The Sun Down Motel

She reached out and touched something covered in fabric. Something hard, the bone of a knee perhaps. A hand shot out and grabbed her wrist, jerking her off balance. The hand was big and soft and cold, so slick with chilled sweat she almost slid out of its grasp. But Hess was still strong, and he shoved her so she landed on one side, her hip hitting the floor and her head banging against something hard—the edge of the bed, or maybe the nightstand. This is the second time I’ve been attacked tonight, she thought. I’m going to have bruises.

They wrestled in grim silence for a minute, Hess trying to grasp her with his slick hands, the strength in his arms faltering, Viv thrashing back and kicking him. Hess gave a dark grunt and grabbed at her again, his neat, trim fingernails trying to dig into her flesh. Outside, there was the slow click of high heels in the corridor and a strange, rotten smell.

She kicked Hess away again and then his hands were gone. There was a wheeze as he seemed to fall back to the floor, weak. She flipped her body and put her hands on him again, feeling numbly along his torso. Her fingers hit warm blood.

“Tell me,” she said urgently. “Why Betty? Why?”

He reached up and grabbed her hair, twisted it, but his strength was failing. “Betty was mine,” he said, his voice a harsh whisper as if he were telling her a secret. “I loved her. I just wanted her to see.”

She had so much she needed to know. There was no time. She went still as his hand twisted harder in her hair. “And Cathy?”

“My daughter went to the dentist’s office where she worked.” He wheezed, and she recognized the sound as a sick sort of laugh. “She meant nothing to me. She was so obviously alone. So easy. I wanted to know if I could do it again. It turned out I could.”

She was so obviously alone. That was what they had in common. Not hair color or age or build. Betty, living her spinster life. Cathy with her husband deployed. Victoria with her fights and her anger. Tracy with her parents who didn’t keep her home.

Viv thought of Cathy’s baby, of her grieving husband, of her mother on the phone. A sweet girl who wanted to earn her next paycheck and raise her baby. Do you know who killed her? Can you end this for me? Her fingers gripped Hess’s shirt, soaked in blood. She wished she could see his face—and yet she didn’t want to see it at all. “Victoria?” she asked, her voice cracking.

“A mistake,” Hess replied. He cleared his throat. His hand was still wound in her hair, his grip surprisingly hard, and Viv stayed braced in case he attacked her again. They were in a strange embrace, here in the dark, fighting and telling each other secrets. “She was there when I sold her mother a lock system. I thought she wouldn’t be a challenge. But she fought me. She bit me, that little bitch. And the location wasn’t right. It was hasty and too exposed. I had to cut my losses.”

Cut my losses, to Simon Hess, meant strangling a teenaged girl and throwing her in the bushes in the rain. The tips of Viv’s fingers touched the handle of her knife, still sticking out of his chest. She gritted her teeth as bile rose in her throat. Or perhaps it was tears. She made herself say the final name, grind it out of her furious throat. “Tracy Waters.”

Hess coughed, the sound wet. “What do you think?”

“She was good and sweet,” Viv said. “Innocent. She had a family who loved her. She never did you any harm.”

Hess laughed. “You haven’t caught on. None of them did me any harm.”

“She wasn’t beautiful,” Viv said. “She wasn’t sexy or cruel. She’d never even met you. She was a girl. Why did you do it?”

His hand twisted in her hair, and his grip was strong but she could feel him trembling. “Because no one ever stopped me,” he said. “Because I could.”

“How many others are there?”

He was quiet. She could hear his breathing. She knew this was a game—he had something she wanted, knew something she wanted to know. And she desperately wanted to know. Did I miss someone? What girl didn’t I see?

“The map in your suitcase,” she said, more urgently now. “What is that?”

He didn’t answer, torturing her.

She struggled in his grip, changed her angle, and grabbed the handle of the knife. She gave it a shove, tried to twist it. It was stuck solid, as if in thick glue. Simon Hess gave a low groan of pain.

“Tell me,” she said.

Behind her came the click of heels from the corridor, turning to soft footsteps on the cheap motel carpet. Ice-cold air touched Viv’s back.

“Betty,” Hess said, his voice high with fear.

A low moan came behind her, the sound unearthly. Viv wondered if Betty was wearing her purple dress, if her hands were bloody. How did this happen?

“She doesn’t love you,” Viv said to Hess, pushing on the knife. “She never did. She hates you. She haunts this place because she hates you so much. You come here and she gets so furious I can feel it, taste it. She makes me furious, too. Do you understand me? Betty hates you.”

That low moan behind her again, and she felt the rise and fall of Hess’s chest. Slower and slower by the minute. “I can see her,” he said softly. “I watched her for so many weeks. I memorized her face. She’s mine. She’s still mine.”

“She isn’t yours,” Viv whispered back. “It’s the other way around. You’re hers, or you’re going to be.”

His voice was trembling now. He let go of her hair and traced his hand over Viv’s face, his fingertips cold and clammy. “I know you from somewhere,” he said. “Where?”

Viv went still, feeling his touch on her skin. He was touching her. Touching her. She tightened her grip on the knife handle.

Hess’s fingers brushed over her mouth, traced her lips in the dark. “I don’t remember,” he said, his voice faint and vague now. “There are so many. I know all of their faces. But I can’t see you. Which one are you?”

“I’m the one you didn’t kill,” Viv said. She pulled the knife out of his chest. And as he took in a breath of pain, she plunged the knife back down.

Fell, New York

November 2017

CARLY

Was I awake or asleep? I didn’t know. I was somewhere dark, and my phone was ringing.

I opened my eyes. I was on the sofa in my apartment, where I had sat down a long time ago—for just a minute, I’d thought. Now I was slumped against the arm of the sofa, fully dressed. My cheek ached and my throat was dry. It was dark outside the windows and there was no sign of Heather.

I picked up my phone from the coffee table and answered it, picking up my glasses with my other hand and putting them on. “Hello?”