Free Snow by Asha King

secured. He might need a second person there after all to watch the door in shifts.
    Either that or he’d be chaining her to the bed.
    Chair. He’d chain her to a chair . Why did his head immediately go to handcuffing her half-naked to a bed?
    “Okay.” Mike pulled out his phone to do a quick search of the motels around Midsummer. A bed and breakfast would be nice but there was too great a risk of having a nosy manager and all he needed was for someone to tell a neighbor, who would tell another neighbor, and then God knows who would find out. There were a few possibilities—he skipped the ones that were too near the main roads and found a remote place. Poor quality but, again, he wouldn’t be ordering their food or letting housekeeping in. He and Liliana would have to keep the place clean for a few days themselves. Maybe he’d have someone from his team stock the room with non-perishables as well. “Benji, I’m sending you an address. Book us a room for seven days. Register, sign in, whatever. Stick the no housekeeping sign on the door, leave the place unlocked with the key in the room. We’ll be there by the evening.”
    He thought over the supplies he currently had and what else he might need. Cash was fine. He had a pistol in a lockbox in his SUV—
    The vehicle. It was also too obvious—it would stand out in the parking lot of a shitty motel in a back road area.
    This was getting to be quite the pain in the ass.
    “And a car,” he said. “Something maybe six or seven years old. Not traced to the company.”
    “I’ll take care of it,” Belladona said.
    Mike nodded and pulled out his car keys, which he tossed to her. “Exchange everything in the SUV to the car’s trunk and leave it in my parking spot here.”
    “Key in the usual spot, got it. Give me two hours.”
    They wouldn’t be leaving until later that evening, so that would be perfect. Very few things in the room left to pack and—
    Oh shit.
    He scooped up the photos and papers, closed the folder, and kept it in hand as he rose. “Anything else?”
    Benji and Belladona exchanged a look. “No,” he said. “Is there a problem?”
    Mike grimaced. “Just that, as I said, I left her changed to a shower curtain rod and she’s either screaming by now or has chewed her own arm off.”

 
    Chapter Six
     
     
    The hotel room was silent as Mike entered, so he was leaning toward “chewed her arm off”.
    Of course if that had been the case, he would’ve expected blood, and there was none. Not even the shower ran anymore and there was no screaming, not even as the door clicking shut made it clear he’d returned.
    He set the folder on the dresser, shoving its grim contents from his mind, and looked to the bathroom door where the orange light shone beneath, spilling over the carpet.
    Shit, shit, shit . He hadn’t meant to leave her in there, inwardly kicked himself for it. He didn’t want to have the meeting in her presence but should’ve simply delayed her shower when he had no idea how long he’d be down there. It wasn’t like him to slip up like that.
    He twisted the bathroom doorknob slowly and eased the door open. “Liliana?”
    Warmth and steam billowed out, slicking his skin. Silence, or at least mostly. Just the crinkle of the shower curtain. The ring of metal against metal, likely the cuff of the rod.
    And the slightest sniffle that suggested she’d been crying.
    Guilt rushed through him but he cleared his throat, tried not to let it show as he pushed the door open fully and stepped in the room. Immediately he glimpsed her face in the mirror where she peered around the shower curtain. Her eyes were red-rimmed and angry, mouth set in a straight line.
    “I’m sorry,” he said swiftly, reaching for the key in his pocket.
    Her glare was almost enough to stop him in his tracks and he’d received his fair share of scowls in a variety of circumstances. This was probably the first time an attractive naked woman in a shower with one arm