Cowboy didn’t come back for lunch, or dinner, but Sienna woke the next day feeling a little better. She was at least capable of thinking straight for the first time since the night she’d found her mother’s body lying on the floor.
She looked around the room, boxes of stuff she’d grabbed when she’d run piled about the bed. Maybe she should cart them back to the car? They weren’t exactly safe there, but likely safer than in a motel room where more people than just Sienna had a key. Thinking of which, how was she going to pay the bill? The funds she’d found in her mother’s things wouldn’t last long, and Cowboy’s tips weren’t something she could rely on. Time to go speak to the manager. Maybe she could clean the place, too, in return for a cheaper rate. Pulling on sweats, she walked over to the front office, wrinkling her nose at the smell of cigarettes when she opened the door. The walls must have been saturated with it. The desk was unattended, and so she rang the bell. The counter jolted.
“Ow!” The manager crawled out from under the desk. “Little early to be dropping in, isn’t it?”
Sienna couldn’t help but chuckle at the disgruntled look on his face, ruined by the sight of his hair sticking out at all angles. “Hi.”
“Oh, hello there.” The manager was suddenly awake. “You must be Sienna.”
Umm, okay. Had she developed a reputation already? “Yes?”
“You can stay as long as you like. First week’s free, fifteen bucks a day once you get your first paycheck.”
“Seriously?”
“We do that for all employees.” He shrugged. “If they want, I mean.”
Sienna narrowed her eyes. Somehow, she doubted that. Chico had to have put him up to it. She didn’t care. “Thank you, it’s perfect.”
The man’s eyes drooped. “Anything else?”
She hesitated, not wanting to push a good deal. “Umm, could you maybe ask the cleaning staff to give me a heads up before they go in the room? I have some stuff stored there.”
“Sure.” He scratched his cheek. “They’ll call, or find you at the restaurant. Now, if there’s nothing else?”
She backed out the door quickly. “No, it’s all good. Go back to your nap.” He gave her the thumbs-up and disappeared under the desk again before she’d made it out the door.
Now what? It was still early and she wasn’t working until the late evening shift that day. She went back to her room and sat on the edge of the bed, pulling out her cell phone to find the nearest cheap department store. It wasn’t her usual style, but there was no way she was driving back into the city and she needed some more work-suitable clothes. She jotted down the address of a strip mall about sixty miles north. There was also a grocery store and a few other things she needed. Perfect. She jumped in her car and started driving.
The road soon turned straight and monotonous and thoughts of the previous week started rolling through her head. She was still thoroughly pissed at the whole thing, but at least she’d lost the frenzied panic that had accompanied her during the first few days. She hadn’t heard anything from the police, and her cell was still working.
Crap!
Sienna jerked the wheel at the thought, moving quickly to straighten the car before she did the bad guys a favor and took herself out. Could whoever killed her mom track her through her cell? She rolled her eyes. She’d watched too many bad Hollywood movies. She hadn’t heard or seen anything even remotely suspicious since arriving in Foremont—unless you counted the cowboy and his fifty-dollar tips—she was just being paranoid. Still, maybe she’d pick up a new prepaid one today, too, just in case. At least Chico hadn’t made her fill in any paperwork yet. He seemed perfectly content to pay her cash, and she wasn’t going to argue.
As the road grew long in front of her, Sienna’s thoughts swirled. She hadn’t had much energy the last few days to invest any brain power into working out why her mom had been killed. She’d been so busy and frantic running from the who that she hadn’t stopped to find out the why. A slice of pain ran through her, followed by a shiver. Whatever it was, her mom hadn’t deserved what happened to her. She could have been using the fake names precisely because she was scared of something like this happening.
God, Mom. Why did you never say anything to me?
Because she wanted to protect her. That was her mom’s mission in life from as far back as Sienna could remember. It was all she did, but in the end it hadn’t mattered. Now Sienna was on the run, too, and she had no idea what the truth was. Could she risk investigating any further into her mom’s past, or would that just flag her location so she’d have to run again? That was hard to accept. If she ever wanted a life that didn’t involve living out of cheap motels and looking over her shoulder, then she had to start trying to find out what had happened to her mom.
Pulling into the store parking lot, she shook the thought from her mind. She wasn’t going to get anywhere by going over and over the same thing. She needed more details, more information. Problem was, Sienna had no idea where to get it.
So stop torturing yourself until you do!
She wandered through the store, wading through bins of cheap clothing until she found something decent enough that matched the restaurant’s dress code. The trip had sucked away the morning and Sienna’s stomach grumbled as she stood in the checkout line. After the slowest table service she’d ever encountered for lunch and then a slow trawl through the nearby grocery store, the sun was already on the slide down. It had taken longer than she’d thought to find enough snacks she could store in her room. Apparently finding non-perishable foods that she could actually handle preparing, and were healthy enough that they wouldn’t kill her in under a week was a bigger task than she’d realized. By the time she climbed behind the wheel, the setting sun was sending rainbows across the sky and casting more ominous shadows on the flat landscape. She snorted—that was a good analogy of her life right now—glittering rainbows and peace just out of reach and a darkening, unknown future in front of her. Or no future. Sienna shivered and forced herself to shut down her mind and just watch the road as it curved away to the west.
