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Matchbox Four Paul, Adam, and Kyle were standing behind me as I worked to unlock the door to Rob's hotel room. My elbow kept hitting against Paul's rib cage. His cigarette smoke blew past the right side of my face, and his breath tickled my neck. "Paul, do you mind?" "Oh," Paul mumbled, stepping back. "Sorry, Brian." As he spoke, I heard the doorknob click. I jiggled the handle, and the door opened. Flicking on the light switch, I glanced about the room. "Guys, there's nothing in here," I announced. Paul pushed his way past me. "What?!?" Paul ripped off his shades and rushed to the centre of the room. Looking about, he exclaimed, "What the hell is going on?" No one answered. We were all afraid that Paul would rip our heads off if we did. Paul sighed. His hands went to his head, and he fell back into the bed. "Maybe we should search the room anyway," Adam braved. "He might have left something behind that will help us figure out where he went." Paul sat up and nodded. "Okay. I'll search the bathroom." "I'll check the closet," Adam said as Kyle wandered over to the bureau. I scanned the room again. Besides what they said, there were only pictures hanging on the wall, a wastebasket, the bed, and a refrigerator with a mini-bar beneath it. I opened the door to the fridge. Nothing. Then I checked the mini-bar… Nothing. All the alcohol was gone. Considering the mini-bar in my room, I remembered that it'd had about forty units of alcohol inside. And mine still had forty. It's not like we've been there long enough to do any drinking; we had just arrived this afternoon. "Guys," Paul called us from the bathroom. Kyle, Adam, and I turned as Paul stepped out of the bathroom, holding up an electric razor. "He left this. But it was under the shower curtain. He probably just dropped it." I sauntered to the bed. I hadn't noticed how neat it was before. There was a ruffled area where Paul had been laying. Besides that, the bed was perfect. Rob had even done hospital corners! Where did he pick that up? Under the bed was immaculate too. But I saw something across the way from me, a dark rectangular object. No matter how far I stretched out my arm, I couldn't reach it. So I got onto the bed and reached down the side. My hand brushed against a plastic card. Grabbing it, I pulled it from its hiding space and looked at it. Rob's picture was on it, under the word "Florida"… Rob's driver's license. I stuck my hand further down the side of the bed and reached the object I had seen before. Before I could see it, I knew what it was. Rob's wallet. "Found something," I announced. Adam and Kyle turned to me, and Paul emerged from the bathroom. I held up the license in one hand and the wallet in the other. Each looked from the wallet to the license and back again. Paul raised his eyebrows. "Then how did he get out of here?" "Hitchhiking, I guess," Adam replied, sitting down on the bed. "I mean, you know Rob!" "But why'd he leave?" Shrugging, Adam said, "Hey, I ain't the Psychic Friends Network!" "I found something too," Kyle piped up and held a piece of paper in the air. "It was in the wastebasket. The handwriting is his, but it's in Spanish!" "Huh?" Adam reached over and snatched the paper from Kyle. Scanning the sheet, he said, "Yeah, it is in Spanish!" "What's it say?" Paul asked, sitting behind Adam, looking over his shoulder. I realised he wasn't smoking and figured that he must have gone through Kyle's cigarettes too. Adam shook his head and mumbled, "I ain't an interpreter either." "So let me get this straight," Kyle said, crossing his arms. "Rob washes a shirt, packs up, takes off, doesn't tell the rest of us, and leaves his wallet and something written in Spanish?" Lying back on the bed, Paul sighed. "None of this is making any sense," he breathed. Then everyone was quiet, and we heard nothing. Nothing at all. Not even the traffic outside, or an air conditioning unit kicking on, or someone noisy in the hallway. Dead air. I was beginning to understand "Kody" better. The words ran through my head. So please hand me the bottle, I think I'm lonely now… Oh, that couldn't be what this was about! I stared at the empty mini-bar. He wouldn't just take off with a bunch of alcohol to get drunk somewhere, would he? It was kind of weird. Then again, considering everything we knew thus far… No. There had to be something else going on. Somehow, this all made sense. "We gotta call Marisol," I broke the silence. Paul, Adam, and Kyle stared at me, like I had destroyed something sacred. Then Paul nodded. |