Little Pretty Things Read Online Free PDF Page B

didn’t have anything else. My brown hair hung lank and ignored. I spent a few minutes with the eyeliner, a little mascara. Stuff I didn’t usually bother with when I had a date with the toilet brush. I felt Maddy’s influence hurrying me. I hoped she’d used a cell-phone number on her card, so I could reach her before she left town.
    I pulled out the makeup bag from the hollow place below the bottom drawer and tried the fancy lipstick again. Still a bad color. I wiped it off and went back to my own supplies. A little lip gloss, a few extra strokes of the brush before I put my hair in the standard ponytail. I stood back and gazed at myself.
    I had made a decision. Maddy had helped get me into this spot. She could very well help get me out.

    “Well, well,” Lu said when she got into the car. “Well, my .”
    There was no use arguing that I hadn’t put in some effort, but I thought I could detect extra time spent on her part, too. Her hair was shiny and loose, and she’d worn khakis and slip-ons instead of her usual behind-the-desk jeans and tennis shoes. “You going to church after your shift?”
    She grinned. “That woman last night—”
    “Yeah,” I said.
    “Where do you even buy clothes like that?”
    “Not around here,” I said.
    “I want that for my kids, you know,” she said. “You dress nice, you walk into a room, and people want to know you, be like you. They want to like you, before you even say a word. She has a good job?”
    “She must.”
    “You don’t know?” Lu shot me a side glance.
    “We only had a little while to catch up last night. But—well, maybe I could do a better job of staying in touch this time.”
    “So I’m not going to be your fanciest friend.”
    “In fanciness, you come in a close second,” I said. Second place wasn’t so bad.
    “Well, can you steal that raincoat for me?” Lu said.
    “Forget it,” I said. “I have dibs.”
    We pulled into the Mid-Night’s parking lot and took my customary spot in the last row. “Hey,” Lu said. “Looks like you’ve got an extra room to clean.”
    But I’d already seen it. In the shadow of the Mid-Night sat the sleek silver car. It was parked at the end nearest Billy’s room, forcing Billy’s beater Dodge a spot or two down. Maddy had come back to stay, after all.
    Inside, Billy stood at the front desk. He waved us in impatiently.
    “You,” he said, pointing at me. Billy was the manager, our boss, but he didn’t scare either of us. He was scrawny and greasy, with a mustache that looked like he’d been waiting for it to come in since middle school. He also had a series of nervous tics I could barely keep track of and a high, shrill voice with an exaggerated drawl not native to Midway. I did a mean imitation on our walkie-talkies. Billy lived in Mid-Night’s room one-oh-one, the end room near the overpass, an honor he never stopped talking about. An honor that included living next door to the niche for the motel’s trash bins. We’d never been inside this room, never had to clean it, but Lu and I suspected it smelled a little like dirty hair and cheap cologne, and a lot like garbage. “You,” he said again.
    “What did I do?”
    “Did you tell some Bargains who checked in last night there was a dead body in one of the rooms?” he said, squeakier than normal.
    “No,” I said, and glanced at Lu. “Is there?”
    “I had to comp the room for them, they were so mad.”
    “That’s bullshit, Billy,” I said. “They weren’t that upset about it last night.”
    His hand flew to his mustache, and his fingers pulled at the scraggly hairs. Tic number one. “So you did say it.”
    “It was a misunderstanding,” I said. “But they were looking for a way to get their tacos paid for, and you fell right into their hands.”
    “What does that even mean?”
    “See? It’s easy to get things mixed up,” I said. “Has anyone seen the guy in room two-oh-six yet this morning?”
    One of Billy’s eyes double-winked