“That is the nightly rate,” she said, her voice tartly smug.

My head came up. “Two hundred twenty dollars? It’s the off-season,” I said, and she shrugged. Shocked, I thought for a moment. “Can I get a discount for Were Insurance?”

Her eyes were mocking. “We only offer discounts for AAA.”

My lips pressed together and I went warm. Slowly I curled my hand up and brought it below the level of the high partition, hiding my bandaged knuckles. Crap, crap, crap. You gotta love those small-town mentalities. She had upped the rates for us, hoping we’d go somewhere else.

“Cash,” she added smugly. “We don’t take plastic or personal checks.”

The chipped sign behind her said they did, but I wasn’t going to walk out of there. I had my pride, and money was nothing compared to that. “Do you have one with a kitchen?” I asked, shaking inside. Two hundred and twenty dollars would really take a chunk out of my cash.

“That will be thirty extra,” she said.

“Of course it will,” I muttered. Angry, I jerked my bag open and pulled out two hundreds and a fifty as Jenks came in. His eyes went from the money in my hand to the woman’s satisfaction, and finally to my anger, figuring it out immediately. Hell, he had probably heard the entire conversation with his pixy hearing.

His gaze rose to the fake camera in the corner, then out the glass door to the parking lot. “Rache, I think we hit prime-time gold,” he said, taking the pen chained to the desk and writing the plate number on the form. “Someone just peed into the pool, and I can smell shower mold from here. If we hurry, we can get a shot of the bridge at sunset for the opening credits.”

The woman set a key on the counter, her motions suddenly hesitant.

Jenks flipped open his phone. “Do you still have the number for the county’s health department from our last stop?”

I steeled my face into a bored countenance. “It’s on my clipboard. But let’s wait on the opening shot. We can do a sunrise frame. Tom had a cow the last time we burned film before he had a chance to canvas the local hot spots for the worst offenders.”

The woman went ashen. I dropped the bills on the counter and took the worn key on its little plastic tag. My eyebrows rose; number thirteen, how apropos. “Thanks,” I said.

Jenks jerked to get in front of me as I turned to leave. “Allow me, Ms. Morgan,” he said, opening it gracefully, and I strode out the door, pride intact.

Somehow I managed to keep a straight face until the door clanked shut. Jenks snickered, and I lost it. “Thanks,” I said between snorts. “God, I was ready to smack her a good one.”

“No problem,” Jenks said, scanning the rooms, his gaze settling on the last one tucked at the short end of the el. “Can I drive the van over there?”