The sky grew darker as she drove back to the truck stop, and the roads were empty. She’d seen several other cars out her way out that morning, but now—nothing. Did everyone in the town go to bed at six or something? Soon after the sun slipped below the horizon, another car appeared behind hers on the road. Headlights reflected in her rearview mirror, blinding her for a few seconds until she flipped it down.
Fucker.
Except of course she couldn’t see anything behind her. Sienna twisted in her seat, looking over her shoulder as long as she could without risking running herself off the road again. The car behind her was a silver sedan, nothing special or different about it except that it was currently accelerating toward her. Fast. She pulled on the wheel, changing lanes, but the sedan slid in behind her again. She pushed her foot to the floor. They sped up, too. Shit. They were tailing her, matching her speed and movements. A tingle of adrenaline ran through her and she pushed down on the gas again. They went faster.
You will not panic!
Her breath came in small gasps as she pushed her mother’s small car to its limits. The sedan kept the pace, but it was hardly struggling as it glided down the highway, inches away from her back bumper.
“Oh, God.”
She was on a long, straight road, nowhere to go, driving over eighty miles an hour, and they were going to hit her.
Were they the same people who had killed her mom? People who could find them hiding under assumed names for decades wouldn’t have any problems killing her and hiding the body. She twisted desperately in her seat, trying to keep an eye on them, but a small twist in the road forced her attention back to the front. She had to slow down, or she’d fly off the road. Dying when her car slammed into one of the pretty rock formations she’d been admiring just days ago wasn’t any more appealing. Closer . . . closer . . . as soon as her foot let up on the gas, the sedan jumped forward, smashing into her bum
per, nearly knocking her off the road.
“Shit!” Sienna wrenched at the wheel and managed to right the car, but they were still close. So close, and they weren’t going to stop. Her car jolted again.
I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die.
It ran through her head like a mantra, the only thing keeping her sane as the car behind her jerked and then slammed into her again. The words blurred into each other, feeding a frenzy building inside her. God, she was so scared! The words ran over and over in her mind as she stared desperately out along the long, empty stretch of road. There had to be someone out there that could help her. Even the presence of another car might scare them off.
There! A small glimmer appeared on the horizon, a spark, barely on the threshold of her perception. It got closer, gaining in size and speed, until it took over her vision. But she couldn’t hear another car. She couldn’t hear anything else.
She was hallucinating. She had to be. She was lying dead on the side of the road, just like her mom was when Sienna found her.
Sienna tore her gaze away from the glow and dared to let go of the wheel with a single hand. It darted up to move her mirror back into position. The car moved forward again. It was going to happen again. They were both traveling too fast, and her tiny car wouldn’t stand up to a larger impact at this speed.
This was it. The next collision was going to kill her.
The sedan moved up and she shrieked, “No!”
It moved again and Sienna braced herself. It never hit. The sedan surged forward again and she watched in macabre fascination as it bounced off thin air behind her. It lurched forward and then bounced again. She had no fucking clue what was going on, but the driver couldn’t get close to her car. They couldn’t hit her. Laughter bubbled up from inside her. She wasn’t going to die!
Sienna pressed her foot to the floor, praying the car would respond, and it did. The sedan moved toward her one last time before hitting the brakes and swinging around in a vicious circle, peeling off in the opposite direction. It wasn’t until the road was clear behind her for ten minutes and her hands stopped shaking that Sienna realized she’d driven all the way back to the truck stop. She’d heard of people hallucinating when they were facing death, seeing angels and lights or some shit. Was that what had happened? Had she really seen the other car impacting thin air, or had she simply driven fast enough to be back where there were other people and scared them off? She gripped the wheel tightly as her head thumped down, making her jump again as the horn sounded.
She wasn’t going to die.
At least not tonight.
9
Sienna
She was going to have to buy an alarm clock. A cheap one, so that it wouldn’t matter when she threw it across the room. She never liked waking to an alarm, but that morning the noise from her cell reminded her of a demonic foghorn, perhaps calling home whatever asshole had been following her last night. After finally calming herself down enough to work the late shift the night before, she’d fallen into bed exhausted, and then lain there even later, tossing and turning. It felt like her eyes had barely drifted shut when Satan’s alarm clock went off that morning. Why had she set it so damn early? Oh, that’s right. Chico had her on the breakfast shift that day, because heaven forbid that he organize shifts like a sane person. Why wasn’t there some kind of law requiring a minimum amount of time off between shifts? Then again, there were definitely laws against paying her cash in hand, so perhaps she should quit while she was ahead.
Sienna shivered through her shower—who the hell was using all the hot water this early in the day?—and then threw on one of her new outfits. At least the trip hadn’t been a total waste. It would have been a real shame if she’d nearly gotten killed and didn’t have anything to show for it. She rolled her eyes. Lack of sleep was making her snippy. Cowboy better hope that he didn’t show up for breakfast today.
As she was stepping out of her motel room, a whole new round of shivers hit her. It might be the desert, but the sun wasn’t up yet. Crap—it was freezing outside! She moved quickly to the restaurant, wishing she’d thought to buy something warmer that would still work with her new outfit. Pushing open the door, she nearly bumped into Chico at the entrance.
