October 2021, a stretch of US 191 outside Holbrook, Arizona. The Painted Desert Motel has nineteen rooms, a flickering vacancy sign, and an ice machine that hums all night. Luna checks in after midnight, the clerk is a woman with grey hair and a name tag that says 'Marlene,' and the ice machine stands at the end of a breezeway, its door dented, its light buzzing. That first night, Luna hears it—a sound from inside the machine, rhythmic, almost human. She tells herself it's the compressor. She tells herself a lot of things. By the third night, she's pressing her ear to the cold metal, and she knows exactly what she's listening to—but she will never tell anyone what she did next.