AN HOUR LATER, I am freshly showered, changed into jeans and a sweater, and feeling like an entirely new person. I feel so good, I hate the idea of getting into the car and taking a long road trip. But it won’t be so bad. Seth will be driving, and I have to get to the bottom of this. Somebody from that motel was calling me over and over. I need to know why.
Seth stands up when I come down to the living room. “Ready to go?” “Yes. Definitely.”
“You feeling okay?”
I rub my eyes. “Just a little tired. I’ll be fine.”
“Maybe you should take a few Collahealth capsules?” Then we both laugh.
We get back on the road, but I still haven’t eaten much since the awful breakfast they served me in jail. We stop off at a fast-food drive-through, and I order food I would never ordinarily indulge in. But I’m starving. All I want is a big, greasy fast-food burger.
Seth laughs when I demolish about half the burger in three bites. I remember when we were hooking up last year, we ended up eating a lot of fast food in the car. After all, we could hardly go to a restaurant. Sitting here in the car with Seth, stuffing fast-food fries in my mouth, gives me a sense of déjà vu.
“How are things going with Melinda?” I ask.
“Awful. This may come as a shock, but getting divorced sucks.” “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
I squirm in the leather seat. “I feel responsible.”
“You’re not,” he says flatly. Yeah, right. “Look, I’m not going to say that what happened between you and me didn’t make the whole thing a lot more contentious. But it was going to happen either way. We didn’t even like each other anymore. You know Melinda and I haven’t had sex in over three years?”
He said something like that when we were together, but I always thought he was exaggerating. I don’t think so anymore.
“It’s not your fault,” he says. “Or if it was, it was only because you reminded me that I was actually capable of being happy.”
I don’t know if he’s saying that to let me off the hook or if he means it. But right now, I’ll take it. I already feel bad enough about myself. I don’t need to add homewrecker to the list of horrible things I’ve done in my life.
Seth turns on the radio while we drive. He’s really into classic rock, which is not my favorite, but I don’t care much right now. I remember when I told Caleb my favorite singer was Celine Dion. His face lit up. Celine Dion is my favorite too! Now I wonder if he was making that up, as another way to get close to me. What man’s favorite singer is Celine Dion?
It’s an almost ninety-minute drive to get to the motel. It’s a large place
—two stories sprawled out over a large lot—with dozens of rooms that open directly to the outside. And it’s in the middle of nowhere. It’s a perfect place to hide out.
A neon sign denotes the main office for the motel. Seth parks right outside, and we sit in the car for a moment. “You ready?” he asks.
I nod wordlessly. There are butterflies in my stomach—I’m terrified of what Caleb doesn’t want me to know about this place. What has he done? Is my boyfriend a cold-blooded killer? Is Dawn lying dead in one of these motel rooms, sprawled out on a plastic-covered mattress?
We march to the front door, which is hanging on its hinges. This motel is a dive. A man is sitting behind the counter, his eyelids sagging shut, his brown hair long and scraggly. This entire lobby looks like it hasn’t been cleaned in a decade. If I sat on the sofa in the room, a big puff of dust would come out of it.
“Help you?” the clerk asks lazily.
“Yes, thank you.” I dig my phone out of my purse and bring up a picture I’ve got of Caleb. Well, it’s Caleb and me. It’s a selfie I took of the two of
us, back when I thought he might be the one. I hold it up for the man. “Have you seen this man?”
The clerk barely glances at the photo. “I don’t know. We get a lot of people coming in and out.”
Seth digs out his wallet from his back pocket. He pulls out a couple of bills and slides them across the table. “Do you think you could look again for us?”
The man looks down at the cash on the table. He scoops up the bills and tucks them into his front pocket. Then he leans in to take a better look at my phone.
“Oh yeah,” he says. “Now I recognize him. He was here. On Saturday.”
My heart sinks. That doesn’t help me at all. Caleb already told me he drove here on Saturday. So this only proves that he was telling the truth.
“Did you talk to him?” Seth asks the guy. He nods. “Yeah, he was checking out.”
I suck in a breath. “Checking out?”
“That’s right. He got a room, I think on Monday night, and he came in here to check out.”
Seth and I exchange looks. There it is. Solid evidence that Caleb is full of it. My boyfriend has been lying to me all week. Except… why?
“Was he with anyone?” Seth asks.
The clerk hesitates. “I’m pretty sure he had a woman staying with him in the room. But I’m not absolutely sure. I try not to pay too much attention. You know? Unless I hear screaming or gunshots, I look the other way.”
A woman?
On a whim, I type the name Dawn Schiff into my search engine. It brings up that awful ID photo of Dawn. I hold up the image. “Was this the woman who was staying with him?”
“It’s possible. She had more hair than that, but it could’ve been a wig.
And no glasses. She was skinny as a rail like this woman though.” Holy crap.
Is it possible Dawn is still alive?
“Did she look like she was being held hostage?” I ask.
The clerk lifts a shoulder. “Didn’t seem like it. She wasn’t tied up or anything. But like I said, I try not to pay too much attention.”
We thank the clerk and get out of the motel. Caleb was definitely here, but it’s obvious he’s long gone. But it doesn’t matter. Caleb isn’t planning
to disappear like Dawn did. He’ll show up at work sometime this week, pretending everything is fine. That’s when I’ll confront him with what I know.
“That asshole,” Seth mutters as we get back into the car. “What the hell is he up to?”
“I have no idea.”
“Look what he’s putting you through.” He hits the steering wheel with his palm. “And for what? Why is he doing this?”
I wish I knew.
“I’m sorry I didn’t believe you at first.” The sun has dropped in the sky, and his eyes look shiny in the shadows. “I should never have doubted you. I know you wouldn’t steal.”
“I don’t blame you.”
“When I get my hands on Caleb, I’m going to punch him in the nose.” For some reason, his words make me laugh, and he grins back at me.
It’s the first time I’ve laughed in what feels like forever. But it’s beginning to feel like there’s a small chance this could all work out. Caleb is the key to everything. And he has no idea what I know.
We start on the drive back to Dorchester. As buzzed as I am from the events of the day, the motion of the car eventually lulls me to sleep. Seth gets how tired I am, and he shuts off the music and drives in silence. He doesn’t even hit his horn, which is unusual behavior for him because he’s a typical Boston driver who loves to lean on his horn. Sitting in the passenger seat of his car, this is somehow the best sleep I’ve gotten in a week. It’s only interrupted by Seth’s hand on my arm, shaking me awake.
“Natalie,” he says.
There is an urgency in his voice that makes my eyes shoot open. “What?”
“Look.”
I blink a few times and rub my eyes. The sun has gone down completely now, but I can tell we’re back in my neighborhood. On my block. In fact, my house is only a stone’s throw away from the car. Seth is pointing at the house.
It’s very dark out, so I have to squint to see what he’s talking about. That’s when I notice there’s a man in front of my house. Sitting on the front steps. And when he sees our car, he rises to his feet.
Oh my God.
It’s Caleb.
