Do Not Disturb: An addictive psychological thriller

by Freida McFadden

  “No,” she says. “Nick would never do something like that. The police had it wrong. I told them as much.”

  I let out a breath and my shoulders sag. I don’t know what I would have done if Greta told me she thought Nick was a murderer. But of course she wouldn’t think that. Why would she live here if she thought the owner was a killer?

  “But there was another reason they thought Nick killed her,” she adds.

  I raise my eyebrows. “What reason?”

  Her slightly yellow tongue protrudes from her mouth and she licks her lips. “I don’t like to tell tales.”

  Really? Because it seems to me she likes to tell tales very much. But I can’t say that.

  She holds the socks out to me, and I take them. The material feels rough in my hands, like they haven’t been worn in decades. But they will do.

  “Thank you,” I say.

  She nods. “Be careful.”

  I don’t know what she means by that. She’s not wrong—I am in danger. But she doesn’t know why.

  As I turn, I come face-to-face with yet another mirror. Why does she have so many mirrors in her room? It’s hard to look at myself right now. My blond hair is limp and lifeless, and so short now that I don’t even recognize myself. My eyes look sunken in their sockets, and my cheeks are dark as well. If anything looks frightening in this place, it’s me.

  “I love mirrors,” Greta tells me. “Mirrors are the barrier between the conscious and unconscious mind. Everyone has an inner concept of themselves, but mirrors are reality. What you see right now—that is the truth that everyone else sees.”

  “Right,” I mumble.

  “If you stay here,” she says, “I’ll do a reading for you tomorrow. You may find it enlightening.”

  “That’s okay. I’m not staying.”

  “The future may surprise you.”

  If I wasn’t feeling so uneasy, I might have rolled my eyes. This woman can’t see into the future. She doesn’t even have socks in her drawer. She’s obviously trying to scare me. I bet nobody even died in room 201. She probably made the whole thing up to freak me out.

  Well, it won’t work.

  “Thanks for the socks,” I say. “I’ll leave them on your doorstep in the morning.”

  “Keep them,” she says. “You should have an extra pair of socks.”

  It’s a nice gesture, although the second I make it out of here, I’m going to buy some socks in a drugstore or something. And some hair dye.

  I slip out of her room, the socks clutched in my right hand. I can’t see the future but I predict I will never see this woman again.

  Chapter 9

  The socks are horrific.

  I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, considering what that woman’s room looked like. They are just as stiff and uncomfortable as I thought they would be, but the worst part is the pattern on them. At first, I think it’s just diamonds and ovals. But after a second, I realize what it actually is. Eyes.

  The pattern on the socks is eyes.

  Just as I get the eyeball socks on, I hear a knock at the door. I nearly fling it open, but then I remember Greta’s story about the woman who was murdered in her room. “Yes?”

  “It’s Nick. I’ve got a turkey sandwich for you.”

  Just as he says the words, my stomach lets out a growl. I had almost forgotten how hungry I was. I unlock the door, and Nick is standing there with a white plate in his hand.

  “Thank you!” I take the plate from him and without even putting it down, I grab half of the sandwich and start stuffing it in my mouth. Mmm…

  He laughs at my eagerness. “Good?”

  “Yeah, so good. Sorry I’m being rude.”

  “Not at all.” He grins. “I’m just glad you like it. It’s just, you know, whatever we had in the fridge.”

  I stuff another bite into my mouth. “What do I owe you?”

  He shakes his head. “Don’t worry about it. Meals are included.”

  “Oh. Okay.” I feel a little bad about it, considering he doesn’t have many guests, and it looks like this place is falling apart, so I’m thinking he’s not rolling in it. But then again, I’m not in any position to be throwing around money. “Thank you again.”

  He glances down at my feet. “I see you got your socks. Greta gave them to you?”

  “Yes, she did. She’s, um, very interesting…”

  Nick throws back his head and laughs. “Yeah, she is, isn’t she? Did she offer to tell your fortune?”

