Credit card.

You don't have enough cash to pay what you need, so there's no other way than to pay by card. You have an uneasy feeling about this, but you try to squelch your fears. No need to get paranoid. The Happy Maid Corp, or whoever is behind all this, can't be powerful enough to be on your trails already. It's not even a day you are gone. And even if! Even if... who says they can track down credit card payment. This is not the secret service you're dealing with here.

You breathe in, pay, and hurry back to the car, your bags full with groceries, clothes, toiletry articles, a brand new laptop... basically everything you would have gotten if you had had the time to prepare and pack first.

As you arrive at the motel, Sara is typing and swiping on her smartphone. She acknowledges the shopping bags, but then immediatly turns her attention back to the phone. You unpack the stuff, store most in the car, and then set up the laptop you bought. Much easier to do research from a computer than from a smartphone.

"There's somebody who sounds genuine", Sara says after a while, looking up. It's almost noon, and you realise with relief that you did not have any sexual dreams since your first meeting with Sara. Maybe you really ran off just right. "What makes him suspicious is that he wants to meet us as quick as possible. Tonight. And he insists that this is the only chance. He didn't want to elaborate why."

You frown. "Sounds fishy to me", you say.

"I know, I don't like it neither", Sara concurs.

You tap your finger against your lips thoughtfully.

"He can't be the only one", says Sara. "Now that we are resupplied, we can stay another night and take more time to search for more."

That does sound reasonable. You feel an uneasy twitch in your belly, though. You feel restless. There's this fear that every decision you take could be the wrong one.