Spilled Blood Read Free Page B

parking lot, he had a perfect vantage on the plant’s barbed-wire fence glistening in the rain. Ahead of him, he saw the main street of Barron. Between the two landmarks was the chocolate-brown ribbon of the river.
    The motel was a U-shaped, single-story building with two dozen rooms. The white paint had begun to peel away in chips, and the gutters sagged from the shingled black roof. The doors were cherry red. After parking and retrieving his bag, he ducked through the rain and opened the screen door of the motel office. The interior was humid and a fan swiveled on the desk, which was unusual for March. On the left wall, he saw an ice machine and two vending machines selling snacks and pop. He approached the check-in counter.
    “I’m Chris Hawk,” he told the man seated behind the counter. “I called this morning about a room.”
    The motel owner nodded pleasantly. “Welcome to Barron, Mr. Hawk.”
    Chris guessed that the man was in his early fifties. He had an olive, Italian cast to his skin. His hair was black and gray, buzzed into a wiry crew cut. He had a jet-black mustache, a mole on his upper cheek, and a silver chain nestled in the matted fringe of his chest hair. He slid out a reservation form, which he handed to Chris with a pen.
    “I’m looking for the county courthouse,” Chris mentioned as he filled in his personal details.
    “Yes, of course. Well, you can’t miss it. It’s downtown, beautiful old building, red stone.”
    Chris stopped writing and looked up. “Why ‘of course’?”
    “Oh, everyone knows who you are, Mr. Hawk, and why you’re here.”
    “Already?”
    The motel owner shrugged. He was short and squat with bulging forearms. His T-shirt, which fit snugly, advertised Dreamland Bar-B-Que. “This is a small town. If you fart in your bedroom, your neighbors start gossiping about what you had for dinner.”
    Chris laughed. “That’s good to know.”
    The man extended his hand. His handshake was a vise. “My name is Marco Piva.”
    “Since you know why I’m here, Marco, can you tell me what people are saying about what happened on Friday night?”
    The motel owner snuffled loudly. He wiped his bulbous nose above his mustache. “Trust me, you don’t want to hear that.”
    “They think my daughter murdered Ashlynn Steele.”
    “Oh, yes, everyone says she did. No one thinks it was an accident or a game. I’m very sorry. I have to tell you, I knew something like this would happen. Violence begets violence, and someone dies. It’s a shame two young girls were involved.”
    Chris handed the registration form back to Marco and turned as the screen door banged behind him. A teenage boy, the kind of fresh-faced Scandinavian Lutheran that Chris expected to find in this part of the state, stood in the doorway. He had wavy blond hair that was plastered on his head from the rain and the sturdy physique of a football player. His eyes were sky blue. He wore a form-fitting white T-shirt that emphasized his muscles, crisp jeans, and cowboy boots. Chris figured he was seventeen or eighteen years old.
    “Johan,” Marco called. “This is Mr. Hawk.”
    The boy didn’t look surprised. “Hello,” he said.
    “Johan lives in St. Croix,” Marco added.
    “Oh, really?” Chris said. “So you know my daughter.”
    “She lives across the street.”
    Chris found it odd that his teenage daughter lived so close to a boy who looked like a Norwegian god and she had never mentioned him. Not once. He thought about Hannah’s warning: You see the girl she wants you to see.
    “Marco says a lot of people think Olivia is guilty, Johan. What do you think?”
    The boy looked pained. “I guess nobody really knows what happened,” he replied, but his face said something else. We all know what happened.
    “I’m here to help her,” Chris told him. “Maybe you can help me.”
    “How?”
    “By telling me about the bad blood between the kids in Barron and St. Croix.”
    Johan frowned. “I try to stay out of