Do Not Disturb: An addictive psychological thriller

by Freida McFadden

I rise from the rocking chair and brush out a few wrinkles in my blue sundress. I tuck a stray strand of my dark hair behind my ears. I haven’t dyed my hair in two and a half years, and it has finally grown in its natural color. I missed it.

  “Ready,” I say.

  He glances at his watch. “It should take about an hour to get there. Not much traffic.”

  I smile at him. “I’m not in a rush.”

  I step down the walkway to his car. He dashes around the side of the vehicle so he can open the door for me. I always tell him he doesn’t have to do it, but he wants to. It’s sweet.

  “The reviews for the restaurant are phenomenal,” Scott remarks as he slides into the driver seat. “I can’t wait. You’re sure we’re going to get a table?”

  “I’m sure,” I say. “I called ahead.”

  Scott reaches out to give my hand a squeeze. Then he starts the engine and we’re on our way. I don’t know if he is going to be the man I end up with, but I’m happy with him now. He treats me right, and I like him a lot. And that’s what’s important to me right now.

  And in one hour, we’re going to have a lovely dinner at Rosalie’s. Nick promised he’d save a table for us.

  ROSALIE

  Rosalie’s is busy tonight.

  Of course, it’s busy every night these days. The restaurant went from being boarded up to eventually getting a steady stream of business, and last month, Nick got us a write up in a popular food blog, and now it’s gotten crazy busy. It can be a little stressful, but I love it.

  A new waitress, Vanessa, comes to the pass with two new tables full of order tickets. Vanessa just started last month, but she’s been doing a good job. I reach for the tickets from the counter, which we had lowered to accommodate a person who can’t stand. The entire kitchen has been modified for me, although we left a lot of it the same because I’m running the kitchen and not doing the cooking anymore. I make sure every plate that leaves the kitchen is up to my standards. This isn’t just a side of the road diner. This is something better—something special. Or at least, I like to think it is.

  “Everyone is enjoying their food?” I ask Vanessa.

  She nods eagerly. “The tips are amazing tonight.”

  I laugh. “Glad to hear it.”

  After I call out the new tickets for my little brigade of cooks, I look up and see Nick standing at the entrance to the kitchen. He grins at me and gives me a little wave. “Is this a bad time?”

  I let out an exaggerated sigh. “It’s always a bad time. Why do you have to be so good at publicizing this place?”

  “I don’t know. Why do you have to be so good a chef?”

  I fold my arms across my chest, resting on my belly. “You’re the one at fault. I’m pretty sure.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” He cocks his head to the side. “How are you feeling?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Are you sure because—”

  “I’m fine, Nick.” I give him a look. “Stop worrying.”

  “Sorry,” he says sheepishly. “But… I just can’t wait, you know?”

  Nick doesn’t usually fret about me this way. Ever since that night I almost died, he’s pushed me like crazy. More than I wanted to be pushed some days. We went back to Dr. Heller and got me on some medications that helped a lot with my fatigue. And one that helped a lot with my depression as well. I should have taken the anti-depressants to begin with—I had no clue how dark my life had become until the fog lifted. And I got a power wheelchair to use outside of the house, so I didn’t have to use all my energy pushing myself around when fatigue was already an issue.

  Once the depression was gone, I felt like myself again. And I couldn’t believe I had almost let my dreams slip away from me.

  So the two of us set about getting it back. It was slow going the first year, but like last time, it eventually took off. This is the busiest Rosalie’s has ever been. We have people waiting for tables most nights.

  So the timing couldn’t be worse. But is the timing ever perfect to have a baby? It doesn’t matter. Because like it or not, in one short month, Nick and I are going to be parents.

  After what happened last time, I can’t entirely blame him for worrying. And this is a terrible time for me to be taking a maternity leave. One of my cooks is going to step up to help with expediting, but because funds are still tight, Nick is going to do it on the typically slower nights. I’ve been training him, and he’s actually not too bad at it. He might not be able to cook, but he knows good food. And he’s very organized and forceful when he needs to be.

