The Sun Down Motel(85)

“Hello?” It wasn’t the greeting she’d been trained to give.

It wasn’t who she expected. There was silence on the other end of the line. Soft breathing. Someone listening and waiting.

These calls were routine at the Sun Down. Kids, the other clerks grumbled. Teenagers. Don’t they have anything better to do?

But now, listening to the breathing in the waiting silence, Viv wondered how they could all have been so stupid, herself included. The sound on the other end of the line wasn’t the comical kind of heavy breathing particular to pranking teenage boys. It was simply breath, the sound of another person living, existing.

Someone who wanted to talk. Who maybe couldn’t.

“Betty?” Viv said.

Still, the breath. No pause, no hitch.

“He’s here,” Viv said, letting her voice fill the silence. “I know it upsets you. I know it makes you angry and sad. But I’m going to take care of it tonight. I promise.”

Still nothing. Just breath.

“I’ve been living with this for so long,” Viv said. “I don’t think I have a life anymore. I don’t know that I want one. I don’t really see the point anymore. Do you?”

Did the breathing change its rhythm? Even for a second? She couldn’t be sure. She didn’t know if what she was saying could even be heard by whatever was on the line. But she said it anyway.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I don’t think anyone has been as sorry for you as I am. I looked at your picture, and you could be me. You could be any of us. You didn’t deserve it—none of us do. It’s wrong. I don’t know what else to do except try to make it right. I think it might cost me everything, and I don’t care. I don’t matter, really.”

Still quiet. Why did she feel like the other person was listening? There was no indication. Still, the feeling was there.

“That’s the best way to fix this,” Viv said. “The only way. I’ll take someone who doesn’t matter and trade her for the rest of you. I’ll trade myself for the rest of you. To stop him. I think it’s the only thing strong enough to end this. I know who he is now. He won’t be stopped by anything halfway.”

The next breath on the other end of the line was a sigh, and then a single word, spoken on the breath: “Run.” Then the line went dead with a click.

Viv put the phone down. While her hand was still on the receiver, the phone rang. She picked it up again. “Hello?”

“Room two-twelve,” a familiar voice said.

Viv pressed the button and put him through. She watched as the button on the phone lit up with its soft click. Then she listened with the receiver.

“Hello?” came Simon Hess’s voice.

“I know you,” the other voice said. “I know what you’ve done.”

There was a pause. Then Hess again. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes, you do.” Viv closed her eyes. He was doing such a good job. It was Jamie Blaknik saying the lines she’d given him. “Meet me at the corner of Derry Road and Smith Street. I’m calling from the pay phone there. I saw you with Tracy. If you aren’t there in twenty minutes, I’ll tell everyone what I saw, what I know. Not just about Tracy. About the others, too.”

Silence on the line. Viv held her breath. This was the moment of truth.

Then Simon Hess spoke. “You’re the one who’s been following me, aren’t you?”

“I saw you in Plainsview, watching her,” Jamie said, following the lines Viv had written for him. “I saw you at the high school choir night. I know everything. And I’m going to tell.”

“Is this blackmail?” Hess said. “Do you think you’ll get money out of me?”

Viv bit her lip hard, trying not to sob. I was right, she thought. I thought I was crazy, but I was right. I was right.

“You won’t know what I want until you meet me,” Jamie said. “Twenty minutes or I go to the police.” He hung up.

Hess breathed into the phone for a second, then hung up as well. Viv put the receiver down. Her throat was tight, her eyes burning.

A minute later, a car motor started in the parking lot. She walked to the door and watched Hess drive away. Now, except for the passed-out Mrs. Bailey, Viv was alone at the Sun Down.

She waited fifteen seconds in case Hess changed his mind. Then she opened the bottom desk drawer and rifled through it until she found what she was looking for: a key labeled MASTER. Janice had shown her the key briefly on her first night. If someone’s passed out or dead in one of the rooms, you might need this.

Viv took the key and stood, hesitating. Then she dug in her purse and put her knife in its leather holster under her sweatshirt. She had left the office unarmed once, and it had nearly cost her. She wasn’t doing it again.

She left the office, walking quickly to the stairs. She had needed Jamie to make that phone call; Hess would never have believed a woman. He’d expect his blackmailer, the mastermind who had put all the pieces together, to be a man. He would have hung up on a woman—and then he would have remembered Viv, that he’d seen her somewhere.

So she’d enlisted Jamie, and he had done his part. It wasn’t bad for the price of a kiss.

Viv climbed the stairs and walked to the door of room 212. Put the key in the lock. The doors up here were closed again, as if Betty had tidied up after herself. But as Viv opened the door to 212, the lights flickered.