If I were looking for a quiet, isolated place to spend the night, I couldn’t find anything more quiet and isolated than the Baxter Motel. I turn off the highway, and an almost invisible sign directs me to the motel. I have to drive down a nearly unpaved road until I see the weather-worn sign in front of a beat up old two-story house with a crumbling porch. The roof looks warped, almost sunken, like it could collapse at any moment. There’s a dim light shining in one of the upstairs windows, and if there weren’t, I would think the motel was abandoned.
Even though it’s isolated, I feel nervous about parking my car in plain sight. After all, that officer pulled me over only twenty minutes away from here.
Next to the motel, there’s another small one-story building. There’s a sign hanging from it that says Rosalie’s Diner in peeling paint. But this establishment is clearly closed. It’s dark inside and all the windows and doors are boarded up. I circle around the diner, and I park behind it, concealed by a large green garbage bin.
There. That should at least be good enough for the night.
I lift my bag out of the car and hoof it through the rain and sleet to the motel. My sneakers squish into a puddle and after about thirty seconds, I’m drenched. I regret not parking closer, but I wouldn’t have been able to sleep at night if my car were in plain sight.
The front door of the Baxter motel is made of rotting wood that’s dark with moisture. There’s also a screen door loosely attached to the hinges that smacks me in the shoulder before I shove it out of the way. The knob feels ice cold to touch, and it sticks when I try to turn it. But after a second, it gives way and then I’m inside.
The inside of the motel isn’t much warmer than outside, but at least it’s dry. Well, mostly. There’s water dripping from the ceiling, leaving a small puddle next to me. A splintered wooden counter is in the back of the room, but nobody’s behind it. A single lightbulb hangs from the ceiling, and as I stand there, the light flickers.
“Hello?” I call out. No answer.
I take a few steps forward. All I can hear is the dripping of the water coming from the ceiling. The motel feels empty, but the lights are on. And I saw that light on upstairs as well.
“Hello?” I say again, louder this time.
Still no answer. This place is making me uneasy. I wanted to find something out of the way, but this is a bit more isolated than I expected. Then again, the thought of having to run through the freezing rain back to my car isn’t too appealing.
“I’m here! Don’t leave! I’m coming!”
I whip my head around at the voice from behind me. A few seconds later, a man emerges from a back room, carrying a mop and a bucket. He smiles at me, revealing a slightly crooked left incisor. “Hey,” he says. “Sorry. I was in the back.”
“No worries.” I try to return his smile, but I’m too tired to put in the effort anymore.
He shifts the handle of the mop to his other hand. “So are you looking for a jump for your car or…?”
“Oh… no, I…” I look down at the bag that I had dropped beside me. “I was hoping to get a room for the night.”
He blinks at me, as if such a thing had never occurred to him. “You want a room?”
I frown. “Sorry, I thought this was a motel…”
“It is.” He scratches at his hair, which is the color of damp sand. He’s maybe mid-thirties and good-looking, but not in the same way as Derek used to be. Derek was lead actor kind of handsome, whereas this guy would get more of
a supporting role. But he seems nice. Harmless. Like he wouldn’t hurt a fly. “We just don’t usually get many… But yes, we’ve got a room available. No problem.”
“Thanks,” I say.
“Can you just…” He gestures over at the puddle of water on the floor. “I want to get this cleaned up before the floor gets damaged. Or more damaged.” He shakes his head. “Every time it rains, it starts leaking.”
My eyes stray up to the dark spot on the ceiling where the drops of water are coalescing. “But isn’t there another level above this one?”
He gives me a lopsided grin. “Right. It’s a mystery.”
He carries the bucket over to the puddle on the floor, then he dips the mop in the water. The puddle shrinks.
“Do you own this place?” I ask.
He nods. “Me and my wife do, yes.”
As he pushes the mop across the floor, I noticed the glint of a wedding band on his left hand. I look down at my own left hand and see the simple gold band still in place. All of a sudden, it feels like it’s burning my skin. I want to rip it off and throw it across the room.
“I’m Nick, by the way,” he says.
“Hi, Nick,” I say, but I don’t offer my own name. He doesn’t seem bothered by it.
Nick gives the mop one last shove across the floor, then rests it against the wall. He places the bucket in the place where the water is dripping down. I suppose that’s his makeshift solution.
Once he’s taken care of that, he goes behind the wooden counter. He leans his elbows on the counter as he looks at me. “So usually we charge fifty dollars a night. Is that okay?”
“Is cash all right?”
“But of course.” He rifles below the counter. “Are you planning to stay just for the night or longer?”
“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.”
