Girl Can't Help It: A Thriller (Krista Larson Book 2) by Max Allan Collins

Author:Max Allan Collins [Collins, Max Allan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-03-09T16:00:00+00:00

THIRTEEN

The various websites list more than ninety lodging choices in or near Galena, Illinois, ranging from bed-and-breakfasts in historic homes to the magnificently scenic (and expensive) Lake View Lodge. The Tick Tock Motel, on winding Highway 20 West, ten miles past the Galena city limits, was in the midst of the rolling countryside, high bluffs and overlooks that made Galena a top tourist destination.

The ten rooms in a row with an office in the middle were pink brick with a charcoal roof, a roadside sign with pink neon letters spelling TICK TOCK by a neon clock, the hands of which were permanently set at ten after three for no apparent reason. A few planters with artificial flowers under windows dressed the place up and several picnic tables faced the highway with its lesser view of the countryside. Amenities included TV, free Wi-Fi, and free parking, as if ten miles out of town that was a real plus.

All of this made Tick Tock a destination for tourists touring with someone other than their legal spouses and/or who had certain illegal recreational interests that suggested the neon clock might more aptly read twenty after four. The latter customers included residents of the area, who would pull into the parking lot well after dark, make a brief trip into the office, and return to drive back into the night, as if turned away from the inn, though a VACANCY neon burned red.

Keith stepped out of room seven, which he’d taken earlier, checking in with the guy working the previous shift, who told him Steve Pike came on at 1:00 a.m. Usually Steve came on at 11:00 p.m., but on the nights of his house band gig at the Corner Stop, he didn’t make it in till one or so. Right now it was one thirty, so Steve should be on duty.

And he was, seated at a computer in a cubbyhole office behind the counter in a small lobby with the usual rack of things-to-do-in-Galena pamphlets, and whose wood paneling might have been left over from a 1965 rec room. The drummer’s salt-and-pepper hair, adding up to gray, looked greasy and unattended, not surprising since he’d probably come straight from beating on his drums at the Corner Stop. He was likely wearing what he’d worn onstage there—a black Hot Rod & the Pistons T-shirt and jeans, providing his muscular chest as a billboard for the coming reunion at the Music Fest.

Steve frowned at first seeing him, then smiled tentatively and got up from the computer desk, came out to the counter. “Keith, my man. What brings you out here after midnight?”

“I wanted a chance to talk to you, away from the other guys. Thought this might be a good, quiet time.”

A bell dinged over the door as two college-age kids with long hair and sideburns came in, also in T-shirts and jeans. Seeing a full-fledged adult like Keith looking at them—even though he was in a T-shirt and jeans, too—seemed to throw them. Of course, Keith’s T-shirt was CUBS and theirs were ELECTRIC WIZARD and MONSTER MAGNET.

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