Page 46 of Do Not Disturb
I enter the tiny motel room and shut the door behind me. I turn the lock, but then I notice a deadbolt as well. I swing it into place.
The double bed is just as uncomfortable as it looks. I shrug off my coat and settle down onto it, and a spring jabs me in the butt. I adjust the pillows behind my back so I can sit up, but these pillows have seen better days. There are three of them, and they’re all flat as a pancake.
My phone rings. I reach into my purse to pull it out, and Rob’s name is flashing on the screen. Undoubtedly, he’s wondering where I am. If I tell him I went off looking for Quinn, he’s not going to be thrilled. But I have to tell him something.
I take the call, and immediately, I hear crackling on the other line. “Claudia?”
“Hi, Rob,” I say. “Listen, I’m sorry about taking off. There’s just… There’s somewhere I had to go…”
“Claudia, I……..” There’s a good five seconds of nothing but crackling. “What……. can’t hear…….”
“I’m looking for Quinn,” I say. “I’ll be back late tonight. I promise.”
There’s more crackling, and then the line goes dead. I guess the reception is still bad after the storm. Oh well. I answered the phone, so at least he knows I’m not dead.
I settle down on the bed and bring up the internet browser on my phone. Now that I have some privacy, I can read about the Baxter Motel.
I click on the first link, which is an article from two years ago. The headline jumps out at me:Woman Found Murdered in New Hampshire Motel.The woman in question was twenty-five-year-old Christina Marsh. She was discovered dead in one of the motel rooms. Stabbed to death. There were no signs of forced entry.
The article notes that the owners of the motel, Nicholas and Rosalie Baxter, were working with the police to find the perpetrator.
I read the articles one by one, and the story materializes. The woman, Christina Marsh, had been staying at the motel for about a week. She hadn’t left her room in a day, so Nick Baxter went to check on her. He discovered her lying dead in a pool of her own blood.
Several of the articles mentioned a “relationship” between Nick Baxter and Christina Marsh. One went so far as to call her his girlfriend and implied the affair had been going on throughout her stay at the motel.
He was never charged with anything, at least not according to any of the articles. And I would assume if he had been convicted of murder two years ago, he wouldn’t still be working here. So I’m guessing he was cleared.
I look down at the bedspread underneath me. Did it happen here? Was she killed in this very room?
I shove my phone into my purse. I’m supposed to be focused on Quinn, but something about this place makes me feel very uneasy. I need to do what I came here to do and get out.
I crack open the door to the motel room. The hallway is empty. Quiet. I slip into the hall and look at the other two rooms. 201 and 202. This motel isn’t much bigger than my house.
I try room 201 first. There’s a “DO NOT DISTURB” sign hanging from the doorknob, but I ignore it as I rap my fist gently against the door. No answer. Then I knock again. Harder.
Nothing.
Then I try the doorknob. Locked.
I feel this crawling sensation on the back of my neck. I whirl around, just in time to catch somebody staring at me from room 202. A watery blue eye. Some silver hair.
Having been caught, I panic and scurry back into room 203. I close the door behind me and throw the deadbolt into place.
My mind is racing. Room 201 is obviously empty. Room 202 has a guest in it, so Quinn could never have been staying there. That means I should get back on the road.
I’ll just wait a bit longer. To give myself more space between me and the police.
I figure I’ll watch some TV, but I don’t see the remote control anywhere. My eyes fall on the dresser next to the bed. Maybe the remote control is in the drawer. But I open it up and all I see in there is a copy of the Bible. Then as the drawer shifts, I see a spark of something shiny from underneath the Bible.
I push the Bible aside and that’s when I see it. A wedding band.
My hands are trembling as I pull a gold wedding band out from the drawer. It looks like the one that my sister wore for the last two years. But there’s only one way to be sure.
I tilt the band to the side and look on the inside. Wrapped around the inside of the band, I see the engraved letters: DEREK + QUINN.
Quinn washere. In this very room.
I lift my eyes, which make contact with the window. There’s a house overlooking the motel. A rickety old two-story house. And there’s a light on in one of the second-story windows. I can make out a silhouette of a woman sitting in front of the window.