He doesn’t explain what that means, which is fine. I just want to feel like I’m not the only person in this semi- deserted motel. Yes, this guy seems harmless, but this is how scary campfire stories start. “What about you and your wife? Do you stay here?”
Nick shakes his head. “Nah. We live in that old house right behind the motel. But I’ll stick around for a while in case you need anything. I’ve got to fix that leak, anyway.”
He finally finds what he was looking for under the desk. It’s a sheet of paper, old enough that it’s turned stiff and yellow. It looks like some sort of information form for guests. He blows a layer of dust from the paper. “Would you fill this out for me?”
“Um, sure.”
I pick up the ballpoint pen on the desk, but my hand feels frozen. I don’t want to fill this out. I’ll have to falsify every piece of information here. Starting with my name.
At some point, I’ll have to shell out the money for a fake ID. But in the meantime, I should have a fake name to give people. Except what? It should be something common that rolls off the tongue. Nothing memorable.
Mary? Jennifer? Carol? My best friend in college was Kelly. That’s innocuous enough. So I scribble down the name Kelly.
And now I need to think of a last name.
“I have to tell you,” Nick says. “This is the longest anyone has ever taken to write their name.”
My cheeks burn. “Oh…”
“Listen…” He reaches for the yellowing piece of paper. “Don’t worry about the form. You’re just staying for the night.” He looks down at the one piece of information I gave him. “Okay, Kelly?”
“Okay,” I say gratefully.
I reach into my purse and extract fifty dollars to pay him for the room. He takes the money and shoves it into the pocket of his jeans. Then he grabs a set of keys from under the counter.
“I’ll show you the room,” he says. He glances at my luggage. “Let me get your bag for you.”
I start to protest, but what the hell? I’m exhausted, and he looks strong. May as well let him carry my bag.
I follow him up a set of stairs to the second floor. The stairs aren’t lit at all, and with every step, they groan like the whole staircase is about to collapse at any second. I grab onto the banister for support, in case the stairs really do collapse, and it immediately shifts under my weight. This whole motel feels like it’s about to fall apart any second now.
Nick notices and flashes me an apologetic smile. “I need to tighten a few of the screws. Sorry about that.”
“No problem.”
The entire second floor seems to be lit by a single lightbulb. There are three doors, two on the left and one on the right. Nick takes me past rooms 201 and 202, and then we stop at 203. He fishes the keys out of his pocket.
As he’s getting the door open, I noticed the door to room 202 has cracked open. I turn around, and I feel rather than see somebody watching me from within the room. I tilt my head, trying to get a better look, but then the door slams closed.
“Is… is there somebody staying in room 202?” I ask. Nick glances at 202, then back down at the keys. “Yeah.
That’s just Greta. She sort of… lives here. She won’t bother you.”
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.
But that’s silly. It’s warm and dry in here. And there’s an actual bed that I can sleep in.
Nick throws open the door to my room for the night. It’s about what I expected. A small double bed with a stiff looking bedspread, and an old dresser with a small TV balanced on top. And a rickety wooden chair in the corner of the room.
A crease forms between Nick’s eyebrows as he watches my face. “Is it okay?”
“It’s perfect,” I say.
He nods. “The TV has an antenna… It’s not cable or anything. We might get a little reception, but I’m not sure if you will in the storm. And there’s a phone… But it only calls the phones on the first floor. Most people have cell phones these days…”
I think about the cell phone I tossed in the back of that pickup truck. I wish more than anything that I had a phone right now. But it’s better I got rid of it. I don’t want anyone to track me here. Plus, if I could call Claudia, I’m not sure if I could resist the temptation.
“And there’s a private bathroom,” he adds, a touch proudly. “So you can… You don’t have to leave the room or anything. There’s a shower and everything.”
I shiver. “I don’t shower at motels. When I was a kid, I saw this movie where this woman got murdered while taking a shower at a motel. It scarred me for life.”
He smiles. “Well, it’s there if you change your mind. I promise you won’t be murdered.”
To be honest, I’m tempted. My hair is damp and freezing
—a hot shower seems like heaven right now.
As I glance around the room, my stomach lets out a low growl. All I’ve eaten since lunch is those cheese doodles and a few Oreos while I was driving. And I have to say, I’m pretty burned out on cheese doodles and Oreos right now.
“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.
“Anyway,” he says, “make yourself comfortable. I’ll go make that turkey sandwich. If there’s anything you need, just dial zero on the telephone and it will ring downstairs. I’m going to be sticking around for a while fixing things.”
“Thanks,” I say.
He flashes me a disarming smile, and my shoulders relax. My first impression was right. Nick is a nice guy. I’m safe here, at least for the night, but first thing in the morning, I’ve got to get the hell out of here.
