The Sun Down Motel

“My room is like a museum,” Nick agreed, putting the panel back on the side of the machine. “The lampshades are the color of cigarettes and the bedspread has those fabric knobs in it. I don’t care, because I’m sleeping for the first time since I was a teenager. Oh, shit—something’s happening.”

The candy machine, reassembled now, made a whirring noise. My two dimes clinked somewhere deep in the mechanism. There was a thump, and a second Snickers bar appeared in the gap at the bottom.

We both stared for a second in surprise.

“Um, congratulations?” I said. “Looks like you fixed it.”

Nick looked as shocked as I felt. “Looks like I did.” He picked up the Snickers bar. “Which cop did you call?”

“What?”

“You said you called the cop that worked your aunt’s disappearance. Which one?” He glanced at me. “Carly, I know every cop in Fell.”

Right. Because his brother had been murdered, and he almost had been, too. “Edward Parey,” I said. “He was chief of police.”

Nick shook his head. “He won’t help you. Parey was chief when my brother died, and he was an asshole then. I doubt he’s improved.”

When my brother died. He said it like his brother had passed away naturally. His expression gave nothing away.

“Okay, then,” I said. “He’s likely a dead end. I’ll find someone else.”

“I know a few names you can call.” Nick scratched the back of his neck, thinking. “Don’t mention my name, though. I got into a lot of trouble as a teenager and none of them are fans of mine.”

“What did you do?”

“Stole stuff, got in fights. Got drunk a lot. I went off the rails after the murder, became a bad kid. You probably shouldn’t associate with me, really.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, because I realized I’d never said that to him. It wasn’t adequate, but it was something.

He gave me a curious look, as if I’d said something strange. Then he said, “Did you call Alma Trent?”

I shook my head. “Who’s Alma Trent?”

“She’s the cop who used to work the night shift. She worked it for years—decades. She has to be retired by now. She was a beat cop, but she might have met Viv if she worked nights.”

“Does Alma Trent hate you?” I asked him.

That made him smile a little. “She mopped me off the floor of a party or two, but she was okay about it. I got a few lectures about letting my life waste away. Alma didn’t put up with any shit.” His smile faded. “Jesus, I just realized I’ve been back in Fell for a month and I’ve barely left this motel. I don’t know if any of these people I knew are still around.”

I poked at my Snickers bar, dropping my gaze. “Come with me,” I said. “When I talk to some of these people.”

He was quiet, and I looked up to see that his blue eyes had gone hard. “That isn’t a good idea,” he said slowly.

“You said you came back to face your demons, right? To get over the past. You can’t do that by staying at the motel. Maybe getting out will help.”

“It isn’t that easy,” Nick said. He turned back to the machine and closed the front, picking up the screwdriver again. “For you, maybe, because you’re a stranger. But not for me. I know these people. A lot of them knew my father, knew Eli. I’ll face them when I’m ready, but not before.”

* * *

• • •

My cell phone rang at eleven thirty in the morning. I was deep under my covers in the dark, asleep and dreaming—something about a road and a lake, the stillness of the water. I didn’t want to swim. I rolled out of my covers at the sound of the phone, a sheen of cool sweat on my skin.

I picked up the phone from my nightstand. “Hello?”

“Is this Carly Kirk?” a woman asked.

I frowned, still in a fog. “Yes.”

“This is Marnie Clark returning your call.”

Marnie Clark, formerly Marnie Mahoney. The photographer who was credited with the photo of Viv I’d seen in the paper. I’d taken a shot and Googled her. She’d gotten married in 1983, but she was still in Fell, just like Jenny Summers, Viv’s old roommate. No one, it seemed, ever left Fell. Or if they did—like Nick—they eventually came back.

“Hi,” I said to Marnie, sitting up in bed. Outside my room I could hear Heather banging around in the kitchen. “Thank you for calling me.”

“Don’t thank me,” the woman said. Her voice wasn’t angry, but it was firm. “I don’t have anything to tell you about Vivian Delaney.”

“I saw a photo in the paper,” I said. “Your name was on it.”

“That’s just a photo, honey. I was a freelance photographer in those days. I took a lot of pictures. The papers bought some of them. Other people bought other ones. It was how I made a living.”

“It looked like a candid photo,” I said.

“Yeah, it probably was. Unless she sat for a portrait for me, it would have been a candid. But I don’t remember it. And I don’t remember her.”

I rubbed a hand through my hair. “Maybe you don’t understand. Viv was my aunt. She disappeared in 1982. No one has ever found her and—”

“I know what happened,” Marnie said. “I know she disappeared. I saw it in the papers, and I had a photo of her, and I offered it to them for sale. They bought it. I cashed the check. That’s all I have to say.”

“I just thought—”

“You’re on the wrong track, honey,” the woman said. “Whatever you think is going to happen, it isn’t. You have to accept that.”

“What?”

“I’m just giving you some advice here. It’s been thirty-five years. I’ve lived in this town all my life. Gone is gone. You get me? It’s hard to take, but sometimes gone is just gone. That’s all I have to say about Vivian Delaney, or anyone.”

“Listen,” I said. “Maybe we can meet for coffee or something. I just want to talk.”

But there was no one on the other end of the line. Marnie Clark had hung up.

Fell, New York

October 1982

VIV

It seemed fitting that the rain was still coming down as Marnie drove them through town. She wound through the streets of downtown Fell and to the other side, where the small split-level homes tapered off into farmland and scrub, pocked by warehouses and run-down auto body shops that never seemed to be open. She pulled up next to an overpass and parked on the gravel, the windshield facing the dark tunnel in the rain.