Page 90 of Do Not Disturb
“Go! I promise, I’ll be fine.”
To prove his point, Nick strides over to the pass and starts expertly studying the tickets and making sure that all the plates are up to standard. He winks at me, and I smile back. I suppose it won’t hurt to be gone for half an hour.
As I pass through the restaurant, I see Quinn Alexander sitting at one of the tables with her boyfriend—one of the police officers who had been involved in the case. Nick told me she had asked him to set aside a table for tonight. The two of them are holding hands across the table, and he’s looking into her eyes. They look really happy. Good for them. After what she’s been through, she deserves a happy ending.
The latest bit of construction Nick did was making sure the path from the restaurant back to the motel was paved, so it would be easy for my power wheelchair to glide across. I can’t lie—doing everything I used to do before has been a challenge, but Nick has done everything he can to make sure the transition has been as smooth as possible. I’m lucky to have him. Although he claims he’s lucky to have me. Maybe we’re both lucky.
One thing we can’t do is make the second floor of the motel accessible to me. The cost of putting in an elevator would be prohibitive, and it’s not like I need to go up there anyway. And the lobby is beautiful now. Nick put in new carpeting last year that’s a striking royal blue. He also patched up the ceiling after we fixed the leak in room 201. It’s an interesting story—the husband of that woman, Claudia, came by to talk to us soon after her arrest, to offer an apology and explanation for what his wife had done. But when he noticed the leak, he offered to go up and fix it free of charge. Apparently, he’s a plumber. That pipe had been leaking on and off for years, and the rust from the pipes turned the water brown—almost red—staining the ceiling. Fortunately, it hasn’t leaked again since he fixed it, and we got the stain on the ceiling repainted. Robert Delaney knows what he’s doing.
That said, we still haven’t had any guests in Room 201. Nick still keeps the room closed all the time with the “DO NOT DISTURB” sign on the door. Eventually, he’ll have to open it up, but he’s not ready yet.
When I wheel into the lobby, Greta is already waiting for me. She is sitting in a wooden chair, wearing a dress rather than one of her many nightgowns with a long black coat over it. I almost don’t recognize her in normal clothing.
“Let me guess,” I say. “Your psychic premonition told you I was coming.”
She laughs. “No. Nick said you were going to stop by.”
“Ah.”
She tilts her head. “You look beautiful tonight, Rosalie. You’re glowing.”
I roll my eyes. “My pregnancy glow?”
“Pregnancy… love…” She reaches for my hand, and I let her take it. Her fingers are so frail and spidery. I can’t believe she survived being stabbed in her belly—Nick and I thought for sure she was a goner. But she told me she had survived much worse. “You and Nick are going to live happily ever after. I told you. I told you there was happiness in your future.”
I remember when she said that to me. I let her tell my fortune, and she told me those exact words. And I laughed at the time, because I couldn’t imagine a happy future for myself. Yet here I am.
“I guess you really have a gift,” I say.
“I will tell you a secret, Rosalie.” Her fingers linger on mine. “I cannot really read the future. Or the past. I am just an ordinary woman.”
“Really.” There’s a note of sarcasm in my voice, but I’m a little surprised by her admission. Not that I ever believed in that stuff, but sometimes Greta did seem truly clairvoyant. After all, she predicted a happy ending for me and Nick when it seemed impossible.
“Yes. It is true.”
“Well.” I shrug. “It looks like your prediction about me and Nick came true after all.”
“Yes. It did. Of course, I had to help it along.”
“Help it along?”
She hesitates as her eyes stare into mine. “Rosalie, I want you to know that I never had children. And I always thought of you like a daughter. I wanted you to be happy.”
“Yes…”
“Nick would have left you,” she says. “That girl, Christina… she was a vixen. She set her sights on him—shewantedhim. And no offense, my dear, but you were not doing much to hold on to him. You were delivering him to her on a silver platter! She told me how she thought Nick would be better off without you.”
My mouth falls open. I didn’t know about any of this. I had always assumed it was a fling—not that I asked for many details.
“So you see,” she says, “I had to do what I did.”
I pull my hand away from hers. “What did you do?”
“I saved your marriage!”
“Greta…” I feel a cramping sensation in my lower abdomen. “What did you do?”
Greta’s blue eyes are wide. “She deserved it. Look at what she did. Fooling around with a married man. I’m disappointed in Nick too, but I understand what he was going through. She had no excuse. Terrible person.”
