Dead on Deadline by Lara Bricker

Author:Lara Bricker
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lara Bricker
Published: 2021-08-22T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 21

I followed Andy through several little towns, on winding back roads with few houses or streetlights. It was a good thing I had a full tank of gas. I was starting to wonder if we would end up in the ocean by the time he stopped. Eventually, he took a left onto a two-lane road that went all the way from the Massachusetts border to the Maine border. Then he sped up.

It seemed like he was taking a very roundabout back way to Hampton Beach, a seaside community that harkened back to a simpler time with colorful arcades and a boardwalk. In the winter months, there was often an uptick in area drug busts due to the plethora of inexpensive off-season rentals, but on Friday nights in the summer, the traffic slowed to a crawl along the beach’s strip, which often included everything from Canadian tourists to gangsters from Massachusetts.

“Hey, even gangsters go on vacation,” one of the old-time police officers at the beach told me once.

As I followed behind Andy, I tried to piece together who he might be going to visit and why he had been so secretive when he took that phone call at the photo shop. He had more than doubled the time the drive to Hampton Beach normally took from Exeter, and I couldn’t imagine it was because he knew I was tailing him. Maybe he needed time to clear his head before he got to wherever he was headed.

Eventually, he slowed and pulled into what looked like a drive-in motel. A large white sign with illuminated green lettering advertised it as the El Dorado Motel: “Rooms for a night or a lifetime.”

Well, that’s certainly equal opportunity, I thought.

I drove past the entrance, turned into a drive-through coffee shop on the other side of the road, and quickly parked Walter in a spot where I could watch what Andy was doing. The El Dorado looked like a washed-up skeleton of its heyday many decades ago when places like this housed legitimate tourists headed toward New Hampshire’s Atlantic coastline to stop for a night, not a lifetime.

The motel was shaped like a U, with a narrow central courtyard area and an illuminated red arrow that pointed to what must have been the office. Andy drove to the far end of the hotel, as if he knew exactly where he was going, and went into one of the rooms.

Andy had told me he was in Hampton on the night of Charlotte’s murder. It seemed likely that this was the place. But what was he doing here then—or now? It did not fit with what I knew about Andy. I didn’t want to stereotype, but the El Dorado definitely looked like the kind of place where it wouldn’t be too hard to find drugs or alcohol any time of the year. The challenge, I thought, at a place like this, would be avoiding them.

I continued to peer across the street, wondering what Andy was doing inside. If only I had binoculars.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.