The Sun Down Motel

He looked at her face and said, “You okay, Good Girl?”

“Is there anyone in there with you?” she asked him.

“No.”

Viv glanced down the corridor. The door to room 203 clicked open. The lights flickered again.

“What’s going on?” Jamie asked.

The air was heavy with electricity, like the moments before a lightning storm. And suddenly, Viv knew it: This would end tonight. Here, now. After months of waiting and wondering, it would all be over. One way or another.

Now or never, she thought.

She turned back to Jamie. She put a hand on the back of his neck, rose to her toes, and kissed him on the mouth. His lips were warm and as soft as she’d thought they would be. He tasted like Doublemint.

She let him go and pulled back. His eyebrows went up and a smile crooked the corner of his mouth. “Well?” he asked her.

“Will you do something for me?”

“After that? Fuck yes.”

“You need to leave,” she said. “Go and don’t come back tonight.”

“Should I ask why?”

“No.”

The smile left his lips. “Something’s wrong, isn’t it?”

Viv bit her lip. She could still taste him. As scared as she was, the pleasure of it would keep her going for a while. “Something bad is going to happen, but I can handle it. It’s best if you’re not here.”

Jamie seemed to think it over. He walked back into the room and picked up his jean jacket. The lights flickered out again.

When they came back on, the door to room 205 was open and Jamie was back in his doorway, shrugging on his jacket. “You know I’d help you if you wanted me to, right? I have some experience kicking ass.”

Viv stepped back as he came out of the room. He locked the door and dropped the key into her hand. He looked down the corridor at the open doors. “Damn,” he said. “I’m not leaving you in this.”

“You have to go. But you can do one favor for me.”

He turned back to her. “Anything. Tell me what it is.”

So she told him.

It was one o’clock a.m.

Fell, New York

November 1982

VIV

Jamie’s car was gone, and the motel had gone ominously quiet. The wind kicked up outside, howling over the parking lot and shushing the empty trees. In the office, Viv sat behind the desk as the lights flickered yet again.

She was waiting. If Jamie did what he had promised, it would happen any minute.

The phone rang. Viv started in her chair and stared at it, sweat prickling her neck. This was the plan, but still she felt the jolt of terror. She was jumpy.

“Hello?” It wasn’t the greeting she’d been trained to give.

It wasn’t who she expected. There was silence on the other end of the line. Soft breathing. Someone listening and waiting.

These calls were routine at the Sun Down. Kids, the other clerks grumbled. Teenagers. Don’t they have anything better to do?

But now, listening to the breathing in the waiting silence, Viv wondered how they could all have been so stupid, herself included. The sound on the other end of the line wasn’t the comical kind of heavy breathing particular to pranking teenage boys. It was simply breath, the sound of another person living, existing.

Someone who wanted to talk. Who maybe couldn’t.

“Betty?” Viv said.

Still, the breath. No pause, no hitch.

“He’s here,” Viv said, letting her voice fill the silence. “I know it upsets you. I know it makes you angry and sad. But I’m going to take care of it tonight. I promise.”

Still nothing. Just breath.

“I’ve been living with this for so long,” Viv said. “I don’t think I have a life anymore. I don’t know that I want one. I don’t really see the point anymore. Do you?”

Did the breathing change its rhythm? Even for a second? She couldn’t be sure. She didn’t know if what she was saying could even be heard by whatever was on the line. But she said it anyway.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I don’t think anyone has been as sorry for you as I am. I looked at your picture, and you could be me. You could be any of us. You didn’t deserve it—none of us do. It’s wrong. I don’t know what else to do except try to make it right. I think it might cost me everything, and I don’t care. I don’t matter, really.”

Still quiet. Why did she feel like the other person was listening? There was no indication. Still, the feeling was there.

“That’s the best way to fix this,” Viv said. “The only way. I’ll take someone who doesn’t matter and trade her for the rest of you. I’ll trade myself for the rest of you. To stop him. I think it’s the only thing strong enough to end this. I know who he is now. He won’t be stopped by anything halfway.”

The next breath on the other end of the line was a sigh, and then a single word, spoken on the breath: “Run.” Then the line went dead with a click.

Viv put the phone down. While her hand was still on the receiver, the phone rang. She picked it up again. “Hello?”

“Room two-twelve,” a familiar voice said.

Viv pressed the button and put him through. She watched as the button on the phone lit up with its soft click. Then she listened with the receiver.

“Hello?” came Simon Hess’s voice.

“I know you,” the other voice said. “I know what you’ve done.”

There was a pause. Then Hess again. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes, you do.” Viv closed her eyes. He was doing such a good job. It was Jamie Blaknik saying the lines she’d given him. “Meet me at the corner of Derry Road and Smith Street. I’m calling from the pay phone there. I saw you with Tracy. If you aren’t there in twenty minutes, I’ll tell everyone what I saw, what I know. Not just about Tracy. About the others, too.”

Silence on the line. Viv held her breath. This was the moment of truth.

Then Simon Hess spoke. “You’re the one who’s been following me, aren’t you?”

“I saw you in Plainsview, watching her,” Jamie said, following the lines Viv had written for him. “I saw you at the high school choir night. I know everything. And I’m going to tell.”

“Is this blackmail?” Hess said. “Do you think you’ll get money out of me?”