The Not So Lonesome Knight: Mistake at the Motel

Return to the Motel

The three-hour ride back to the motel was full of lively chatter regarding the findings of the case thus far. The strange circumstances surrounding the five-hundred-dollar deposit drew a myriad of speculations that perplexed all three agents. Each one offered up their own untested and unproven theories. Each new theory puzzling the agents more than the last.

With every forward churning of the wheels towards the motel, the shades of dusk deepen in the skies around them. When they finally arrived at the motel, the hour was hedging towards midnight. Exiting the cabin, Bonnie and Michael stretch out their limbs.

"Ya know somethin' Bons? I gotta a feelin' I'm gonna sleep clear till mornin'. I'm exhausted." Michael remarks, barely biting back a yawn.

Bonnie sheepishly smiles knowing exactly what he meant. The past twenty-four hours had felt elongated as if, it stretched on far longer than any period ought to. "Same here." She readily agrees as they traverse the pavement together.

"I'm gonna make sure you get settled and then I'll check to see if they have my room ready," Michael casually remarks, sensing her unease about his following her to the room.

Just as they rounded the corner to the room they shared last night, Kitt calls over Michael's comlink. But he doesn't have to say anything for at that very moment, Bonnie and Michael found themselves face to face with the cause of Kitt's alarm. The door leading to the room they had shared last night had been splintered down.

"Someone has broken into your room." Spilled Kitt's Bostonian twang.

"Yeah. We see it, Kitt. Tell us somethin' we don't already know." Michael grimly states.

Michael edges forward, placing himself between Bonnie's slender figure and the wide-open room. His gun is extracted from the holster effortlessly and he slowly breaches the entryway, mindful that the person who ransacked the room could have lingered in the hopes of landing an ambush. It was highly unlikely that someone would do something so foolish in a public place but he wasn't about to take that risk. Especially, not while Bonnie was with him.

The pulse of adrenaline collectively teases at their eardrums. All traces of sleepiness between Bonnie and Michael had seemingly evaporated in light of the new circumstances. The room was obviously not in the state they had left it in. The sheets lay in tangles on the floor, the mattress hung lopsided off the frame with the evidence that it had been flipped, the phone took up residence on the floor it's connective cables severed and frayed by way of a knife.

"The responsible party is already gone." Kitt assesses skillfully having done a thorough scan of the tossed room.

Bonnie slips past Michael to check on where she left her bags and shouts, "Michael!"

With one hurried stride, the poodle-permed agent finds his way to her side, his free hand coming to rest on her shoulder as she peers into an empty corner. His own gaze locks on the same spot. At first, confusion mars his countenance. It hardly seemed like anything to get worked up over until he recollected what had been there in the first place.

"They are... my bags.... they're gone!" Bonnie frantically states. "Why would someone take my belongings?" She spins to face him, a hair away from turning hysterical and not in the comedic sense. A static sensation ripples down every vertebrae of her spine as she considers the fact that the intruder could have been after more than her fresh laundry. Thankfully, she had taken her notebook containing Foundation codes and all her forms of identification with her to Grace's house. Otherwise, those documents and her badges might have been absconded with.

Michael wished he had an answer for her but he doesn't. Was this a simple robbery? The inner police detective cast that line of thought into doubt. If it had been a simple robbery, why had the television, radio, and phone been left behind? Surely, those things would have more value than Bonnie's bags. Right? If it wasn't a simple robbery there were more frightening possibilities. One of them being that someone knew where they were staying. He quickly runs down a mental list of the people who had been told of their accommodations. He quickly rules out the Foundation staff he trusts- Devon, Rc3, Kitt, and a few others. Then he moves to the broader spectrum. There were a select few who had been gifted that information and all of them, unfortunately, had motives to see the FLAG agents come to harm. Whose toes had they stepped on? Where had they trampled them? Why? And how? The investigation seemed to be turning up more inquiries. Were they closer to the answers they sought than they originally thought? Damned if he knew.

One thing was certain, neither of them could stay in this room for the night. Especially, since the door was inoperable. "Maybe, while we're at the front desk getting our rooms changed, I can take a look at the security cameras." He offers, in an effort to settle Bonnie's nervousness.

"Good idea." Bonnie agrees. She didn't want to stick around the scene of the crime a moment longer than she had to. Bonnie only hoped the staff at the front desk of the motel would be more helpful than they had previously been.