Do Not Disturb

by Freida McFadden

And my husband is still lying dead on the kitchen floor in a pool of blood.

Only six months later, he asked me to marry him. Six months after that, we tied the knot. The entire year, it was like floating on a cloud. Derek was the most wonderful man I had ever met. It wasn’t until after we were husband and wife that everything changed. Derek had been shopping for a new bank, but in retrospect, what he really had been shopping for was a wife. He took one look at me and decided I fit the bill. I still don’t know what it was about me that drew him to me. Or maybe it was all just dumb luck. Maybe if he had sat in front of Melody’s desk, she would be the one now speeding toward the state line.

I wish it could have been different. I wish Derek had been the man he promised to be. Or better yet, I wish I had listened to Claudia and stayed the hell away from him. But it’s too late now. I have no choice but to play with the cards I’ve been dealt.

As I step outside, a gust of cold smacks me in the face. It must’ve gotten at least ten degrees colder while I was in that store. The rain hasn’t quite turned into snow yet, but it will soon. How much longer can I stay on the road? And what’s worse, I can hear the man’s footsteps behind me. I quicken my pace. I don’t know what he wants, but it can’t be anything good. There are about twenty feet between me and my car. I’ve just got to make it twenty feet. I hit the key fob and my car lights up. Almost there. But then a brawny hand grabs my shoulder.

When I was younger, before I met Derek, I would hear stories about women stuck in abusive relationships. I never understood why any of them stayed. I thought they were foolish or weak. It never made sense to me until it became my life.

“Is there a way to get food?” I ask. Nick chews his lower lip. “Uh… sure. We don’t have room service or anything, but I could throw something together for you in our kitchen. Like… a turkey sandwich?” “That sounds amazing,” I breathe. He laughs. “Oh, it won’t be. Believe me. My wife, Rosalie, she was the cook.” I freeze for a moment. Did he just refer to his wife in the past tense? That’s odd. And the name Rosalie sounds strangely familiar. Then it hits me where I heard the name before. The restaurant next to the motel. The one that’s all boarded up, where I parked my car. It was called Rosalie’s.

The second I entered the living room, his face contorted in anger. What are you doing here? he demanded to know. Nothing, I stammered. I got out of work early, that’s all. Are you sure that’s all you’re here for? Or are you meeting some guy? I tried to explain about the conference. The unexpected half day. I plastered a smile on my face and tried to suggest we do something together, as a couple. Maybe go to the movies or go shopping. Or up to the bedroom, even. But Derek couldn’t let it go. He kept insisting I came home to meet another man. And the jealousy was ironic, given I was certain he had cheated on me many times. He even kept an apartment in Boston, which he claimed was for business purposes since his company is based in the city, but I’m pretty sure it was his little bachelor pad. I tried to talk him down, but it became obvious he was working himself into a rage. I had never seen him quite like this. But even when his hands balled into fists, I didn’t really think he was going to hurt me until I felt his hands around my neck. And that was the last straw. He pushed me around long enough. I would not let him take my life.

The part that I still don’t understand is why he got so angry this time. For a moment, when I first came home, he had been smiling. I thought he was having a good day. I thought we might have a pleasant afternoon together. He seemed happy to see me, and then a second later, the smile dropped off his face. I don’t understand why… Oh my God. It finally makes sense. Why he was smiling when he heard someone was at the door, then he immediately got angry. He was happy because he didn’t know it was me. He was expecting somebody else. Another woman.

“Nick always leaves 201 empty.” I nod. “Because of the leaky pipe, right?” “No,” she says. “Not because of that.” “Then… why?” “Because...” Greta pulls a ball of socks out of the trunk and gets back on her feet while holding onto the wall for support. “Because a couple of years ago, a woman was murdered in there.”

“I love mirrors,” Greta tells me. “Mirrors are the barrier between the conscious and unconscious mind. Everyone has an inner concept of themselves, but mirrors are reality. What you see right now—that is the truth that everyone else sees.”

I get out of the car and we trudge back to the motel together. He’s still got the bucket set up on the floor in front of the main counter. I guess he never got around to fixing that leak in Room 201. I notice now that the water dripping from the ceiling doesn’t look clear the way water usually does. It has a brownish tinge. Almost reddish. I wonder if that’s from rust. It makes sense that the pipes would be rusty here. “I’m going to wait for a plumber,” Nick says when he sees me looking at the dripping water. “I gave it a go this morning and… well, I’m not having much luck. I think I need a professional, you know?” I nod. I look at the water accumulating in the bucket. It definitely looks red. That’s so strange.

