‘Cake. Toasted-coconut—’
‘Pee first, Shep.’
‘—Black Forest—’
By now the men in the Suburban would be at the registration desk in the motel office.
‘—lemon—’
If they were carrying law-enforcement credentials, they would be presenting them to the desk clerk.
‘—and lemon-walnut.’
If they had no credentials, they would be using intimidation to get the information they wanted.
‘No pee,’ Dylan quietly informed Shep, ‘no cake.’
Licking his lips in anticipation of the cake, Shep considered this ultimatum.
‘Dylan,’ Jilly said softly but urgently. ‘The window.’
The second black Suburban had crossed the street from the other motel. It parked behind the SUV that already stood in front of the registration office next door to the coffee shop.
Unless given absolutely no other option, Dylan didn’t want to seize his brother by the arm and haul him out of the booth. In that event, the kid would probably come, although his cooperation was not a certainty. He wouldn’t resist violently, but if he set his mind to it, he could become as immovable as a stubborn octopus.
Carrying menus, the waitress began the return trip from the hostess station.
‘No pee, no cake?’ Shepherd asked.
‘No pee, no cake.’
‘Pee, then cake?’ Shep asked.
‘Pee, then cake,’ Dylan agreed.
Shepherd slid out of the booth.
Arriving with the menus just as Shepherd stood up, dropping them on the table, the waitress asked, ‘Can I get you coffee?’
Dylan saw the front door open. Sun glared on that moving glass panel, and from this oblique angle, he couldn’t see who might be entering until they stepped inside.
‘Two coffees,’ Jilly said.
An elderly couple crossed the threshold. They were probably in their eighties. Not stooped, spry enough, but surely not assassins.
‘Milk,’ Shep mumbled.
‘Two coffees and one milk,’ Dylan told the waitress.
The glass that the milk came in would have a round mouth; but the milk itself wasn’t round. It wasn’t shapey, but shapeless, and Shepherd never harbored a prejudice against any food solely because of the design of the container in which it might be served.
‘Cake,’ Shepherd said as, head down, he followed Dylan between the tables, with Jilly at the end of their procession. ‘Cake. Pee, then cake. Pee, then cake.’
The restrooms lay off a hall at the back of the coffee shop.
Ahead of Dylan, a burly bearded man in a tank-top shirt sported enough colorful tattoos just on his exposed arms and neck, and on his bald head, to qualify as an attraction in a sideshow. He went into the men’s room.
As they gathered in the hallway, still in the line of sight of some of the diners in the restaurant, Dylan said to Jilly, ‘Check the women’s room.’
She stepped into the lavatory and returned before the door had time to fall shut behind her. ‘Nobody’s in here.’
Dylan urged his brother to step into the women’s restroom with Jilly, and followed close behind him.
The doors stood open on each of two stalls. The outer door between the lav and the hallway could not be locked. Someone might walk in on them at any moment.
The only window appeared to be painted shut, and in any event, it was too small to provide escape.
Dylan said, ‘Buddy, I need you to do something for me.’
‘Cake.’
‘Shep, I need you to fold us out of here and back to our room in the motel.’
‘But they’ll be going to our room,’ Jilly objected.
‘They won’t be there yet. We left the computer running, with the Proctor interview. We don’t want them to see that. I don’t know where we’ll be going from here, but wherever it is, they’ll have a better chance of staying on our heels if they realize how much we know and can try to anticipate our moves.’
‘Toasted-coconut cake.’
‘Besides,’ Dylan added, ‘there’s an envelope of cash in my shaving kit, almost five hundred bucks, and right now all we have is what’s in my wallet.’ He put one hand under Shep’s chin, raised his head. ‘Shep, you’ve got to do this for me.’
Shep closed his eyes. ‘Don’t pee in public.’
‘I’m not asking you to pee, Shep. Just fold us back to our room. Now. Right now, Shep.’