Page 12 of Dodge

The rectangular structure, concrete with sea-blue trim, nestled in a valley surrounded by pine forest.

“She drives an orange Accord,” Marshal Ed Greene told Lombardi as he made a circuit of the parking lot. The place was not busy today. There were only a half dozen vehicles in the lot and no orange Hondas. An unfortunate tweaker, midtwenties, who’d have the teeth of a seventy-year-old, to the extent he had teeth at all, sat on a curb nearby. Waiting for a delivery, probably. Nearby was an emaciated, scabby prostitute, smoking.

On this very out-of-the-ordinary day, these crimes were not Tony Lombardi’s affair.

Greene parked under the overhang in front of the motel office and got out, hand near his hip, looking around. He bent down to the open door. “Keep an eye out. I’ll just be a minute.”

When the marshal went inside, Lombardi studied the area. No residential buildings. The road was home to commercial operations as tired as the motel. Warehouses, self-storage, a gravel and stone company, a car painting shop, a truck repair place specializing in big rigs. These businesses too seemed to belong to a different era. Pre-digital, pre-cable.

From nowhere, a thought hit him. Hard. Constant Marlowe was a killer and, it sounded like, a sadist. Definitely a sociopath. But shewasa woman. His imagination unspooled. What if she wounded the marshal, or killed him, and it was up to Lombardi to shoot her?

Could he do it?

Oh, man ...

The thought sat heavy and dark in his heart.

But only for a moment.

Of course he could. And he’d do it without hesitating. Because if she took him out too, think what that would do to Jess. And to Joseph and Anabelle Rose, future dreams though they were. He—

Greene opened the door and dropped into the driver’s seat. “Bingo. Got her.”

Heart rate up again. “Yeah?”

“The clerk ID’d her picture. Her room’s around back. I’ve got the key.”

“They gave it to you, no warrant?”

A shrug. “Sometimes good citizens step up and do their duty.”

Greene put the car in gear and drove forward.

“What if she comes back while we’re in there?”

“Then the clerk calls us. I gave him my mobile.”

“He did that too?”

Greene chuckled. “Well, that part cost me forty. Civic duty only gets you so far.”

“You have a budget for stuff like that?”

“Of course. Don’t you?”

“No.”

“Tell your sheriff. You’d be amazed at what a little cash buys you.”

“I’ll do that.”

Tony Lombardi was getting a whole continuing ed course in law enforcement today, all to himself. And free as air.

Another glance toward the early-warning mirror.

Yes, Marlowe saw a car approaching.

It was a dark Chevy Malibu, moving slowly toward the back of the motel, where her room was located. It turned into a parking space about three or four rooms away.

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