Chapter Text
“David, stop leaving your body milk lying around the motel,” Stevie says.
David looks up from where he’s lounging on the front office sofa, reading a brochure for the Elevation Spa and Wilderness Retreat.
“What...you...what are you talking about?”
Stevie frowns. Why does David sound so nervous?
“Your body milk. You know, the body milk you sell in the store? The stuff that you can’t drink? The stuff that’s apparently one of your biggest selling items, so I don’t know why you keep leaving bottles of it lying around here. It’s not going to sell if you hide it behind the front desk.” She reaches down and pulls a bottle of body milk from under the counter, and plops it down on top of the desk with a thump.
David jumps up and practically runs (that’s a first, Stevie thinks) to the desk and snatches up the bottle. “Um. Thanks. Uh...what did you mean, I keep leaving it lying around? Have you -”
“ - found more of it lying around? Yes, I have. The first three bottles I kept, because my skin gets really dry this time of year and I thought maybe you were trying to send me a not-very-subtle hint about my moisturizing choices. Because you aren’t ever subtle about moisturizing. But now I’m starting to think you’re just sloppy.”
David stares at the bottle, then at Stevie. Then back at the bottle again. Then back at Stevie.
“Um. Where - um - just out of curiosity, where did you find the other, um, three bottles? Because, um, I’m just wondering...how sloppy I was?”
Stevie stares at David. Sure, he’s been a little jumpy since the store opened, but she’s chalked that up to the dual pressures of starting a new business and banging his new business partner. She knows David can’t have too much on his plate at once or he gets a bit...squirrely.
But this is a bit too squirrely, even for David.
So she crosses her arms and stares at him over the desk. “What’s going on, David?”
“What...what makes you think something’s...going on? Can’t I just ask a simple question about where you’ve been finding random bottles of body milk scattered around the motel for no apparent reason without getting this third degree?” His eyes dart around the lobby, as if he expects more body milk to suddenly appear out of nowhere.
As if that would happen.
Stevie sighs. She’s already bored.
“I found one bottle over there on the stairway leading to the upper floor.” She gestures towards it. “I found another sitting outside the door to the office one morning when I started work. And I found another one in Room 4 just a few days after we found the dead guy in there. I thought that was kind of insensitive of you at the time, to be honest, but I figured maybe you were high and you were performing some sort of cleansing ritual.”
David looks at her and blinks a lot. A lot. “Um. Okay? Thanks for telling - um, reminding me where...I left...them.”
Stevie’s about to ask him if he’s high now, but at that moment she looks up and gives a little scream. This makes David scream as well. God, he’s jumpy.
“Roland! Holy shit, you scared me. I didn’t see you come in. How long have you been standing there?”
Roland is standing in the middle of the office. He’s swaying from side to side a little, with a far-away look on his face. But this isn’t anything that Stevie’s unused to seeing where Roland is concerned.
Stevie looks at him closely - more closely than she usually cares to look at Roland. He looks...okay? She thinks? Maybe his eyes are a bit more vacant than usual? And...is his T-shirt on inside out under his flannel shirt? Which might also be inside out? Is Roland high too? Why is everyone apparently getting hold of this good weed lately and not sharing it with her?
“Well, anyway,” she says, “I’m glad you’re here. Can you get started checking the eavestroughs this morning? It looks like we’re in for rain this week and we need to -”
But at that moment Roland turns around and walks, wobbling a little, right out of the door of the office.
“Well,” David says, “I guess he’s just...really anxious to get started on those eavestroughs. And by the way,” he continues, waving the brochure at her, “have you read this? Do you realize that Elevation is actually some sort of death cult?’
“Yes, David. Anyone with a fibre of common sense knows that.”
“Well, I didn’t know it...”
“And I think I’ve made my point.”
“...but anyway, I forgot that I came in here this morning to ask you about Ray.”
“What about Ray?” Is he the one with the good weed? You can never tell in this town.
“I was wondering if you knew why Ray’s been standing across the road from the motel all morning.”
Stevie frowns at him. “What?” She goes to the window and looks out. Sure enough, there’s Ray, wearing a blue raincoat and standing across the road in front of the treeline.
“That’s...weird. I mean, even for Ray.”
David comes up behind her and looks out the window over her shoulder. “And that’s saying something.”
“You said he’s been standing there all morning?”
“Yes. Maybe he’s staging a sit-in - or I guess it’s a stand-in - hoping he can persuade you to sell the motel after all.”
“Funny. I don’t remember seeing him there when I got in this morning.”
As they’re looking, Ray lifts his arm and waves at them, smiling.
“Okay,” Stevie says, “what -”
But at that moment the door to the office crashes open and Alexis comes flying in. She stops, wide-eyed, when she sees Stevie and David.
“Oh. So, like...did you two see Roland just now?”
“Yes,” David says. “He was literally just here in the office, looking like he’d been painting in an enclosed space. Again. And frankly I’m starting to think the last four times weren’t accidents.”
“Um. Right. So, like...you’re sure it was Roland?”
“I think I know Roland by now,” Stevie says. “Yes, of course it was him. You probably passed him on your way in, didn’t you?”
“Well, I passed...someone. But, um...okay, it couldn’t have been Roland.”
“What are you talking about? Why couldn’t it have been Roland?”
Alexis steps closer to the two of them, rolls her eyes, and hisses, “Because Roland has been dead in the trunk of the Lincoln for two days.”