And whatever he put in that dumpster at three in the morning is now gone. He made sure of that.
Instead of the usual peck on the forehead before he leaves, Nick leans in to give me a luxurious kiss on the lips. Despite everything, I feel a stirring of attraction for him. Maybe I’m not entirely dead inside. Ironically, maybe him kissing another woman was what we needed to give our marriage a shot in the arm.
But I’m still going to keep an eye on Christina’s room today.
“Maybe tonight we could have a nice dinner together?” he suggests.
I grin at him. “You’re a terrible cook though.”
“Hey!” He clutches his chest, mock offended. “Well, I could ask Greta to make us something. I know you love her cooking.” He pauses. “Or we could go out somewhere.”
The idea of venturing out into the real world makes me feel like a hand is squeezing my chest. The only places I go anymore are to doctors’ appointments. “Let’s ask Greta.”
To his credit, Nick doesn’t push me. “Okay.”
He kisses me one more time, then he goes off to the motel. I watch him walk across the pathway from our house to the front of the building. I wait until he’s inside before I reach for my binoculars.
I focus on Christina’s room. I recognize there’s a chance he might go up there to tell her it’s over between the two of them. He knows I can see the room from here, even though he doesn’t know about the binoculars. So I’m sure he’ll be careful.
But when I zero in on the room, it’s still dark.
I look down at my watch. Nick usually doesn’t head over there until later in the morning, and it’s nearly ten o’clock now. Surely she would be up by now, right? Unless she checked out. Or went out somewhere.
But no. Her Nissan is still in the parking lot. There’s nowhere she could have gone on foot.
Christina is still in the motel.
So why is her room dark?
_____
It’s just after seven when I see Nick leaving the motel with a large Tupperware container of Greta’s stew.
I’ve kept my eyes on Christina’s room the entire day. I haven’t seen the lights go on once. There’s been no movement inside the room. As far as I can see, there’s no one in that room.
Yet her car is still in the parking lot.
I hide my binoculars once again when I hear the front door slam shut, followed by Nick’s steps on the stairs. I feel a tinge of fear in the pit of my stomach. I felt so many things for my husband in the time we’ve been together, but this sensation of fear is new.
The door to the bedroom sticks a bit, and it takes a few seconds from him to get it open. He bursts into our bedroom, a grin splitting his face. He proudly holds up the Tupperware container with two plates on top.
“Dinner!” he announces.
I attempt to return his smile. “Oh. Great.”
“Do you want it up here?” He sets down the Tupperware on a dresser. “Or we could go down and eat in the dining room. We haven’t done that in a long time. I could carry you and—”
“Did you ask Christina to leave?” I interrupt him. It’s all I can think about.
“I’m sorry.” Splatters of red appear on his neck. “No, I didn’t. I tried to tell her but every time I knocked on her door, she didn’t answer.”
“I see…” I tug at the sleeve of my shirt. “And she’s definitely still in the motel?”
“Well, yeah. I mean, her car is still there.”
“Yeah…”
He runs a hand through his hair. “I wasn’t with her at all today. I swear to you. I’ll only see her one more time to tell her to leave. That’s it.”
I want to believe him. But where is she?
And what was he doing at three in the morning?
He sits on the bed, close to me. He reaches for my hand, and I allow him to squeeze it in his own. “You believe me, right, Rosie?”
What can I say to him but yes?
Chapter 32
The next morning, I’m in my eternal perch by the window when the police cars arrive in the motel parking lot. Not just one police car. Police cars. Plural. And not just that, but there’s also an ambulance.
Fear grips my stomach. Is it Greta? She’s so old. Maybe she fell and broke her hip.
But why would the police cars be there?
I retrieve my binoculars from the dresser drawer and look out at the parking lot, although I don’t need them. The police officers are getting out of their vehicle and heading straight to the entrance to the motel. They’re not here to book a room, that’s for sure.
I grab my phone and call Nick. Naturally, it goes right to voicemail. So does my second call. After several more tries, he finally picks up.
“I can’t talk, Rosie.” His voice is low and serious. “The police are here.”
“Why? What’s going on?”
The silence on the other line seems to last for an eternity before he answers. “Christina is dead.”
“Dead? What are you talking about?”
There are muffled voices in the background. “I’ve got to go. I’ll talk to you later.”
And then he hangs up on me.
I try calling him again. And again. But he must’ve turned off his phone, because all the calls go right to voicemail. I get out my binoculars again and look out at Christina’s room. The police officers are in there now, and so is Nick. They’re talking. It doesn’t look like they’re handcuffing him or anything like that—that’s a good sign.
But what happened to Christina? If she’s dead, what are the chances that it was from natural causes? She was only in her twenties. People don’t just drop dead randomly at that age.
I watch all morning, intermittently browsing my phone to see if there are any news stories about her, except I don’t even know her last name. They bring out the stretcher, with a sheet covering the body underneath.
So it’s true. Christina is dead.
The woman my husband was kissing two nights ago is dead.
Now there’s a police officer talking to Nick outside the motel. I shove my binoculars back in the drawer and wrench the window open, but I can’t hear what they’re saying. But then Nick points to our house. The officer nods, and now they’re both walking toward our front door.