He looked up and smiled at her. “Well, don’t you look nice.”
“It’s pants and a white T-shirt.”
Yep, apparently still snippy.
He chuckled and blew her a kiss, which she ignored on purpose as she went into the kitchen to grab her apron. The part-time cook nodded at her and then went back to cleaning the griddle. It got crazy busy at the restaurant early in the day, before the truckers left with their loads and the locals started their day. Working out on the floor was bad enough. If Chico ever asked her to work in the kitchen, she’d have to remember to refuse.
The place filled up quickly, sending her running between tables. If there was one thing she was determined to do after last night, it was to earn enough tips to be able to disappear for good if need be. She managed to fulfill everyone’s requests that morning—the sensible and the downright idiotic—without dropping anything, or “accidentally” spilling something on an annoying customer. She was going to consider that a win. Besides, no one could possibly be as irritating as Cowboy. She was over playing his games. She’d offer him service with a smile, and that was it. She wasn’t going to flirt with him, or humor any extra requests. He and Chico would just have to deal with it.
Speaking of Chico, her boss seemed happy to watch her scurry back and forth that morning, grinning and even winking at her when she nearly lost her cool. When he called out “Looking good!” as she walked into the kitchen with an armful of dirty plates, she startled at the shout, dropped the top plate, and smeared gravy all down her front. She picked up the nearest napkin and threw it at him. The salt and pepper shakers were going to be next if he kept that up. She looked vaguely menacing, or so she hoped. Chico just laughed. “I like a woman who knows how to wrestle in the kitchen.”
“Yeah?” She refused to let herself smile. Crazy old man. “Just don’t ever do that again, Chico.”
He just laughed and shooed her out of the kitchen, entirely unfazed by her display. “I have to go deal with next week’s orders. Play nice.” He gave her a salute and headed to his office at the back, leaving her alone with the cook for the rest of her shift. She barely had time to come up with a reply to match her mood when the order up bell had her scurrying again. God, this was the last time she was doing opening and closing shifts back to back! The customers at least seemed to be on their best behavior, and she quickly lost herself in the back and forth rhythm. She stepped between the tables, filling up water glasses, returned to the kitchen for an order, then repeated it over again, until it became almost a mindless exercise.
Her mind wandered and as she worked, Sienna lost herself in memories of her childhood, where at the end of a busy day she’d lie on the couch with her head in her mother’s lap. There was a show about psychics she loved to watch. Her mother told her that it was all made up, but Sienna loved to dream about a world where people had magical powers. One night, a man on the show had used a stick shaped like a “Y”—he called it a divining rod—to find an audience member’s car in the massive parking lot outside the studio.
Sienna had asked her mother how such a thing was possible, but Maggie had just sighed loudly and turned off the TV. She ran her fingers through Sienna’s hair and told her it was time for bed. Sienna wasn’t having it. She wanted to know how the magic worked. She had stomped her foot and refused to go to bed until her mother had given in. At the time, all it had been was the confirmation of a child’s imagination, but now Sienna wondered if there hadn’t been something more in her mom’s response. Sienna remembered exactly what Maggie had told her. “Yes, it’s possible, but not like that. Those people on the TV are just doing it to show off, for the money. People with real powers never act like that. Some may be able to find water or gold, others
use cards with special pictures on them to see what has already happened, and what might be. There’s even people somewhere out there who can move things or start fires. They are all extraordinary, but they never come out and tell people. If anyone does that to you, my gorgeous girl, then they are lying.”
Hunched over the dishwasher in the kitchen, the memory came flooding back to Sienna, as if it had happened only moments ago. It had meant little then, a childhood fantasy, but after last night in the car . . . what if her mother had been telling her the real truth all along?
God. She was losing it. Daydreaming about psychics and murderers while her entire body was covered in the grime of yet another shift. She had food and dirt buried under her fingernails, and the smell of cooking oil wouldn’t leave her nose. There was no point daydreaming in the middle of the shift. Childhood stories or warnings, it didn’t matter. Her mom had still been murdered and she still had absolutely no idea who’d done it. If there were some super humans out there with psychic powers, then all it would do would be to make the entire shit show even worse. She had no idea what had happened the night before, and she wasn’t going to figure it out while customers were waving glasses for soda refills and screaming for ranch dressing. It was going to have to wait.
She ducked into the restroom to gather her thoughts and splash a handful of cool water on her face to force herself back to the present. As she walked back out into the lobby, a girl with blonde hair and a wary stare caught her eye. She was sitting at a table near the door, but when Sienna rounded the corner and faced the table head-on, the girl was gone. Fuck, she was seeing things. She didn’t think she was insane, but then, that was usually the point. Crazy people don’t know they’re crazy. She barked out a harsh laugh. This was nuts. It had to be stress. There couldn’t be anything else going on. Could there? Maybe she really had lost her mind. Maybe she’d been there the whole time and she’d blacked out when her mom was attacked. Anything was fucking possible at this point.
Sienna (Dreamcatchers Romantic Suspense Series Book 5) Page 5
