Nick frowned slowly, as if computing this. “Alma knows I’m here? At the Sun Down?”
“Sort of. Yes.”
“Shit,” he said softly. “I’m going to get a visit. Probably soon.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine.” He shook his head. “It wasn’t going to be a secret forever. I mean, what was my plan? Stay at the Sun Down until I’m sixty? I’ll go crazy before Christmas.”
“She’s not a fan of yours. Like you said.” I put my beer down. “She says there’s a theory that you weren’t in your room when your brother was killed.”
Nick went very, very still. He looked at me for a long moment, his expression going as quietly blank as a blackboard being erased.
I didn’t want to feel nervous, but I did. The nerves made my throat dry and my back tight, made cold sweat start under my T-shirt. “Nick,” I said finally, unable to take the silence.
“Yeah,” he said as if he hadn’t paused. “That was a theory. I remember.”
I swallowed. “I didn’t say I believed it.”
“No, you didn’t.” He swigged his beer, then put the can down. For a second I thought he was going to say he was leaving, that it was over. He even leaned forward in his chair. Then he said, “Who’s the kid? The one I see running around in shorts?”
It took a second for me to realize he meant the ghost. “He hit his head on the side of the pool and died,” I said. “The year the motel opened.”
Nick nodded, as if this made sense. “And the skinny old guy with the cigarette?”
I started, shocked. “You’ve seen him? The smoking man?”
“In the parking lot. He stands there and stares up at my room, smoking. Then he’s gone.”
“He was the one who called the ambulance for the kid. He died six months later. In this office.” Now I swigged my own beer, remembering.
Nick’s eyebrows went up. “Well, that’s just fucking great,” he said succinctly. “So what do we do next?”
We? Was there a we? I didn’t know he was helping me with this. I had opened my mouth to answer—I had no idea what—when the office door swung open and Heather walked in.
• • •
“Hi,” she said. And then she saw Nick and said, “Oh.”
She was wearing skinny jeans, Uggs, and her big parka. Her hair was in its usual bobby pin, her cheeks red with cold. Her eyes were bright like they were the first day I met her and she brought a wash of the cold night air through the door with her. She carried a plain manila file folder under her arm, stuffed with papers. She stopped short and looked at us.
“Heather,” I said as Nick turned in his chair to look.
“You’re Nick,” Heather said, fixing him with her gaze.
“You’re the roommate,” Nick said.
Heather nodded. Her eyes were slightly wide, the only tell she gave that she knew who he was. Only someone who knew her like I did would see it. Without another word to Nick, she turned to me. “I couldn’t sleep, and you don’t get any cell signal here. I have a bunch of stuff for you.”
“Are you okay?” I asked her. “Are you sure you should be doing this?”
“I’m okay now, I promise.” She put her file folder on the desk in front of me, next to the six-pack.
“Want a beer?” Nick asked her.
Heather shook her head and pointed a finger to her temple. “Messes with the meds,” she said, then turned back to me. “I’ve been on the Internet for hours. I went into some of my old files and on the message boards I know. Check out what I found.”
I opened the folder. The papers were printouts from websites: photos, articles, conversation threads on message boards. I saw Betty Graham’s formal portrait, her lovely and reserved face tilted to the camera. Cathy Caldwell at a Christmas party. Victoria Lee’s high school senior photo. And one other face I didn’t recognize. “Who is this?”
“This is the big find,” Heather said. “This is the one even I didn’t know about.” She pulled out the photo. The girl was obviously a teenager, smiling widely for the camera for her school photo. I felt my heart thud in my chest and my stomach sink. A teenager.
“This is Tracy Waters,” Heather said. “She lived two counties over. She disappeared on November 27, 1982. Her body was found in a ditch two days later.” She pushed the photo to the middle of the desk, so we could all see it. I felt horror creeping into the edges of my vision as I stared.
“November 29,” Nick said.
“Exactly,” Heather said. “Tracy’s body was found the same night that Vivian Delaney disappeared.”
Fell, New York
November 1982 VIV
The problem with the traveling salesman was that he didn’t have a routine. Aside from the single page of schedule she’d seen in his car—Mr. Alan Leckie, 52 Farnham Rd., Poughkeepsie; meeting at head office—she had no idea where he was headed or when. He certainly didn’t leave home at eight and get back at six like every other working man. That made him harder to follow.
When Viv awoke—whatever time of day that might be—she got into the habit of dressing, running a brush through her hair, and driving to the salesman’s house. First she’d cruise by at regular speed just to see if his car was in his driveway. If it was, she’d park around the corner near the park, sink down in her seat, and wait for him to leave. If it wasn’t, she’d drive on to Westlake Lock Systems on the other side of town to see if his car was in the lot. If it wasn’t there, either, she knew he was on the road.
Those were the three things he did: went home, went to Westlake, and went on the road. He never had a day off, a Saturday where he did errands. Viv knew because she’d spent a day observing Mrs. Simon Hess, who
