
You run warmer than me.
She’d walk over me, walk over your side of the bed, then cry.
And she doesn’t like Hart.
Probably because the room smells funny.
And of course she doesn’t like Val.
She can probably smell Pet on him.
Pet?
His cat.
He named his cat Pet?
What kind of monster is he?
After Pet the cow.
Like Pet Milk.
She’s a cow cat.
That made more sense, and explained why Sassafras had been standoffish with Hart. And the room probably did smell funny to her, because it wasn’t the room we’d been sleeping in.
Hart had been absolutely correct to have me bring Sassafras—and I’d been smart to grab the laptops—because when we’d gotten back around twilight, since Helen had been very insistent that we get down the mountain before dark, the room had been ransacked.
This hadn’t been a shock, since the second Hart and I had walked through the front doors, the desk attendant had hurried up to me to show me a copy of the search warrant and apologize about fifteen times for the state of our room. We’d been switched to another room that was a little bit bigger and had a modern-style armchair in addition to its two queen beds, desk, and shelving. It was honestly a nicer room, and the fact that our view had been switched from the parking lot to the pool meant they were probably trying to placate any upset at the mess that the police had left behind.
I was just happy that they were trying to makemehappy rather than treating me like the criminal that the Augusta County Sheriff’s Department clearly thought I was—or, at least, wanted to treat me as though I were. I wasn’t sure whether they actually thought I was guilty, whether they were so corrupt that they were just willing to sanction killing me to make the case goaway, or whether it was some mix of the two—some corruption, some assumption of guilt.
At least they kept us in a non-smoking room.
I’m glad they moved you.
Why?
It wouldn’t have bothered you?
Staying in a room they’d ripped apart?
At least the sheets in that room smelled like you.
And now you’re in a different room, so if they did something like bug the last one, you won’t be there.
You seriously think they bugged the room?
They’re not the FBI.
Val will find it if they did.