But even if you do not know your fortune, that does not keep it from coming true.” “If you know your fortune, are you able to stop it? Or do you just have to try to look surprised when it happens?”

The pressure of her fingers on mine grows uncomfortable. I want to pull my hands away but I don't dare break the spell. Suddenly, she lets go of my hands and jumps away from me, like I’m made of fire. Her eyes fly open. “You must go!” “What?” I stare at her uneasily. “What are you talking about?” She takes a step back, like she’s almost afraid of me. “You go now. You… you are… danger.” I stand up, my legs trembling beneath me. “You mean I’m in danger?” “I’m sorry.” She backs up again until she hits the wall. Or the mirror, as it were. “You must go now, Quinn. Go! Go out of here!” “But…” “Get out!” she shrieks. “You must go! Get away from this place!”

The veins are standing out in her neck, and her eyes are bulging out in their sockets. I don’t even understand what’s happening. Why is she freaking out like this? It was her idea to tell my fortune! I’m afraid she’s going to start throwing things at me, so I obediently stumble out of her room. For a moment, I linger in the hallway, stunned. Was that for real? Or was it all a performance, like Nick said? I can’t even tell. Then something hits me. She called me Quinn. Somehow, she knew my name. All right, now I’m officially freaked out. I definitely never told her my name. I said I was Kelly, and she called me on it being a fake name, but I never corrected her. So how did she know my name is Quinn? I close my eyes and I can still see her panicked face. The veins standing out in her neck and on her temples. Screaming at me: Go! Get out of here!

I return to my room and throw everything back into my luggage. It doesn’t take very long. Regretfully, I leave the boots behind in the room. I’ll have to do what I can with my sneakers. As I take one last look at the room, I look out the window at the house across the way. The sun is still up, so it’s hard to see, but I can just barely make out the shadow of a woman sitting in the window on the second floor. Rosalie.

“In other news,” the anchor says, “the body of thirty-four-year-old Derek Alexander was found last night in his home…” My chest turns to ice. What? The blond anchor keeps talking, but I can only focus on little pieces of what she’s saying. And then a second later, Deputy Scott Dwyer is on the screen. He doesn’t look great—he looks like he hasn’t gotten much more sleep than I have. Scott’s mildly bloodshot brown eyes make contact with the camera lens as he recites the details of the case in a flat voice. Death is from apparent stab wounds… No forced entry… attempting to locate wife Quinn Alexander for questioning… They found him. They found Derek dead, and now they’re looking for me. And according to the newscast, he was found last night. Probably the only reason the police aren’t here already is because of the storm. Or maybe I got lucky, and they didn’t see the sign for the Baxter Motel. Which means I don’t have much time.

Oh god

As I rifle through my purse, looking for my keys, I hear footsteps. I look up and see a figure approaching me. It’s so dark here, it’s hard to see who it is. I squint out into the blackness. “Hello?” I say. A raspy voice spits out, “How could you do that?” And then a second later the knife buries itself in my abdomen, between the open folds of my coat. I stare at it for a moment, watching the crimson stain spread across my shirt. And then everything goes black.

Back when I was a kid, we used to have a real phone. A landline. And when you were mad at someone, you could slam it down. It’s just not the same with a cell phone.

Real

The phone rings again. If it’s another one of Derek’s mistresses, I swear I’m going to lose it. But when I look over at the screen, I see a name I didn’t expect. It’s Quinn.

After I hang up with Scott, I can’t stop pacing across the living room. I was trying to give my sister a clear shot to escape the police, figuring she would contact me when they stopped looking for her, but it’s not working. How did she manage to get herself pulled over? What was she doing with a blown out taillight anyway? That’s when I make a split second decision: I’m going to look for her. This is New England—the main roads will be clear by now. I need to find her before the police do. I have a sense of where they pulled her over. And I know Quinn better than anyone in the world. I’m going to find my sister.

An hour later, I’m getting close to the end of New Hampshire. This is where Quinn must’ve been when the police officer pulled her over for the broken taillight. I keep my eyes peeled for any area she might have pulled her car into. Now that the sun is down, any liquid left on the road is starting to freeze. I have to slow down to keep my wheels from slipping. There’s no way she could’ve gone much further than this in a snowstorm. And that’s when I see it. The tiny faded sign that I almost miss, but just barely catch. Baxter Motel. I don’t know why, but my gut is telling me this is where Quinn ended up. She would have been looking for something small and out-of-the-way. And this is around where she got pulled over, so she knew she had to get off the road.

