POV: (The Killer)
Maya couldn't shake the feeling that bigger eyes were watching, and somewhere in a roadside motel three states away, her instincts were being proven terrifyingly accurate.
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The motel room smelled of cigarettes and industrial bleach, the kind of place where cash transactions didn't require ID and the desk clerk had learned not to ask questions about guests who paid for a week in advance. Faded wallpaper peeled at the corners, and the air conditioning unit rattled with mechanical emphysema that matched the rasp of traffic on the highway outside.
He sat at the small Formica table that had seen decades of similar conversations, phone in one hand, silver lighter in the other. The flame danced and died as he flicked it open, shut, open, shut—a nervous habit that had developed during the months since Chicago, since the job that should have been clean and final but had left one crucial loose end.
