But the dark bruising around her neck told Solitude police officer Stevie Taylor otherwise. That, and the fact that the woman didn’t stir as four cops tramped through the motel room. The Wayward Motel was straight out of a bad movie, and Stevie wouldn’t have recommended it to her worst enemy. It catered to the truckers at the adjacent truck stop, and apparently the truckers didn’t generate enough revenue for the motel to patch the holes in the walls or replace the rusted sinks. When Stevie was in high school, it had been rumored that the Wayward would rent rooms to students for a few hours. Her boyfriends had never suggested it. Looking around now, she was glad she’d seen only the backseats of their cars. “Damn it,” muttered Zane Duncan, Solitude’s police chief. “That makes two murdered women within a few days.” “Merry Christmas,” whispered Stevie. Two hours earlier she and Zane had been celebrating at her mother’s home, giving thanks that her brother Bruce had survived a near-fatal car accident and that her sister, Carly, and Carly’s daughter, Brianna, hadn’t been hurt in a carjacking.
