“Miss Clarke?” He said her name like it was a question, like he couldn’t believe she was here again.

“One and the same,” Nic said.

Booth looked sleepy, as though she’d disturbed him from an afternoon nap, but he was also freshly groomed. She could smell the aftershave. She remembered that about him now, the way he wore his part in this town, gave it reverence with his appearance. Khaki pants. Button-down shirt. Clean shave. He was fit, though slender. He’d mentioned something about cycling. He was lean like a cycler. And his hair was short. Neat.

That was how she’d come to think of him. Neat. Tidy. And completely unaware that his royalty status ended at the crossing of Route 7.

He walked behind the counter.

“What brings you back here?”

Nic took a moment to consider how much to tell him.

“Following up on some things. A new lead. Probably nothing, but I have to be sure.”

Booth nodded. Thinking. But, oddly, he didn’t ask for details.

“You here alone?” he asked instead. He sounded concerned. Or maybe curious. Either way, his face lit up a little.

“For now,” she said. “Can I get a room for the night?”

He busied himself then, looking at a handwritten ledger, finding a key—an actual key on a large wooden ring.

“You want 2A again?”

“Sure.”

She threw a credit card on the counter. He handed her the key on the wooden ring, the number 2A carved into it and painted gold.

Booth slid the card across a manual imprint machine, then gave her the slip to sign.

“Have you been doing okay?” he asked.

Nic signed. Handed back the slip.

“Sure, you know. Given everything.”

The wheels were turning now. She could see it on his face, the way he scrunched his eyes and cocked his head to the side, slightly askew.

“No word from her?”

“No. Nothing.”

He shrugged, held his palm up to the sky. “Strangest thing. How easy it is to disappear in this day and age.”

Only it wasn’t, Nic thought. It wasn’t easy at all. A person needed money and a place to stay and food. All of those things forced a person out into the open, into systems of data that could be traced.

What was strange was how easy it was for everyone to believe Molly Clarke had just left. Just disappeared. Including herself.