The Sun Down Motel (27 page)

Betty screamed again, her palms pounding on the door, and Hess smiled. Betty had sounded like that in his trunk. She’d screamed like that, pounded on the trunk lid like that. To Hess, it was a lullaby. Her stomach twisted and she thought she was going to be sick.

She walked toward the door. She had to brush past him to do it, but he didn’t move. She tried not to recoil as she got near him.

“What are you doing?” Hess asked.

“Letting her in,” Viv said. She put her hand on the doorknob—it was ice-cold, so cold it almost burned her fingers—and wrenched it. The door opened and the cold, wet wind blew in. There was no one in the corridor.

She looked at the outside of the door. There were bloody palm prints on the cracking paint. Viv opened her hand and placed her palm over one of the prints, feeling the cold blood against her skin.
It’s almost like it’s real
, she thought crazily. Her palm fit perfectly over the print on the door.

Run
, Betty had told her, standing in front of her windshield while Viv crouched in the car.
Run.

She could run now. She had the door open. She had no doubt Hess would chase her; he might even win. He was older than her, less agile, but he was a hunter who had chased down his prey many times. Maybe she’d never know how many times. He’d chase her down, and then she’d be the next one on his list.

He had the same thought. “Do you think you’re going somewhere?” he asked calmly, even though she stood in an open doorway, ready to run.

She could do it. Get down the stairs, get in her car. Drive away from this place, from this killer. Tell the authorities.

What good would it do?

Nothing would happen. No one would believe her. Simon Hess would seem like a reasonable, law-abiding person who was falsely accused by a crazy girl. And it would start all over again.

Or he would kill her, and he’d get away with it. Again.

She stepped back from the doorway and turned around to face him. “No,” she said. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Three things happened.

All of the lights, including the sign, went out and everything went dark.

Betty screamed.

And Viv pulled the knife from her sweatshirt, slid it from its holster, and sank it into Simon Hess’s chest.

Fell, New York

November 1982

It was surprisingly hard. Putting a knife in a man’s chest was like pushing it through thick cardboard, the blade punching through cloth and muscle. But the hunting knife was sharp, and Viv was full of adrenaline. She felt numb and strong and outside of her own body. She felt terrified and pure.

The wind howled through the open door, and footsteps ran past in the dark, heading for the stairs. “You got him!” the little boy’s voice cried out. “You got him!”

She could see nothing in the darkness. She heard a deep, gasping breath from Simon Hess, the sound of his footstep as he backed away. She let go of the knife handle and left it stuck in his chest as he moved.
This isn’t happening
, she thought wildly.
It isn’t real.

All of the doors in the corridor were open now, and she could hear them banging. She blinked in the darkness, unsure whether she should step forward or retreat. There was a thump in the empty air of the room, then another, harder one. Simon Hess hitting the floor.

He was still breathing. She could hear it. Heavy, shaking, slow breaths.
He might stop
, Viv thought.
He might die. Here, now.
She didn’t want that
yet. She stepped forward into the blackness, following the sound of his breathing. She knelt on the floor and crawled toward it, her eyes adjusting so she could barely see the shapes of her hands.

She reached out and touched something covered in fabric. Something hard, the bone of a knee perhaps. A hand shot out and grabbed her wrist, jerking her off balance. The hand was big and soft and cold, so slick with chilled sweat she almost slid out of its grasp. But Hess was still strong, and he shoved her so she landed on one side, her hip hitting the floor and her head banging against something hard—the edge of the bed, or maybe the nightstand.
This is the second time I’ve been attacked tonight
, she thought.
I’m going to have bruises.

They wrestled in grim silence for a minute, Hess trying to grasp her with his slick hands, the strength in his arms faltering, Viv thrashing back and kicking him. Hess gave a dark grunt and grabbed at her again, his neat, trim fingernails trying to dig into her flesh. Outside, there was the slow
click
of high heels in the corridor and a strange, rotten smell.