As I turn off the highway, following an equally faded sign pointing in the direction of the motel, I pass a police car going in the opposite direction. It looks like they had the same idea I did. I slow down as much as I can and catch a glimpse of the back seat of the car. It’s empty. So they didn’t find Quinn at the Baxter Motel. I pull over on the side of the road, debating what to do next. The police obviously searched the motel and didn’t find her there. Am I wasting my time? But I still have that feeling. I think she would have stopped here. I’m going to check it out.

I settle down on the bed and bring up the internet browser on my phone. Now that I have some privacy, I can read about the Baxter Motel. I click on the first link, which is an article from two years ago. The headline jumps out at me: Woman Found Murdered in New Hampshire Motel. The woman in question was twenty-five-year-old Christina Marsh. She was discovered dead in one of the motel rooms. Stabbed to death. There were no signs of forced entry. The article notes that the owners of the motel, Nicholas and Rosalie Baxter, were working with the police to find the perpetrator.

I read the articles one by one, and the story materializes. The woman, Christina Marsh, had been staying at the motel for about a week. She hadn’t left her room in a day, so Nick Baxter went to check on her. He discovered her lying dead in a pool of her own blood. Several of the articles mentioned a “relationship” between Nick Baxter and Christina Marsh. One went so far as to call her his girlfriend and implied the affair had been going on throughout her stay at the motel. He was never charged with anything, at least not according to any of the articles. And I would assume if he had been convicted of murder two years ago, he wouldn’t still be working here. So I’m guessing he was cleared. I look down at the bedspread underneath me. Did it happen here? Was she killed in this very room? I shove my phone into my purse. I’m supposed to be focused on Quinn, but something about this place makes me feel very uneasy. I need to do what I came here to do and get out.

I crack open the door to the motel room. The hallway is empty. Quiet. I slip into the hall and look at the other two rooms. 201 and 202. This motel isn’t much bigger than my house. I try room 201 first. There’s a “DO NOT DISTURB” sign hanging from the doorknob, but I ignore it as I rap my fist gently against the door. No answer. Then I knock again. Harder. Nothing. Then I try the doorknob. Locked. I feel this crawling sensation on the back of my n...

I figure I’ll watch some TV, but I don’t see the remote control anywhere. My eyes fall on the dresser next to the bed. Maybe the remote control is in the drawer. But I open it up and all I see in there is a copy of the Bible. Then as the drawer shifts, I see a spark of something shiny from underneath the Bible. I push the Bible aside and that’s when I see it. A wedding band. My hands are trembling as I pull a gold wedding band out from the drawer. It looks like the one that my sister wore for the last two years. But there’s only one way to be sure. I tilt the band to the side and look on the inside. Wrapped around the inside of the band, I see the engraved letters: DEREK + QUINN. Quinn was here. In this very room.

I lift my eyes, which make contact with the window. There’s a house overlooking the motel. A rickety old two-story house. And there’s a light on in one of the second-story windows. I can make out a silhouette of a woman sitting in front of the window. Watching. I shiver and almost drop the wedding band. The sight of this woman staring out the window has unnerved me. I look down at the wedding band in my hand. I need to get the hell out of here. No. Not yet. And then I hear a single knock at the door.

I’m not dead. Did you think I was? That I’m some corpse my husband propped up in front of the second-floor window to frighten his guests? I’m not. I’m very much alive. And I’m afraid my husband is a murderer.

Have you ever just met somebody that you clicked with? That you felt was an extension of yourself? The missing piece.

“I mean,” he says. “That psychic said something bad would happen if we got married, but I honestly can’t imagine anything worse than not being with you.” I feel the same way. “I know.” “So…” One side of his lips quirks up. “You won’t break up with me because of what that psychic said?” I allow myself a teeny tiny smile. “I guess not.” He kisses me, squishing the stuffed panda between us. I try to enjoy it, but I can’t quite push away what that psychic told me. I don’t believe in this stuff—I know it’s fake. But I can’t stop seeing the frightened look in her eyes.

