Now that I had to postpone this nocturnal quest, my thoughts were relegated to returning to my motel room, so I could at least try to get a few hours sleep. I ripped the pages from the phone book and stuffed them into my pocket, just in case, then turned and started back toward my car. Before I made it as far as the front bumper I stifled two more eye-squinting yawns.

I stopped in my tracks and sighed heavily, rubbed my forehead for a moment, then turned and aimed myself at the door of the mini-mart. If I was even going to make it back to the motel in one piece, I was going to need a cup of coffee.

“I jus’ started ‘em fresh,” the man behind the counter offered as he watched me head for the coffeemakers. “Dey should be ready in jus’ a coupl’a minutes.”

“Thanks,” I replied, giving him a nod as I continued over to the stand where the brew was streaming from a stained filter basket into an equally soiled carafe.

Using what I saw as a judge, it was a safe bet the coffee wasn’t going to be top-notch, so I pulled one of the large cups from the stack and started prepping it with sugar packets. After dumping in six, re-examining the size of the vessel and adding another three, I began rooting through a tray of flavored creamers. After finding a half-dozen that matched, I lined them up then started peeling back the tops and dumping them in.

The fatigue had now worked itself into every nook and cranny of my being, so by the time I picked up the fourth creamer, my hands had decided not to operate in accordance with what my brain was telling them to do. Before I could manage to tear back the foil top, I fumbled the small plastic container, and it fell from my hand then rolled across the aisle floor. I turned and knelt down to retrieve the escapee, and when I did, my eyes caught a silvery glint of light bouncing from a somewhat familiar shape.