With an Extreme Burning Read Online Free PDF Page B

car, across to the entrance.
    Inside, the air-conditioning had been turned up high; the cold air was a shock. There were two clerks behind the desk, a middle-aged man and a young woman, both wearing La Quinta blazers. They were attending to three customers, one of whom was talking loudly about a restaurant that specialized in mesquite-grilled steaks. Dix hesitated, then sat down on a piece of lobby furniture. He couldn't do this with other people nearby.
    It was five minutes before the customers left and the male clerk disappeared through a doorway behind the desk. Dix stood, went quickly to where the young woman was tapping at a computer terminal. Her professional smile wavered slightly when she glanced up at him. He thought: I must look like the wrath of God.
    “May I help you, sir?”
    “I hope so. I'm trying to find out …”
    “Yes?”
    The rest of the words wouldn't come. He reached for his wallet, fumbled it open to the photograph of Katy. It was a color portrait photo taken by Owen Gregory as part of a Christmas-gift package two years ago. Quite a good likeness not only in the physical sense but in that it captured Katy's vivacity, even hinted at her puckish sense of humor; Owen was the best professional photographer in Los Alegres. Dix held the wallet out so the young woman could see Katy's image.
    “Do you recognize this woman?”
    The clerk squinted close, lifted her head again. Her smile had gone. “No, I'm sorry, I don't know her.”
    “Never saw her before? You're certain?”
    “Well, you know, I see a lot of people …”
    “She may have stayed here more than once. Several times, in fact, beginning about three months ago. Weekdays, afternoon check-in … Monday, Friday …”
    “Then I really can't help you, sir,” the clerk said. “I don't work weekdays. Just Saturday and Sunday.”
    “Oh. Oh, I see.” Sweat seeped out of him despite the air-conditioned coolness. He brushed a drop of it off his nose. “I guess I'll have to come back on Monday then … a weekday.”
    “Well …”
    The male clerk came out through the doorway. The bar tag over one pocket of his blazer said that he was an assistant manager. His disapproving expression said that he'd been listening and didn't like what he'd heard.
    “I'm sorry, sir,” he said, “but we don't give out information about our guests.” He turned reproachful eyes on the young woman. “Joyce knows that, don't you, Joyce?”
    Dix said, “I don't mean to cause any problems, it's just that I … my wife … I'm trying to find out if she stayed here …”
    “Under no circumstances, sir. That's our policy.”
    The young woman, Joyce, was looking at him in a new way. A look that said she'd figured out what this was all about. A look that was half sympathetic and half pitying.
    Dix turned and fled.
    He was almost an hour late arriving at Elliot's. He wasn't sure why he bothered to keep the appointment at all, his present state being what it was; the prospect of polite chitchat was distasteful. But he was a man who honored his commitments, and he was already in Brookside Park, and Elliot's home was close by. One drink, he thought, quick discussion about his expanded teaching schedule, then he'd make excuses and leave.
    He had trouble finding the house—another reason he was so late. He'd been there twice before, but Elliot's street, Raven's Court, was one of dozens of short, twisty cul-de-sacs that made a maze of the sprawling development. Brookside Park had been built a few years before Balboa State and had grown proportionately, if indiscriminately, from an unincorporated country tract spread out along the freeway into a full-fledged town with a population larger than Los Alegres's. The ranch-style houses and tree-lined streets looked alike to an outsider. Several of his fellow professors—those with enough tenure to afford the relative luxury—lived there because of its proximity to the university.
    Elliot's front lawn had sprouted a Better Lands