Page 39 of Watch Me Burn
The shell had an image of the Florida state flag on it, a red cross on white, with the state seal in the middle.
“Anything?” I asked as I revved up the car to head to Anna’s condo.
She turned it over, squinting at it, then her face turned to surprise.
“The price tag’s still on!”
“What?”
I glanced at her, full of suspense.
“Holy shit!” she exclaimed. “It says ‘Seaside Inn’ right under the barcode!”
“You fucking serious?”
A wave of relief hit me. Maybe we finally had a solid lead!
I felt her hand squeeze mine. She didn’t look up at me, her attention on the necklace. Her soft touch was my driving force. It steeled me to keep fighting for justice in this case, despite how many times I’d been burned before.
We’ll dig up the answers, I told myself. And with those, I’ll find my real freedom.
Anna laid out her necklace on the dining table.
I grabbed it as I raised it to her ceiling’s light fixture. Slowly, she leaned against my shoulder so she could get a closer look as well.
“What?” she asked. I flinched slightly at the way her breath drafted against my neck. God damn, I wanted this woman.
“I wonder if the hotel is still there.” Squinting, I lowered her necklace to my lap.
Anna tilted her head. “Let me see.” She grabbed her phone and googled it.
“Well, looky here.” Anna’s newly awakened grin widened. “It’s not only open but has a promo running on its room rates.”
“You think they might still have some security camera footage from all those years ago?”
“Hard to say. Probably not. But it’s worth a try. Right now, it’s all we got.”
“Why not give them a call?”
“No. That’s the kind of request you have to make in person with wide, teary eyes. Nobody would give us this sort of information over the phone.”
I grinned. “I guess it’s time to break my parole . . . again.” Satisfaction washed over me when I thought about beating up that asshole who dared to touch her in that parking lot.
Anna stood up to stretch her legs. “All that’s left is for us to book a flight, then, right?”
“ . . . Oh,” I uttered. “Getting an airplane ticket on parole would be near impossible for me.”
“Road trip with motels?”
“Possibly, but I would be on way too many security footage cameras of hotels myself. I gotta travel under the radar.”
“Shit.”
We both stared off to the opposite wall. We were riding on a quick high about the progress we made with the hotel, but we hadn’t fully considered the logistics of acting on this information. Up until now, we were cramming this investigation into parts of our day that weren’t consumed by work or reporting to my parole officer.
Then it hit me.
“An RV,” I mumbled with a grin.