She kicked Hess away again and then his hands were gone. There was a wheeze as he seemed to fall back to the floor, weak. She flipped her body and put her hands on him again, feeling numbly along his torso. Her fingers hit warm blood.

“Tell me,” she said urgently. “Why Betty? Why?”

He reached up and grabbed her hair, twisted it, but his strength was failing. “Betty was mine,” he said, his voice a harsh whisper as if he were telling her a secret. “I loved her. I just wanted her to see.”

She had so much she needed to know. There was no time. She went still as his hand twisted harder in her hair. “And Cathy?”

“My daughter went to the dentist’s office where she worked.” He wheezed, and she recognized the sound as a sick sort of laugh. “She meant nothing to me. She was so obviously alone. So easy. I wanted to know if I could do it again. It turned out I could.”

She was so obviously alone.
That was what they had in common. Not hair
color or age or build. Betty, living her spinster life. Cathy with her husband deployed. Victoria with her fights and her anger. Tracy with her parents who didn’t keep her home.

Viv thought of Cathy’s baby, of her grieving husband, of her mother on the phone.
A sweet girl who wanted to earn her next paycheck and raise her baby. Do you know who killed her? Can you end this for me?
Her fingers gripped Hess’s shirt, soaked in blood. She wished she could see his face—and yet she didn’t want to see it at all. “Victoria?” she asked, her voice cracking.

“A mistake,” Hess replied. He cleared his throat. His hand was still wound in her hair, his grip surprisingly hard, and Viv stayed braced in case he attacked her again. They were in a strange embrace, here in the dark, fighting and telling each other secrets. “She was there when I sold her mother a lock system. I thought she wouldn’t be a challenge. But she fought me. She bit me, that little bitch. And the location wasn’t right. It was hasty and too exposed. I had to cut my losses.”

Cut my losses
, to Simon Hess, meant strangling a teenaged girl and throwing her in the bushes in the rain. The tips of Viv’s fingers touched the handle of her knife, still sticking out of his chest. She gritted her teeth as bile rose in her throat. Or perhaps it was tears. She made herself say the final name, grind it out of her furious throat. “Tracy Waters.”

Hess coughed, the sound wet. “What do you think?”

“She was good and sweet,” Viv said. “Innocent. She had a family who loved her. She never did you any harm.”

Hess laughed. “You haven’t caught on. None of them did me any harm.”

“She wasn’t beautiful,” Viv said. “She wasn’t sexy or cruel. She’d never even met you. She was a girl. Why did you do it?”

His hand twisted in her hair, and his grip was strong but she could feel him trembling. “Because no one ever stopped me,” he said. “Because I could.”

“How many others are there?”

He was quiet. She could hear his breathing. She knew this was a game—he had something she wanted, knew something she wanted to know. And she desperately wanted to know.
Did I miss someone? What girl didn’t I see?

“The map in your suitcase,” she said, more urgently now. “What is that?”

He didn’t answer, torturing her.

She struggled in his grip, changed her angle, and grabbed the handle of the knife. She gave it a shove, tried to twist it. It was stuck solid, as if in thick glue. Simon Hess gave a low groan of pain.

“Tell me,” she said.

Behind her came the
click
of heels from the corridor, turning to soft footsteps on the cheap motel carpet. Ice-cold air touched Viv’s back.

“Betty,” Hess said, his voice high with fear.

A low moan came behind her, the sound unearthly. Viv wondered if Betty was wearing her purple dress, if her hands were bloody.
How did this happen?

“She doesn’t love you,” Viv said to Hess, pushing on the knife. “She never did. She hates you. She haunts this place because she hates you so much. You come here and she gets so furious I can feel it, taste it. She makes me furious, too. Do you understand me?
Betty hates you.
”

That low moan behind her again, and she felt the rise and fall of Hess’s chest. Slower and slower by the minute. “I can see her,” he said softly. “I watched her for so many weeks. I memorized her face. She’s mine. She’s still mine.”

“She isn’t yours,” Viv whispered back. “It’s the other way around. You’re hers, or you’re going to be.”

