Page 27 of Not This Place

She typed back, keep her protected.

No response.

She huffed in frustration, but looked up again.

She maintained eye contact with Alice Danvers, facing her across the midnight lobby.

“Are they necessary?” Rachel asked, glancing at the suited thugs.

Danvers flashed a smile, her lips pulling back like a wolf’s revealing its canines.

“I wouldn’t have thought so until last night.”

“What happened last night?”

“Someone tried to shoot me,” she said simply.

Rachel frowned.

“Ms. Danvers,” Ethan said, stepping in. “We’re very sorry for your loss. We know you were close with Cheryl.”

Alice pursed her lips, and her eyes flashed suddenly. She went rigid, like stone. “My daughter… was close. But recently… recently, we’d drifted apart.”

“How apart?” Rachel leapt in.

“What are you implying?”

“I’m implying you don’t sound like a grieving mother.”

“My daughter is dead, Ranger Blackwood. Allow me to grieve as I see fit.”

Ethan winced sympathetically, but Rachel wasn’t in a sympathetic mood.

She stepped forward, peering down her nose at the wizened matriarch of the Danvers Corp.

“Did you kill her? Did you kill Cheryl?”

Alice Danvers’ eyes narrowed like a crocodiles, and a cold note crept into her frigid voice.

"Watch your tone, Ranger," she hissed, her frailty giving way to a dangerous edge. "Lest you forget who I am."

Rachel wasn't fazed by the icy warning. Instead, she squared her shoulders and challenged Alice with a stare of her own. "I'm fully aware of who you are. That's why I'm here," she said.

The lobby was silent save for the low hum of the motel's old air conditioning unit. The tension was palpable, vastly out of place in the otherwise quaint accommodations. Ethan shifted subtly behind Rachel, but she didn't break her focus from Alice.

She could feel the woman's gaze on her as if it were a physical weight. Her anger simmered just beneath the surface, fueled by thoughts of her aunt hiding somewhere in Texas while Alice stood unscathed.

Alice gave a dismissive wave to one of her bodyguards, who had swiftly stepped forward.

“I’ll take care of this,” Alice instructed her bodyguard, without removing her piercing gaze from Rachel’s. Then she turned back to face Rachel. “No, Ranger Blackwood,” she replied curtly. “I didn’t kill my daughter. But whoever did just tried to kill me, and I think I know who it was.”

“And who’s that?”

"Why don’t you come with me,” she said, instead of answering. "I’ll tell you exactly who’s behind this. And if I know them, this is just the tip of the iceberg.”

But as she spoke, there was a sudden squealing sound from the parking lot. Rachel and Ethan turned sharply, and Rachel’s gun leapt into her hand.

She aimed towards the window, watching a single, angry red brake light as a motorcycle sped away.

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