Aurora 03 - Three Bedrooms, One Corpse by Charlaine Harris Page B

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    “Pull off.”
    “What?”
    “Pull off.”
    Off the interstate we rolled at what seemed to me incredible speed, and suddenly we were parked in front of the bright office of the motel. I couldn’t remember the name of it, where we were, anything.
    Martin left the car abruptly, and I watched him register. He carefully did not turn to look back at me during the interminable process.
    Then he slid back into the car with a key in hand.
    I turned to him and said through clenched teeth, “I hope it’s on the ground floor.”
    It was.

    It rained during the night. The lightning flashed through the windows, and I heard the cold spray hit the pavement outside. He had been sleeping; he woke up a little when I shivered at the thunder. “Safe,” he said, gathering me to him. “Safe.” He kissed my hair and fell back into sleep.
    I wondered if I was. In a practical way I was safe, yes; we were not stupid people; we took precautions. But in my heart I had no feeling, none at all, of safety.

    The morning was not the kind that ordinarily made me cheerful. It was colder, grayer, and puddles of muddy water dotted the parking lot of the motel. But I felt good enough to overcome even the faint sleaziness of putting back on the same clothes I’d worn. We ate breakfast in the motel coffee shop, and both of us were very hungry.
    “I don’t know what we’ve started,” Martin said suddenly, as he was about to get up to pay our bill, “but I want you to know I have never felt so wrung out in my life.”
    “Relaxed,” I corrected smilingly. “I’m relaxed.”
    “Then,” he said with raised eyebrows, “you didn’t work hard enough.”
    We smiled at each other. “A matter of opinion,” I said, quite shocked at myself.
    “We’ll just have to try again until we’re both satisfied,” Martin murmured.
    “What a fate,” I said.
    “Tonight?” he asked.
    “Tomorrow night. Give me a chance to recoup.”
    “See, you do know some French words,” he replied, and we smiled at each other again. He glanced at his watch as we drove back. “I’m usually working at the plant alone on Sunday, but today we’re having a special meeting at twelve-thirty, followed by an executives’ lunch. It’s a kickoff for our next production phase.”
    “What will they say if you’re a few minutes late?” I asked him softly when he kissed me good-bye at my townhouse door.
    “They won’t say anything,” he told me. “I’m the top dog.”

    * * *
For the first time in a long time, I was going to skip church. I staggered up the stairs and stripped off all my clothes, pulled a nightgown over my head, and after turning off the bell of the phone, crawled in bed to rest. I began to think, and with an effort turned off the trickle of thought like a hand tightening a faucet. I was sore, exhausted, and intoxicated, and soon I was also asleep.

    My mother called at eleven, as soon as she got home from church. The Episcopalians in Lawrenceton had a nine-thirty service, because Aubrey went to another, smaller church forty miles away to hold another service directly after the Lawrenceton one. I was drowsing in bed, trying to think of what to do with the remainder of the day, persuading myself not to call Martin.
    I felt so calm and limp that I thought I might slide out of bed and ooze across the carpet to the closet. I barely heard the downstairs phone ringing.
    “Hello, Aurora,” Mother said briskly. “We missed you at church. What have you been doing today?”
    I smiled blissfully at the ceiling and said, “Nothing in particular.”
    “I called to find out about the annual realtors’ banquet,” she said. “Would you and Aubrey like to come? It’s for families, too, you know, and you might enjoy it, since you know everyone.” Mother tried to get me there every year, and the last year I’d broken down and gone.
    The annual realtors’ banquet was one of those strange events no one can possibly like but everyone must attend. It was a local