I run my fingers through my hair, trying to prepare myself to see this stranger. I’m wearing a T-shirt and sweatpants, which is what I wear most days. At least my clothes are clean. And I had a shower yesterday morning, although my hair still feels limp and greasy.
After a minute, there’s a knock on the bedroom door. “Yes?” My voice cracks. “Come in.”
The door swings open and there they are. My husband and the police officer. The officer is about Nick’s height, with dark hair and imposing dark eyes. He’s absolutely terrifying.
“This is my wife, Rosalie,” Nick says.
The officer’s eyes rake over me. He glances back at Nick. “That’s your wife?”
Nick glares at him. “Right. That’s what I just said.”
I can’t blame the officer for being skeptical. There was a time when I used to be beautiful, but I’m not anymore. Not by any stretch of the imagination. I avoid looking in the mirror these days, because when I do, a stranger stares back at me. I always have dark circles under my eyes and hollow cheeks that made me look ten years older than I am. My formally thick dark brown hair has lost all its luster. Nick is a good-looking guy, and the officer probably wonders what he’s doing stuck with me.
It’s probably a little suspicious as well.
“Mrs. Baxter,” the officer says, “I’m Detective Esposito. I don’t know how much you heard about what happened out there…”
I bite my lip. “Nick said one of our guests was… dead?”
“It looks like she was murdered, actually,” Esposito says. My stomach sinks—my fears are true. “She was stabbed in the chest.”
I look over at Nick, who is staring down at his sneakers, his face pale.
“I’m wondering if I could ask you a few questions, Mrs. Baxter,” Esposito says.
“Of course,” I manage.
When Nick doesn’t budge, the detective shoots him a look. “Mr. Baxter, would you step outside so I could talk to your wife?”
Nick looks like he’s going to be sick. He nods. “Sure. Rosie, if you need anything…”
“She’ll be fine,” Esposito snaps at him. “We’re just going to have a talk.”
My brain is going a mile a minute as my husband leaves the room and shuts the door behind him, leaving me alone with the terrifying detective. I lift my eyes to look at him.
“How are you doing, Mrs. Baxter?” he asks.
“Fine,” I squeak.
“I just have a few questions for you about the motel. Your husband mostly runs it?”
I nod. “Yes. I haven’t been able to recently. I… I can’t get around so easily anymore.”
“He told me you have multiple sclerosis and you can’t walk at all. Is that accurate?”
I flinch at the way he phrased it so harshly. “Yes.”
“When is the last time you’ve been inside the motel?”
“It’s been… a while.”
“Days? Weeks? Months?”
“At least a year,” I admit.
He looks over my shoulder, out the window. “You got a pretty good view of the motel from here?”
“Yes. I suppose.”
“Did you see anything suspicious in the last two days?” He taps his fingers against the top of my dresser. “Any suspicious strangers coming in or out of the hotel?”
“No.”
“Anything suspicious at all?”
I close my eyes for an instant, and I can see my husband disposing of something in the dumpster in the middle of the night. I open my eyes again and stare at the detective. “Nothing I can remember.”
He cocks his head to the side. “Did you ever meet Christina Marsh?”
Christina Marsh. That’s her name. I shake my head no.
“Do you know if your husband was friendly with her?”
My heart is beating so fast, it’s making me dizzy. “I… I don’t know. I don’t think so.”
Detective Esposito’s black eyebrows draw together. “What’s your relationship with your husband?”
“My relationship with my husband? What do you mean? He’s my husband.”
“How long have you been married?”
“Seven years.”
“And he… takes care of you?”
I narrow my eyes. “Yes. I mean, sort of.”
“He told me he helps you get dressed, shower, get in and out of bed. He makes your meals too. Is that right?”
I imagine the conversation Nick must’ve had with the detective, and I feel sick. “Yes… sort of…”
“So really, he’s more of your caregiver than anything…”
My eyes snap up. “What are you saying?”
“Mrs. Baxter, I’m just trying to get an accurate picture of your marriage.”
I hate what he was implying. Even worse, I hate that he’s right. Even though Nick and I reconnected for a night, things still aren’t the same as they used to be. It’s not anything like before. It never will be.
“Mrs. Baxter,” he says, “I have to ask you this, and I hope you’ll tell me the truth.”
My heart sinks. “Okay…”
“Was your husband having an affair with Christina Marsh?”
“No,” I say, but the lie catches in my throat.
“Are you absolutely certain?”
“Yes.”
I try to adjust myself in my wheelchair, but it sets off a spasm in my right leg. I grab it with my hands, trying to calm my jumping limb. Because of the lesions in my spinal cord, my legs sometimes do what they want to do and I can’t control it. It takes me almost a minute of readjusting my leg until it stops jumping. When I look up again, I see pity in the detective’s eyes.
“Are you all right, Mrs. Baxter?”
I swallow. “Yes. I’m fine. I think I’ve answered all your questions.”
He hesitates, then finally nods. “I’m going to go downstairs and talk to your husband again.”
