She just hoped they didn’t end up killing her.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Sadie was relieved to see the fresh strip of crime scene tape across the door to Room Ten. It meant they didn’t have to deal with cleaning it yet. She and Penny checked the other doors to make sure they were still locked, then searched through Room Three, where Penny was staying, and the apartment above the lobby to make sure no one was lying in wait with a knife. Once they determined the motel was safe, Penny stayed in the lobby to begin cleaning up after yesterday’s open house, while Sadie took Jasper out back to give him a chance to stretch his legs before she got him settled in his kennel so she could focus on installing the security cameras with her friend.

  She had about two seconds of warning when they rounded the back corner of the kennel wing, and she saw Jasper’s body language go from relaxed to excited. She rounded the corner just a step behind him and let out a strangled shriek at the sight of a tall figure that had been waiting just out of sight behind the building. She recognized Sam quickly enough to keep from letting out a full-blown scream, but it was close.

  He held his hands out in a placating gesture before reaching into his pocket for a small notebook and pen. She pulled Jasper closer to her, not that he would be helpful if something happened. He was more liable to lick Sam to death than bite him.

  “What are you doing here?” she snapped, fear making her tone more unfriendly than it had been since that first day, when he surprised them with the axe. He was already scribbling in his notebook and held it up for her to read after a second.

  I heard what happened. Figured I’d keep an eye on the place while you were gone to make sure he didn’t come back. Didn’t mean to scare you. Again. Sorry.

  “What did you expect? A strange guy lurking around the motel right after a murder took place is shady no matter what your excuse is,” she muttered.

  She wasn’t sure why she was bothering to keep her voice down. Penny would ask Sam to leave if she realized he was here, which was probably the smart thing to do under the circumstances. But despite her friend’s distrust, Sadie really didn’t think Sam was behind the murder. He scribbled on his notepad for a second, ripped the page off, then wrote another note before holding it up.

  I’ll leave. But take my number in case he comes back.

  He held the ripped off page out to her. She accepted it and glanced at the number before she put it in her pocket. Deciding bluntness wasn’t out of place here, she asked, “Do you know who killed her?”

  He shook his head.

  She chewed on the inside of her lip for a second. Her gut wanted to believe him, but maybe that was just because he had pretty eyes. She no longer trusted her gut or Penny’s when it came to men.

  “Then you don’t know it’s a ‘he,’” she said at last. “Women can be killers, too.”

  He raised an eyebrow at her but didn’t write anything else. Raising a hand in a wave goodbye, she continued on her way past him with Jasper. Her back prickled when it was turned toward him, but when she finally looked over her shoulder, he was gone.

  After getting Jasper settled in his kennel with a chew toy, the first thing she did was change the lock on the back door, the one Sam had been lurking by, which led into the kennel building. Since the runs were indoor-outdoor, there was the risk that someone could get in through the doggy doors, but those had panels she could lower from the inside to keep the dogs in or out if she wanted to. Those same panels would keep human intruders out or at least slow them down while the cameras alerted her of their presence. To be safe, she lowered all of the panels, even Jasper’s. She didn’t want him in the outdoor run by himself with a killer on the loose.

  Once the kennels were secure, she helped Penny change the rest of the locks. It was repetitive work, but easy enough. The only door they didn’t touch was Room Ten. “Did the sheriff say what we should do with it?” she asked as they stood side by side, staring at the door. Even shut, it felt ominous.

  “He said they might send someone out later this week to comb through it again, and we should call back next Monday to ask for an update if we don’t have one by then.”

  “Well, I guess we can put it off guilt-free until then,” Sadie said, fishing to find the silver lining in the nightmare they were living. “Did you ask him about Walter? Is he all right?”

  “Do you think he’d be able to tell us that sort of thing?” Penny asked. “I figured he couldn’t share private medical information or whatever.”

  “That’s a good point. I have no idea,” Sadie said.

  They walked back to the lobby together, where Sadie tucked the garbage from the new locks into the overfull garbage bag Penny had used to clean up the trash from the open house. While Penny went into the laundry room to fetch the little stepladder that had been left behind, Sadie took Sam’s number out of her pocket and typed it into her phone. She saved it under his name as a new contact, then typed out a text message to him.

  Hey, do you have any idea what happened to Walter Bennington after he went to the hospital? She sent it, then quickly followed up with, This is Sadie Barton, btw.

  She stared at her phone for a few moments, wondering if that last part had been necessary. Of course it was her. He had given her his number less than two hours ago, and she doubted he knew all that many people who would be texting him from a Lexington area code.

  When he didn’t answer right away, she worried whether it was strange for her to ask him about Walter. She assumed the two men were on friendly terms. Walter had clearly been visiting Sam right before he came to the open house and had mentioned hiring him to keep an eye on the place. Then she wondered why she was overthinking a simple text message so much and slipped her phone into her pocket, only to withdraw it immediately when it buzzed.

  He’s fine. I gave him a ride home yesterday evening. Said it was a false alarm.

  Penny came out of the laundry room in time to see Sadie smiling at her phone. “I know that look. How on earth did you meet someone already? We’ve barely left the motel all week, and we’re almost always together when we go into town.”

