The Stranger, Mark Ayre [microsoft ebook reader .TXT] 📗

“It’s a confession of an error in judgement, allowing Danny to stay in my room. Your room, I should say. He was in danger. I was trying to protect him.”

“That went well.”

“Yes, quite,” said Abbie. “What I mean is, whether he had died or lived, it was a poor call on my part. I shouldn’t have brought him here.”

“You should have told me the truth,” said Glenda. “I’m not a monster. Had I known the young man was in danger, I would have been more vigilant about last night’s comings and goings. I would have stayed on the desk and kept watch.”

“In which case, I’m glad I lied,” said Abbie. “Bad enough my poor attempts to protect Danny ended with his murder. Had they also led to your death, I should never have been able to forgive myself.”

“If you had given me all the facts, and I had made the decision, knowing the risks, and had then died, you would have had to be a fool to feel guilty.”

“Then I’m a fool,” said Abbie. “Because guilty is exactly what I’d feel.”

Glenda frowned, shook her head. Abbie felt like a schoolgirl who has been chastised by the imperious headmistress. But the conversation had still gone far better than expected. As such, Abbie felt brave enough to approach the desk.

“I wanted to thank you for letting me continue my stay here.”

“That decision was made by Bobby, not me, and I fear it was a decision made not with his brain but with another organ.”

Well, that was embarrassing.

“If you want me to go…”

“I would have allowed you to stay,” said Glenda. “Your pretty face would not have made me giddy enough to suggest a double rate when you had already offered triple.”

“Pretty face, cool. I’ll still happily pay triple.”

“And how will you do so without your wallet?”

Now, Abbie felt like a schoolgirl who has been chastised by her imperious and psychic headmistress.

“My wallet?”

Glenda reached beneath the desk and pulled from some hidden shelf Abbie’s drawstring bag. Dumping it on the desk, she said, “A young man brought it in, claiming it contains your phone and wallet, which he found while searching for something to identify the bag’s owner. He also found your hotel key—“ pointed glance “—so dropped the bag off here.”

Picking up the bag, Glenda extended it to Abbie, who took it gratefully.

“Thank you.”

Glenda shrugged. “No point thanking me. You’re lucky it landed in the possession of one so conscientious.”

“Yes,” said Abbie, thinking of all the ways she would like to damage Travis for stealing her things. “Very lucky.”

“Not many out there these days who would be so thoughtful.”

“It is a world of crooks and rogues.”

“And murderers,” said Glenda, pointing to the ceiling. Abbie hoped she was referring to Danny’s demise, not pointing to a room where she knew slept a modern Jack the Ripper.

“Well, now I can pay you,” said Abbie. As she reached into her bag, Glenda waved a dismissive hand.

“You’re fine.”

“Pretty face is working on you too, eh?”

“That it must be. Although if you really wish to wow me, I’d take a shower. You look scruffy.”

Upstairs, in a different room to the one in which Danny had died, Abbie planned to follow, rather than be offended by, Glenda’s advice.

First, she removed Travis’ mother’s trousers and hung them up. Her blood-stained jeans she’d binned, and she didn’t have a spare pair. She would need to find something new. Her hoody she pulled off and ditched on the bed. Her blood-stained top she scrunched into a ball and threw by the door, so she didn’t forget to take it when she left.

Travis was not altruistic. When he had taken Abbie’s bag, he had not done so for fear Ronson might steal it. Therefore, it stood to reason his motives had been unpure when he returned the bag to Glenda.

From the drawstring bag, Abbie removed her toiletries, a spare set of underwear, a top, and a thin jumper. The toiletries and underwear, she dumped on the bed. She hung the top and jumper with the trousers to remove some of the creases imposed by their confinement in the bag.

Beneath the clothes, Abbie found The Stand and burst into tears. With as much caution as ever, she freed the book from her drawstring bag and unwrapped the pillowcase in which she kept it. Travis had almost certainly yanked it out. As he could not know the emotional value it held for Abbie, he would have disregarded it immediately. If he had tossed it to the floor while he continued his search, the pillowcase had blissfully kept it in one piece.

Though she still needed to check the rest of her bag, Abbie clutched the pillowcase wrapped book to her chest and fell to the bed. Once she was still, she dried her eyes, opened the makeshift bag to make sure it really was The Stand, and resumed crying when it was.

Abbie knew she needed a better storage solution for what had been Violet’s (and what was now Abbie’s) most precious possession. But what? She used to keep it in her rental. One night, three years ago, during a mission to protect a seamstress, Abbie had arrived in the lot of the hotel in which she was staying. She had left the book, left the car, locked the door, and made for the hotel. Halfway there, she had stopped, turned. If intuition whispered in her ear, Abbie remained unaware of its influence. All she knew of was a sudden, powerful urge to read some of The Stand, though she had read it many times before. She returned to the car, collected the book, locked the car, and proceeded into the hotel. That night someone broke into and stole the car. Joyrode it around town for an hour. Once they’d had their fun, they set on fire and abandoned the vehicle.

In the morning, when Abbie learned of the fire and burned-out shell that was her rental, her thoughts immediately rushed to The Stand and how close the book had come to cremation. She had rushed