REIGN: A Motorcycle Club Romance Novel (3 page)

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I was almost done. Three more rooms, and I’d have finished my duties
for the day. I was more than ready to clock out, change into real clothes, and
drive away as fast as I could. Less excited to arrive at home than I was to
just get the hell away from work, I knocked on the door of my next room before
letting myself in. My eyes immediately fell to a blue duffel bag sitting on a
chair in the middle of the room.

I picked up the duffle bag, wondering how someone could have forgotten
about it when it was just sitting on the chair, declaring its presence at first
glance around the room. It was surprisingly heavy when I lifted it and set it
down near my cart, meaning to bring it straight down to the front desk once I
was through with the room.

There was an odor in the room that I couldn’t quite place. It smelled
metallic, cold. But, blessedly, that seemed to be the only major problem with
the room. No vomit or spilled beer here.

As I heaved the comforter and sheets off the bed, back aching from
performing the same motions over and over again, I saw something that made my
blood turn cold. I wanted to believe it was something other than what I saw,
but I couldn’t fool myself. That smell was blood, and what made that clear as
day was the small pool of brownish-red liquid under the bed. And in the middle
of that pool, just barely peeking out, were two fingers.

Two fingers that were, presumably, attached to a whole body.

I nearly pissed my pants and threw up at the same time. I backed away
from the bed. I’d seen a lot of things in my time at the hotel, but nothing
like this. Nothing even
nearly
as bad
as this.

Maybe it’s ketchup and a glove,
I thought, irrationally, knowing full damn well
that it wasn’t. But something inside me insisted that I make sure it was what I
thought it was before telling everyone about how the sky was falling. Tiptoeing
around the bed, heart pounding, I kneeled down a fair distance from the pool of
blood (or, I still hoped, ketchup). Holding my breath, I peered under the bed.

Yup. That was a body. Sure as shit, that was a dead-ass human being
lying underneath that bed.

Why even bother to hide it there…
I wondered, my mind moving slowly, not quite
processing what I was seeing. I shot straight up, mouth suddenly very dry,
heart beating faster than a drummer in a metal band. My eyes darted to the
duffel bag set near my cart.

I can only chalk my actions after that up to divine intervention, or
possibly shock, or maybe even just morbid curiosity. The appropriate thing to
do would have been to get on the walkie-talkie and report what I’d found to my
boss, and the police, and get the hell out of that room before I further
muddled up what was certainly a crime scene. Instead, I walked to the duffel
bag, leaning down and yanking at the zipper with shaking hands.

Holy

Fucking

Shit.

That was a LOT of money. Like, stacks on stacks. Of hundreds, not
twenties. And mixed in with the money was a lot of taped-up Ziploc bags full of
what I’d come to recognize as cocaine. Like I said, you find a lot of crap in
hotel rooms after people have flown the coop.

I took one large step back before falling on my ass against the bed.
Thinking of the corpse that was only a foot away from me, I scurried away from
the bed to the wall on my hands and knees. If my heart had been pounding
before, it was basically ricocheting out of my chest at that point.

I guess, even then, I knew what I was going to do.

See, there’s only so much a human mind and body can take before it
breaks. And everything in my life had been working on me so long: Jeremy, the
job, the dullness of my days, the violence of my nights. I hadn’t thought I
could ever get away.

And now?

It was like God was shining a light down from the ceiling right onto
that duffel bag. Tempting me, maybe even taunting me.

Everything I needed to make a clean break.

Right there.

And who’s money could it be, anyway? It sure as hell didn’t belong to
anyone good…and if whoever had killed the person under the bed hadn’t seen fit
to take the money with them, I was pretty sure it didn’t belong to
anyone
at that point.

Except me.

It belonged to me.

Once that thought came into my mind, I acted like it was true.
Propriety be damned. With that sort of money, I could make straight for Mexico,
or Canada, and change my name, and no one would ever find me…

Not Jeremy. Not the cops. Which, by the way, was pretty much the same
thing, since he
was
a cop.

I scuttled forward towards the duffel bag, hands itching to get around
that money. But I stopped myself;
be
smart, Gabriella. For once in your stupid, pathetic life, use your fucking
brain.

See? I even
thought
in
Jeremy’s voice and tone. I’d never thought I was stupid before getting involved
with him, but he’d had me so beat down that I believed him when he said I was a
dumb bitch.

I straightened up, grabbing two gloves from my cart and snapping them
on. I took all the cocaine from the bag.
Where…where…
I
thought, looking around the room. My eyes lit on the dresser; throwing a drawer
open, I threw all the little bundles into the drawer and then closed it, though
I left it slightly ajar.

I didn’t need the drugs, just the money.

And, I figured, it would probably help the detectives or whoever to
know that whatever happened was a result of a drug deal gone wrong.

As for the money…

And the body…

I leaned into my portable laundry basket, pulling out the sheets and
comforter I’d just stripped. Working quickly, I made the bed in a way that
looked as though someone had slept in it. Not too messy, not too neat.

I needed it to look like I’d never been there.

But the key…
I thought to myself. The keys at the hotel were automatic, and
wireless, and they recorded whenever anyone came or went into the room.