  “I’m not flirting,” Sadie said, rolling her eyes as she slipped the phone back into her pocket. “It was just Sam. He said Walter Bennington is fine, and he’s back home already.”

  “That’s a relief,” Penny said. “Or maybe a red flag. He could have been faking it. I wish we’d gotten the chance to talk to him face to face before we bought this place. I bet he knows more about the murders than anyone else, even if he wasn’t behind them. He lived here while they were happening, after all.”

  “We should give him a day or two to recover, but then maybe we can see if he’d be willing to talk to us,” Sadie said as she grabbed the bag with the security cameras in it. “If we’re going to stay here, we need to know what we’re dealing with.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  They spent the day continuing their constant battle against the dust, mildew, and stains that had taken over the motel in its two years of disuse and secured the building as best they could. They even toyed with the idea of putting the plywood panels back over some of the windows, but they hadn’t been careful when taking them off, and most of the wood was too torn up to reuse.

  Neither of them talked about what they were going to do in the long term. They couldn’t open like this, not even to take boarding clients. The last thing Sadie wanted was to put someone’s beloved pet in danger, and if a killer was targeting the motel, then any living thing that was here might be at risk. She was glued to her phone whenever Jasper was out of sight in his kennel, each incoming buzz a potential warning that someone was snooping around.

  But the alert never came. Other than the occasional car that sped past on the highway, the only other person Sadie saw for the rest of the day was Penny.

  As evening fell, they microwaved some of the frozen dinners they had stocked up on and ate together in the lobby while Jasper sniffed his way around the edges of the room. Sadie poked at her rubbery pasta with a plastic fork. She had skipped lunch, and she had that shaky feeling of not having eaten enough, but it was hard to feel hungry after everything that had happened.

  “Maybe we can start painting some of the other rooms tomorrow,” Penny said eventually, when the silence had ticked on for too long. “It’ll give us something to do, and it needs to be done either way.”

  Either way — meaning whether they decided to sell the place or not.

  Sadie nodded. “We’ll make a run into town tomorrow and stop at the hardware store.” She prodded her food and wrinkled her nose. “Maybe we can stop at a restaurant, too, and get something real to eat. I’m going to try to get Walter’s number from Sam, too. I want to talk to him and learn more about what happened two years ago.”

  “Are you thinking about meeting with him in person?” Penny asked. “It seems risky, but I guess we can’t hide out here just the two of us forever, and he is an old man. I bet we could take him. Do you remember seeing any pepper spray for sale at the hardware store? I should get my own.”

  “I’m sure they do. That place seems to have everything,” Sadie said.

  It felt good to have some plans, even if none of them were long-term plans. They finished their food and tidied up. After a brief discussion, in which Penny decided she didn’t want to sleep alone on the ground floor of the motel with nothing but a thin pane of glass between her and the outside — a very reasonable fear as far as Sadie was concerned — they decided Penny would take the couch in Sadie’s apartment, and they would sleep with the door chained and a few of the unpacked boxes propped up in front of it as added security.

  Before she went to bed, Sadie made sure the notification volume on her phone was turned up all the way, just in case the security cameras caught motion during the night. The cameras woke her up once during the night, but it was just a raccoon sniffing around the outdoor kennel runs. She lay in her bed with Jasper’s head resting on her knee while she watched it until it waddled away, then she flipped through the other cameras until she was satisfied that there were no human intruders on the premises. Still clinging to her phone, she fell back asleep until morning.

  She was in the middle of her morning shower when she heard the now familiar chime of the security camera app’s notifications. She reached blindly for the phone where she had set it on top of the toilet and held it out of the water spray while she checked the screen. The sight of the words Person Detected made her heart skip a beat, and she nearly dropped the phone in her haste to check the video.

  They only had two security cameras set up in front of the motel — one over the front door that looked down over the entrance to the lobby and out at the parking lot, and the other at the end of the row of rooms, which would let them see all ten of the doors at one wide angle. It was the camera over the lobby door that had sent the alert. There was a dark red sedan in the parking lot, and a young man standing at the door. It wasn’t until he turned his face to glance up at the camera that she recognized him — Josh, Bailey’s disgruntled ex-employee.

  She watched as he tried to open the lobby’s door, then resorted to knocking on it when he found it was locked. Realizing she should go see what he wanted, she shut off the water and dried off, then tapped the microphone button to speak through the camera.

  “I’ll be down in just a second.”

  She saw Josh jump on screen. He looked up at the camera again. “That’s fine, no hurry,” he called out, waving up at her. She made sure the microphone was off before hurrying back into her bedroom. Penny was awake by the time she stepped into the living room, fully dressed, with Jasper by her side.

  “What’s going on?” her friend asked sleepily.

  “Josh from the bakery is here. I’m going to go down with Jasper and see what he wants. And before you ask, yes, I have my pepper spray. Will you come rescue me if I scream?”

  “Did you unpack your kitchen knives yet?”

  “They’re in the box on the counter,” Sadie said.

