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lived them. We hadn’t even seen
any ghosts and already I had the creeps, which explained why I
jumped out of my skin a bit when there was a sudden knock at the
door.
    I got up and peered through
the peephole. My heart eased as I saw Dex, though I wasn’t quite
sure who else it would have been.
    I opened the door. He
leaned against the frame, not moving. He looked a bit stoned; his
eyes were glazed and looking past me at some blank spot on the bed.
A toothpick jutted about lazily in his mouth.
    “ Um, hey. Good hotel pick,
by the way,” I joked. “I was thinking we could put our beds beside
each other and race down the hallway…might cost a couple of bucks
extra though.”
    He grinned. “Are you coming
on to me?”
    I wasn’t but I felt heat
come to my cheeks anyway. I rolled my eyes. “What do you
want?”
    “ Just checking up on you,”
he said defensively.
    “ That’s…considerate. What’s
wrong with you?”
    The glaze left his eyes for
a second before he laughed it away. “OK, suit yourself. Thought you
may have wanted some company.”
    Was he coming on to me ? I narrowed my eyes,
studying him. I can’t say the thought didn’t entice me. But aside
from his languid gaze, I couldn’t pick up on anything different. It
was just Dex. Standing seductively in the doorway of my seedy motel
room (OK, so you can see why I would naturally jump to such
conclusions).
    And suddenly, while this
dialogue was going on inside my head, I realized the situation had
become awkward. At least for me, anyway. Dex didn’t seem disturbed
in the slightest.
    Regardless, he said,
“Anyway, we’ll be setting off at 8AM tomorrow. The town of Red Fox
is about a two or three hour drive from here. Just be ready and
primped and all that before then.”
    “ Do you think I’m gonna get
much sleep…or primping…done in this place?”
    He laughed. “Princess, I
don’t care. See you in the morning.”
    And with that he spun
around and walked to his room next door. I heard his door close. I
slowly shut mine and felt incredibly alone. And miffed. Princess?
Who did he think he was?
    I turned and nervously eyed
the bed. I decided to sleep on top of the sheets that
night.
     

CHAPTER FOUR
     
    The day was already hot and
arid, even at 8AM. The hotel manager said they were having an
unseasonably warm fall and we would probably approach the upper
nineties later that afternoon. As I stood outside by the Jeep and
waited for Dex to finish up paying for the rooms, I welcomed the
impending heat. I think it was the Pacific Northwestern in me; most
of the year we were enveloped in depressing dampness so I soaked up
every warm opportunity I had.
    The sun sat loftily above
the mountains, its sharp light clearing the cobwebs from my foggy
head. I was running on very little sleep. When I wasn’t freezing
cold from the room’s air con which just wouldn’t switch off, I was
dreaming about bedbugs and/or some coyote zombies. After last
night’s “incident” (and I’m sure there will be many of them) I
convinced myself coyote zombies were an actual thing.
    It wasn’t long before Dex
emerged from the office and made his way out towards me. He had
black shades on, a plain black tee shirt which fit him perfectly
and his black cargo shorts. Against the dry backdrop he bared a
resemblance to an emo Man in Black.
    “ The desert seems to suit
you, Mr. Cash,” I said, smiling. He didn’t smile back. He went
straight for the back of the Jeep and started riffling through his
bag in the trunk.
    I peeked over as he
frantically started dumping stuff everywhere, searching for
something.
    “ Is everything OK? Did your
credit card not go through?”
    There was no way I could
afford to pay for us.
    He quickly shook his head.
“That’s all fine.”
    He sighed loudly and stood
up, his hands pressed against the sides of his head. The next words
out of my mouth were going to be ‘what is it?’ but there was
something hostile about his current crisis. I decided