Rachel
It was the same cab driver who had driven her home that took her back to the embassy.
“You…want me to stick around?” he asked as she paid him.
Rachel gave him a look.
“You know, until you’re finished?” he asked. “Then I’ll take you back?”
She shook her head, confused as all hell about what he was talking about. “No, I’m good, thanks. I’m not sure how long I’ll be.”
The cab driver nodded. “Ah, got it. Well, here’s my card. I work nights, so you can call me direct, instead of the operator.”
Rachel frowned, but took the card and nodded, exiting the vehicle. The driver didn’t stick around, pulling away once the door was closed and she was clear. Only then did her brain catch up with the rest of her as she realized what he’d been insinuating about her “being finished.”
“Rude,” she muttered, tossing his card into the garbage near the door as she went up the stairs and entered the lobby. “I’m not a prostitute. Dick.”
“Hi Rachel,” Gray greeted her from where he stood,
“Hey Gray, what ya doing?” she asked, coming to a casual halt next to him.
“Painting.”
“I can see that,” she said as he took a brush and drew strokes against the wall. “I was just, um, wondering if you knew that you were painting in white. On a white wall.”
“You’ve never worked a night shift before, have you?” he asked, not taking his eyes away from the wall as he splashed more paint on here and there.
“Ah, no, that I have not.”
“If you ever do, you’ll understand.” He paused, and then looked pointedly at her stomach. “Actually, I suspect you’ll understand before then.”
“What, a pregnancy thing?”
Gray shook his head. “No, a newborn baby thing.”
“I’m not sure I’ll ever be so bored that I’ll want to paint on a white wall with white paint,” she said slowly.
“Bored? No. Sleepless…” he trailed off and flashed her a grin. “Got any names picked out yet?”
“No, not yet,” she said. “Still need to find out what it’s going to be first.”
“You don’t know?”
“Nope.”
“I see.” He applied some more paint liberally to a section that obviously had too little.
“Well this has been interesting, but have you seen Hector?”
Gray turned to look at her. “It’s just primer, you know. We’re not putting tile up on this section. It’s going to have shelves on it or something. I dunno, Andrew decided.”
“If you say so,” she replied.
“Hector was in the bar last I saw,” he answered. “Drinking away sorrows about this mess he’s in.”
“Oh, great. Well, maybe I can sober him up.” Rachel wasn’t sure. But she was going to try. If Hector only had two days left in town, he certainly wasn’t allowed to spend them drunk while she dealt with her loneliness.
“I hope you have better luck than I did,” Gray replied.
“Me too.”
She headed back into the embassy, taking a left at the rear wall of the lobby and following one of the hallways down there, until she got to the makeshift lounge. Hector had shown her around one day, proud of the repairs and renovations that were being undertaken at the embassy. The lights in the lounge were off.
“Hello?” she called. “Hector?”
There was no response. Rachel felt around the wall for a light switch, but couldn’t find anything. Then, in a flash of brilliance, she tried higher up. Almost immediately her hand encountered a panel of switches.
“Shifter height,” she muttered, flicking them on.
The bar was empty.
Obviously Hector had decided to move on from there. Perhaps he’d decided that drinking himself into a slumber wasn’t the way to deal with anything? Or solve it even. It was possible, and she desperately hoped it was true, but that didn’t stop her from peeking behind the little fake bar that had been set up to ensure that he wasn’t passed out on the ground out of sight. He wasn’t there either.
Rachel wandered out of the room and reached up to her head height to kill the lights on the way. Pausing in the hallway, she thought things over for a moment, and then headed back to the lobby and up the stairs. Gray was hard at work on the wall painting…whatever he was painting.
She went up one of the dual curved stairways to the second floor and up to his assigned bedroom. Though they’d stayed at her place most nights, she’d visited him twice during their brief time together, so she knew where he was. After knocking on the door, she crossed her arms and waited for him to answer.
He didn’t.
After knocking twice more Rachel banged the palm of her hand on the door and twisted the handle with the other, more out of spite than expectation. To her surprise the door swung inward, having been left unlocked. She looked inside, but the lights were off. Once again she reached up to head height, searching for the switch. It wasn’t there.
Right. No renovations here. Try normal height.
The room was bathed in light as she found the switch, but still no Hector. The bed was made and everywhere was empty, confirmed by a quick walk around. She reached the door and paused, looking back inside before closing it.
“Where the hell is he?” she asked the vacant room, hoping it could point her in the right direction.
“Where’s who?”
She spun at the voice, her heart leaping into her throat. “Holy shit!” she exclaimed.
“Sorry,” the shifter said, holding his hands up in apology. “Didn’t mean to scare you. I thought I walked up loudly enough to be heard.”
Rachel waved it off. “No, it’s okay. I was lost in thought. You could have been a train and I probably wouldn’t have heard you.”
She didn’t recognize the newcomer, but that didn’t mean much. She knew Hector, Gray, and Andrew, that was about it.
“I’m looking for Hector,” she replied.
The shifter frowned. “I think I saw him out back a few hours ago, but other than that, I haven’t seen him. Sorry.”
She nodded. “That’s more information than I had before. Thanks.”
The shifter just moved his head in a tilt toward her and then ambled off down the hallway. Rachel went the other way, back down the stairs, past the still-painting Gray and out the nearest door marked Exit at the back. This one had lost its sign, but someone had painted the word in red on the door itself. She pushed it open, only belatedly wondering if she was going to set off the fire alarm. Cringing, she paused half out the door and waited, but no clangs sounded.
Sighing in relief, she walked into the back loading area of the former motel. It was mostly empty. Two loading bays were set off to her left. It was just a flat paved area. A storage shed with a huge dent in the side was located at the rear of the lot, just before the fence. The roadway entrance was off on the right-hand side. She took all of that in as her gaze swept from left to right. Plenty of objects to note, but no sign of Hector.
Not that she’d really truly expected one. It would have been odd for him to just be standing around outside after all. It was likely he had been headed somewhere when he’d left. The only question she had now was where? Where had he gone, and why wasn’t he back yet? Unless of course he’d decided to go drinking out in Cloud Lake.
“Hector?” she called, walking out into the middle of the loading area. “Are you out here?”
She turned in a slow circle, her eyes looking everywhere. Had he gone onto the roof, to watch the sky as he thought things over perhaps? It was feasible, but she doubted he was interested in deep contemplation after drinking. The more she tracked him down, the more it looked like he’d gone out into Cloud Lake itself. While the town wasn’t huge by any stretch, little more than ten or twelve thousand in the entire county including the countryside, there were plenty of places he could lose himself.
“Waste of time,” she muttered to herself, upset that she’d allowed herself to hope that he would still be there, that she could come back and they would work everything out. Perhaps a happy ending wasn’t in store for her after all.
Check the storage shed, then call a cab and head home.
She allowed herself a little laugh at the realization she was likely to get the same damn cab driver. Considering how little time she’d spent at the embassy, it was only going to reinforce his suspicion that she was, um, servicing the shifters. Rachel poked her head in the open door.
“Hector?”
Pulling out her cell phone, she turned the flashlight function on and lifted it up to get a view of the interior.
“Hel—”
Something wrapped around the phone, blocking the light off at the same time a nauseating stench hit her like a wave.
“You shouldn’t have come back,” a voice hissed at her as something rose up out of the shadows.
A single thought raced through her brain.
I know that voice…