  Penny gave her a thumbs up. “Yeah, just shout and I’ll come downstairs swinging.”

  Sadie made her way downstairs with Jasper. She hadn’t bothered to put his leash on — she just told him to heel as she approached the lobby door. She pressed a hand to her pocket to make sure her pepper spray was ready to whip out if she needed it, then turned the lock and pulled the door open.

  Josh had been leaning against the side of the building. He pushed away from the wall when the door opened and gave her a slightly chagrined smile.

  “Sorry about that, I thought you’d be open. I didn’t mean to bother you.”

  “It’s no bother at all,” Sadie said. She kept the door half open as she stood in the doorway. Jasper leaned against her leg, his weight familiar and reassuring. “How can I help you?”

  He scratched the back of his neck. “I was wondering if the two of you were hiring. If you are, I can email you my resume. I have some good references, and I have plenty of experience in customer service work. I’ve never worked at a hotel before, but I’m a fast learner.”

  Sadie had been half expecting him to say something about the murder, so it took her a second to process his words. When she did, she blinked and said, “Well, we aren’t hiring anyone yet, but if you want to send your resume in anyway, we’ll keep it in mind when we’re ready.” She didn’t add that they were no longer even sure they would be opening. She figured it was better to plan for the best-case scenario.

  “Are you sure there’s nothing you need from me right now?” Josh asked, taking a step closer. “I can help with cleaning and renovation, too. Whatever you need done, I’m your guy. I really need to land a new job before my rent is due. I had to quit the cookie shop for my own good — Bailey’s been acting weird for months, and I didn’t feel safe there after what happened to Elena.”

  “Honestly, we can’t afford to hire anyone right now,” she said. Hiring Sam had been a one-off, at least for the time being, and they technically hadn’t even paid him — they had just given him a free month of rent, which was money they hadn’t been planning on getting anyway. She felt a little bad turning him down, but mostly, she was fixated on what he had said about Bailey. “What do you mean you didn’t feel safe there?”

  He shrugged, not quite meeting her eyes. “She was acting… off, and when I showed up for work the day after the murder, one of the knives in the kitchen was missing. And knowing how much she and Elena hated each other…” He trailed off, then added quickly, “I’m not trying to accuse her of anything.”

  “Josh, if you think she had something to do with the murder, you should go to the police.”

  “It’s probably nothing.” He forced a smile, then began to turn away. “Thanks anyway. I’ll check back in a few weeks in case you change your mind.”

  She watched him go, unsettled. He had essentially just blamed Elena’s murder on Bailey. She didn’t know what to do with that information, especially if he didn’t want to go to the police. Would they even listen if she showed up to tell them what he had told her? At that point, she would essentially just be spreading gossip.

  As he pulled out of the driveway, she shut and locked the lobby door, then reached down to ruffle Jasper’s soft ears before turning back toward the door that led up to her apartment. She needed to talk to Penny about this.

  She only made it halfway across the room before Jasper turned around, his floppy ears perking up. A moment later, she heard the sound of a car door slam. Someone else was there… or Josh had come back.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  She unlocked the lobby door and peeked outside to see Bailey’s white delivery van parked across the parking lot. The woman was already out of the vehicle, striding across the cracked asphalt toward her. Sadie’s gut clenched — this was the worst timing imaginable. She should have checked before opening the door. She was tempted to pull back and shut the door in Bailey’s face, but the other woman had already seen her and raised a hand in greeting. She had a box of cookies in her other hand. An offering Sadie would have been more tempted to accept if one of the woman’s ex-employees hadn’t just accused her of murder.

  Instead of slamming the door in Bailey’s face, she gave her a tight smile and slipped her phone out of her pocket to type a message to Penny. Bailey’s here. Josh thinks she might have killed Elena. Please come down and save me! With the message sent, she slipped the phone back into her pocket in time to exchange a pleasant greeting with Bailey.

  “I’m glad I caught you,” the other woman said. “I meant to talk to you about this at the open house but, well…” She trailed off. “That didn’t exactly go as planned. I’m always looking to expand the cookie shop, and I’d love to discuss a partnership with you. I’ve got cookies, and you’re going to have guests. It’s the perfect match. Who doesn’t want to treat themselves to something sweet while they’re on vacation?”

  Bailey’s bright smile felt wrong after the dark accusation Josh had made. This was exactly what Sadie had wanted two days ago, but now she felt like she was swallowing glass as she said, “I’d love to talk, but now isn’t really the best time.”

  “It won’t take long. I just wanted to drop off some cookies as a gesture of goodwill and let you know I’m interested. I know what I said at the hardware store was probably rude, and I’m sorry about that. Yesterday was a hard day for me. I think the two of you could turn this place into something good, with enough time. You don’t have to make any decisions right now. I totally get that there are probably a lot of things that are up in the air for you.”

  That was an understatement. Sadie briefly played with the thought of putting her foot down and insisting Bailey leave, but if Josh’s accusation held any weight, then making her angry probably wasn’t the best idea. Reluctantly, she pulled the door further open and grabbed Jasper’s collar so he wouldn’t run outside as she stepped back.