The rooms were all dark. The sign over the office door was lit, and the light was back on inside, but that was the only light in the building.
“Room one-oh-three,” I said to Nick.
He came around the truck, hunched a little into his flannel shirt. I remembered again that he didn’t have a coat. “What?” he said to me.
“There’s a guest in room one-oh-three,” I told him. “A man. Or at least there was before all the commotion started.”
Nick followed my gaze toward room 103, which was dark like the others. “Hmm,” he said, and strode across the parking lot toward the door.
“We shouldn’t disturb him in the middle of the night,” I said, hurrying to follow him.
“If he heard any of that shit earlier, he’s already been disturbed,” Nick replied.
“Do you think he slept through it?” I asked.
“I have no idea,” Nick said. “I’ll ask him.”
But there was no answer to a knock on the door to the room. There was no light on, either. Instead, when Nick pounded harder on the door, it drifted open, as if it had been barely latched shut.
I looked at Nick as we stood in the dark, open doorway. He frowned at me, said, “Stay here,” and slowly walked inside. “Hello?” I heard him call.
A minute later, he came out again. “There’s no one in there. It doesn’t look like anyone’s been there, either. The bed isn’t touched, and neither is anything else.”
“His name is in the register,” I said. “Maybe he left.”
Nick came out to the corridor and looked over the parking lot, which held only my car and his truck. “What car was he driving?”
I thought back. There was a car. There had to have been a car. But I remembered pulling up to the motel office, finding it empty with the lights on. I’d thought that was strange at the time. I’d looked out to the parking lot and seen my own car, plus Nick’s truck. Like I was seeing right now.
I turned and walked down the corridor to the motel office. The door was unlocked, the lights on. Inside, the office looked like I’d left it, with my messenger bag on the floor next to the desk. I inhaled when I came into the room, searching for the smell of cigarette smoke. There was none.
Nick’s footsteps came behind me as I walked to the desk. I opened the guest book and flipped to tonight’s page. The name was there: James March, room 103. The handwriting was dark and spindly, and I didn’t recognize it. I walked around the desk and pulled open the key drawer. I rifled through the keys, and except for Nick’s key to room 210, they were all there. The key to room 103 was right there in the drawer.
I picked it up by its leather tab and held it out for Nick to see.
“He could have returned it,” Nick said. “The office door was unlocked, and so was that drawer.”
“There wasn’t a car,” I said.
“What did he look like? Did you check him in?”
“I have no idea, and no.”
“Who checked him in, then?” Nick asked.
“There was no one in the office when I got here tonight,” I replied. “It was open, the lights on, and this name was in the guest book. That’s all I know.”
Nick pulled the guest book toward him and looked at the name written on the page. “James March,” he said. “If he isn’t here, then where is he?”
Fell, New York
October 1982 VIV
There was a diner called the Turnabout on a stretch of the North Edge Road, close to the turnoff for the interstate. It was on the outskirts, when you were in the territory of overnight drivers and truckers, where you could find a place that was open until midnight.
The Turnabout wasn’t a fancy place, and the coffee wasn’t particularly good, but Viv found that she didn’t mind it. For three dollars she could get a meal, and there were people here—real people who knew each other, who sometimes sat around and talked. She’d forgotten what it was like to be around people who weren’t just passing through.
Tonight she sat in a booth and waited, fidgety and impatient. She had her notebook and pen with her, along with a manila folder stuffed with papers. She’d spent a week gathering everything, and tonight she would find out if she’d wasted her time.
You can’t do this.
Yes, you can.
To say it was a rabbit hole was an understatement. Ever since Jenny, her roommate, had made those comments about Cathy Caldwell and Victoria Lee, Viv had felt an uncomfortable itch, a need to know. It felt like curiosity mixed with something lurid and mysterious, but Viv knew it was deeper than that. It felt almost like a purpose. Something she was meant to find.
She’d left the apartment early every day and gone to the Fell Central Library, digging through old newspapers. It wasn’t hard to find articles about Cathy and Victoria; their murders had made the news. After a week each girl had dropped off the front page of the Fell Daily, and then you had to find updates—what few there were—in the back pages, with headlines like POLICE STILL MAKE NO HEADWAY and QUESTIONS STILL REMAIN.
The waitress poured Viv another coffee, and Viv anxiously glanced at the door. Because Alma Trent had said she’d come.
She did. She came through the door five minutes later, wearing her uniform and nodding politely at the waitress. “How are things, Laura?”
“Not so bad,” the waitress said. “You haven’t been here in a dog’s age.”
“You haven’t had to call me,” Alma said practically. “But I’d sure like a cup of coffee.” She slid into the booth opposite Viv. “Hello, Vivian.”
Viv nodded. Her palms were sweating, but she was determined not to be the speechless idiot Alma had met before. “Thanks for