  Despite myself, I laugh too. “Yes, she did.”

  “That’s her thing. She was some sort of carnival psychic. It’s all a good show.”

  I pause before taking another bite of my turkey sandwich. “Did she ever tell your fortune?”

  He snorts. “Yeah. She told me the usual thing. You’re going to die young. Horrible misfortune. Like I said, it’s a good show—it’s what she does. I wish she could’ve told me about that pipe breaking. Now that would’ve been useful.”

  I swallow a chunk of turkey and bread. “Did a woman really die in room 201?”

  The smile vanishes from Nick’s face. Whatever else, it’s obvious this particular piece of information is absolutely true. “She told you that?”

  I nod.

  He rubs at the back of his neck. “What did she say?”

  I study his face. His light brown eyes. The stubble on his chin. “She said it was a young woman, and she was stabbed to death in the room. And you found her.”

  He coughs. “Um, yeah. All of that is true.”

  A chill goes down my spine and then all the way to my toes, even though I’m wearing socks now. “That must’ve been awful.”

  “Yeah.” His eyes drop. “It was. I’ve never seen anything like that before. I never want to see it again. I still sometimes have nightmares.”

  “That’s horrible,” I murmur. “And they never found out who killed her?”

  He lifts his eyes. But he’s not looking at me. He’s looking at the window behind me. “No. They never did.”

  “Oh,” I murmur.

  “Anyway.” His smile seems forced. “If there isn’t anything else you need, I’m going to head back over to my house. Rosalie… She doesn’t like to be alone when there’s a storm. I can fix the pipe in the morning.”

  “Of course.” I think of the silhouette in the window of the house across the way. The woman who didn’t wave back. “Will your wife be over here in the morning?”

  Nick shakes his head. “No. She doesn’t come to the motel anymore. She’s been… ill. I’ve been taking care of her.”

  “Oh gosh, I’m so sorry. That must be hard.”

  He lifts a shoulder. “She’s my wife. In sickness and in health, right?” He looks pointedly at the wedding band on my left hand. “You know what I’m talking about.”

  I suck in a breath. I can’t tell him I just stuck a knife in the man who gave me this ring. “Yes. Of course.”

  “Good night, Kelly. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  I clutch the plate with my half-finished turkey sandwich while I watch Nick walk down the hall. He seemed like he was in such a good mood until I brought up the murder in 201. He’s obviously still very affected by it.

  There was another reason they thought Nick killed her.

  Everything Greta told me in that room was true. I wonder what she was talking about that time.

  Anyway, it doesn’t matter. I won’t be in this motel for much longer. First thing in the morning, I’m back on the road. As soon as the snow stops.

  I flip around the “DO NOT DISTURB” sign on my door, then I close the door and lock it. I walk over to the window, watching the flakes fall from the sky. I wish I could check the weather app on my phone to see how long this is going on for. I should’ve checked it out before I ditched my phone. I’ve got a shovel in the back of my car though. I’m getting out of here, one way or another.

  I look across the way, at the small house right next door. It’s run down, but there’s s
omething majestic about the large, swooping windows, the brick chimney, and the cone jutting from the top floor—almost like it’s a castle. With some work, it could be really beautiful. It’s a fixer-upper, that’s for sure. Nick said his wife was sick—I wonder if they had plans to fix it all up, but then got derailed.

  I know what it’s like to have plans get derailed.

  That light is still on in the upstairs window. The silhouette of Rosalie Baxter stares right back at me. I don’t lift my hand this time. In fact, I let the curtains fall closed, with only a small crack between them.

  That’s when I see movement behind Rosalie’s silhouette. It must be Nick, having come home. I peer through the tiny crack in the curtains, watching them. He bends down next to her, talking to her. He reaches out and touches her face. I expect him to lean in to kiss her, but he doesn’t.

  I watch as he stands up. Suddenly, he’s pacing the room. He seems upset, but of course, I can’t hear a word of the conversation.

