A Cry in the Dark

by Denise Grover Swank

  Ruth and I counted out their share of our tips, and then Tiny asked, “Do you want me to walk you across the street to your room?”

  I stared up at him in surprise and gratitude.

  “I’ve got it covered,” Max said, stepping out of his office in a winter coat. He had my suitcase in hand, and the weight didn’t seem to bother him any more than it had his brother. “If for no other reason than to wrestle her monster of a bag across the street.”

  “You don’t have to do that,” I protested.

  “The wheels are busted and it’s so heavy I have to wonder if you have a dead body inside.”

  It was a joke, but it felt too close to home. I had to force a smile. “Thanks, Max. I’ll get my coat and purse.”

  Ruth and I grabbed our things out of our lockers, and she handed me the plastic bag. “You be sure to change those sheets, now. Otherwise, you’ll show up for your shift tomorrow lookin’ like you slept on sandpaper.”

  “Thanks so much, Ruth,” I said as I took the bag. “You have no idea how much I appreciate you hirin’ me.” I grinned. “And yeah, I said you. I know I wouldn’t have been here tonight if not for you.”

  “Ah,” she said with a smile. “Max would have put it together if we’d given him a few more minutes. Can you come in a little before noon tomorrow? We open for lunch then, although I’ll warn you that it’s pretty slow. Not much business and the tips suck, but Lula was supposed to cover it and I have plans. Max’ll let you read or do whatever while you’re sitting around during the downtime.”

  “I’m happy to do it,” I said. “And I can work a double if need be. I need the money, and I’ve got nothing else to do. I’d much prefer working to sitting around.”

  “Why don’t you plan on it,” she said as her smile spread. “I’m really gonna like workin’ with you. Lula’s sweet, but damn that girl’s a slacker.” She grabbed my coat off the hook and handed it to me. “I’ll be in around five tomorrow, but Max and Bitty can help out if you feel overwhelmed.”

  “Thanks, Ruth.”

  I slipped my coat on as I walked into the dining area, finding Max standing at the shade-covered windows, peeking out through the closed blinds.

  He turned when he heard me approach. “You got a warmer coat than that?”

  The answer was no, but I didn’t want him to feel obligated to get me something warmer. I glanced down at my heavy fleece jacket. “This should be enough to walk across the street.”

  “There’s a dusting of snow on the ground, but the wind has kicked up. It looks cold.”

  “I’ll be fine,” I said as I reached him. “You don’t have to carry my suitcase, Max.”

  “I don’t mind,” he said, opening the front door. “I’m walkin’ over with you anyway.”

  I walked out, shivering from the blast of cold. He shut the door behind us and motioned to the L-shaped brick building across the street and catty-corner to the tavern. The street was covered with a fine layer of snow, with drifts several inches high along the front of what looked like a vacant motel office. A faded piece of paper with curling edges had been taped to the window, with All inquiries go to Max’s Tavern handwritten in black Sharpie. The wind was blowing the snow off the street and into the first barrier it came across. I noticed there weren’t any houses around, just businesses.

  “You don’t need to lock up?” I asked.

  “Nah, I’m coming back.” He nodded to the tavern. “I live upstairs. Comes in handy when we run on a bare-bones crew.”

  “I can’t believe you kept up with all those drinks tonight,” I said.

  “Practice,” he said with a laugh. “And as you noticed, most guys order beer. Those are easy enough to pour.”

  “I was surprised every single one of them paid cash.”

  “That’s because they’d prefer to deal in cash since we don’t have a bank up here except for the payday loan place, and it only cashes checks. I like ’em payin’ in cash so I don’t have to deal with the credit card fees. More profit.”

  That made sense, but most of the world dealt in electronic transfers of money. It was like they were fifty years behind the times. Then a new concern hit me. “Does Wyatt only take cash? I don’t have that much on me.”

  “Last I heard, he takes cards, but like I said, most folks around here don’t use ’em.”

  Since Ruth had said a good portion of the guys had done time, I had to wonder where the cash was coming from.

  None of my concern.

  “Ruth told me that you and your brother aren’t very friendly,” I said, worried I was about to cross a line. “I hope I didn’t cause any more trouble between you two.”

  “You weren’t the cause of our disagreement tonight,” he said, steering me across the motel parking lot. A couple of cars were parked in front of the units closer to the street, one of them a rusted brown and white station wagon that had to be thirty or forty years old. Max headed toward the rooms at the opposite end. “He’s had a beef with me for a while now, and him showin’ up was a long time comin’.” He paused, then said, “I don’t think Wyatt was really after your paycheck. I think he was just lookin’ for an excuse to come in and confront me, and you were as good an excuse as any.”

