Chapter 33 Clara
CLARA
AT FIRST, I THOUGHT THE alarms were in my head, and I felt a drop in my stomach. Something else I couldn’t explain—it was different than the feeling I got about Lily. Muddled. Strange.
But then I saw him raise his eyes at me, and I knew I hadn’t imagined the sound. Doors creaked open in the hallway. The tread of shoes on the carpet. Voices, sounding confused. Then a man, yelling down the hall.
“Everyone please proceed to the staircase. This is not a drill.”
The man knocked a lamp from the bedside table, cut his eyes toward me, shoved his cell phone into his pocket, and pushed his way out the door. I took a deep breath. I was aware of how I smelled, the ammoniac smell of a scared animal. But I grabbed my purse and ran toward the stairs.
The lobby was a mess of people. Potbellied security guards shined flashlights in the direction of the door, tried to yell over the crowd, and couldn’t make themselves heard.
I ran to the revolving door and hailed a taxi.
I had $20 in my purse. Probably not enough to get back, but I wouldn’t worry about that.
I need to call the cops, I thought. But how would I ask them for help before I even knew where I was going?
Then, when I looked in my purse, I almost laughed.
The man had made me give him my phone, had locked it in the safe.
I remembered the little electric beep beep beep as he entered the code.
The driver looked at me, unruffled by the way my chest was heaving. “The Black Horse Pike. The motels. As fast as you can.”
“Which motel?” he asked, pulling away from the curb.
“I’ll know when I see.” He shook his head. I knew what he was thinking—I was going to pick up a man, buy drugs, both. “Drive faster, please.”
Above us the white globes of the streetlights blurred by, and I knew I was right—I had seen them before.
The buildings looked even grimmer in the dark, a row of six or seven of them, wild with weeds, perched on the edge of the marsh like they might one day get sucked in.
I rolled down my window, listened to the shush of the reeds.
Here. We were close to Lily. To all of them.
I studied the signs, all of them with broken, missing letters. Then I saw it, down the road—that setting sun, each ray lighting up one at a time then blinking out. The Sunset Motel.
“There! There!” The driver swerved into the lot.
I handed him the twenty and didn’t bother to wait for my change.
I stood underneath the sign and studied the motel: two floors, maybe twenty-four rooms. I should call the cops now, I thought, run to the motel office and borrow their phone.
But I still didn’t know what to ask for.
I remembered the way the light from the sign fell on the floor at a slant in my vision.
I adjusted my stance—it had to be one of the rooms on the left side.
There was nothing to do but guess. From behind the door of room number 9, I heard a couple arguing about who was footing the bill.
I ran to the next room, tried the knob—it swung open to an empty, dark square with two sagging beds.
At the third, I looked back at the sign—this had to be it—and pressed my ear to the door: the creak of footsteps, careful and slow.
I knew the door would be locked but tried the knob anyway.
Inside the room, the sound of pacing stopped.
I thought again of those early years with Des, when things felt exciting and good.
How with one quick flick of the wrists we would outsmart everyone and break into any room we wanted.
How back then she made me feel like everything in the city was ours to claim.
The motel’s locks were flimsier than the casinos’—and even those didn’t take more than a stiff piece of paper.
I still had my business card in Victoria’s purse.
Whoever was on the other side would be able to see me working on the door, the card sliding through the crack in the frame.
Would be able to brace themselves or arm themselves.
And I hadn’t used this trick in years, and this would need to be quick if it was going to work.
I worked the bottom lock, prayed that the cheap paper would hold.
I heard a thunk and tried to stay calm, although I felt my body go cold.
Another thunk—what was happening?—as I got the bottom lock open.
Now it was just a matter of working the swing bar at the top.
I eased the edge of the business card along the bar and tried to see inside the room while I worked: nothing but a slice of streetlight on beige carpet.
The lock gave, and I lunged inside. Nothing, no one, just a bathroom door to my right, open to a darkened room, the ugly twin beds with depressions in the middle, the smell of mildew.
But I had heard someone! Someone had heard me.
Or maybe I really was like my mother, it was true.
I wasn’t special, just insane. I would grow obsessed with things and people that weren’t there, conjuring strange theories out of thin air.
I sat on the edge of the bed, not ready to go outside again and face the long walk back to the shop, face Des, the rest of my messy, messed-up life.
And that’s when I saw her, the slim curve of her wrist on the floor, the pearl bracelet glowing yellow in the low light—her arm was raised above her head—the rest of her obscured by the dust ruffle on the other side of the second bed.
When I stepped around the bed, my breath caught in my throat.
She looked just like the others. Her skin was pale.
There was a lump above her left eye, the size of a walnut.
I kneeled on the carpet, put my hand to her wrist. Her skin was clammy, cold.
Nothing, nothing, and then a gentle thump of blood under my fingertips. A pulse.
I jumped when I felt something brush against my arm, but it was only the curtain blowing in the breeze. And then I noticed the screen on the ground. The open window. The thunk, thunk sound. Whoever had been here was gone.
I sprinted into the parking lot just as a woman was getting out of her car. Too well dressed to be at the Sunset, too clean, she looked like a social worker, calm and safe. For a moment I wondered if, somehow, she had already been sent to help. She was startled when I yelled to her.
“Please ma’am, it’s an emergency. Can I use your phone?” She stood for a moment, then nodded. Her face was sad, like she knew something I didn’t understand yet.
I dialed 9-1-1. At first, when the operator picked up, the words refused to come.
“My friend needs help! My friend needs help! She’s breathing, but she’s not waking up. We’re at the Sunset Motel. Room 10. Hurry, please!”
When I turned around, the woman’s car was there, but she was gone. I stood, clutching her phone, then set it on the hood of her car. In the distance, I heard the roar of fire trucks, saw the spangle of lights at the casino.
I went back into the room, even though I didn’t want to see her like that.
When the police came, I decided, I would tell them about the others.
I didn’t know how I would explain. I just knew they were close.
Closer than ever before. But now the women were silent.
I didn’t have any visions, didn’t hear anything other than the shush of the reeds.
A siren grew closer. I saw a shadow on the floor.
I braced myself to see whoever had done this, but it was just the woman, the one from before.
She was unsteady on her feet, and I wondered if I’d been wrong about her—there was a stunned look on her face.
Maybe she was here for the same reasons as everyone else.
She sat on the bed, folded herself in half, and let out a scream that I felt in my spine.