“Listen…” I reach for his hand, and he gives it to me reluctantly. “I love you, but I understand if you want to… If this is too much for you. I would understand. We don’t have to be together if you don’t want to be anymore.” Nick jerks his head back. “What are you talking about? You think I want to break up?” “I’m just saying. I would understand.” He squeezes my hand firmly in his. “Look, I’m not thrilled about this. Obviously. But I love you. And there’s nothing that would make me not want to be with you anymore.” We sit there together in the kitchen for a long time, holding hands and contemplating what the rest of our lives will be like together. I have no idea at that moment how bad things are going to get.

He rolls his eyes. “Come on. Get up. There are going to be customers waiting outside.” “No.” “I don’t understand.” “I don’t want to work at the restaurant anymore.” He tries again to reach for me, but I shrug him off. “Is this about the kitchen being accessible? Because I told you, I called a contractor and got a quote—” “I’m not going back to that restaurant,” I say through my teeth. “Not now. Not ever.” “But—” “I’m not going, Nick.” He gets up off the bed. “So what am I supposed to do?” “There are other people who do the cooking. You can handle it.” He presses his lips together. “Fine. I’ll take care of it today. You can have one sick day.”

He throws off the towel and starts getting dressed. Once again, I can’t help but think how attractive my husband is. But the scariest part is I feel nothing right now. Not even the slightest trace of desire. And I’m too tired to care.

I study his face. “Did Dr. Heller have any other helpful advice?” After an interminable pause, he digs into his pocket and pulls out a little orange bottle of pills. I inhale sharply. “What’s that?” “They’re antidepressants,” he says. “Dr. Heller thought they might help.” “Oh God.” “Rosie…” “I’m not taking those,” I say. “I don’t have depression. My situation is the problem. Anyone would be depressed in my situation.”

“They still might help.” He tries to reach for my hand, but I pull away. “Please, Rosie. Just try it. For a few weeks. If you don’t like it, you don’t have to keep taking them. But maybe they’ll help.” I look into his eyes. He still loves me, for some reason. He’s just trying to help. “Fine.” I accept the bottle. “I’ll try them for a few weeks.” But that night, I flush all the pills down the toilet.

She squeezes my hand in hers. For an old woman, she’s strong. “I lost my Bernie—it was the greatest tragedy of my life. Do not let Nick get away from you. Do not lose what you have with him. You must protect your marriage at all costs.” I shake my head. “I…” “Promise me, Rosalie. Promise me you will not let him go. Protect your marriage at all costs.” Her grip on my hand is so tight, it hurts. I try to pull away, but she’s too strong. Or I’m too weak. “I… I promise.”

She gives me a hard look, then she releases my hand. The imprints of her fingers remain on my skin, darkening into what will become bruises. Greta made me swear not to let him go, but I don’t know what she means. If Nick wants to leave, there’s nothing I could do to stop him.

Later in the afternoon, Greta brings me a dusty old pair of binoculars. I stash them at the bottom of a drawer, where Nick is unlikely to come across them. I feel a rush of relief when I get them in my hands. I didn’t think Greta would really come through for me. But it turns out she was absolutely right. The binoculars are a huge mistake.

Ultimately, I’m just too tired to go through with it. I’m literally too tired to kill myself.

I’ve been sobbing for several seconds when I hear the soft knock on the door. At first, I think I must be hearing things. Then the voice: “Rosie?” It’s Nick. I want to tell him to go away, but even more, I want to get off the floor. “Yes. Come in.” He opens the door and catches me lying there with my red eyes and wet face. “Rosie,” he murmurs. The tears stream down my face. “Nick…” He bends down beside me, and very, very gently, he lifts me off the floor. He lowers me down on the bed, then he crawls into the bed beside me. He brushes a wet strand of hair from my face as he looks into my eyes. And then, very slowly and gently, he dips his lips onto mine. We make love for the first time in almost a year. I fall asleep curled up in Nick’s arms.

I sit up in bed, propping myself up against the pillows, trying to get a better look. And that’s when I see some movement along the back of the motel. Near the dumpster. It’s Nick. What’s he doing over there? I focus in the best I can on his face. He’s not smiling. He dumps a black trash bag in the dumpster, then he wipes sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. He takes a step back, staring at the dumpster. He wipes his hands on his jeans, then starts back to our house. What the hell was he doing there at three in the morning? When Nick disappears from my view, I yank the drawer open and throw the binoculars inside before he can see them. My heart is pounding as his footsteps grow louder on the stairs outside the door. A few moments later, Nick’s silhouette appears in the doorway. The first thing he does is go to the bathroom. He washes his hands for at least two minutes. There’s a rule that you’re supposed to sing the happy birthday song to know how long to wash, but he washes far longer than that. He finally comes out of the bathroom, strips off his jeans and T-shirt, and quietly slips onto the mattress beside me, trying hard not to wake me. Too bad I’m already wide awake.

