Do Not Disturb(59)

I grab my phone. The first thing I do is text Nick: Please come here now! Somebody is in the house! Then I dial 911, although it will be far too late by the time they arrive.

“Emergency services,” a female voice says.

“Please help me,” I croak. “There’s an intruder in my house.”

“I’m sorry…. I can’t…… you’re saying.”

Great. The storm must have damaged the closest cell phone tower.

The footsteps are growing louder, and now I hear a loud creak. She’s on the stairs. I don’t have much time.

“Please.” Tears leap into my eyes. “You’ve got to help me! There’s somebody in my house. In the house next to the Baxter Motel on I-93 N.”

“Ma’am……. can’t……”

And now the phone is dead.

The creaking noise stops. She must’ve reached the top of the stairs. In two seconds, she’ll be in my bedroom. With that knife.

She’s going to kill me.

Isn’t this what I wanted though? I was just looking up how to kill myself on Google. And now this stranger is going to do the job for me. Why am I calling 911? I should open the door for her. Welcome her.

Except I realize at this moment that I don’t want to die.

As my heart pounds rapidly in my chest, it’s like a fog has lifted from my brain. The fog that’s been coloring every moment of my life for the last five years. My life isn’t hopeless, and I don’t want to die. I want my restaurant back. I want to get those contractors in and convert the kitchen so I can use it again even if I can’t stand or walk. I want to do a course of physical therapy so that I can take care of myself again and I don’t have to depend on Nick for every little thing.

And I want Nick. I don’t want him to leave. I don’t want him to find some other woman and be happy with her. I want him to be happy with me again. I want to start a family with him.

But most of all, I want him. I want him so badly. I don’t want to die before seeing him again.

The door to my bedroom swings open. The dark-haired woman is standing there in her pea green winter coat, a knife glinting in her right hand. I push my hands against the wheels of my chair and hit the wall behind me.

“You…” she hisses at me.

I raise my hands in the air. “I’m sorry. Whatever you think I did, I’m sorry.”

“You know what happened to my sister,” she snaps at me.

“Your… sister?” Is she the sister of the blond woman?

She raises the knife and takes a step towards me. “Don’t play dumb.”

I glance down at my phone. Nick hasn’t responded to my text. He probably hasn’t even seen it. He’ll read it just in time to discover my dead body. “I… I don’t know what you’re talking about…”

“Liar…”

“Please…” A tear escapes my right eye. “I didn’t do anything to your sister. I swear.”

She takes another step forward. Her eyes are pools of darkness, staring into mine. “I never said you did.”





Chapter 37


ROB



Three hours earlier



Most of the time, the first thing I do when I get home is take a shower.

Claudia requires it. Not that it’s a terrible idea. When you’re working on people’s toilets, you get your hands dirty. Claudia claims there’s grease and grime permanently ground into the creases of my hands but that’s not true. I can get them clean if I want. If I scrub for a long time.

Today was the kind of job where you come home and want to shower right away. There was a clog in the pipe that just wouldn’t come free. I worked at it forever before I figured out what it was. It was a dead rat.

No, not a dead rat. A frozen dead rat.

Half a frozen dead rat.

So when I walk through the front door of my house, yeah, I want to shower. And after that, a nice dinner with Claudia. Although that’s one of those things that’s gotten more and more rare lately. Everything is a fight these days. I don’t even know why. I work hard all day, and all I want to do is go home and relax at the end of the day with a nice cold beer. You think I want to fight with my wife? I don’t.

The house is dark when I get inside. I swear Claudia told me she didn’t have any clients this afternoon. On account of the snow.

“Claudia?” I call out.

No answer.

I don’t know where she could be. Maybe she’s looking for Quinn, although I don’t know why she thinks she’ll be better at it than the police. Unless she knows something she’s not telling me, which might be true.

I don’t get Claudia’s relationship with Quinn. Quinn is fine. She’s nice enough. Quiet compared with my wife. Her husband is an asshole, but who cares? Claudia spends so much time with Quinn, but sometimes I wonder if they even like each other.

Claudia is always whining about Quinn. To be fair, she whines about everything. But especially about Quinn. Quinn’s fake blond hair. Quinn’s giant house. How Quinn wouldn’t give us any money to help when our roof collapsed last year and wrecked our attic.

Not that we need money from the Alexanders. I do fine as a plumber. It’s a very good living. Maybe I’m not rich like Derek Alexander, but I could afford to fix my own damn roof. I didn’t want their charity. I wouldn’t have taken the money if they offered it.