Questions, But No Answers

So, here I sit, in a hotel room in upstate New York. I don't know whether to move on to some other area of the country or stay here. I want to hide, pull the covers over my head and sleep, but I'm too agitated for that.

The paper I picked up in Varden's bedroom had my real name on it; nothing else; but it was enough. The old man was dead long before I came into his life, much less to his bedside. Whoever cut him open did it as a message to me; told me I'm the prey. Varden was the hook to set me up and I bit on that hook; all the way.

After I folded the paper and put it in my pocket, I wanted to get away from there as quickly as I could and started down the stairs. Halfway down, I stopped. Clearly, leaving my name there was a message, if not for me, for the cops. What else was there?

I turned around, went back up the steps and back into the bedroom. I started there. Inside my coat, in the breast pocket, I had a package of wipes, the kind with bleach. Even though I had gloves, I wiped down every square inch of anything I came near; the bed, the table; the floor. All of it. I put the used wipes in my pocket.

I wiped down the stairs and the handrails after looking into each of the rooms on the second floor. If the paper with my name was planted, what else was there? Would I even know what to look for? I figured anything I did was better than doing nothing at all. So I checked.

Dawn started to break around 5:00am and I had to leave before it got much brighter and someone saw me leaving Varden's house. I left by the back door; relaxed my breathing as I walked around the side of the house and waited to see if anything was moving. Nothing. I went around the block the opposite way I came to the house and walked back towards the train station. Besides a dog barking at me, I think no one else noticed until I got down to the station.

A 9:18 train brought me to Albany's Rensselaer station half an hour later. I bought a local map at the newsstand, a cup of black coffee at the Beanery and sat down, like I was waiting for a train.

A cab took me to downtown Albany and I walked the streets for a few hours, just thinking to myself and going back over the last few days. My nervous energy kept me going for a while and then fatigue settled in. I got on the first bus I found, which took me to Schodack about eight miles outside Albany. Along the way, I saw a couple motels go by, stepped up to the front door of the bus and asked the driver to let me out.

Across the street from the bus stop were a few stores and a fast food place. I bought a change of clothes, grabbed some burgers and walked back to one of the motels. My head still aches trying to understand what's happening to me and I can't sleep.

How did I get into this and how do I get out? I need to get out of New York, but to where? My head has been doing this all morning; asking the same questions over and over.