Page 58 of The Vacancy In Room 10

Just because I made these choices and caused people pain doesn’t mean I don’t love you. There is so much I need to tell you, but a letter seems so flat and doesn’t do it justice. If anything happens to me, the video on my phone will explain it all. If I know I’m in danger, I’ll send it to you. If you find this, it’s probably too late. If that’s the case, I’m so desperately sorry, and this is all my doing. Watch the video I made. You’ll understand what happened when you watch. I love you.

The detective looks at me as he clicks off the screen and closes the computer, and I look back at him. I let out the breath I’ve been holding and blink back tears.

“He clearly never sent it, and it looks like you haven’t seen it before, but do you have any idea what he’s talking about? Why he’s so sorry? Who he caused pain to?” Harrison asks, and I notice my knuckles are white, and my jaw is clenched and mind is whirling—what video? Why didn’t you just talk to me, Henry? What does this mean!?

“If I knew that,” I say, “why would he need to write a letter and make some fucking video explaining it to me?”

“Right,” he says quietly. “So you never got a video, haven’t seen it?”

“No! Have you seen a video?” I ask.

“No phone was retrieved, as you know, and phone records obviously don’t have that sort of ability, so...”

“So can I go?” I ask, holding back tears but approaching the breaking point.

“You can go,” he says, and I get up so quick that the chair falls to the floor behind me, but I keep walking until I break into a sprint when I reach the front doors and until I get to my car.

I sit in the driver’s seat and watch fat raindrops start to drizzle down the glass in tiny rivulets. I squeeze my eyes closed and shake my head, steadying my breath. He still loved me. No matter what happened. That’s all I care about in this moment.

When I get back to the apartments, I sit in my car and watch the rain bounce off the surface of the swimming pool and notice Babs dancing in bare feet and a sundress, laughing up at the sky like a total lunatic. Can I trust what she told me about Eddie? And could the bad people he knew be connected to Henry? Everyone here is wack, and I don’t know what to believe.

The words of his letter repeat over and over in my mind. What goddamn video, Henry? Why didn’t you send it? What the hell happened to you? You knew it was coming. You knew someone was going to hurt you, why, why, why?

Then I see Cass come out of the office in Wellies and a rain poncho. She picks up some deck chairs the wind tipped over, and she stacks the rest in a pile by the wall so they don’t blow away.

And I have nothing to lose anymore. Someone here knows something, and it’s time to get answers. I follow her when she goes back in the front door of the office, and I think I literally scare the piss out of her, because she wields a kid-size Wiffle bat from next to the door at me when I startle her.

“Sorry!” I put my hands up, and she simultaneously puts the plastic bat down, apologizing. “That wouldn’t do you a lot of good if you really were in danger, you know?” I say.

“Well, God, Anna. Give someone a freakin’ aneurism, why don’t ya?” She’s trying to catch her breath.

“Sorry. Are you?” I ask.

“What?”

“In danger?”

The question drains all the blood from her face, but if she is involved in something and knows about Henry and the people who hurt him, maybe she is in danger, too. “What? No,” she says, turning her back to fiddle with something, or rather, to hide her face from me. “Can I do something for you? If your roof is leaking, there’s a pile of ice-cream buckets in the shed. Standard practice around here,” she says.

“I know you’re hiding something,” I say, and she whips around at this and sort of looks me up and down. Pauses, contemplating something, and then looks me in the eye.

“Did you leave me that note?” she asks.

“What? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Then I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” she says back.

“You’re acting odd, just in case you don’t think anyone notices,” I say, and I can tell I hit a sore spot by the way her body stiffens. She sits on the edge of her desk and looks at the floor while I go on. “And I think I know why,” I say.

She seems frozen to the spot, not making eye contact, and I think I see her flinch ever so slightly. It’s like she’s waiting for a punch. “Why?” she finally asks in a small voice.

“Because you know what happened to Henry.”

She looks up. “What?”

“You know everyone around here and all the silly chatter and talk. And you act like you’re just trying to blend in with the furniture and not stick out or be noticed, but I notice. You’re always seeing what’s going on. Just like with Rosa that night. Except I happened to be here that time, but the point is, you’re like a fly on the wall around here. You see things—maybe things you shouldn’t, and that’s why you’re so scared,” I say, and she tries to hide her jaw drop by turning it into a lip snarl and roll of the eyes.

“I really don’t know where this is coming from. It was very nice of you to bail me out, and I’m sure you’re a nice person, and I’ll pay you back, but I think you...you have it wrong. You don’t know anything about me, so...”

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