Chapter 10: Room 14

Piper's POV

At seven in the morning, over bad coffee, I told Jonas I was going to see Delaney.

He did not tell me not to.

"She's lied to you once already," he said.

"I know."

"Then why go?"

I sat with my hands around the cup, in the family lounge, with a blanket over my knees.

"Because she looked at me like she wanted to be caught," I said.

I thought about Delaney standing in my kitchen in my old robe.

I thought about her saying, there's something I have to tell you.

"Where is she staying?" I asked.

"The hotel on Route 23, I think. You told them to go there."

I had.

I almost laughed.

At two that afternoon, he parked his truck outside the Red Maple Inn and said he would wait.

I walked across the lot with one hand on my side.

The woman at the desk said Mrs. Tolliver had gone out to a church committee lunch, and that her son's friend was in Room 14.

I knocked on the door.

Delaney opened it with the chain on.

She looked at me through the gap, and I watched her decide whether to shut it.

"You shouldn't be walking," she said.

"I'm not here to yell at you."

"I know."

She let me in.

The room smelled like old carpet.

Her suitcase lay open on the bed, and I saw the orange pill bottle on the nightstand.

"Sit down," she said, and then, "Please."

I sat on the edge of the other bed.

She stood by the window with her arms wrapped around herself.

"I'm not going to ask what you were going to tell me," I said. "You'd have said it already if you could."