Page 66 of The Vacancy In Room 10

“I don’t want to go into every horror of what it was like once I found out who he was, but I’ll just tell you that by the time I knew, it was too late for me to get out. There was no way out, Cass. None. You got me out, and what happened cannot be traced back to you...or me. We won’t let that happen,” she says.

“So you were trying to help me... I just... Oh, my God. Okay, but there is no way you could know where we—about the housing community and the groundbreaking...”

“I put a tracker on your car. I learned how to do a lot of things I’m not proud of from Eddie. I happened to see him go into the office that day, and I also noticed he never came out. Eddie gave me a key to the office. He has keys to everyone’s apartment, too,” she says. “Just in case.”

“Just in case what?” I ask, all of my horrific night terrors coming true in my mind right now about all the violent unthinkable things that really could have happened to me in my own locked apartment, in my own bed, and I feel an overwhelming urge to throw up.

“I don’t know, he just wanted control, so he did a lot of things like that, so I unlocked the back door during the Friday party that night and saw him. Well, I saw an arm and a lot of blood from where I stood down the back hall, and I heard you and Callum talking about what to do. I heard you saying it was self-defense.”

“It was!” I blurt out, needing her to know that.

“I know it was,” she says.

“I’m so sorry,” I say, staring at the floor.

“Do you not hear me?” she asks. “It’s the best thing that could have happened to me—to George, to a lot of people. So that’s why I kept tabs from then on because I had to make sure you were careful. No offense, but you’re not that good at all this,” she says.

A couple of guys at the bar keep looking our way, and I don’t know if they’re a threat or just your average perv. I can imagine this is how Rosa lives her whole life now, just like me—in fear, wondering if these cartel monsters know something, or even think they know something, and are trailing you. One of them stumbles to the jukebox and plays “Neon Moon,” and I decide he’s just an average perv, and we’re fine...but you never really know, do you?

Rosa chugs down half her beer and looks around the bar, looking just as paranoid as I feel, and her dress and hair are so incongruous with this bar and stale beer that I almost want to laugh, but of course there’s nothing funny about any of this.

“But you reported him missing?” I say, just recalling the part that seems completely contradictory. Why draw attention to it? Who knows how long he’d have gone unnoticed?

“How the hell would it look if the wife didn’t report it? I had no choice. I had to play the grieving widow. Someone at some point, sooner or later, was gonna find out, and if I never reported him missing or tried to find him, didn’t shed some tears, I could kiss my own ass goodbye. And I have a kid. I didn’t want to have to do that, but...”

“Right. I get it. It’s just...there’s a lot more to this than you know,” I say.

“What do you mean? How much more could there be?” she asks.

“You’d be surprised.” I sigh wearily.

“Well, whatever it is, I beg you. Cass, you can’t get the police involved. Why would you do that?” she asks with desperation in her voice.

“To protect all of us.”

“By going to the cops?” she snaps.

“It’s not what you think. There’s someone else involved in all this,” I say.

“Callum, I know! He won’t want you to do that, either,” she says.

“I want you to look at something,” I say, and I show her my phone.

“What is it?”

“It’s not about Eddie. There’s something else. Something that changes everything...and makes this all a lot more complicated,” I say, and I have her watch a video. A very important video I planned to show to Anna, but Rosa needs to know now.

I see her hand fly to her mouth about halfway through, and she gasps. When the screen goes black, she looks at me.

“So you see what I need to do?”

She nods and squeezes my hand. “Oh, God,” she whispers.

“I know,” I say, and she stares at my phone for a long time.

She meets my eyes with uncertainty.

“This changes things. We’ll keep you safe, I promise,” I say, and then I get up from the booth, and we exchange a hopeful yet terrified look, and I go and find Anna.

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