Unexpectedly, Milo - Matthew Dicks [108]
Milo was then subjected to another fifteen minutes of suggestions and recommendations from the Brysons, which ranged from putting an ad in the county’s Rare Reminder to hiring a crop duster to fly over Chisholm with a banner that included Tess Bryson’s name and his phone number. All the while, Milo shook his head in mock appreciation while searching for an opening that would allow him to leave.
With great effort, Milo finally extracted himself from the Brysons’ home just after nine, toting a bag of biscuits and a Tupperware container of gravy in his hands, courtesy of Emily Bryson. All he wanted to do was find the motel that Macy had told him about, pay for a room, and close his eyes for the next ten hours. He had lost all hope of finding Tess Bryson. Kelly Plante had proven to be a dead end, and despite the sausage and ample string of suggestions that they provided, Michael and Emily Bryson had been equally unhelpful. He could look into the Bryson family that Kelly Plante had mentioned earlier that evening, but since it was likely that none of them lived in town anymore and he had no definite address, he suspected that finding even a scrap of information on them would be impossible.
Since he had no other means of finding her and no ideas about how to proceed, his mission had sadly come to an end. He would need to leave Chisholm by the next afternoon if he had any hope of making it back to Connecticut in time for his visit with Edith Marchand on Saturday. Maybe once he was back in Connecticut, he would hire a private investigator to locate Tess Bryson. He was feeling more and more foolish for even embarking on this pipe dream of a journey.
chapter 26
Milo was certain that the Do Not Disturb sign was hanging off the door to his motel room, and besides, it was seven A.M. Even though this was hardly a five-star inn, he doubted that the cleaning crew of the Pinecrest Motor Lodge began their work this early in the morning, sign or no sign. And yet there it was again. A knocking on his motel room door.
Milo knew that there were people in the world who would shout at the closed door from the confines of their bed, ordering the disturber to take a hike or hit the road, and though Milo sometimes wished that he were one of these people, he was not. His distaste for confrontation and his genuine desire to be liked kept him from shouting at even unseen strangers. Instead, he stumbled to the door in his stocking feet, trying to adjust his eyes to the light creeping in from the edges of the thick brown curtains.
The woman standing at the door was a slender brunette wearing glasses, an Orioles cap, and a floral scarf wrapped tightly around her neck. A sweater stretched from her shoulders down to her knees, where dark leggings took over and canvas sneakers completed the outfit. Emblazoned across the chest of the sweater was a red-eyed tabby cat slurping down the hindquarters and tail of a doomed mouse. Knit in bursts of oranges and yellows and reds, the sweater was the most garish piece of clothing that Milo had ever seen. He couldn’t help but stare at it a moment before raising his gaze and meeting the woman’s eyes, which were round, large, and hazel.
“Milo?” she asked.
He was surprised to hear his name spoken from this stranger, but realization quickly dawned as she repeated herself.
“Are you Milo Slade?” she asked again. Her