Tricked into believing it was as cold outside as it was in the room, she put on a sweater over her jersey. She opened her door and walked into a wall of wet heat. If she’d known it was going to be this humid, she wouldn’t have bothered to get the disastrous haircut. The climate would have done it all for her and she could have saved the hundred and ten bucks. All this ferocious heat and it wasn’t even eight o’clock. As she walked toward the coffee shop, a door opened in one of the motel rooms ahead—Chloe’s room, if she remembered correctly—and Tim came out, bare-chested, his T-shirt clutched in one hand, his sneakers in the other. She stood beside the ice machine and watched as he made his way along the concrete walkway, fumbled with a key, and entered what had to be his room. If that meant what it appeared to mean, it more than made up for dragging unpaid-intern Tim down here and sticking him in one of these grim rooms. She couldn’t imagine Chloe continuing this after the plane touched down in Boston, but at least for the moment, skinny little Tim had definitely scored. Good for him. Maybe he should head up to Desmond’s room next and try his luck there.

The booths and counter stools in the coffee shop were upholstered in veiny red vinyl, and there was a plastic case on the counter filled with what appeared to be honest-to-God pies. Context was everything. In Boston or New York, this would be the hippest spot in town, all these coffee-shop-chic accoutrements, but here, in this place, it was just a tad too real. The waitress behind the counter motioned with a pot of coffee and said, “Sit wherever, I’ll be right over.”

Jane slid into a booth. The window offered a spectacular view of the parking lot and the road beyond, clogged with rush-hour traffic. Three men were on stools at the counter, cradling cups of coffee as if they were in no rush to get anywhere, casting disinterested glances at a television suspended from the ceiling. More clouds swirling over weather maps and shots of a rainlashed island somewhere in the Caribbean.

The waitress came to her booth, adjusted her silverware, flipped her coffee cup and filled it, all with a show of nimble professionalism Jane admired. It isn’t what you do in life that matters, it’s how well you do it. She was a big, square woman with straight, dark hair that hung like a curtain to the middle of her back and was cut in long, rounded bangs in front, as if they’d been rolled in a can. Lucy, according to her name tag. No doubt younger than she looked, as this type of woman always seemed to be.

“Not too busy here this morning,” Jane said.