8 Bodies is Enough(20)

“Okay. If you don’t hear from me, I’ll see you back at the hotel.” Carlotta extended a keycard. “Here’s an extra key to my and Peter’s room so you can change back. Just knock first, okay?”

“Why? It’s not like I’ll be interrupting you two having sex.”

“Bye,” Carlotta said pointedly, then shoved the car door closed.

After glancing around to make sure no cars stood out to her, she casually made her way into the bustling coffee shop where she bought a large latte and a postcard to send to June Moody, friend and proprietor of Moody’s cigar bar in Atlanta. She found a pen in the bottom of her bag and jotted a quick note.

Thinking of you. Carlotta

Carlotta sighed. June wasn’t the one person she’d been thinking about. She snapped the bracelet a couple of times to keep those dead-end thoughts at bay. Jack equals pain.

Her phone vibrated and she checked it, hoping for some word from Jack or Coop regarding the identity of Dead Johnson. Instead it was a text from Peter.

Sorry to be spending the day with clients. I hope you and Hannah have fun.

As far as he knew, Carlotta was going shopping with Hannah. He hadn’t questioned her friend’s transformation, had just chalked it up to Hannah’s oddball personality. But the fact that he’d mentioned Hannah at all meant he was warming up to her. Carlotta pushed down the thought that he was a hypocrite. Everyone who’d seen the new Hannah had responded positively to her new look—except Hannah.

Carlotta texted back I hope you have a nice day, too. Then she made sure her phone’s location was disabled. Her phone was on Peter’s account which, now that she thought about it, might be on Mashburn & Tully’s account.

Carlotta brought her fist to her mouth. Had Peter or the company been tracking her whereabouts all along to see if she went to talk to her father in prison? Thank goodness the time she and Hannah conned their way inside the federal pen, they hadn’t taken their cell phones.

Then she gave herself a mental shake—she was being paranoid.

Two men walked into the coffee shop and with a start she realized they were the two guys from the restaurant who had followed her and Peter after noticing her ring. In front of them, she spotted their quarry—a middle-aged couple standing in line were arguing, oblivious their clothing and accessories stamped them as novice tourists. The man’s zippered backpack was hanging open, exposing a pricey tablet device—easy pickings for a thief.

Knowing the men wouldn’t recognize her in the red wig, Carlotta straightened and walked toward them, elbowing her way between the two couples. “Excuse me, not cutting line, just trying to get to the ladies’ room. Oh, sir—your backpack is open.”

The man and woman stopped long enough to thank her, then began arguing about whose fault it was the backpack was unzipped. Carlotta didn’t look at the would-be thieves, just kept moving toward the restroom. Once inside, she closed and locked the narrow door behind her. After checking her appearance in the smoky mirror, she sipped her coffee while reading some of the hundreds of messages that had been scribbled on the yellowing plaster walls in everything from ink to lipstick.

Mark and Jenna, celebrating 12 years!

Metallica rules.

Call Babs 555-5890 to talk or ?

Just be happy.

Doug F. Mitchell is an mf liar! He cheats too.

Carlotta smiled at peoples’ urges to leave a bit of themselves in a place so random. If she were going to add a bit of wisdom to the wall, what would it be?

She bit down on her lip. If she wrote the name of the man she thought she should marry, no one would ever know. She pulled the pen from her bag, pressed the tip against the wall in a tiny blank space, and wrote his name in curly cursive letters, as if she were writing in her high school notebook.

Carlotta angled her head, smiling at her secret message to the universe, then something written just below caught her eye.

Valerie W was here.

Her breath caught in her throat. There were probably thousands of Valerie W’s in the world, and hundreds who had passed through Las Vegas. But one thing she’d forgotten until this moment was how her mother signed her name and added wings to the “W.”

Just like this signature.

Her own message forgotten, Carlotta pulled out her phone to zoom in and take a picture of the signature. Her hand was shaking so badly, the camera lens had a hard time focusing. She ran her finger over the scrawl, as if she could absorb some kind of truth from it, or determine how old it was. Had her mother written it in a bout of loneliness after being ripped from everything she’d known?

She glanced around the small dingy bathroom, imagining her vivacious mother standing here, feeling desperate enough to write her name on the wall. Goose bumps rose on her arms.