Page 90 of Missing White Woman

“What’s the number?”

It took me only a second to google it and five minutes more for her to get me a room. She didn’t call back when she did. Just sent a text that an open-ended reservation was under my name. I’d still been flying high on our exchange, but that’s when I had the next mini crisis.

My name.

It wasn’t just mine anymore. It had been shared everywhere, from comment sections to dinner tables—synonymous with “missing,” “monster,” and “killer.” And now I was supposed to use it for a hotel stay. It hadn’t gone so well the last time. I had the changed phone number to prove it.

But still, it wasn’t like I had much choice. I couldn’t stay out here alone in the middle of the night. I needed a place to hunker down for a few hours until I could catch the first Amtrak home.

I took a deep breath, then willed my legs to walk in. There was no security in the downstairs lobby this time, but it was okay. I knew exactly where to go. The elevator ride to the lobby on the top floor was just as long as before. I spent the entire time hoping the woman who had been there before hadn’t picked up a night shift.

The door opened. I don’t know what I had been expecting, but dead silence was not it. Not a single soul was in sight. The person on the clock probably napping somewhere sight unseen. Possibly a good thing. Maybe they’d be too tired to recognize my face or name.

The front desk was only ten feet away, yet I milked the walk for all it was worth. I still got there way too soon, so I just stood. Patient for once because I was in no rush for someone to be of service. I didn’t call out. I barely let out a breath. Still, they must’ve had some sort of camera because a door opened somewhere in the ether.

It took just a second for them to appear. A man. Black and older—the specks of gray hair a dead giveaway because the skin never was. I squinted at his name tag. PETER. He smiled when he saw me. Alert.

I smiled too but still only felt half out of the woods. Sure, he probably wasn’t a member of the Billie Bunch, but my name had made it to both CNN and MSNBC. Probably Fox News too.

“I need to check in,” I said. “I believe you already have a credit card on file.”

My ID was at the ready, so I just slid it across without saying anything.

He nodded, clearly sensing my silence though not seeming put out about it. But it was very late and he probably was used to dealing with cranky folks. His mouth moved slowly as he read my name to himself. “Breanna Grace Wright.” He looked up and after a moment smiled. “Pretty name.”

“Thanks,” I said. “Can I change it?”

Better safe than sorry to put the room under a different name.

“Permanently?” But he laughed when he said it.

“And risk the wrath of my mother?” We both laughed at that one. “I’d just prefer to have a different one in the system.”

“Got it.” He sounded like he’d heard far worse, and once again I was happy this was the night shift.

I gave him the name of my favorite coworker. We didn’t speak again until he was handing over my key card. “We’re all set with your suite. Please let me know if you have any issues once you get to the room. Kitchen’s closed, but I put you on the Manhattan side to make up for it. It’s quieter there.”

He could’ve put me in the basement for all I cared, as long as he didn’t do one thing.

“Can you also not transfer any calls to my room?”

* * *

Peter did, in fact, put me on the Manhattan side. The view was gorgeous, from the two-second glance I took before closing the curtains. I texted my mom to tell her I’d checked in, then tried to figure out what to do next.

I decided to go with what I could control first. My hunger. Except my brain couldn’t process what to get. It just knew I needed food ASAP. It didn’t matter how many stars the place had on Google or if some guy from Montclair thought the chips were stale. I’d eat cardboard at this point. It took a second to remember I’d done this before. Ordered food in Jersey City.

Only that time I had been ordering for two.

I pulled out my phone to distract myself from thinking about Ty and scrolled the call log. The last vestiges of my old number. The Before times. Even though I was starving, I still deleted all the unknown numbers in red. Missed calls from assholes who thought it was cute and brave to call people who’d been doxed. I didn’t need the reminders taunting me. My brain was doing a good job on its own.

Finally, I got to the taqueria place I’d ordered from before. I’d been in Jersey City long enough to recognize the area code. The first three digits matched the location—201—but there was a different 201 number right underneath it. Another I didn’t recognize, but it couldn’t be one of the assholes. The timing didn’t match. And it was black, which meant it’d come from my phone. But I hadn’t called anyone in Jersey City.

Then I remembered: Ty had. We’d been in Central Park and I’d been annoyed he was still dealing with work. Now I wasn’t so sure. There was just one person it could’ve been.

Janelle.

It shouldn’t have mattered—not after everything that had happened. Everyone who had died. I’d been so understandably consumed with the murder that I hadn’t allowed myself to think about Ty’s cheating. Even now, I felt like it shouldn’t hurt that my deceased boyfriend might’ve been calling his deceased other lover from my phone as I sat blissfully unaware in a carriage a few feet away.

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