Do Not Disturb

by Freida McFadden

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

The muscles in his face are completely relaxed for the first time since I’ve known him. Even when Derek is sleeping, he’s tense.

Or more likely, Derek’s mother comes by for absolutely no reason at all except to count all the ways I’m an unsatisfactory wife. (To be fair, this time she would be absolutely right.)

Attempting to do anything else will waste valuable time.

No, if I’m going to run, I’ve got to run right now. But first, I have to change.

I had cleaned every inch myself, because Derek did not want to hire a housekeeper.

He hated the idea of having a stranger in our house

So in addition to my full-time job, I did all the cooking and cl...

I get a sick feeling just thinking about it. This is my life from now on. Hiding from the police. I’ll never see my home again. I’ll never see my sister again. But it’s that or life in prison.

I'm going to head north. I need to get out of the country. And I’m far closer to Canada than I am to Mexico.

The display in my car pops up the name Claudia Delaney. It’s my sister.

She’s four years older than me, and she’s always looked out for me, especially after our parents died when I was only fourteen. When she finds out what happened, she’s going to be worried sick.

She doesn’t know the extent of the connections Derek’s family has.

Only six months later, he asked me to marry him.

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.

“But isn’t there another level above this one?”

He gives me a lopsided grin. “Right. It’s a mystery.”

“Just the one night.” And maybe not even that long. “Am I the only person staying here?”

He hesitates. “No. We have another guest. But she’s more… long term.”

I can’t shake this uneasy feeling that I should leave this motel right now. Grab my bag and get back on the

road, no matter how hard it’s raining or snowing. This place is trouble.

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.

Jerk

“I am Greta,” she says. She has the very slightest hint of an accent that I can’t identify. East European, I think.

“I’m Kelly,” I say.

She sniffs. “If you do not want to give me a real name, d...

As I wait for Greta to rifle around inside her dresser drawer, I look down at a deck of cards she has on her dresser. It takes me a second to realize that they’re not playing cards, but rather Tarot cards. Next to them is an orb that glows in the yellow light of the room.

Greta sees me noticing them and comments, “I was a fortune teller at a carnival for thirty years.”

I manage a smile. “So you can read...

She pauses for a moment and looks up at me. Her gaze rakes over my bedraggled app...

“Because a couple of years ago, a woman was murdered in there.”

woman, like you. About your age. Also with blond hair. Her name was Christina Marsh. She came to stay here for a few days, but then I noticed she hadn’t come out of her room in a while.”

“It wasn’t just that though. Something was wrong. I knew it. So I told Nick to go check on her. And…”

“She was lying in her bed, stabbed to death,” she says. “Nick found her there. The police said she’d been dead for about a day.”

As I turn, I come face-to-face with yet another mirror. Why does she have so many mirrors in her room?

“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.”

“Right,”

“If you stay here,” she says, “I’ll do a reading for you tomorrow. You may...

“That’s okay. I’m not...

“The future may surpr...

I slip out of her room, the socks clutched in my right hand. I can’t see the future but I predict I will never see this woman again.

Name of the book

So that’s my other secret. I stabbed Derek in the abdomen to keep him from strangling me, but there was a moment when I might have been able to save him. If I had run straight to the phone and called 911, maybe he would be alive right now. But I didn’t. Yes, I killed him in self-defense, but I wanted him to die.

Not only that, but I waited to make sure he was dead. I stood there, watching him bleed out. As he cried for help.

I don’t blame you.

Greta’s lips curl up. “Be careful what you borrow from that man’s wife.”

Something about her expression makes me very uneasy. “He said it was fine. It was his idea.”

“Of course it was.” She scoffs. “I’m just saying. Rosalie will not be happy about handing over a pair of her boots so that her husband can help a pretty young guest.” Her eyes nar...

I think of the shadow in the window of the house across from the motel. My breath catches. “There’s nothing...