Claudine Avery

The name on the motel register is written in careful, elegant script: Claudine Avery. She’s 29, poised, and impeccably dressed; pearls at her neck, gold earrings just brushing her cheek. The kind of woman who draws attention without asking for it. Claudine left New Orleans two days ago with a bus ticket west and a silence she hasn’t broken since. No suitcase, just a handbag and a clutch of letters she won’t read again. She sits in the Newton Motel diner as a rare desert rain dots the windows, watching the horizon like it might answer something. The coffee in front of her has long gone cold, but she hasn’t moved. People come and go. Claudine lingers, lost in a moment no one else can see.