Chapter 5 - THE WATCH AND THE WARNING
I read the note three times, the cursive letters blurring as my eyes filled with frantic, terrified tears.
Do not trust Dr. Sterling.
My hands began to shake so violently that the heavy gold Rolex slipped from my fingers, landing on the cheap motel carpet with a dull thud. Reversal. The old man with the cane who had just played my savior, the man who had supposedly risked his life to drive me away from the wolves, was a wolf himself.
I rushed to the motel window and peeled back the edge of the heavy, stained curtain.
The parking lot was bathed in the sickly yellow glow of a flickering streetlamp. The black sedan Dr. Sterling had been driving was gone. But parked across the street, idling in the shadows of an abandoned diner, was a dark gray SUV. Its headlights were off, but the faint glow of a dashboard screen illuminated the silhouette of a man inside.
He was watching Room 14.
Answer One, Open Two. Wesley wasn't a coward; he had orchestrated this entire escape right under his mother’s nose, packing the watch in my bag knowing I would run. But if Wesley was protecting me, who was Sterling really working for? And if Lorraine wanted me framed for infidelity, why would Sterling lie and say Wesley was sterile? That lie would only exonerate me of cheating, destroying Lorraine’s entire custody argument.
None of it made sense, except for one glaring, terrifying truth: I was bait.
I didn't have time to unravel the conspiracy. I had to move.
I spun away from the window, grabbing my tote bag. I scooped the gold Rolex off the floor, hesitating for a fraction of a second. If Wesley put a GPS tracker in it, he could find me. But if Sterling’s men intercepted the signal, it was a homing beacon for my executioners.
I trusted my husband. I shoved the watch deep into my pocket.
“Owen, baby, wake up,” I whispered, shaking my son’s shoulder gently. “We have to go on an adventure.”
Owen groaned, rubbing his eyes, completely disoriented in the strange room. “Mommy? Where’s Daddy?”
“Daddy is playing a game of hide and seek,” I lied, forcing a bright, reassuring smile that made my facial muscles ache. “And we have to find the best hiding spot. But we have to be super quiet, okay?”
Owen nodded, trusting me entirely. I hoisted him onto my hip, abandoning the pajamas and grabbing only my purse.
I didn't go out the front door. I dragged a heavy wooden chair to the small, frosted glass window in the motel bathroom. I unlatched the rusty lock, pushed the window up, and carefully climbed out into the humid, mosquito-thick air of the overgrown alleyway behind the building.
I ran.
I ran through the wet grass, my summer dress snagging on briars, my bare legs scratched and bleeding. I held Owen so tightly my arms burned, navigating by the distant glow of a 24-hour gas station a mile down the highway.
We reached the station twenty minutes later. I was covered in sweat, my chest heaving. I used the cash Sterling had given me to buy a burner phone from the rack, a bottle of water, and a pre-paid taxi ride from the teenage clerk working the night shift.
“Take me to the Silver Skillet diner on Route 9,” I told the taxi driver when he arrived. It was a 24-hour truck stop on the edge of the county line, highly public, brightly lit, and impossible to ambush someone in quietly.
We sat in a corner booth of the diner at 2:00 AM. The place smelled of stale coffee, frying bacon, and bleach. Truckers sat at the counter, completely ignoring the disheveled woman and the sleeping child in the corner.
I ordered a glass of milk for Owen and a black coffee for myself. I placed the heavy gold Rolex on the Formica table, staring at it as if it might speak.
Where are you, Wesley? I prayed silently.
A tired waitress with a pink nametag reading Brenda walked over, carrying the glass of milk on a small plastic tray.
“Here you go, hon,” Brenda said, her voice thick with southern sympathy. She set the milk down gently in front of Owen.
Then, she reached into her apron pocket.
“A man came in about thirty minutes ago,” Brenda said softly, keeping her voice low so the truckers wouldn't hear. “He paid me a hundred bucks to give this to you the second you walked in.”
She slid a crumpled paper napkin across the table, face down.
I stared at the napkin, my heart hammering against my ribs. Thirty minutes ago? Before I even escaped the motel? Someone knew exactly where I was going before I even called the taxi.
I reached out with trembling fingers and flipped the napkin over.
It wasn't a note. It was a drawing.
A child’s drawing done in blue ballpoint pen. It depicted a small, slanted house with a massive oak tree in the front yard and a swing hanging from the branch.
I gasped, covering my mouth with both hands to stifle a sob.
It was the exact blue house I had grown up in. A house that had burned to the ground when I was a teenager. A house only one other person in the world knew the intimate details of.
May you like
I looked up at Brenda, my eyes wide with panic. “The man who gave you this... what did he look like?”
Brenda wiped her hands on her apron, looking nervously toward the diner doors. “He was tall. Wearing a tweed jacket. Walked with a silver-handled cane. But honey... he wasn't alone. He had a gun.”
