There is a dead body in room 110 of the Death Valley Motel, and the evidence points to murder. Managers Ric and Alex Delgado are siblings with police work in their blood; they chose this small Death Valley town specifically because it appeared to be a quiet place where Alex could heal from the violent traumas of her past. Now a killer has struck too close to Alex, opening old wounds and threatening the calmness and routine of her new life.

The situation gets more complicated when Detective Will Stellar trains his observant eye on the Delgados and ascertains they have something to hide. Murder seems to follow Alex Delgado, and Detective Stellar is certain that she is a dangerous woman. Racing against time and against each other, the Delgados and Detective Stellar risk their lives to uncover the truth, which is ever more complicated and dangerous than any of them could have ever imagined.

STRANGER

A Death Valley MysteryBy Melissa M. Garcia

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2010 Melissa M. Garcia
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4502-3691-1

Chapter One

What happened to Tuesday?

She stared at the desk calendar and tried to remember the past twenty-four hours. Could she have forgotten an entire day?

Alex Delgado remembered every day she had been in prison. She could recall every minute of the ten years, two months, and seven days she had spent behind bars. There were days, early on, when she would have encouraged the blackouts. There were nights she would have loved to erase from her mind.

She had thought the memory lapses were in her past. She hadn't had a blackout since the night she'd been arrested.

"Did you hear me?"

She looked up at her brother, Ric, standing in the doorway of the office.

"I said the guy's dead in room 110."

"I heard you," she said, ignoring the sick feeling in her stomach.

Staring out the window at the brown desert, she wiped the perspiration from the back of her neck. She tried to keep the fear from rising in her gut. She didn't want to go back to prison. She rubbed her head, which was starting to pound at the temples-a side effect of the memory lapses.

Their guest had arrived on Saturday. Saturday she remembered. She even remembered Sunday and Monday, despite the fact that every day in this small, boring desert town was exactly the same as the day before.

She couldn't forget him because he was the only person staying in the motel other than herself and her brother. He hadn't looked sick. Nor had he looked suicidal.

"Please tell me he was older than he looked."

"Age wasn't an issue."

She turned to her brother. He was wearing a white wife-beater and black shorts. His arms were covered in tattoos, the largest a fading crucifix on his right forearm. There were also black stripes lining his left shoulder. His left arm was covered in Aztec art-a fading yellow sun, a pyramid, and a black snake with red eyes that slithered toward the black stripes. She had no idea how many more he had. The tattoos and his dark eyes gave him a menacing look.

"Alex, I gotta ask ..." He didn't finish. He didn't need to. He was pacing now. That worried her more than the dead body in room 110.

"I didn't do it," she told him, but a sick feeling in her stomach made her wonder if she did have something to do with this man's death. Why couldn't she remember yesterday?

"What's the scene look like?"

He stopped pacing and looked at her now. She waited for an answer despite the annoyed look on his face. He sighed.

"Door was closed, but no deadbolt. He was dressed. Looks like one shot to the side of the head. Dropped by the bed. Thirty-eight revolver at his feet. Blood and brain matter on the dresser."

"Revolver?"

He nodded and then rubbed his hand over his face.

She clicked on the fan and laid her head on her hand and closed her eyes to think. As her head continued to pound, her fear turned to nausea. The fan cooled the back of her neck as the sun warmed her face. She pushed away the fear. She needed to think.

She shouldn't have complained about the boring quiet life in Lake City, Nevada. It was better than prison.

She had gone to bed Monday night. As always she had trouble sleeping. Then what? The fog had crept into her brain. She remembered coming down the stairs to the office just before seven and relieving her brother at the front desk. He'd gone off to clean the rooms.

But the calendar showed Wednesday.

She hadn't heard a gunshot. Her room, 200, was close enough to room 110; she would have heard it. All she remembered was blackness. She tried to will her memory back, but knew the missing hours wouldn't return. They never had before.

"I need to see it."

She pulled her long black hair back in a ponytail. She felt Ric's eyes on her but she ignored him. She grabbed a lint brush from the drawer and rolled it across her chest and shoulders. She grabbed a pair of cleaning gloves for good measure.

"Not a good idea."

"Give me the card."

He handed her the card. "Don't do anything stupid."

She walked out of the office into the parking lot of the Death Valley Motel. Scanning the parking lot, the street, and the other rooms, she approached the door to room 110. She waited for a pickup truck to drive past, and when everything was quiet again she swiped the card, saw the green light flash, and slipped in.

Standing in the crime scene, her lungs expanded as if filling with air for the first time. She felt her heartbeat in every inch of her body as her eyes searched the room. She felt awake and alert. The fear of returning to prison faded, replaced by her childhood memories of wanting to be a cop.

She scanned the edges of the room first, taking in the scene. There was no forced entry. No sign of struggle. The back of the door was clean. A plaque hanging just under the peephole listed the checkout time. The window was closed, the shades drawn, the bedside lamp lit. It looked like a normal motel room, except for the smell.

The air wasn't on, making the room stuffy. That bothered her more than the stench of blood and the early stages of decomposition permeating the room. She could see no blood splatter on the window or drapes. She looked across the room, ignoring the body on the floor. The room seemed bare, even for a motel room, with no personal belongings visible. It reminded her of her own room upstairs.

The bathroom door was wide open. No blood on this door, either, but as her eyes traveled around the room, back to where she stood, she saw the deep red splatter on the television stand and the wall behind. More dried blood covered the dresser.

And gray brain matter, still wet.

A shot to the head. Their guest was tall. If he had been standing, the splatter was too low. Maybe he was kneeling or sitting on the floor, she thought. She felt her headache worsen.

She walked to the closet and edged it open. The rod was empty. A small suitcase sat on the floor. Moving aside the L.A. Dodgers cap on top, she flipped open the top and inventoried the clothes. Two shirts, tee shirts, two pairs of shorts, underwear, and socks. The guy didn't need much, and he hadn't bothered to unpack. She closed the bag.

Slipping off her flip-flops, she tiptoed carefully around the blood on the floor. The bed was empty, the pale blue bedspread pulled back to reveal the white sheet underneath, also splattered with blood.

She found a condom wrapper, torn open on the floor. She opened the nightstand drawer and found it empty. No wallet or cell phone anywhere.

She looked at the mass on the floor beside the bed. The skin was gray. She didn't check for rigor; she didn't need to touch the body to know he'd been dead for hours. His mouth was open slightly, as if he were about to whisper a secret. She didn't look at his eyes, but she was positive it was the same man she had seen check in on Saturday. She was sure of that even though a portion of his head was gone and the rest was covered in dark blood.

In his late thirties, he had arrived alone. She had noticed a bad vibe as soon as he walked in the office. His intense, cold stare told her he was tougher than his small build suggested.

She had been concerned about the limp. He was too young for back problems. She presumed he was a gangbanger, but he was older than the guys she knew in Los Angeles. She guessed he'd been caught in a gun...