There were two rolls of cash inside, held together by rubber bands. She flipped through them and found about twelve thousand dollars…probably from selling drugs. There was also a St. Christopher medallion in the box, along with another baggie of a powder-like substance that looked to have once been in crystalized formnot meth, but something else.

DeMarco poked her head in the room, looked around, and wrinkled her nose. Find anything? she asked.

A nice little assortment of drugs, she answered. Probably enough for him to not want to let us know what hed been up to the last few nights. You?

Just an old storage room, a bathroom, and the laundry room. Nothing out of the ordinary except an enormous stack of pornography.

Im pretty sure hes selling, too, Kate said. Theres twelve grand here, with meth, coke, and what I think might be DMT.

But no evidence to support a trip to Deton or where he might have gotten Mercys phone number?

No. Nothing like that. We could get forensics to check all of these dirty clothes but other than that, I dont see much of anything here for us.

Same here, DeMarco said. I think we find some place to sleep for the night and maybe try his boss over at Bills Tire and Auto in the morning.

The idea of sleep was enticing. Kate wasnt sure when shed last had a day feel as if it had dragged on this long. She looked to her phone and saw that it was 11:02probably too late to call to check up on Melissa.

Now we just need to figure out this one last mystery before ending the night, Kate said.

What mystery?

Where the hell is the closest motel in a place like this?

***

As it turned out, they had to drive nearly half an hour to find the nearest motel. It was a privately owned place, run by a married couple, two towns over. It was actually closer to the Carroll County police station than it was to Nick Sanders trailer.

When Kate woke up the following morning, she felt refreshed and invigorated despite only getting six hours of sleep the night before. When she woke up by her own internal alarm at 5:55, she felt rather proud of herself. But then she saw the little note sitting on DeMarcos bed. It read: Left at 5:30. Theres a McDonalds down the road. Need coffee. Ill bring back breakfast.