  And then he stops pacing. He lifts his head and looks straight through the window.

  I jerk my head away from the window. He couldn’t possibly see me, could he? No, it’s impossible. But either way, I shouldn’t be snooping. Whatever he’s doing with his wife in his own home is private. It’s none of my business.

  I turn back to the television. I’m dying to know if there’s anything on the news about Derek. There’s no way for me to leave this motel tonight, but if they haven’t discovered the body yet, I have a bit of breathing room. I really wish I had my phone with me to browse the web, but that would’ve made me a sitting duck.

  I turn on the television, but the entire screen is just a mass of snow. I fiddle with the antenna, turning it every which way, making it longer, then shorter. It’s hopeless—there’s no reception. It’s probably because of the storm.

  Well, maybe if the storm is this bad, it means they’re not out there looking for me.

  I wince at the thought of Scott Dwyer discovering my husband’s dead body. I still don’t quite understand why he didn’t insist on coming into the house to check things out. Isn’t that protocol? If you hear screams, don’t you have to look inside?

  But he’s going to find the body eventually. I wish it could be somebody else who makes the discovery. I don’t want Scott to know what a mess my life has become in the last decade.

  A sob rises up at the bottom of my throat when I think back to the simpler days in high school, when I first got to know Scott. Of course, my life was far from perfect then. The pain of both my parents being suddenly killed was still raw. Most days, I went straight home after school and studied. Before my parents died, I used to get involved in extracurricular activities, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it anymore. Especially since they had been going to see one of my plays when the accident happened.

  For most of high school, I kept to myself. I kept my nose in a book, and most of the other kids saw me as aloof or even stuck up. Anyway, they left me alone.

  But Scott made an effort. He would talk to me in class, and he started walking me to my next class afterwards. He would joke around until I would smile, which was no small feat because I did not smile easily. Then one day, while we were talking about how unseasonably hot it was outside, I noticed his shoulder brushing against mine as we walked. He noticed too, and he grinned in my direction. Whenever he looked at me, it was with this expression of unbridled affection. Like he thought I was the coolest, most wonderful girl he’d ever met.

  And then when we got to my social studies class (he had a class at the exact same time at the entire other end of the school, and was undoubtedly late for it every single day because of me), he rubbed a hand through his hair, enough to make it stick up straight in the air. His smile was adorably nervous.

  It’s so hot outside. Maybe we could go to Frosty’s for some ice cream after class is over?

  It took me a split second to realize what was happening. Scott was asking me out on a date. And I realized how much I wanted it. That sounds nice.

  I didn’t appreciate him. I was too young, and I didn’t know what other boys were like. I thought every boy would race around the side of his broken down Ford to keep me from opening the door on my own. Would drive me home every single day after school, even if it meant he had to rush back to school to get to swim team practice. Would kiss me softly and sweetly and respectfully ask permission before he tried anything we hadn’t done before.

  Unlike Derek, who always had some idea of perfection I could never achieve, Scott seemed thrilled just to be with me.

  He was sweet, yes. But also a bit boring. A bit too nice. And I was going to college, while he was sticking around our hometown, working at his dad’s store. It seemed very much like a high school kind of relationship, and I never really thought we would stay together when I went to college. And we didn’t.

  Then when I moved back to the town after college, I ran into him at the grocery store and found out he had become a police officer. And also that he had filled out quite nicely. And the way he was looking at me, I could tell he still felt the same way about me that he did in high school.

  Maybe we could get a drink later? he suggested.

  But I had just started my job at the bank, and I was so busy trying to make a good impression. So I put him off, thinking we would do it another time, and then that other time never came. And then of course, Derek entered my life.

  I imagine Scott walking into the kitchen at my old house, the one I’ll probably never see again. I imagine him looking down at Derek’s dead body, his eyes filling with disgust. The next time I see Scott, he won’t give me that familiar look of affection.

  He’ll never look at me that way again.

  God, I have made such a mess of everything.

