She had turned off the single sixty-watt lamp on the nightstand, but the room was still bright enough for her to see every depressing detail. The relentless white glare of the mercury vapor light in the parking lot burned through the thin drapes that refused to meet in the middle of the window. Adding to the ambience was a dull red glow from the old neon sign that beckoned the road-weary to the Paradise Motel.

There was nothing vaguely resembling paradise here. A ghost of a cynical smile twisted Mari’s lips at the thought that Luanne and Bob-Ray and his amazing gearshift of steel would probably say otherwise. It was all a matter of perspective, and Mari’s perspective was bleak. She looked around the room with its tacky appointments and ratty shag carpet, a fist tightening in her chest. She hadn’t envisioned her first night in Montana being spent in a fuck-stop for truckers.

There would have been humor in the situation if Lucy had been here to share the entertainment and the six-pack of Miller Lite Mari had hauled with her all the way from Sacramento. But Lucy wasn’t here.

Mari lifted a can to her lips and sipped, beyond caring that it was flat and warm. She had found half a pack of cigarettes in her glove compartment and had lit them all in a relentless chain that left her throat raw and her mouth tasting like shit. Her eyes burned from the smoke and from the tears she had been holding at bay all night. Her head throbbed from the pressure and from the effects of beer on an empty stomach.

She had been too shocked to cry in front of J. D. Rafferty, which was just as well. She doubted he would have offered her anything in the way of sympathy. He didn’t even have the decency to pretend he was sorry for Lucy’s death.

“Jeez,” she muttered, shaking her head as she pushed away from the dresser to pace slowly along the foot of the bed. “Now I want a man to lie to me. There’s a first. Bradford, where are you when I need you?”