  “I can’t wait either.” I rest a hand on my baby bulge, which has gotten more and more unwieldy in the last couple of months. “But don’t worry. I’m okay. I promise.”

  He crouches down next to me. He rests one of his hands on top of mine on my belly, then leans in and kisses me. I should be pushing out orders now, but it’s hard to resist my husband. After five years of essentially living like strangers, it’s like we’re on a new honeymoon.

  It just took almost dying.

  In the weeks after the incident, we finally got all the details, although it was mostly from reading them in the paper. The woman who showed up earlier in the night, Quinn Alexander, had just murdered her husband. She stabbed him in the belly, although there was significant evidence that she did it in self-defense. Nick told the police he saw bruises on her neck, and he assumed somebody had attacked her. Nick later ended up testifying in Quinn’s trial.

  But it turned out that the husband was sleeping with Quinn’s sister, Claudia Delaney. And when the sister—apparently already a bit mentally unstable—discovered the dead body, she had a complete breakdown. Claudia set about finding Quinn, then exacting revenge on her. She stabbed Quinn, then put her in the trunk of her car, intending to get rid of the dead body.

  And she went after me because she thought I saw her stabbing her sister. She was getting rid of the witnesses.

  She did the same to Greta. After the old woman told her what she wanted to know, Claudia took care of her—stabbed her in the abdomen just like Quinn. But amazingly, the knife missed any major organs and Greta survived—she was home from the hospital within a week. She must have nine lives.

  “Hey,” Nick says to me now. “I know you’re busy, but do you want to let me take over for half an hour so you can say goodbye to Greta?”

  “Now?”

  He shrugs. “She’s leaving in the morning. She’s got an early flight, so if you don’t see her now, you might miss her.”

  After she recovered from her nearly fatal injuries, Greta got this idea in her head that she wanted to travel the world. I don’t have much time left. I want to see everything. At first I thought she had forgotten about the whole thing, but then a few months ago, she told us she had booked plane tickets. Her flight is at seven in the morning tomorrow.

  I look doubtfully at the tickets in the window. “Are you sure you can handle it??”

  “Go! I promise, I’ll be fine.”

  To prove his point, Nick strides over to the pass and starts expertly studying the tickets and making sure that all the plates are up to standard. He winks at me, and I smile back. I suppose it won’t hurt to be gone for half an hour.

  As I pass through the restaurant, I see Quinn Alexander sitting at one of the tables with her boyfriend—one of the police officers who had been involved in the case. Nick told me she had asked him to set aside a table for tonight. The two of them are holding hands across the table, and he’s looking into her eyes. They look really happy. Good for them. After what she’s been through, she deserves a happy ending.

  The latest bit of construction Nick did was making sure the path from the restaurant back to the motel was paved, so it would be easy for my power wheelchair to glide across. I can’t lie—doing everything I used to do before has been a challenge, but Nick has done everything he can to make sure the transition has been as smooth as possible. I’m lucky to have him. Although he claims he’s lucky to have me. Maybe we
’re both lucky.

  One thing we can’t do is make the second floor of the motel accessible to me. The cost of putting in an elevator would be prohibitive, and it’s not like I need to go up there anyway. And the lobby is beautiful now. Nick put in new carpeting last year that’s a striking royal blue. He also patched up the ceiling after we fixed the leak in room 201. It’s an interesting story—the husband of that woman, Claudia, came by to talk to us soon after her arrest, to offer an apology and explanation for what his wife had done. But when he noticed the leak, he offered to go up and fix it free of charge. Apparently, he’s a plumber. That pipe had been leaking on and off for years, and the rust from the pipes turned the water brown—almost red—staining the ceiling. Fortunately, it hasn’t leaked again since he fixed it, and we got the stain on the ceiling repainted. Robert Delaney knows what he’s doing.