“Nick?” I whisper. I hear him inhale sharply beside me. “Oh. I didn’t realize you were awake.” I wait for him to explain where he just was. When he says nothing, I say, “Where did you go?” “I just…” He shifts on the mattress next to me. “I needed some fresh air.” He lied to me. He wasn’t just getting some fresh air. He was doing something by the motel. But why would he lie? Nick reaches over and wraps his arm around me. He tugs my body close to his. “I’m sorry I woke you up. Go back to sleep.” I close my eyes but it takes a long time to go back to sleep.

I focus on Christina’s room. I recognize there’s a chance he might go up there to tell her it’s over between the two of them. He knows I can see the room from here, even though he doesn’t know about the binoculars. So I’m sure he’ll be careful. But when I zero in on the room, it’s still dark. I look down at my watch. Nick usually doesn’t head over there until later in the morning, and it’s nearly ten o’clock now. Surely she would be up by now, right? Unless she checked out. Or went out somewhere. But no. Her Nissan is still in the parking lot. There’s nowhere she could have gone on foot. Christina is still in the motel. So why is her room dark?

“Did you ask Christina to leave?” I interrupt him. It’s all I can think about. “I’m sorry.” Splatters of red appear on his neck. “No, I didn’t. I tried to tell her but every time I knocked on her door, she didn’t answer.” “I see…” I tug at the sleeve of my shirt. “And she’s definitely still in the motel?” “Well, yeah. I mean, her car is still there.” “Yeah…” He runs a hand through his hair. “I wasn’t with her at all today. I swear to you. I’ll only see her one more time to tell her to leave. That’s it.”

I want to believe him. But where is she? And what was he doing at three in the morning? He sits on the bed, close to me. He reaches for my hand, and I allow him to squeeze it in his own. “You believe me, right, Rosie?” What can I say to him but yes?

He raises his face to look at me. “Please tell me you believe me. Tell me you don’t think I killed her.” That night I confronted him about her, Nick promised he would make things right. He swore it. That night, Nick was skulking around the motel at three in the morning. And the next morning, the other woman was dead. Stabbed to death. And Nick is the only person who had the key to her room. “I believe you,” I lie. That psychic at the carnival was right. My husband is a murderer. And it’s all because of me.

Maybe we used up all our happiness. Maybe everybody only gets so much.

I can’t see what the object is, but it glints in the moonlight. Could that be... A knife? Oh my God, does she have a knife? Why would this woman have a knife? And what does she plan to do with it? And then she moves in the direction of our house. My heart is pounding painfully. What is she doing? Why is she coming here with a knife? Is she angry that I was watching her? I throw the binoculars onto the bed, like they’re made of fire. She couldn’t have seen that I had them. And even if she did, she wouldn’t kill me over it, would she? It’s not like I saw anything terrible. I just saw her sitting in her room. That’s all. She’s definitely moving toward the house. There’s no doubt about it. And she’s still got that knife gripped in her hand. Oh god oh god oh god oh god…

And now she’s at our front door. I hear her knock, but I stay perfectly still. But then a horrible thought occurs to me. Nick may not have locked the front door. We were always lax about locking doors. After all, it’s pretty deserted out here and we never had much worth stealing. And then I hear the footsteps coming from downstairs. Oh my God. She’s inside. I grab my phone. The first thing I do is text Nick: Please come here now! Somebody is in the house! Then I dial 911, although it will be far too late by the time they arrive.

“You…” she hisses at me. I raise my hands in the air. “I’m sorry. Whatever you think I did, I’m sorry.” “You know what happened to my sister,” she snaps at me. “Your… sister?” Is she the sister of the blond woman? She raises the knife and takes a step toward me. “Don’t play dumb.” I glance down at my phone. Nick hasn’t responded to my text. He probably hasn’t even seen it. He’ll read it just in time to discover my dead body. “I… I don’t know what you’re talking about…” “Liar…” “Please…” A tear escapes my right eye. “I didn’t do anything to your sister. I swear.” She takes another step forward. Her eyes are pools of darkness, staring into mine. “I never said you did.”