Page 118 of Without a Clue

What am I going to do?

Nash is going to be here any moment.

I need to go back to the room. I need to get there when Nash isn’t, the only moment we’re not together, and do a thorough look through his things for clues. It just . . . seems so impossible.

And there’s a dread that hangs over me.

A thud deep in my chest.

It just . . . can’t be true.

But what motive could he have had?

I flip over the note, hoping for some more words, some more clues, but there are none.

I gently slip it back into its envelope and tuck it into my blazer. This needs to get added for evidence.

I look around.

This is my moment, maybe my only moment, to sneak away.

Waders are still in the pool. Some people lie on lounge chairs, books in hand.

Crystal has just swung by again on her hoverboard, with a trail of pleading staff. Ladies are still at the card tables. Neena’s still clutching her pearls, thrilled. Jackie, for the moment, at least, is distracted by a waiter’s question.

I feel bad for bailing on Oliver’s kind offer of espresso, but this is my moment.

Run.

I start slow until I make it to the hallway, and then I fly.

I dart down the hall, my steps ultralight, until I’m at my door.

Cautiously I unlock it and then, with one last look left and right, step inside.

I turn the lock.

Flick on the lights.

Look around the tattered mess of a room I left behind this morning.

Quickly, Penelope. The goal here isn’t to find something. It’s the hope you DON’T.

I only have moments here before I need to get back.

What will Nash do if he finds I’m gone?

What excuse will I give?

Do I have that much time? Can I check the room that quickly?

Nash’s laptop bag is sitting by the floor lamp, and I crouch down. Carefully I pull back the leather flaps.

Nothing is out of the ordinary. A couple of pens in their pen holes. A thin sleeve of laptop. A small Moleskine notebook. A couple of well-worn paperbacks.

The notebook is mostly empty. The first few pages are riddled with book ideas of various locations, descriptions of the sky, descriptions of the plains. Random names of antique companies and random information about cattle. A mysterious phone number I type into the internet browser on my phone that leads to a dead end; it’s just an auction company for horses out in Alvarado.

My eyes pause and hover over a journal entry dated just two weeks ago. I read: