Page 54 of The Vacancy In Room 10

I try to refocus my attention on behaving normally when I see Frank with some of his new tools in a belt he made himself out of Mary’s kitchen apron.

“Morning,” I say and tap on the door of 119 before opening it, even though face-tattoo guy gave permission and said he’d be away at work.

“Good morning, Cass. I got here early.”

“You did. And you’re looking sharp. Ready?” I say, and he nods and goes inside.

There’s a hole in the wall next to the front door. I have Frank look at it. “What do you think we do first?” I ask.

“Ummm. We need to make a square around the hole so we can apply a patch,” he says. He’s been watching YouTube tutorials all week, according to Mary.

“Very close. First, we use a stud finder to make sure we don’t cut into any wires, then we do that. Have at it,” I say, handing him the stud finder.

“Oh, yeah!” he says, excited about every new thing he learns, and it lightens my heart just a little bit. After we’ve been working for a while, he sits down on an overturned milk crate and drinks his warm Dr. Pepper, looking pensive.

“Did you know the guy who is missing?” he asks, and I stiffen.

I continue taping the drywall patch. “I did,” I say.

“He was kinda mean, but I’m still sad he’s missing,” he says.

“How was he mean?” I ask, trying to keep my voice casual.

“I don’t know. Not nice to people, I guess. Do you think someone killed him?” he asks, and I drop my drywall knife, scarcely missing my foot, but he doesn’t seem to notice.

“Why would you think that?” I ask.

“Well, kids get kidnapped, and sometimes they get found, but when an adult goes missing, they usually got killed, right?”

“Well, damn, Sinatra, is Grandma Mary letting you watch too much Dateline?”

“Cold Case Files,” he says. “And it’s always the spouse, they say. You think Rosa killed him?” he asks, wide-eyed, apparently just now thinking of this possibility.

“No, I do not,” I say, and my heart is racing. I try to keep my back turned and remain focused on my task so he can’t see the red blotches blooming across my chest.

“Yeah, you’re probably right. She’s nice. She gave me Lunchables once. The pizza kind even, and it came with Cookie Dunks, not the turkey, so that was pretty cool.”

“You know what?” I say, desperately wanting to change the subject. “You’re making me hungry, and I owe you McDonalds, what do you say?”

“Really?” he says, standing up. “But you don’t have to do that. Grandma Mary says I shouldn’t take up too much of your time while you’re working, and I promised I wouldn’t.”

“You’re not at all. You’re a great help, so you earned lunch, and we will bring Grandma Mary a McFlurry.”

“And Rosa. I bet she could use a McFlurry.”

“I bet she could,” I say, swallowing hard and wiping my sweaty palms on my denim shorts.

When we get back from McDonald’s, a very happy Sinatra riding a sugar high goes to hand out the ice cream we bought, and I return to the front office to find an envelope shoved inside the crack in the door above the doorknob.

I don’t know why the sight of it makes me freeze. It’s likely someone who got a neighbor’s piece of mail in their box returning it to make sure it gets back to the right person. That’s happened before. They usually leave it on top of the mailbox block or under the door, but it’s not that odd. It just feels off. And I’m suddenly afraid to open it.

I scan the area around me subtly, to see if anyone is watching me. I don’t even know why. I just feel watched right now. I’m paranoid, because of course I am. Who wouldn’t be right now? I grab the envelope and shove the door open. The room is quiet, and a less aggressive bleach smell still permeates the air.

I sit at my desk and open the letter inside. It’s handwritten in block letters. And the words make my heart stop. My trembling hands can’t hold the paper, and it feathers to the floor. When I pick it up, I notice a map on the back. I sit down shakily and read it again.

I know where you buried him, the note begins, and tears of frustration and terror form behind my eyes until the paper blurs. It continues:

If you had paid attention or driven a few miles farther, you would have seen you were not in the middle of nowhere, but just outside a town that’s expanding. Where you dug is scheduled for groundbreaking to build a new housing community. Dumb move.

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