The Sun Down Motel

But she had to confess: The thought didn’t last very long. Maybe he would have killed them. Maybe not. And right now there was too much to do.

The lights were back on. Betty was gone. And Viv was left with a dead body on the motel room floor.

She picked up the room phone, realizing when she heard the dial tone that she’d half expected the phone to be dead. Betty was unpredictable, especially when she was angry.

But the phone worked, so she dialed the number she had learned by heart because she’d stared at it so often on long night shifts, on a piece of paper tacked to the wall.

“Fell PD,” came a bored voice on the other end of the line.

Viv made her voice the drawl of a girl who was both bored and stupid. “Alma there?”

“Maybe. You have a problem, dear?”

“I can make one up.” Viv gave an empty giggle. “I’m working the Sun Down tonight. Honestly? I just want to know if she’s free to come visit me. I’m bored.” She glanced down at the floor, where Simon Hess lay still, her knife still in the side of his neck. He’d died quickly in the dark, a gasp and a thrash and a few twitches. Then it was over. His eyes were half closed, as if he were drowsy.

As soon as it was over, Betty was gone—as if that was what she wanted all along. But it wasn’t that simple. Betty hadn’t left the motel; Viv could feel her watching. She was no longer sure Betty could leave the motel.

“You girls,” the cop said, disgusted. “This is a job, not a gossip session. Hold on.”

A few seconds later, there was a click and Alma’s voice came on the line. “Viv?”

Viv was speechless for a second. She had never in her life been so overwhelmed with relief at the sound of another person’s voice. “Alma,” she said, her voice cracking and the bored façade breaking down. “Slow night.”

“Is it?” Alma said, because Viv was phoning her, and Alma wasn’t stupid.

“Sure,” Viv said. She glanced at the body again. Her first thought when she picked up the phone had been Alma will understand. Because she would, right? She knew what Viv had been investigating. She knew the evidence. She knew what Simon Hess was. She would know that if Simon Hess was dead, it was because Viv had no choice.

Now she wasn’t so sure. Alma might come out here and arrest her. In fact, she most likely would.

I should be arrested. I should go to jail.

Logically, she knew that. But deep in her heart, she wasn’t going to let it happen.

“Viv?” Alma said.

“It’s nothing,” Viv said. “I just got sick of having no one to talk to. I can’t even tell you how bored I am. I finished my novel and I don’t have another one. I didn’t even like it very much.”

There was silence on the other end of the line.

“You’re working,” Viv said. “I forgot. It’s fine. I’ll talk to you later.” She hung up.

Shit.

She’d just called the police on her own crime, because she thought Alma would understand. She wasn’t thinking like a criminal. Because she wasn’t a criminal—she was a sheltered girl from suburban Illinois.

Not anymore. Now you’re a murderer. Start thinking like one.

What would you do if you ever saw real trouble? Viv’s mother had said. You think you’re so damned smart.

She turned and looked at Simon Hess, lying on the floor. “You’re the expert,” she said. “What’s the best way to hide a body?”

He was silent.

She thought that was kind of witty. There was something terribly wrong with her.

She stepped forward and took a closer look. He’d bled into the rug beneath him, but it was a small bedside rug placed over the carpet. If she could get rid of him and the rug both, there might be minimal cleanup in the room. But how would she lift him? And where would she put him? Panic fluttered deep in her belly as she started to truly realize what she’d done. Alma would come and find this mess. Viv would go to prison. Her parents, her sister would be mortified. She’d get old in prison. She might even die there.

It didn’t matter that Simon Hess was a killer—she’d still go to jail.

She’d told Betty on the phone that she was willing to sacrifice herself. That she didn’t matter. But now, faced with life in prison, she was starting to think differently.

She stared at his still face, at his hands curled lifeless on the rug. Hands that had killed so many and would never kill again.

It was worth it, she thought. It would be worth it even if she went to prison.

But she wasn’t in prison yet.

She gripped the edge of the rug and pulled at it. Squatted on her hamstrings and put her weight into it. The rug with the body on it slid one inch, then another. She stood and realized the lamp was on, shining a beacon out the room’s window, so she walked to it and turned it off. She opened the room door in the dark and looked out. There was still no one in the parking lot, no one for miles. The corridor lights were back on, the room doors all innocently closed, the road sign lit up as usual. Betty was quiet, but Betty was watching.

“I did it,” Viv said out loud. “Are you happy?”

There was no answer.

“Of course you’re not happy,” Viv said. “You’re still dead. You’ll always be dead. But now so is he.”

She turned away from the open doorway and started pulling the rug again. There was nothing for it but to get Simon Hess out of here.

He was impossible to move. He lay as a dead weight, his blood soaking the rug. The knife was still in his neck, and when Viv looked at it her stomach turned. She didn’t quite have the nerve to pull it out.

Time was running out; someone would come sooner or later. Either a customer or Alma Trent, dropping by to find out why Viv had sounded so strange on the phone. Viv pulled harder, got the rug slid halfway across the floor to the doorway. She was so focused on her task that she didn’t hear the car pull up in the parking lot.

But she heard the footsteps as they came up the stairs. She froze with her hands gripping the edge of the rug. The room was dark, but the door was open. It was the only open door in the entire motel.

The footsteps got closer, and Viv silently let go of the rug, inching back, away from view of the doorway. There was no way to close the door now. The instinct to get out of sight was overpowering.

She was trying to silently crawl back in a crab-walk when a voice called, “Vivian? Is that you in there?”

Marnie.

Viv opened her mouth to shout something—she had no idea what—but there was no time. The footsteps came to the open doorway and Marnie appeared. She went very still, and Viv knew that she could see enough from the light in the corridor: the body, the knife, the blood, the rug, and Viv herself, crouched on the floor, most likely looking wild and insane.