Page 119 of Road Trip
“Holy Mary, mother of God… oh shit.” She’d accidentally drifted into the wrong lane, nearly getting hit head-on by a passing eighteen-wheeler. Veering suddenly back into her own lane earned her a blast from the car following too close behind. “Oh shit. Fuck, damn, hell, piss.”
Everything about her plight was terrifying. She’d tried for an hour to reach someone at the inn at Tarrymore, but only got a recorded greeting suggesting she book her reservation online or leave a message.
Her passport absolutely had to be in their room at the inn. There was no other possibility. Or was there?
No. There was no way. She couldn’t have been so careless as to somehow leave her passport in Liam’s car, or at his brother’s farmhouse. Maeve Dunagin was many things, but careless wasn’t one of them.
She put the thought out of mind. Driving solo took every ounce of concentration she possessed. On this journey back to Wicklow there would be no admiring the rolling green hills, or the pastures with split-rail fences and flocks of sheep. No time to stop and take photos of the roses clambering over the front of cottages, or the breathtaking vistas at every turn of the road.
Maeve was ashen-faced and dripping with perspiration by the time she pulled the Kia into the parking lot at the Tarrymore Inn.
A large blue tour bus was idling near the inn’s entrance, and a sprightly mix of silver-haired ladies and women who looked a couple of decades younger were streaming off the bus.
The inn’s lobby and lounge area were crowded with women. A banner stretched across the fireplace.WELCOME CHINA PAINTERS.
Maeve had to elbow her way to the reception desk, where the harried clerk was explaining to a guest that check-in wasn’t until 4PM.
“Sir!” She raised her voice to be heard above the din of chatter.
“Hi. My sister and I checked out of our room yesterday, but I seem to have misplaced my passport. I’ve been calling all morning to see if the housekeepers found it and turned it in.”
The clerk waved his hand in the general direction of the lobby. “Ma’am, we’re overfull as you can see, and haven’t been able to check the answering machine this morning.”
“I see, but could you check to see if my passport was turned in? Please?”
A pained expression crossed his face. “One moment.” Five minutes passed. When he returned, he was shaking his head. “Sorry. No passport has been turned in.”
Maeve bit her lip. “Would it be okay if I looked in the room? I’m thinking maybe it slipped out of my bag while I was packing.”
“Impossible. There are guests in that room now. I assure you, our housekeepers are very thorough and very honest. If there was something left behind, they would have turned it in to me by now.”
“It’s my passport,” Maeve said in a pleading tone. “My flight left this morning. I can’t leave the country without it.”
He wavered. “I’ll call up to the room to ask the guests’ permission. Maybe the housekeepers can look when they go in to freshen the room.”
“When will that be?”
He picked up a walkie-talkie and turned his back.
“You could check after lunch.”
Her shoulders slumped as she walked dejectedly to the only vacant seat in the lobby, behind a potted palm tree.
“Angela? Hi.It’sMaeve Dunagin.”
“Maeve! Lovely to hear from you. But I thought you were flying home today. Or did you have a change of heart?”
“I was supposed to be on an eightAMflight, but when I got to the airport, I discovered my passport has gone missing.”
“Oh dear. How can I help?”
“I’ve racked my brain. I’m back here in the village, at the inn, actually, because I thought maybe I’d left it in our room, but they haven’t found it. I was wondering if maybe it fell out of my pocketbook while I was at the farm on Sunday?”
“Haven’t seen it, but I’ll go have a look outside on the patio. In the meantime, have you asked Liam?”
“Not yet…”
“Like that, is it?”
