Page 49 of Do Not Disturb
“It was emanating from her.” Greta’s voice is a hiss. “Like a stench. Or avirus. Infecting everyone around her.”
This woman seems like a crackpot, but there's something about her. Sheknowssomething. “How do you know my sister didn’t leave?”
She turns to look directly at me. “Go outside. Go to Rosalie’s.”
“Rosalie’swhat?”
“Not what.Where. To Rosalie’s.”
I frown. “You mean to the house?”
“No. Not the house.”
“But—”
“Go.” She holds up her wrinkled hand. “I have told you all I know.”
“Have you?”
She just stares at me, her chest rising and falling under her nightgown.
I rise from the bed. “Because I’m not sure you have.”
“Go,” she says, more firmly this time.
Maybe she does know more, but it’s clear she has no intention of sharing it with me. Whatever I’m looking for is outside of this motel. And I’m going to find it.
I takemy purse and my coat with me when I leave my room. I also keep Quinn’s wedding band tucked away in my pocket. I have no intention of coming back here. The police are long gone—it’s time to get on the road as soon as I’m done here.
Just as I’m going down the hall, I run into that guy Nick. He’s got a tool kit in his hand, and he almost drops it.
“Hi,” I say. “I’m, uh…” Somehow I don’t want to tell him I’m leaving. Not yet.
Nick nods at room 201. “Going to fix that leak.”
“Good luck,” I say.
He grunts.
When I get back down into the lobby, it’s eerily empty. The ceiling is still leaking into that bucket. Every time there’s a drip of water, I hear a noise. Plunk plunk plunk. Good thing he’s getting that fixed. It’s going to destroy the ceiling. Rob always talks about how people don’t call him fast enough for a leak, and then they wreck the ceiling. He can fix the leak, but he can’t fix that.
But that’s not my problem. Quinn is my only problem.
I drop the keys to my room on the desk, next to where he left his cell phone behind—he’s awfully trusting to leave that sitting there. Anyway, he’ll get the idea that I left. That’s fifty bucks down the drain. Well, forty-eight bucks.
When I get out of the motel, the temperature is about twenty degrees colder than it was when I first came in. The wind hits me in the face, and I regret not having brought a scarf. What’s wrong with me? I’ve lived in New Hampshire my whole life. I know how cold it gets.
Rosalie’s.Find Rosalie’s.
Rosalie’swhat? What the hell was that old woman talking about?
I scan the outside of the motel. I parked my car all the way in the back of the lot. I look up and see the old house next to the motel. That one light on the second floor that’s still on. And the silhouette is still in the window, like she hasn’t moved one inch since the last time I looked.
Is that Rosalie? Is she watching me?
I swivel my head to the other side, to check out that old abandoned building. It looks like it used to be a restaurant, but now it’s all boarded up. I squint into the darkness, and I can just make out a sign on the restaurant that is caked in dirt and snow. I can’t quite see what it says.
I trudge through the snow to get a closer look. It’s only when I’m a stone throw away that I can see the writing, but I still can’t make it out. I’ve got to get a little closer.
