Free Sacred Sword (Ben Hope 7) by Scott Mariani

Ford Explorer with jacked-up suspension. He climbed stiffly out of the Chrysler, grabbed the case from the back seat and dragged his heels through the snow over to the dirty glass doors that led into the gloomy reception area.
    At the far end of the lobby was a corner desk, and behind that was an unshaven guy in a John Deere baseball cap who stared at Wesley’s American Express Platinum card as if it was the only one he’d ever see, then shrugged and shoved it in the card machine. ‘Room twelve,’ he said, sliding a key across the counter.
    Wesley staggered to Room 12 with his only item of luggage. As he might have expected, the place was a shithole, but at that moment he’d gladly have lain down to rest inside a sewer pipe. He locked his door, laid the case down, made straight for the bed and collapsed on it without even taking off his coat or shoes. Within seconds of his face touching the stained pillow, his utter exhaustion carried him off to sleep.
    When Wesley awoke he was shivering with cold and feeling clammy from sleeping in his clothes. His back ached from the worn-out mattress and the car key in his pocket felt like it had dug a hole in his leg. Panic gripped him. The case! He twisted round to see.
    Still there. He could breathe again.
    His fifty thousand-dollar gold watch told him he’d been asleep for a little over four hours. That was all the sleep he needed nowadays, at his age. He’d drink a cup or two of hot coffee to revive and warm him, then hit the road again. With any luck he’d make it all the way to Martha’s with just one more stop for gas.
    The price of the motel room didn’t appear to include any coffee-making facilities. Wesley trudged outside into the cold, taking the case with him and locking his door behind him. More snow had fallen overnight, a two-inch blanket of it lying over the roof and bonnet of his car. The Ford Explorer was gone; in its place a little Honda. There were no other cars in the place. Popular joint, he thought to himself as he headed along the covered walkway towards the reception lobby to find out if they had such things as coffee in these parts.
    The unshaven guy had clocked off his shift and been replaced by a crab-faced young woman who was sitting hunched over a magazine at the desk, gazing at fashion pictures of girls eighty pounds lighter than her and listening to scratchy rock music on a tiny electronic device manufactured by one of Wesley’s companies. At her fat elbow was a Honda ignition key attached to a pink plastic fob that said ‘Kat’. When Wesley enquired about getting a coffee, she gaped at him for a moment as if he’d asked for champagne and oysters, then motioned laconically through a doorway on the far side of the reception lobby and informed him that there was a coffee machine down the hall.
    Wesley had trouble first finding the coffee machine, then more trouble getting it to work. After several attempts and a few thumps he persuaded it to accept the loose change he fed into it, and finally the machine sputtered something dark and steaming into the Styrofoam cup he offered to it. He managed to overfill his cup, and had to carry it carefully to avoid spilling any over his thousand-dollar handmade shoes.
    On his way back through the reception lobby, coffee scalding one hand, the case weighing down the other, he threw a glance at Kat behind the desk a few yards away. She hadn’t moved a millimetre and looked as if she’d been ladled into her chair, a big round flaccid lump of flesh. ‘Hey, thanks,’ he called across to her, with a touch of sarcasm. She didn’t look up from her magazine.
    ‘Great service in this place,’ he said. Still no response. He shook his head and awkwardly tugged open the glass door with the hand holding the coffee, wincing as more of it sploshed out onto his fingers. Billionaires shouldn’t have such problems.
    As he approached his room, Wesley suddenly stopped. The door was lying six inches open.
    Hold on. Didn’t