His voice was trembling now. He let go of her hair and traced his hand over Viv’s face, his fingertips cold and clammy. “I know you from somewhere,” he said. “Where?”

Viv went still, feeling his touch on her skin. He was touching her.
Touching her.
She tightened her grip on the knife handle.

Hess’s fingers brushed over her mouth, traced her lips in the dark. “I don’t remember,” he said, his voice faint and vague now. “There are so many. I know all of their faces. But I can’t see you. Which one are you?”

“I’m the one you didn’t kill,” Viv said. She pulled the knife out of his chest. And as he took in a breath of pain, she plunged the knife back down.

Fell, New York

November 2017

Was I awake or asleep? I didn’t know. I was somewhere dark, and my phone was ringing.

I opened my eyes. I was on the sofa in my apartment, where I had sat down a long time ago—for just a minute, I’d thought. Now I was slumped against the arm of the sofa, fully dressed. My cheek ached and my throat was dry. It was dark outside the windows and there was no sign of Heather.

I picked up my phone from the coffee table and answered it, picking up my glasses with my other hand and putting them on. “Hello?”

“Carly, it’s me. Callum MacRae.”

I cleared my throat. “Um.”

“I’m sorry. Were you asleep? It’s only six thirty.”

I glanced at the dark windows. Night came early this time of year. “I’m fine,” I said. “I work nights. What’s up?”

“I got some news,” he said. His low, pleasant voice was excited. “They found a body in an old barn just outside of town. It was just this morning. And I know you’re looking for your aunt, so I checked it out for you.”

I scrubbed a hand under my glasses, rubbing my eye. “It isn’t her,” I said. “I already asked. It’s a man.”

There was a beat of silence. “Oh, okay.” He laughed. “You’re good. I called some of my contacts, and the word from the Fell PD is that they have an identity and a cause of death.”

“Already?” We’d found the body just this morning.

“Well, it isn’t one hundred percent yet. They won’t announce it until they know for sure. But yes, they have preliminary findings already. Why don’t you come meet me?”

“Meet you where?”

“There’s a coffee shop just down the street from the central library. It’s called Finelli’s. It should be open for another hour or two. Come down and I’ll tell you what I know.”

I looked around the darkened apartment. Where was Heather? She’d gone to bed when we got home; I wondered if she was still asleep. Nick had said he was going back to the Sun Down to try to sleep, too.

“Carly?” Callum said.

“Yes,” I said, getting my thoughts on track. “Um, sure. Yes, I’ll meet you.”

“Great. Twenty minutes. I’ll see you then.”

I hung up and stood, stretching my aching neck. “Heather?”

There was no answer. I turned on a lamp and saw a note on the kitchen table.

Gone to see the rents. I need to retreat for a while. Don’t worry, I took my meds. I don’t really know when I’ll be back. But I left you this present, which I got from the depths of the Internet. Don’t ask questions. Here you go.

In my half-asleep state, it took me a minute to translate that Heather had gone to her parents’. I picked up the sheet of paper she’d left with the note. It was a printout of an old scan. A list of numbers.

I pulled out a kitchen chair and turned on the light, studying the page. I was looking at a phone record, I realized. Just like Viv’s roommate Jenny had said.
The cops would get a big old printout.

Heather had circled the name at the top of the report: Sun Down Motel. And the date: November 1 to November 30, 1982.

I scanned the numbers. There weren’t many; the Sun Down didn’t make or receive a lot of phone calls in 1982, a situation that hadn’t changed in thirty-five years. Some of the calls were marked as incoming, others as outgoing. Near the bottom of the list were the calls made on November 29 and the early hours of November 30.

Just after one a.m. on November 30 was an incoming call. The record didn’t show which room it was routed to, if any. Heather had circled the number the call came from and written a question mark next to it. That meant she hadn’t been able to identify the number.

At 1:54 a.m. was an outgoing call. Again, there was no record of whether it came from the motel office or one of the rooms. Heather had circled this number, too, but next to it she wrote
Fell Police Department
.

