Do Not Disturb(39)

“My name is Greta,” the old woman tells me, fixing her blue eyes on me. For the first time, I notice she has an accent. Something East European.

“I’m Melissa,” I say.

Her eyes darken. “We tell the truth in this room. Or else you leave.”

She looks like she means it. I clear my throat. “Fine. I’m Claudia.”

Greta gestures at her bed, and I sit gingerly on the edge, clutching my purse to my chest. She sits beside me, her eyes luminous in the yellow light of the room. “She was here. Your sister, Quinn. Right where you are sitting.”

“When?”

“Only hours ago.”

I run my fingers along the sheets, as if I could almost touch her presence. “You spoke with her then?”

“Yes. And so did Nick. The police were here looking for her, and Nick lied to them. For her.”

I was wondering why the police drove past me without having discovered Quinn here, when they obviously had been looking. Now it all makes sense. That guy Nick lied to them. No wonder he was so squirrely when I came in. “That was nice of him.”

“It was. But Rosalie did not like it.”

“Who is Rosalie?” The name sounds strangely familiar, like one I heard recently.

She smiles thinly. “She is his wife.”

Right. That’s where I know the name. I saw it in all those articles. Rosalie Baxter. The co-owner of the motel. The one whose husband cheated on her and then his mistress ended up dead.

“Is Rosalie here?” I ask.

Greta shakes her head. “She does not leave her home. She is always at the window. She is always watching.”

I shiver, remembering the silhouette of that woman in the window of the house next door. “Do you know what happened to my sister?”

Greta is silent for a moment, as if debating what to say next. “She did not leave.”

“So is she still here? Is she in room 201?”

“I did not say she is still here. I just said she did not leave.”

This is like one of those ridiculous riddles, like what goes up and down without moving? (The stairs.) “What do you mean?”

“I think you know what I mean.”

I shake my head, my stomach sinking.

Greta stands up from the bed. She’s so tiny, yet somehow her presence fills the room. There’s something about her. “I read your sister’s fortune,” she says. “It was very dark. Her past was dark, and her future was even darker.”

“Dark?”

She turns to look into one of the mirrors. Her reflection stares back at me. “I’m talking about death, Claudia. There was a death in her past and death in her future. And the worst part…”

I hold my breath. “What?”

“It was emanating from her.” Greta’s voice is a hiss. “Like a stench. Or a virus. Infecting everyone around her.”

This woman seems like a crackpot, but there's something about her. She knows something. “How do you know my sister didn’t leave?”

She turns to look directly at me. “Go outside. Go to Rosalie’s.”

“Rosalie’s what?”

“Not what. Where. To Rosalie’s.”

I frown. “You mean to the house?”

“No. Not the house.”

“But—”

“Go.” She holds up her wrinkled hand. “I have told you all I know.”

“Have you?”

She just stares at me, her chest rising and falling under her nightgown.

I rise from the bed. “Because I’m not sure you have.”

“Go,” she says, more firmly this time.

Maybe she does know more, but it’s clear she has no intention of sharing it with me. Whatever I’m looking for is outside of this motel. And I’m going to find it.

_____



I take my purse and my coat with me when I leave my room. I also keep Quinn’s wedding band tucked away in my pocket. I have no intention of coming back here. The police are long gone—it’s time to get on the road as soon as I’m done here.

Just as I’m going down the hall, I run into that guy Nick. He’s got a tool kit in his hand, and he almost drops it.

“Hi,” I say. “I’m, uh…” Somehow I don’t want to tell him I’m leaving. Not yet.

Nick nods at room 201. “Going to fix that leak.”

“Good luck,” I say.

He grunts.

When I get back down into the lobby, it’s eerily empty. The ceiling is still leaking into that bucket. Every time there’s a drip of water, I hear a noise. Plunk plunk plunk. Good thing he’s getting that fixed. It’s going to destroy the ceiling. Rob always talks about how people don’t call him fast enough for a leak, and then they wreck the ceiling. He can fix the leak, but he can’t fix that.

But that’s not my problem. Quinn is my only problem.

I drop the keys to my room on the desk, next to where he left his cell phone behind—he’s awfully trusting to leave that sitting there. Anyway, he’ll get the idea that I left. That’s fifty bucks down the drain. Well, forty-eight bucks.

When I get out of the motel, the temperature is about twenty degrees colder than it was when I first came in. The wind hits me in the face, and I regret not having brought a scarf. What’s wrong with me? I’ve lived in New Hampshire my whole life. I know how cold it gets.