Chapter 11: The Motel Off I-40

We left the mill at dawn, six bikes in a line down Cutter's Gap Road.

I rode behind Rafe with both arms around his waist and my cheek against his back.

Mabel stayed behind with the rest of the club to guard what was left of the garage.

She hugged me in the yard and slipped an extra bandage into my jacket pocket.

"Be careful with him," she whispered. "He's not as tough as he looks."

I was learning that.

By noon we were in Knoxville, at a motel off the interstate with a faded sign and a gravel lot.

The owner had been in the club twenty years ago, and he took Rafe's cash without writing down a name.

Otis took a room at each end of the row.

Rafe and I had the one in the middle.

It had two beds, a window unit rattling in the wall and a view of a truck stop.

I sat down on the nearer bed and took out Mabel's burner.

"I'm calling the lawyer," I said. "He can bring the papers tonight. I'll sign a sworn statement, and he can file it."

"No."

I looked up.

Rafe stood in the middle of the room with his jacket still on.

"No what?"

"He doesn't come here. Nobody comes here."

"He's my lawyer, Rafe."

"He's a man Dorian has been in a room with for months."

"He cried on the phone."

"I'm not saying he's lying. I'm saying he can be followed."

"Then I'll go to him."

"You're not going out of this room."

I stood up.

My ribs hurt, and my arm hurt, and my temper came up my spine.

"That isn't yours to decide," I said.

"It is tonight."

"Tonight I decided something, and you've already undecided it. Did you call him?"

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