The Cold Kiss Read Online Free PDF Page A

answer.
    I looked at Sara. “What the hell is he talking about?”
    “No idea,” she said. “He’s delirious.”
    I stopped looking back and focused on the road. I could still hear him breathing and mumbling about liars and money. Every now and then he’d raise his voice and accuse us of being thieves.
    I wanted to tell him that he could have his money back, and he could walk the rest of the way to Omaha, for all I cared, but of course I didn’t.
    As far as I was concerned, we’d earned that money.
    Every cent of it.

    Sara tried to keep Syl awake, but after a while she gave up and sat back in her seat. “We have to pull over somewhere, Nate.”
    “I know it.”
    “We need a phone.”
    “I know it,” I said. “That motel is supposed to be up here somewhere.”
    I noticed she was shaking and I put my hand on her leg and squeezed. “It’s okay.”
    “Jesus, Nate, what if he dies back there?”
    “He’s not going to die.”
    I wanted to keep her mind off Syl, so I reached between the seats for the road atlas then held it out to her. “See if you can tell where we are. Maybe there’s something listed.”
    She took the atlas and turned on the overhead light. The glare made it hard to see the road, and I leaned forward against the steering wheel.
    “Did we pass Norrisville?”
    I told her we had, a long time ago.
    She read off a few other towns, and eventually we figured out where we were.
    It wasn’t good.
    We had another thirty miles to the next major turnoff and another twenty from there to the interstate. At the speed we were going, it would take hours.
    I hoped the sign for the motel had been right.
    “Oh my God, Nate.”
    “There’s nothing we can do,” I said. “Let’s just let him sleep.”
    Sara looked back at him for a long time, then turned and stared at the road ahead and didn’t say a word.
    The highway was nearly invisible behind the snow, and I was beginning to think the sign for the motel was wrong, or that we’d passed it in the storm, when I saw headlights flash along the side of the road.
    Sara saw them, too, and she sat up fast.
    “What’s that?”
    I wasn’t sure.
    The headlights flashed again, then we saw a car turn and disappear behind what looked like a small house. When we got closer, I saw several small buildings, all wood, and all spread out around a parking lot. It looked like a motel, but there were no lights in any of the windows and the neon sign out front was black.
    I felt my stomach sink.
    “I think it’s closed.”
    “There was a car,” Sara said. “Someone’s there.”
    I slowed down and felt the tires spin against the snow, then I turned into the parking lot.
    I could see the outline of a palm tree above the motel’s sign. The neon letters under the tree were blacked out but big enough so that I could still read them in the dark: THE OASIS INN .
    There was a main office behind the sign, and I pulled in and stopped across from the front door. A line of buildings stretched out in two directions from the main parking lot. Beyond them, just past the range of my headlights, I saw the storm-faded shapes of playground swings and slides.
    “Are they open?” Sara asked.
    I told her I didn’t know.
    No lights were on, but there was a soft amber glow coming through the windows. Someone was inside.
    “I’m going to knock,” I said.
    Sara looked back at Syl. “Just hurry, okay?”
    When I got out of the car, the wind hit hard and sucked the air out of me. I kept my head down and kicked through the snow toward the front door.
    There was a covered walkway out front that ran the length of the building. Once I got under it, I looked back and saw Sara leaning over her seat and holding her hand against Syl’s forehead.
    I didn’t like to see her touching him.
    Contagious or not, I wanted him out of my car as soon as possible. It wasn’t the kindest attitude, but right then, I didn’t care.
    What Syl needed was a hospital.
    Once we found one, he’d be someone