After Detective Esposito leaves the bedroom, I watch him again through the window, talking to Nick. Even from here, Nick is visibly upset. At any moment, I expect the detective to snap a pair of handcuffs on my husband. But he doesn’t.
The police cars linger for a long while, but eventually, they all take off. It isn’t until nearly one o’clock that Nick raps on the door to our bedroom with a plate of food in his hand. My lunch. He brings it to me every day.
“How are you doing?” he asks me.
“Been better. How are you doing?”
“Been better.” He sinks down onto the bed and puts the plate down next to him. “Rosie, you don’t think that I…?”
I wasn’t going to say anything. I planned to keep my silence till the day we died, but I can't do it. I have to tell him. “I saw you.”
“You…”
“I saw you at the dumpster,” I say. “In the middle of the night two nights ago. At three in the morning. What were you doing there?”
The panic spreads across his handsome features. “I was taking out the garbage.”
“At three in the morning? Do you think I’m stupid?”
“I was.” His hands are shaking as he tugs at his T-shirt hem. “Look, I got distracted by, you know, what happened with Christina, and I forgot to take it out to the dumpster. The truck arrives early in the morning, and I was worried if I didn’t put it out then, I’d miss it.”
He’s looking me right in the eye when he says it. Is it possible he’s telling the truth? That he was up at three in the morning simply taking out the trash? “But how come you told me you were getting some air? You lied.”
“I know.” He squeezes his knees. “I lied to you. But I didn’t want to remind you about what I had done—why I’d been too distracted to take out the trash—and it just seemed easier.”
I don’t know what to say to that. Do I believe him? I’m not sure.
He shakes his head. “What do you think I was throwing out?”
“I don’t know. Bloody clothing that you were wearing.”
I hear the sharp inhale of his breath. “Rosie…”
“You asked me.”
“I didn’t kill her.” His voice sounds choked. “I swear to you. I’d never do anything like that. The police think I did it, but…” He buries his face in his hands. “Christ, this sucks.”
“Nick…”
He raises his face to look at me. “Please tell me you believe me. Tell me you don’t think I killed her.”
That night I confronted him about her, Nick promised he would make things right. He swore it. That night, Nick was skulking around the hotel at three in the morning. And the next morning, the other woman was dead. Stabbed to death. And Nick is the only person who had the key to her room.
“I believe you,” I lie.
That psychic at the carnival was right. My husband is a murderer. And it’s all because of me.
Chapter 33
One Day Earlier
Even through the snow and darkness, I can see how attractive she is.
She has blond hair, the same as Christina Marsh did. She’s clutching her luggage as she shuffles through the freezing rain from her car to the motel door. I watch from my perch at the bedroom window, willing her to turn around. But she doesn’t turn around. She pushes the door open and goes inside.
She probably doesn’t know the motel’s sordid history. We have quite the reputation. The Murder Motel, they called us.
It’s been two years since Christina Marsh was found murdered in room 201. For a couple of weeks, I was certain Nick was going to be taken away in handcuffs, but ultimately, they never arrested him. It’s a good thing, because we were broke enough as it was, and we never could have afforded a decent lawyer. But the consensus on the Internet was that he murdered her.
Even my family thought he was a killer. My mother called me up a week after it all went down. “Come home, Rosalie. You can’t stay with that man.”
She always called me Rosalie. Everyone called me Rosalie. Nick is the only one who ever called me Rosie.
“I’m not leaving my husband,” I told her.
“He cheated on you and then killed that girl. Watch—you’ll be next.”
“Mom!”
But I wasn’t surprised. My mother was never supportive of anything I did, including marrying Nick. It didn’t matter that I loved him. She thought I could do better. Not that I could do better these days. If I weren’t with Nick, I would be alone for the rest of my life.
Nick has been doing what he can to make money. He took some online web design courses, and now he is doing freelance work so we don’t go broke. He’s been talking about trying to sell the motel, but after Christina was killed there, he can’t pay somebody to take it off his hands.
He usually does his freelance computer work at the front desk in the motel. Never here. He doesn’t want to be around me anymore, and it’s hard to blame him. After what happened with Christina, our relationship got even worse, if that were possible. We barely speak two words to each other anymore. We haven’t made love once since her death.
Sometimes I’m not sure we ever will again.
I see movement in the motel on the second floor. Then the lights flicker on in room 203. Nick has chosen a room for the guest.
And now I get out my binoculars.
Nick still doesn’t know about the binoculars, and that I’ve been using them to spy on his guests—he’d be furious. I have tried to use restraint about it. I don’t spy on him all the time. For the most part, the binoculars stay shut in a drawer. But sometimes I get them out in an emergency.
An attractive woman showing up at the motel counts as an emergency. Hey, it’s not my fault that my husband has proven himself not to be trustworthy.
Sometimes when I’m staring across into the hotel with my binoculars, I feel ill about what my life has become. That night two years ago, Nick stopped me before I took all those pills in my medicine cabinet. But the truth is, I still think about it a lot. Except now it’s too late. I can’t stand on my own anymore, even when holding onto the sink, and the pills are too high for me to reach. So I keep on living, by default.
Do Not Disturb: An addictive psychological thriller Page 16
