The Sun Down Motel(15)

“Not really.” He looked around, like someone might hear. “It’s okay, I guess,” he amended. “We don’t get very many customers.”

I tried to get more information from him, but it got harder and harder. His name was Oliver. Yes, it was very quiet out here. No, he had no idea how old the motel was. No, he didn’t think they’d ever renovated it, but he didn’t really know. Heather wandered to the office door, where she looked out the little window at the world outside while we talked.

By the time I’d given up on Oliver and we were driving back to town, the fascination and excitement had drained out of me, leaving only frustration. “I don’t know what I’m doing,” I admitted to Heather. “I mean, what did I think I would learn, going there, standing in that office? How did I think that would help me?”

“You wanted to feel closer to her,” Heather said, as if the answer were simple. “You wanted to see what her life was like.”

“Well, I guess I accomplished that, since nothing at that motel has changed since 1982.”

We were quiet for a minute, the dark road going by outside our window. Heather bit her lip.

“What?” I said.

“I’m not sure I should show you.”

“Well, now you have to show me. What is it?”

She hesitated, then took a piece of paper from her pocket and unfolded it.

Help wanted. Night shift desk clerk. Start immediately. Please inquire. A phone number.

“No way,” I said, staring at it in disbelief. “No freaking way. They’re hiring for my aunt’s actual shift?”

“I know, it’s weird,” Heather said.

“Weird doesn’t even describe it.” I sighed, running a hand over my ponytail. “Why am I actually tempted to apply? Am I insane?”

“It would be creepy, right? But it would also be kind of cool.”

It was exactly what I was thinking. Spend my nights at the Sun Down? I was the kind of girl who would spend the night in a supposedly haunted house, just to see what would happen. That sounded like my ideal vacation. “Maybe they won’t hire me.”

“Um, I don’t think they’re exactly overrun with options.”

My heart was beating faster. Excitement, or fear? “We could stay in touch through the night. Do regular check-ins.”

“You can bring my Mace with you. I have extra.”

“Heather, my aunt vanished from that same spot. On the night shift.”

“Sure, but that was thirty-five years ago. Do you think whoever did it is still hanging around? He might not still be alive, and if he is, he’s old now.”

“I’m not supposed to be here very long. Yet I think I want to do this. I want to stay. Why?”

“Because you’re a Fell girl,” Heather said with a nod. “I called it when I met you.”

“This place is dark.”

“Some of us like the dark. It’s what we know.”

I made a turn next to an old theater called the Royal, which had boarded-up windows. The marquee still advertised a showing of You’ve Got Mail. “I could work a few shifts, find what there is to find, and bail,” I said. “I can do it for a few nights, right? Do whatever Viv did. See things through her eyes.”

“You’ve come this far,” she said. “Are you going to turn around now and go back to college? It doesn’t seem right, leaving your aunt in the lurch like that.”

Viv. Whatever I was afraid of, Viv had gone through worse. She’d gone through something awful, something terrifying, and in all this time, no one had ever solved it. No one had even found her body. I was the only one to do it. To do anything.

Which meant I needed to work nights at the Sun Down Motel.

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll do it. What could possibly go wrong?”





Fell, New York

September 1982





VIV


A week after the night the motel went dark, Viv had to call the police for the first time in her career at the Sun Down.

She’d thought about quitting after that terrible night. She’d thought of packing her bags and going back to Illinois. But what would she say when she got there? I saw a ghost, so I ran home?

She was twenty years old. What would you do if you ever saw real trouble? her mother had said. Going back to her old bedroom, to working at the popcorn stand at the drive-in, was out of the question.

Besides, part of her wondered who the woman in the flowered dress was. Something about the woman’s anger, her obvious anguish, spoke to her.

So she went back to work at the Sun Down.

The night of the police, she brought a bologna sandwich with her to work—Wonder Bread, bologna, one Kraft single, a dab of mustard. The best meal you could have in the middle of the night when you made three dollars per hour. It usually sufficed just fine, but tonight the bologna didn’t cut it. She found herself thinking about the candy machine.

The candy machine was behind a door marked AMENITIES, on the first level next to room 104, in a tiny room it shared with the ice machine. The candy machine worked, and it had candy in it; Viv figured it must be refilled during the daylight hours. It carried Snickers, and they were twenty cents, and Viv had two dimes in her pocket.

She took her jacket from the hook and put it on over her uniform vest. Pulling the zipper up, she stepped outside the office and turned the corner. The Sun Down actually had a few guests tonight, so she wasn’t entirely alone. There was a couple on their way to visit family in North Carolina; there was a young guy who looked dead on his feet, as if he’d been driving for days. There was a man who had taken a room alone with no luggage.