There were no other calls that night.

I stared at the numbers for a minute. Someone had called in to the motel just after one. Maybe that was a coincidence, a fluke, or a wrong number. Maybe not.

But just before two, someone at the Sun Down had called the police.

Was it Vivian? Simon Hess? Someone else?

I put the note down.

My aunt Vivian killed Simon Hess.

She must have. There was no other explanation. Or was there? I didn’t really know what had happened that night in 1982. But someone—a woman—had warned Tracy Waters’s parents about Hess. And Tracy had been killed, her body found the same day Viv disappeared.

Had Hess killed Viv, then been killed by someone else?

Callum’s information would answer some of my questions. An ID on the body in the trunk in the barn and a cause of death, even a preliminary one, would put some of the pieces together. I went into the bathroom and cleaned up, then changed into clean clothes. I had a text on my phone from my brother, Graham, but I ignored it. My old life seemed so far away.

I texted Heather quickly so she wouldn’t worry.
Callum has info from
the police. Going to meet him.
As I hit Send, the phone rang in my hand. I didn’t recognize the number.

I bit my lip for a second, undecided. Then I answered. “Hello?”

“You found him.” The voice on the other end was female, older than me, and familiar.

“Marnie?” I said.

Marnie sighed. “You’re a smart girl. We hid him good, and he stayed gone for a long time. But it looks like you dug him up after all these years.”

I shook my head. “You lied to us. But you took a photo of the barn where you left him.”

A pause. “Yes, I suppose I did.”

“Why did you take the picture?”

“I wanted to be able to find the place again. I don’t think I ever believed he’d stay buried forever. We thought maybe we’d have to go back and move him, but we lucked out. For a while, anyway. Now is as good a time as any for all of it to come out. It was going to happen whether I wanted it to or not.”

“Who killed him?” I asked. “Was it you? Was it Viv?”

“It’s a complicated story.”

“Not really. Someone put Simon Hess in a trunk and left him in a barn. Was it you? Or her?”

“You didn’t find the notebook, did you?”

I stood straighter, my skin tingling. “Notebook?”

“It was left for you,” Marnie said. “You’re missing so much of the story. It’s why you’re confused. Read the notebook and you’ll understand.”

My mind raced.
It was left for you.
What did that mean? “Where is the notebook?” I asked Marnie.

“Tell me,” Marnie said. “Did you ever try to get candy out of the candy machine?”

I froze, remembering the broken candy machine. Nick saying,
I can’t believe this even works.

“Read the notebook,” Marnie said again, “then meet me at Watson’s Diner.”

“When?”

“Tonight,” Marnie said. “When you’re there, I’ll be there. Don’t worry.” She hung up.

Finelli’s was a beacon of yellow light on the dark downtown street, where a lot of businesses were already closing for the night. Fell wasn’t a late-night town. At least, not here. At the Sun Down, it was an all-night town.

Callum was sitting at one of the small tables, a coffee in front of him. He was wearing a button-down shirt, a zip-up sweater, and a fall jacket. The guy knew how to layer. His hair was neatly combed and he smiled when he saw me.

He held up his mug when I sat down. “Decaf,” he said. “Want one?”

I blinked at his cup, still groggy. “I want the most caffeine this place can supply.”

Callum smiled again and signaled for the waitress. “Right, you work nights. I guess this is morning for you.”

“To be honest, I don’t know what time of day it is. I haven’t in a while.”

“Interesting,” Callum said. “And kind of freeing, I guess.” He put his cup down. “The rest of us are stuck in time. You know—you do one thing in the morning, this other thing in the afternoon, go to sleep at night. The same thing every day. But that isn’t real, is it? It’s just something we construct for ourselves. If we wanted to, we could let it go.”

I sipped the coffee the waitress had brought and tried to follow what he was talking about. “A lot of people work nights.”

“Sure they do.” Callum smiled again. “Thanks for meeting me.”

