Do Not Disturb

by Freida McFadden

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

I did it. I killed my husband. All I can say in my defense is I had a good reason.

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.

“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.”

“That’s horrible,” I murmur. “And they never found out who killed her?” He lifts his eyes. But he’s not looking at me. He’s looking at the window behind me. “No. They never did.”

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.

“There’s nothing to be jealous of. Believe me.” “Tell that to Christina Marsh.”

“Do not worry.” Greta’s voice breaks into my thoughts. “You will find love. I promise you.”

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!”

“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. Screw the snow plow. I’m getting out of here. I’ll go wait in my car, so I can take off as soon as it’s clear to go. At the very least, I can’t be hanging around this motel any longer. I grab my luggage, which is thankfully already packed. I shove my feet back in my sneakers, then I head out of the room, locking the door behind me. I walk over to the staircase, but before I can start descending, I hear voices coming from downstairs. Oh my God. It’s the police.

I’ve made up my mind. I’m going back home.

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.

“I believe you,” I lie. That psychic at the carnival was right. My husband is a murderer. And it’s all because of me.

Claudia spends so much time with Quinn, but sometimes I wonder if they even like each other. Claudia is always whining about Quinn. To be fair, she whines about everything. But especially about Quinn. Quinn’s fake blond hair. Quinn’s giant house. How Quinn wouldn’t give us any money to help when our roof collapsed last year and wrecked our attic. Not that we need money from the Alexanders. I do fine as a plumber. It’s a very good living. Maybe I’m not rich like Derek Alexander, but I could afford to fix my own damn roof. I didn’t want their charity. I wouldn’t have taken the money if they offered it.

I got that scar a year ago, and it still throbs sometimes. Claudia and I were in a fight—yelling and screaming, and yes, throwing things. I can’t even remember what the fight was about, but she picked up a paperweight and threw it at my head. Five stitches.

I started sleeping with him because… Well, long story short, I hate my sister. Surprise, surprise.

And then I plunged the knife into her abdomen and dug it in, the same way she did to him. Poetic justice.

“Whoa! Jesus Christ, Rosie!” I pause for a breath and look up. Nick is standing over us, gawking at me. I look down at the mystery woman under me, and there’s blood all over her face. I think she might be unconscious. I roll off her, gasping for air. “Nick,” I manage. “She… she was…” “I know.” His face is grim. “I saw her through the window in room 201. I saw the knife. I ran over here as fast as I could, but I thought I might be too late…” He looks down at the woman, out cold on the floor. “Little did I know, my wife is a ninja.” I start to laugh, but instead I burst into tears.

A few minutes later, the police descend on us. Someone must’ve told them the entire story on the phone, because it seems like they know everything. They handcuff me and read me my rights, even though my face is bleeding and my head is throbbing.

“Is she breathing?” I ask. Scott just sneers at me. He nods at the officer holding my arm. “Take her away.” I start to ask again, but I feel my arm being jerked hard enough that my wrist feels like it might snap in two. I know the answer though. Quinn will survive. She’s the lucky one, after all.

In the weeks after the incident, we finally got all the details, although it was mostly from reading them in the paper. The woman who showed up earlier in the night, Quinn Alexander, had just murdered her husband. She stabbed him in the belly, although there was significant evidence that she did it in self-defense. Nick told the police he saw bruises on her neck, and he assumed somebody had attacked her. Nick later ended up testifying in Quinn’s trial. But it turned out that the husband was sleeping with Quinn’s sister, Claudia Delaney. And when the sister—apparently already a bit mentally unstable—discovered the dead body, she had a complete breakdown. Claudia set about finding Quinn, then exacting revenge on her. She stabbed Quinn, then put her in the trunk of her car, intending to get rid of the dead body. And she went after me because she thought I saw her stabbing her sister. She was getting rid of the witnesses. She did the same to Greta. After the old woman told her what she wanted to know, Claudia took care of her—stabbed her in the abdomen just like Quinn. But amazingly, the knife missed any major organs and Greta survived—she was home from the hospital within a week. She must have nine lives. “Hey,” Nick says to me now. “I know you’re busy, but do you want to let me take over for half an hour so you can say goodbye to Greta?”

All these years, I had been scared Nick was the one who killed Christina Marsh. I should have known he would never do something like that. But I never dreamed Greta could have done it either. “I’ve done it before.” She says it casually, like she’s talking about going roller skating instead of committing a murder. “There was a woman at the carnival who wanted my Bernie. And then she just… disappeared. That’s what the police decided anyway.”

It was wrong that she murdered that woman. She should never have done it. But I can’t say I’m sorry. And at that moment, I decide. If we have a girl, we will name her Greta.