  That said, we still haven’t had any guests in Room 201. Nick still keeps the room closed all the time with the “DO NOT DISTURB” sign on the door. Eventually, he’ll have to open it up, but he’s not ready yet.

  When I wheel into the lobby, Greta is already waiting for me. She is sitting in a wooden chair, wearing a dress rather than one of her many nightgowns with a long black coat over it. I almost don’t recognize her in normal clothing.

  “Let me guess,” I say. “Your psychic premonition told you I was coming.”

  She laughs. “No. Nick said you were going to stop by.”

  “Ah.”

  She tilts her head. “You look beautiful tonight, Rosalie. You’re glowing.”

  I roll my eyes. “My pregnancy glow?”

  “Pregnancy… love…” She reaches for my hand, and I let her take it. Her fingers are so frail and spidery. I can’t believe she survived being stabbed in her belly—Nick and I thought for sure she was a goner. But she told me she had survived much worse. “You and Nick are going to live happily ever after. I told you. I told you there was happiness in your future.”

  I remember when she said that to me. I let her tell my fortune, and she told me those exact words. And I laughed at the time, because I couldn’t imagine a happy future for myself. Yet here I am.

  “I guess you really have a gift,” I say.

  “I will tell you a secret, Rosalie.” Her fingers linger on mine. “I cannot really read the future. Or the past. I am just an ordinary woman.”

  “Really.” There’s a note of sarcasm in my voice, but I’m a little surprised by her admission. Not that I ever believed in that stuff, but sometimes Greta did seem truly clairvoyant. After all, she predicted a happy ending for me and Nick when it seemed impossible.

  “Yes. It is true.”

  “Well.” I shrug. “It looks like your prediction about me and Nick came true after all.”

  “Yes. It did. Of course, I had to help it along.”

  “Help it along?”

  She hesitates as her watery blue eyes stare into mine. “Rosalie, I want you to know that I never had children. And I always thought of you like a daughter. I wanted you to be happy.”

  “Yes…”

  “Nick would have left you,” she says. “That girl, Christina… she was a vixen. She set her sights on him—she wanted him. And no offense, my dear, but you were not doing much to hold on to him. You were delivering him to her on a silver platter! She told me how she thought Nick would be better off without you.”

  My mouth falls open. I didn’t know about any of this. I had always assumed it was a fling—not that I asked for many details.

  “So you see,” she says, “I had to do what I did.”

  I pull my hand away from hers. “What did you do?”

  “I saved your marriage!”

  “Greta…” I feel a cramping sensation in my lower abdomen. “What did you do?”

  Greta’s blue eyes are wide. “She deserved it. Look at what she did. Fooling around with a married man. I’m disappointed in Nick too, but I understand what he was going through. She had no excuse. Terrible person.”

  My stomach turns. “Greta, you didn’t…”

  “She barely felt a thing.” Greta strokes her long white hair. “I got the key from where Nick keeps them downstairs, and I let myself into her room during the night. I did it while she was sleeping. She only woke up for a minute, and it was too late by then. Nothing anyone could do.”

  All these years, I had been scared Nick was the one who killed Christina Marsh. I should have known he would never do something like that.

  But I never dreamed Greta could have done it either.

  “I’ve done it before.” She says it casually, like she’s talking about going roller skating instead of committing a murder. “There was a woman at the carnival who wanted my Bernie. And then she just… disappeared. That’s what the police decided anyway.”

  I clasp a hand over my mouth. “Oh God…”

  “I was trying to get rid of the other one for you too,” she says. “Quinn. When she was downstairs, I looked through her bag, found out her real name. Then I said all the scary stuff about how she was in horrible danger. Left a few threatening messages for her in the Bible in the drawer. Got her on the run. Of course, it turned out she was in horrible danger.”

  “Greta…”

  “Rosalie.” She reaches for my hand again, but I yank it away. “Are you feeling poorly? You look so pale. It’s not the baby, is it?”

