Page 2 of Untamed
Chapter Two
I reached out to touch the word, vivid against the worn wood of the door, but pulled back before I could smear them through the paint—the yellow spray was so fresh that it was still dripping.
“I don’t understand.” Stepping back, I looked over my shoulder, as though the person who had done this would still be standing there. Instead, the hall was empty, silent except for the quiet drone of a vacuum somewhere in the distance.
This… Surely this wasn’t meant for me.
My stomach clenched as I pulled away from the nastygram. Wanting it out of my sight, I took one step, then two, then almost ran back to the lobby.
“Dr. Dunn?” The girl behind the desk—I thought her name was Madison—stood up with alarm as I stopped in front of her desk, panting. “Is everything all right?”
Clutching a hand to my chest, I shook my head, holding up a finger to ask for a moment. I was tired to my bones from the day in the sun, and my short sprint had winded me.
When I could breathe, I looked at her anxious face. “Can you tell me who has passed through here in the last half hour or so? Someone painted ‘bitch’ on my door.”
The paint was wet. Whoever had done it must still be close by.
She crossed her arms over her chest, looking down at her computer. When she looked up again, her face was impassive—deliberately blank.
“I’m sorry, Dr. Dunn, but the only people I’ve seen come in are members of your own team.” She bit her lip. “But couldn’t it have been someone already inside the motel?”
“Shit.” That hadn’t occurred to me at all. Still, the way that Madison was looking at anything but me…
There was something she wasn’t telling me. Had she seen something?
“I just wish I knew what I’d done to make someone so angry,” I choked out, watching her face. I didn’t like confrontations, so I had no way of dragging it out of her, but maybe I could poke a little. “Being called names hurts, especially when I don’t understand why.”
No, I didn’t know for sure, but I wasn’t an idiot. Not everybody in this town had been welcoming to the show. We were outsiders, and though we meant well, not everybody saw it that way. I had two guesses as to the culprit. One guess was that I had a fan, someone a bit star-struck, who I had inadvertently blown off.
Door number two was, to me, more likely. Before the discovery of the artifacts, the site had already been a hotly contested piece of land. Technically it belonged to Russ Daly, who’d had plans to sell to a development company out of Augusta. That sale had been halted when a group of Native Americans had laid claim to it as well, wanting it preserved as a historic site.
Me? I just wanted to dig. If I had to guess who had painted my door, though, I’d say Russ Daly or one of his minions. As head of the project and the most recognizable face of the show, I’d had more than one run-in with the man.
I hated run-ins. I hated confrontation. But Daly had tested even my temper when he’d shared his opinion that I should be barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen instead of pretending to be a scientist. He’d even offered up his own kitchen.
Remembering the conversation, I clenched my fists, my nails digging into my palm, just as they had done then. I was an expert in tamping things down, but he’d very nearly goaded me into punching him in the nose.
The yellow paint dripping on my door made me wish I had. Maybe if I stopped being so freaking nice, he’d leave me alone. Madison had busied herself on the phone. Catching my eye, she covered the mouthpiece. “I’ve just got our custodian on the line. He’s off-duty, but he’s going to come clean your door right away.”
I could hear the mumble of someone on the other end of the line. Madison grimaced. “Yes, I’ll ask.”
Turning to me again, she offered a hesitant smile. “He’s wondering if you could sign one of our motel brochures for him. He’ll pick it up when he’s done cleaning.”
Really?
I was freaking exhausted, I needed a shower quite desperately, and someone had just vandalized my room…and he wanted an autograph.
Part of me wanted to tell him to shove it.
The rest of me? It knew that he was being nice enough to come clean my door when he was off the clock. It knew that meeting a reality TV star was a once in a lifetime thing for most people, even though a Kardashian I certainly was not.
Forcing my lips into yet another smile, I held out a hand for the brochure that Madison was clutching.
“If you could please personalize that for Gus and Rita,” she added as she slid a black Sharpie across the counter. “His wife won’t even know what to do with herself.”
“Of course.” A scream was building inside. I didn’t want to sign a brochure for Gus and Rita, I wanted to retreat into the quiet of my room and have a shower. I wanted to be alone. I wanted silence.
“I’ll leave this here for Gus, then.” I tossed the brochure, now with Sharpie scrawled over it, back to Madison. “I’m going to be in my room, and… I’m going to be in my room.”
