“Callum gets fixated on things,” Alma said. “His grandfather’s disappearance is one of them. He’s never been quite right. We think he has borderline personality disorder.”
“Who’s we?” I asked.
“He’s had more than one run-in with police,” Alma said, ignoring my question. “Usually for bothering girls. He stops when he gets a talking-to. He’ll stop bothering you if I talk to him.”
“Not if he thinks my aunt murdered his grandfather and stuffed him in a trunk,” I said.
Alma was quiet.
“Did she?” I asked her.
“You know I can’t answer that,” she said.
“Then I’ll answer it myself. Marnie says there’s a notebook at the Sun Down that I need to read. I think I’ll go read it.”
“You talked to Marnie?” Alma said, her voice shocked. “You have the notebook?”
“I’m going to get it now. And then I’m going to meet her.”
Alma hesitated, then nodded. “She’s right,” she said. “It’s time.”
Now is as good a time as any for all of it to come out, Marnie had said to me on the phone. It was going to happen whether I wanted it to or not.
Why now? Why me?
“What am I going to find in the notebook?” I asked her.
“You’ll see,” Alma said. She turned toward her door, then back to me. “Go meet her,” she said. “Do whatever she asks. Maybe you don’t want my advice, but that’s it.” Then she turned, went into the house, and closed the door behind her.
• • •
No one followed me on the dark roads as I drove across town from Alma’s to the motel. Was I supposed to be working tonight? I didn’t even remember anymore. Maybe I was quitting. Maybe I was fired. It didn’t matter.
The road sign was lit up, the familiar words blinking at me: VACANCY. CABLE TV! Nick’s truck was in the parking lot, and the office was closed and dark. I parked and got out of my car, letting the cold wind sting my face. There was no sound but the far-off rumble of a truck farther down Number Six Road. I could smell dead leaves and damp and the faint tang of gasoline.
In a crazy way, I belonged here more than I’d belonged anywhere in my life. The Sun Down was the place I was supposed to be.
And yet I had the feeling that I was here at the end of the Sun Down’s life. That it wouldn’t be here much longer.
I walked to the stairs and climbed them, the feeling of being watched crawling up the back of my neck. Betty, maybe. Maybe one of the others. I no longer really knew.
I reached Nick’s door and banged on it. It opened immediately and he was there, big and tousled, in a dark gray T-shirt and jeans, a worried look on his face. “Thank fucking God,” he said. He took my wrist and gently pulled me into the room, closing the door behind him.
I paused, looking around. I’d never been inside Nick’s room before. There was a suitcase with clothes strewn over it, a wallet and a phone on the nightstand. The gun was nowhere to be seen. The bed was rumpled and slept in, a fact that would have embarrassed me except for the fact that it was also strewn with papers, a spiral notebook lying open in the middle of it.
“The notebook,” I said.
“I got your message,” Nick said. “It was in the candy machine, just like you said. Behind the panel I was working on, jammed into the machine’s works. She must have put it there recently. There was no way it was in there for thirty-five years.”
I looked down at the papers strewn over the bed. They were all inked with the same hand: pages of writing, lists, maps, diagrams. “Marnie must have put it there after I started working here. I wonder how much she knows.”
“Everything,” Nick said. “Carly, I’ve been reading through this. I’ve barely started. But it’s incredible.” He picked up a piece of paper. “This is a map of Victoria Lee’s street. Her house, the jogging trail, the place where her body was found. See this X? She’s put a note saying that from this spot you can see Victoria’s house and you can access the jogging trail at the same time. This was most likely where the killer was standing.”
He put that down and flipped a page in the notebook. “These are her notes about Simon Hess’s sales schedule at Westlake Lock Systems. It says he was in Victoria’s neighborhood the month she was killed. He sold locks to Cathy Caldwell. And this here”—he picked up another sheet—“these are her notes about the day she followed Hess to Tracy Waters’s street and watched him follow her.”
“What? She saw him stalk her?” I looked at the notes. “She must be the one who wrote the letter to Tracy’s parents. She must also be the one who phoned the school principal. There’s no other way.”
“This, here,” Nick said, turning to yet another page, “is her diary of Simon Hess’s movements. His address, his phone number, the make and model of his car, his license plate. When he left the house every day and what he did. Where he went. Vivian was following him. For weeks, it looks like.”
He was right. I scanned the notes and saw day after day listing the times Simon Hess left his house and where he went. There were gaps in the timeline, with notes: Not sure—missed him. Fell asleep. Lost him somewhere past Bedford Rd. But there was no mistaking that Vivian had been following Simon Hess. Stalking him.
On the bottom of a note listing Hess’s name, address, phone number, and place of work was a note: That was easy.
Whatever had happened to Simon Hess, it hadn’t been an accident. He had been targeted for a long time.
Maybe my