  “No, I…” But that cramp hits me again. Still, I’ve got an entire month to go. I’m not in labor. I’m just having a panic attack that a woman is dead because of me. “Greta, how could you do something like that?”

  She blinks at me. “I did it for you, Rosalie.” Her eyes darken. “If I hadn’t, you would have none of this! He would have left you. No restaurant, no baby. Christina wanted him. You did not meet that woman. She thought I was on her side so she confided in me.”

  “She… did?”

  “You do not know how she spoke about you. Nick’s invalid wife. Frigid—won’t even touch him. He deserves better. That’s what she used to say.”

  Those Tarot cards were right all those years ago about my future. Death. Because Nick and I got married, a woman is dead. But he wasn’t the one who killed her. It was Greta.

  Greta reaches deep into the pocket of her long black wool coat. She pulls out a rectangular sign with the familiar words “DO NOT DISTURB” stenciled on it. She holds it out to me.

  “I took this off the door of Room 201,” she says. “It’s time to open the room up again to guests. Let the past be the past.”

  I take the sign from her, but it drops from my fingers and flutters to the ground, the letters of “DO NOT DISTURB” staring up at me, looming before my eyes. I lean forward as my head spins. I get that cramping sensation one more time. I can’t believe what I’m hearing. Greta killed a woman. I can’t just pretend I didn’t hear this. I have to call the police. I have to tell them what I know.

  “You do not look well, Rosalie.” She purses her lips. “Are you sure it’s not the baby? Should I fetch Nick?”

  “No, I…” But before I can protest, I feel this strange popping sensation inside me. I look down at the growing stain on my skirt. “Greta…”

  “Your water broke!” She claps her hands together. “How exciting! I’ll go get Nick.”

  I watch her run off to the restaurant to get my husband. My head is spinning. I’m about to have a baby. I’m in labor.

  But I’ve got to call the police. I’ve got to tell them that Greta killed Christina Marsh. I can’t let her get away with murder, even if she did it for me.

  Where is my phone? Where did I put it?

  It seems like less than a minute later, Nick is dashing into the motel. His face is pale, but he’s grinning. “Greta said you’re in labor. She said your water broke. Are you okay?”

  “I’m okay, but…” I take a breath. “Nick, my phone…”

  “Don’t worry about your phone. I’ve got mine. Come on, the hospital bag is in my trunk.”

  “But I need to�
�”

  “Rosie, we have to go!” His eyes are shining. “Come on—let’s get you to the hospital and have this baby!” He reaches over and wraps his arms around me. “I can’t wait. I love you so much, Rosie.”

  “Where’s Greta?” I say.

  “She said she had to go. She ended up getting a flight late tonight and had to run, but she said to tell you that you’re going to be a wonderful mother.”

  I’ll look up at him, my head throbbing. Another cramp seizes my lower abdomen. I’ve got to get to the hospital—he’s right. There’s no time to call the police now. And by the time I do, Greta will be out of the country.

  She planned it this way. She knew that if she told me, I would feel compelled to report her. She didn’t tell me until the last second for that reason. But she wanted me to know. She wanted me to know that everything I have is because of her. She’s right—Nick very well might have left me for Christina. If she hadn’t done what she did, I wouldn’t have him anymore. I wouldn’t be on my way to the hospital, about to have my first child. I might not even be alive.

  It was wrong that she murdered that woman. She should never have done it. But I can’t say I’m sorry. And at that moment, I decide.

  If we have a girl, we will name her Greta.

  THE END

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  Acknowledgments

  I have to be honest—I often don’t read the acknowledgments in books. Since I started writing, I have learned that I’m in the minority on this. A lot of people read the acknowledgments. In fact, I can think of at least three people who will buy a copy of this book, and go straight to the acknowledgments without reading even one other word first. (Hi, Dad!)

  So it’s a lot of pressure to make this entertaining in some way. Especially since I’m kind of just thanking the same people each time. Harper Lee only had to write like one acknowledgment every 60 years or so. I’m jealous of Harper Lee.