Page 75 of The Vacancy In Room 10

“We need a reason why we’d know where Callum might be headed. They can’t know we were on that cliff or that we tracked him or know anything about Eddie besides the stuff Cass gave the cops,” Rosa says.

“Where is he?” Anna asks, becoming more alert the more time passes.

Rosa zooms in on her map.

“If I had to guess,” I say, “he won’t go to a hospital for his leg. He’ll be arrested in seconds if he does that. He’ll find a remote hotel or something so he can pay cash and have his car out of view. That’s what I would do,” I say, and I feel a little sick that a getaway plan comes so easily to mind. A couple months ago, I wouldn’t have conceived of something like this.

“Desert Inn,” Rosa says. “It’s remote—has camping sites and everything. You’re spot-on.”

“I made out with him,” Anna says out of nowhere.

We both turn and stare at her seemingly inappropriate outburst.

“I mean—the point is, we got kind of close. He would tell me something intimate that maybe you two would have no way of knowing, like that he was planning on moving out of state soon—once he got his insurance money, but that he would first stop at—what’s it called again?” She stops. “A B&B with a cute name, I think...”

“Desert Inn,” Rosa says, and it takes Anna a moment to put together what she’s trying to say. Then she gets it.

“Yeah,” Anna says. “I’m certain he told me that the Desert Inn was where he met Lily, and it was a place he promised to go back to before he left town—to honor her memory, scatter her ashes maybe.”

“So you mention that you know where he might go, and that’s the only meaningful place that comes to mind, so you might tell the police that you think he’d go there. Right.” Rosa nods, putting it all together.

“And they’ll find him there, but they’ll eventually search the car and find the tracker and...”

“Untraceable, fingerprints wiped,” Rosa says, and Anna and I look at each other.

“No,” I say. “We need to go to the Desert Inn.”

“Um. No way,” Anna says, shrinking into the seat and shaking her head.

“We need to clean ourselves up before we go back to The Sycamores. Rosa is the only one not full of dirt and blood, so she can go to a store, get us some clothes and stuff. Then we get a room so we can wait and make absolutely sure he is staying for the night. He’s hurt, so I’m sure he is. He needs to hide right now, but we need to be certain. We need to know which room number he’s in. Then we call the police from a landline from the inn, and we say we saw a guy who was hurt—looked like he’d been shot, tell them which room—that it looked shady, and we’re concerned. They send a cop. And there he is, just waiting for them like a sitting duck.”

“Yes. We need to keep you away from all of this as much as possible—all of us,” Rosa says to Anna. “She’s right. You telling them you two were close—no. We need to go to the inn.”

Anna takes a minute, weighing the fear and trauma against the necessity of this. “When we make the call, we leave immediately, right?” she asks.

“Yes. Of course,” I say, and she nods in agreement. She’s one of us now.

I hold out both my hands and take theirs, and we all hold each other as tears start to fall, and we just stay right there for a very long moment. We don’t have to say it out loud—that we saved each other, each in a very different but life-altering way—but we know we will always be bound together in inextricable gratitude...and by very dark secrets.

30

ANNA

Three months later

When Callum was captured at the Desert Inn that night, I cried with relief. I remember that. But the memory of the rest of that night is all mostly a blur—bits of it are hazy, but the important things will always be imprinted in my memory. We did exactly what we planned.

We cleaned ourselves up in room 209 and waited a couple hours before we knew he wouldn’t run, not that night anyway. Then we called in anonymously, reporting something troubling in room 106, and got the hell out of there, each back to our own sad apartments.

The police had gone from The Sycamores by then, and I remember being alone and finally falling into a shallow half-drugged sleep. Then, very early in the morning, word came in from Cass, and I knew there would be a long road ahead of more police and more questions and a future trial and a lot of pain to come, and I was ready to go through it. Anything to get justice for Henry, anything to put that bastard away...and most pressing, anything to protect Cass and Rosa.

It was weeks later when we heard that Callum would be held without bail for his trail, which wouldn’t be for months, and I had already closed on our house and left The Sycamores behind.

I’m looking out at waves crashing against the shore of a white sand beach when I receive a video call from Cass and Rosa and the pool girls, the way I do every Friday night, so I can join the poolside barbecue and hold up a Solo cup to join in the cheers and listen to the week’s gossip. Barry has a girlfriend who works at the comic book store and collects vintage action figures, Babs bought a wig that makes her look just like Dolly Parton without the boobs, and David’s cat had kittens, which he gave to Frank, who named them Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Beyoncé...and they keep Mary’s mice away.

“Look at that bitchin’ view!” Crystal said, elbowing her way in front of Cass and Rosa to get a look at the seascape through the windows next to me.

“You in Florida now?” Jackie asks.

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