The Killing Kind

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

March 24

The motel parking lot was jammed with the cars of spring breakers. The Tercel was wedged between a powder blue Mustang and a black BMW in a row of cars facing a long, two-story wing of the motel. Rob sat in the Tercel’s driver’s seat, drumming his thumbs along the upper curve of the steering wheel. Roxie sat scrunched down in the passenger seat, her feet propped on the dash. Rob kept glancing at her. Her new outfit was bugging him. She wore tan khaki shorts and a blue T-shirt with a picture of a surfboard on the front, both purchased from a nearby souvenir shop. The clothes looked good on her. That wasn’t the problem. The girl would look good in anything. They just didn’t look…right. If you ignored the several visible tattoos, she could pass for any preppie college kid out for a hot time in the sun and sand.

She looked at him. “For fuck’s sake…what?“

“Those clothes don’t look right on you.”

She smiled. “I should be wearing something cool, right? Something tight and black, with a skull on it, maybe?”

“Well…yeah.”

“This is a costume. We need to blend in. You, too.”

Rob wore black jeans and a shiny button up black shirt with a bright red flame pattern across the front. The same duds he’d been wearing since she’d taken him.

“No. I…can’t.”

She smirked. “You’ll do it if I say so, bitch.”

Rob pulled a pained expression. “Please…don’t. I couldn’t bear it. I’m begging you. I’m allergic to khaki.”

Roxie laughed. “I do like to hear a man beg, so whatever.”

Rob gripped the steering wheel and started the thumb-drumming thing again. “Look. We’ve got money. Why don’t we just check in?”

Roxie shook her head. “No. I don’t want any motel clerk remembering us.”

“You didn’t seem worried about that before.”

“Things were different then.”

“How?”

“I wasn’t in love with you yet.”

Rob shifted in his seat, fidgeting a little as he became uncomfortable.

Okay, this is fucking crazy.

It was the third time she’d invoked the L-word today. He couldn’t fathom it. He liked her. Liked her a lot when she wasn’t killing somebody or doing something else completely insane. This was their third day together. Even leaving out all the craziness, wasn’t it a little soon to be bandying that word around? He didn’t know how he felt about her profession of love, assuming it was how she really felt. She could just be fucking with him again. But some deep-down instinct told him she wasn’t playing with his head this time. She liked him. Loved him. Or at least thought she did. And if she truly believed it, for her there would be no difference between delusion and true love. Rob’s feelings for her were complicated by so many things. The repugnant acts he’d seen her commit. His lingering feelings for both Charlene and Lindsey. But what truly troubled him was the sense this thing with Roxie was likely to be painfully brief. Her lifestyle was going to catch up to her sooner or later. One day she’d slip up and be caught or killed by the cops. There was no “happily ever after” waiting somewhere down the road for them. Just a steep and rapid drop deep into the heart of darkness.

“Snap out of it.”

Rob blinked. “What?”

“Your head was off in the fucking clouds.”

He sat up straighter in his seat. “Right. Sorry.”

“I love you.”

For fuck’s sake…

“Right. You said that.”

Roxie laughed. “You don’t have to say it back yet. I know you like me. You’ll come around to the love thing sooner or later. Probably sooner.”

“Right.”

“Anyway, as I was trying to tell you, going gaga over you has sort of changed my perspective a little. Don’t get me wrong. I’ll always be what I am. But I do mean to be more careful.” She pried one of his hands off the steering wheel and laced fingers with him. “And that includes no interaction with the staff here.”

Rob grunted. “So…instead…”

He let the implied question hang.

She flexed her fingers slightly for a better grip on his hand. “We watch for a likely target. Preferably someone vulnerable. Preferably alone.”

“We catch them going in or out of their room.”

“Right.”

“Get them inside the room and tie them up.”

“Wrong. Fucking waste of time. We kill them.”

Rob groaned. “Is that really necessary? You haven’t killed anybody in over twenty-four hours. The bloodshed reduction was sort of refreshing.”

“What’s your favorite horror movie?”

Rob stared at her with his mouth hanging open for a long moment. The abrupt conversational shift had caught him off guard. “Um…I…wait. Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

Rob shrugged. “I don’t think I have a single favorite. I like so many. There’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Dawn of the Dead. Obviously.”

“Originals or remakes?”

“Both.”

She smiled. “Good answer. The Dawn remake is better than the original, though.”

“Blasphemy. And what does any of this have to do with murdering innocent spring breakers?”

She laughed. “I didn’t want to talk about that anymore, that’s all. I’m killing them. End of story. Don’t make me say it again.”

Her hand tightened around his. A reminder.

This was a command, not a request.

He forced a smile. “Understood.”

She relaxed her grip and smiled back. “Good.”

Rob opened his mouth to say something, but the words died on the edge of his tongue, unspoken and forgotten. He stared at the black BMW parked to the right of the Tercel. Its doors had come open and two passengers climbed out. The very unlikely looking pair started walking toward the motel. It was a middle-aged man and a girl in her teens. The man looked like a powerfully built wino in ill-fitting clothes. The girl was cute as hell. But something about her haircut was off. It looked…unprofessional.

Roxie was staring at them, too. “Something’s not right there.”

“No shit. That car was there when we pulled in, which was“-he glanced at the dashboard clock-“an hour ago. So…”

Roxie nodded. “They hid behind those tinted windows the whole time, waiting for us to get out or go away.”

“Because they didn’t want to be seen together.”

“Right. Or something like that.”

“Weird.”

The strange couple stopped at the door to a room on the first floor. The man opened the door with a key card and they slipped inside the room. The old bum tried not to be obvious about it, but he shot a quick look their way before shutting the door.

Roxie slipped on her sandals (also newly purchased) and retrieved the.38 from the glove compartment. “Change of plans.”

She was out the door and moving toward the motel before Rob could protest.

He slapped the steering wheel.

“Shit!”

One day her impulsiveness really would get her killed. He glanced at the keys dangling from the ignition. For the first time in more than a day he gave serious consideration to the possibility of escape. He could drive away and leave Roxie to meet her inevitable doom on her own. He could go home. Make excuses. Maybe find a way to reconcile with Charlene. Then there was Lindsey. Sweet Lindsey. His best friend. Maybe Roxie was right about her. Maybe she really did want something more than friendship. Or maybe not. Bottom line, he had options. Possibilities. Normal, sane things he could do with his life. Somehow, it was all still just within his grasp.

He looked at Roxie.

She was already at the door to the room the strange couple had entered.

Rob sighed. “Shit.”

He grabbed the keys from the ignition, hopped out of the car, and hurried after her.