I threw the duffel bag into the laundry, covering it with sheets and
comforters.

I took a series of deep breaths, grabbing my walkie-talkie and
preparing to lie like my life depended on it.

“Rosa, Melanie, come in,” I said, actually happy for the quiver in my
voice, hoping it would make me more convincing.

“Go ahead, Gabriella,” Rosa’s voice came over the other end, her heavy
accent hard to understand over the crackly radio.

“I was just about to go into 303, and I just got sick everywhere. Had
to run right to the bathroom. It smells funny in here but I think it’s
something else. I’m
gonna
come down, I need to go
home,” I said. It wasn’t the best lie in the world, but what else could I do?
They would know I went into the room when they checked the logs. The best thing
I could do was pretend that I only went into the room to throw up, that I’d
never seen the body or even touched the bed.

Of course, once I never showed up back home, and once someone
discovered the body in the room, there would be a lot of questions. And, with
Jeremy on the force, those questions would probably be broadcast across America
once he figured out I wasn’t coming back. I could only hope that by the time
those questions were asked, I would be safely on my way to Mexico.

“Make sure you flush,” Melanie’s voice came over the walkie-talkie.
“Clock out and go home. Come in tomorrow?”

“Maybe, I’ll see,” I said, letting the walkie-talkie fall to my side
once more.

I looked around the room once more, but knew I needed to get out of
there as soon as possible. The longer I stood there, the more I’d freak out,
the more I’d rethink what I was doing, the more I’d overthink how to cover my
tracks.

Pushing my cart out the door, leaving the lights on, the way they had
been when I got there, I made my way down to the basement, praying no one else
would be down there. No one
should
have
been down there. Rosa was still doing rounds, the laundry room was a separate
building, and Melanie would be half-tossed and chain-smoking in the courtyard
by that time of day.

And, as though God was still smiling upon me, no one was.

I tossed my load of laundry into one of the huge baskets, the sheets
mingling together. Grabbing the duffel bag once it fell, I didn’t bother to put
my cart away or even change into my regular clothes before going to my locker.

I had my own duffel bag in there, my gym bag, for the three times per
week that I went to the gym after work. Today was not a gym day, but I kept a
change of clothes in there all the time in case Jeremy made one of his
“suggestions”.

That was another thing, by the way, about that marriage. When Jeremy
didn’t want me to come home, so he could do whatever – or whomever – he did
when I wasn’t around, he’d “suggest” that I go to the gym, and God help me if I
didn’t take him up on that suggestion.

Now, I was thanking God for his little “suggestions”. I shoved the
duffle bag full of money into my larger gym bag, throwing my running shoes into
my locker to make room. I grabbed my purse as well, and threw my street
clothes, which had been hanging up, into the duffel bag.

I didn’t clock out.

I didn’t look back.

I was on the highway, pedal to the floor (though not speeding), mind
numb as I began to unravel what I’d just done, what I was going to do.

Which, I realized, was a total mystery.

I didn’t know how to start over with a duffel bag full of cash. I
didn’t know how to create a new identity. I wasn’t wise in the ways of criminal
behavior.

Jeremy was, but I couldn’t exactly turn to him for help, could I?

Well, all I had to do, for then, was get to Denver.
Just get to Denver,
I thought.

Wait, no.

I didn’t realize I was slowing the car down until I heard frantic
honking all around me. I pressed my foot on the gas once more.

Not Denver, not Denver, Utah, go to Utah,
I thought. I was driving the wrong direction for
Utah, but I knew it was the smarter choice. It had to be. Jeremy had friends in
Denver, cop friends. Utah? A whole new state? A wild sort of state? Lots of
open land, not too much in the way of cell phone towers…

Utah.

I took the next exit, feeling my stomach flipping as the car swerved
around one of the mountain highway’s many looping, high-octane turns, got back
on the highway, going the other direction.

Utah, Utah, go to Utah,
I thought, over and over again, my mind only able
to focus on that one word, that one destination. It was all I could do not to
throw up in my lap. The duffel bag, tucked underneath driver’s seat, seemed to
pulse and throb behind my feet.

Holy shit, what the hell are you doing,
Gabriella, you stupid bitch, you’re never going to get away with this, you
better fucking turn this car around right now and go home before Jeremy gets
there and wonders where you are.
That
voice, I realize now, was Jeremy’s voice in my head. But it sounded like mine
at the time. And it was loud.

Keep going, you’re never going to get another
chance, this is it, this is it, you have to go now,
another voice was saying, a voice that sounded
strange at the time but which, I’ve learned, is actually my voice. And it was
louder.

It was 4pm. Another hour and a half and Jeremy would be home,
wondering where I was. Just as I had that thought, my cell phone dinged.

Shit, I forgot about that fucking thing,
I thought, panicking, knowing that cops could
trace you by your cell phone signal. I reached down, keeping my eyes on the
road, and grabbed the phone from the pocket of my maid’s uniform. It was Jeremy
texting me.
Shit, shit shit,
I
thought, my heart starting to race once more, my mind leaping to imaginary
scenarios – all of which ended in blood. It would be
my
body tucked underneath a bed this time.