Now I was perking up. I took another swallow of coffee. “You said you have information.”

Callum’s gaze dropped to his coffee cup, then wandered around the room. “Do you want to know something strange?”

That was when it clicked. Something was off. I’d been too distracted,
too tired and overwhelmed, to notice it before. “Callum,” I said. “You told me you had information from the police.”

“Do you want to know something strange?” Callum said again. “I mean, really strange. Like the craziest strange thing you’ve ever heard.”

I went still. I was suddenly aware of the coffee shop around me, how nearly empty it was. How dark it was outside. How I was alone here with him.

“You have this big mystery in your family,” Callum said. If he was aware I was uncomfortable, he didn’t show it. “You came all the way here to solve it, and you met me in the library. But I have a family mystery of my own. Isn’t that crazy?”

“Sure,” I said slowly, putting my cup down.

“I have a family disappearance, too,” Callum said. “My grandfather. He went to work one day and never came home. No one ever saw him again.”

My mouth went dry. It couldn’t be.

“My grandmother never even called the police,” Callum went on. “Crazy, right? Mom says that my grandmother always assumed that my grandfather left her for another woman. She found it so humiliating that she never considered filing a missing-person report. She never wanted to talk about it, all the way to the day she died five years ago. Those were different times.”

I licked my lips and swallowed.

Callum turned his gaze back to my face. It was hard and unreadable. “Imagine that. Just imagine it. Your husband of fifteen years goes to work one morning and never comes home, and you just live with it. You pretend everything is fine and he didn’t just vanish. You pretend everything’s fine for the rest of your life. No wonder my mother is so screwed up.” He smiled, but now I could see it was forced. “Everyone has a screwed-up family, but I think yours and mine win some kind of award, don’t they?”

He stared at me, expecting an answer, so I said, “I don’t know.”

“I’ve asked my mother about it, of course,” Callum said. “I mean, I
grew up with a long-gone grandfather. So I was curious. My mother wasn’t as closemouthed as my grandmother was. She was a kid when he left, so she wasn’t subject to the same shame. She told me that the topic of her father was completely taboo in her house growing up. Once he left, she wasn’t supposed to talk about him, even to admit he had ever existed. My grandmother was too proud.” He shook his head. “So I have this family mystery, and so do you. And both of those mysteries happened around the same time. The first thing I thought when I saw the article about your aunt was,
Maybe she ran off with Granddad
. She was a lot younger than him, but it isn’t impossible. My grandfather was a traveling salesman—he met all kinds of people. He met people all day, every day. Maybe he met your aunt, and in a fit of passion they drove away together to start a new life.”

The coffee shop seemed too empty, too quiet. One of the few customers had left, and the young man working behind the counter was starting to clean up to prepare for closing, one eye on us, hoping we would leave.

Maybe in a fit of passion they drove away together to start a new life.

I thought of the car in the old barn, the dried blood on the ground beneath it.

I pushed back my chair. “I need to go.”

“You just got here,” Callum said.

“You said you had information from the police.” I picked up my purse. It suddenly seemed urgent that I get out of here, get away from him. “You lied to get me here. I’m going.”

Callum watched me, and his handsome face was unreadable. “I don’t need information from the police,” he said. “I already know who the body is in that trunk. Do you?”

I didn’t answer. I turned and left.

“Call Alma Trent,” Callum called after me. “She knows who it is, too. Maybe she’ll tell you.”

Outside, I got in my car, started it, and hit Dial on my phone. Nick’s phone went to voicemail.

“Nick,” I said after the beep, “I got a call from Marnie. She says there’s a notebook hidden in the candy machine we need to see. I’m coming to the motel to find it.”

Through the windshield, I watched Callum come out of the coffee shop. He gave me a little wave, as if nothing were wrong. He got in his own car.

I hung up and tossed my phone on the passenger seat. I pulled out of the parking lot and headed through town.

I wasn’t surprised when I looked in the rearview mirror and saw Callum right behind me.