  I push thoughts of Scott Dwyer out of my head. Right now, I need to sleep. I’ve got a long day of driving ahead of me, and since there’s nothing else I can do right now, I should do my best to rest up.

  But I have a bad feeling sleep will be difficult.

  Chapter 10

  I got the worst night’s sleep of my life.

  I didn’t lie awake. That would have been preferable to what happened, which is that I dozed off and woke up every hour on the hour with horrible nightmares. But they weren’t exactly nightmares. They were memories.

  We had our first date at a French restaurant. It was so much fancier than what I was used to. We didn’t have a lot of money growing up, and of course, things got much harder after our parents died and it was just me and Claudia. I wasn’t used to being spoiled that way.

  I opened up the menu and was immediately intimidated. It was entirely in French, and I had a feeling that even if I spoke French, I wouldn’t have known what half these dishes were. I timidly asked Derek what was good, and he told me he would order for both of us. He didn’t even ask me what sort of things I liked to eat, but his confidence was compelling. It was so different from every other man I’d ever dated.

  Derek ordered some special fancy red wine. He actually sniffed the cork. The server poured it into my glass, and Derek watched eagerly as I took a sip. What do you think, Quinn?

  I sat there, unsure how to distinguish this fancy wine from the kind I got for ten dollars from the local liquor store. It’s got a fruity note, I finally said. (It didn’t. It tasted exactly like the ten dollar wine.)

  Derek beamed at me, and I felt like I had gotten the right answer on a test. He was so handsome and dripping with charm and charisma. He seemed better than me. Claudia would have been angry if I said that, but I couldn’t help feeling that way.

  He ordered us something called coq au vin, which he explained was hen braised in red wine. I also tried foie gras, which is apparently duck liver. It tasted terrible to me, but over the last several years, I grew to appreciate the taste.

  And then as we were finishing up the most divine chocolate soufflé, Derek leaned in and kissed me.

  In real life, it was a lovely kiss that led to a second date, t
hen a third, then far too soon, a proposal I couldn’t say no to. But in my dream, we had that same dinner, the same expensive wine, and the same delicious chocolate soufflé. And he kissed me the same way. But then when he pulled away, there was a red stain spreading across his white dress shirt.

  Quinn, he gasped.

  I looked down and saw a steak knife in my right hand. It was covered in my husband’s blood. I let it clatter to the floor, but it was too late.

  You bitch, Derek managed as the color drained from his face. Call… an ambulance…

  But I didn’t call an ambulance. I just stood there, watching the life drain out of him.

  I let my husband die on the floor of my kitchen.

  So that’s my other secret. I stabbed Derek in the abdomen to keep him from strangling me, but there was a moment when I might have been able to save him. If I had run straight to the phone and called 911, maybe he would be alive right now. But I didn’t. Yes, I killed him in self-defense, but I wanted him to die.

  Not only that, but I waited to make sure he was dead. I stood there, watching him bleed out. As he cried for help. He begged me to call an ambulance until he lost consciousness. And even after he was unconscious, I still waited. Waited until his chest stopped rising and falling. Waited until I couldn’t feel a pulse in his wrist.

  I wake up with a start in my uncomfortable double bed in the hotel room. For a moment, I’m completely disoriented. I have no idea where I am. But then it all comes rushing back to me. Where I am. What I’ve done.

  I sit up in bed, my heart pounding.

  I’ve got to get out of here.

  I look at my wrist watch—it’s close to nine o’clock. I don’t know how I managed to sleep so late when I was hardly sleeping at all. But I can’t even waste a second getting back on the road. I don’t have time to attempt to get the television to work to check out the news. I’ll listen to it on the car radio.

  I hit the bathroom to empty my bladder and splash some water on my face. When I look at my reflection in the mirror, I flinch. I look awful. My blond hair is at least dry by now, but it looks like it was cut with… well, with a pair of scissors in somebody’s bathroom. The strands are limp and lifeless, and there are dark purple circles under my eyes. I look like I’ve aged ten years overnight.