  I wasn’t sure if that made me feel better or worse.

  “For what it’s worth,” he added, leading me past the very old, beat-up cars, “I seriously doubt he would have taken your money if I’d let him. Like I said, he was lookin’ for some kind of excuse.”

  “Thanks.” There was no doubt that Wyatt didn’t trust me, but I saw little point in saying so. “Ruth asked me to come in and cover Lula’s lunch shift tomorrow,” I said, intentionally changing the subject. “I told her I could work tomorrow night too.”

  “Sounds good,” Max said as he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a key attached to a large plastic disk that bore the number 20 in faded blue ink. “I really appreciate you fillin’ in, although I have to warn you that the rest of the week won’t be nearly as lucrative as Monday nights.”

  I hoped to God I’d be gone by then. “I didn’t expect it to be, and anything’s better than nothing. It’s a win-win for both of us.” I gave him a wry smile. “Three of us if you include your brother and the money I’m going to owe him.”

  His eyes twinkled with amusement.

  He stopped in front of the last door on the right. Two rusted house numbers—2, 0—had been nailed into the door. I watched as Max unlocked the door, opened it, and reached inside to flick on the light switch. Without entering the room, he set my bag down inside the doorway. “We open at noon tomorrow, but there’s no need to come in much earlier than that. We don’t get much of a lunch crowd on a Tuesday afternoon, so if you’ve got something to keep you busy during the downtime, feel free to bring it.”

  “Thanks, Max,” I said gratefully, taking the key from him.

  “See you tomorrow, Carly.”

  “See you tomorrow.”

  I walked in and closed the door behind me, locking it as I got my first look at the room.

  Ruth had been right. It was bad. Really bad. Worn green shag carpet that looked so old and threadbare I could see the fiber-backing in a few patches. The walls were covered with thin wood paneling riddled with scratches and dents, particularly behind the wooden headboard for the full-size bed. I cringed as I thought about what had made those marks while staring at the polyester bedspread covered in faded yellow and orange flowers. The furniture must have come from the 1970s—heavy dark pieces that looked like they’d been cheap in their time and hadn’t been treated well. Half the drawers in the dresser were catawampus, and one of the nightstands was missing a drawer completely. A TV sat on top of the dresser, but it was a large monstrosity that had to be at least twenty years old, and I had to wonder if it worked. I grabbed a remote from in front of it and flicked it on to check. To my surprise it turned on.

  Ruth had suggested that Max needed to buy new sheets, but I would have suggested a total gut job. Belated
ly, I realized I hadn’t asked for the rates. My only reassurance that Max wouldn’t try to gouge me was the fact he’d gone out of his way to ease me in with his customers tonight. Someone that nice wouldn’t try to overcharge me for a disgusting motel room, would he? I’d ask him tomorrow, because there wasn’t anything I could do about it now. I literally had nowhere else to go.

  I made quick work of stripping the bed, trying to ignore the stains on the mattress. After I got the new sheets on—unfortunately Franklin hadn’t brought a blanket and the one in here smelled like mothballs—I went into the dated bathroom and took a shower, relieved there was hot water.

  The tension of the day hit me hard as the water cascaded over my body, and I soon found myself crying, a luxury I hadn’t allowed myself for several days. Wallowing wouldn’t help me in the long run—I needed to accept my fate and move on. Today had been hard, but I knew I’d been lucky too. I added Max and Ruth and Tiny to my list of blessings. I’d had plenty of blessings since my ordeal had begun a little over two months ago. I just needed to dwell on the good things instead of the bad.

  After I dried off and put on my pajamas, I cranked up the heat and crawled under the sheets and the blanket I’d decided to use out of desperation. I considered turning on the TV for white noise, but the silence outside my room calmed my anxious soul. To my surprise, I soon fell asleep.

  I bolted upright disoriented, my heart pounding. I’d been dreaming about my rehearsal dinner. Only this time it happened differently—Jake caught me listening in on his conversation with my father and pulled a gun to shoot me.

  At first, I thought my own cry had awoken me, but then I realized I’d heard something outside of my room.

  I jumped out of bed and reached into my purse, pulling out the gun and checking to make sure the chamber was loaded. Lightheaded with fear, I crept to the window and lifted a slat of the blinds to look outside.

  Two men were dragging someone from one of the motel rooms. They tossed him to the ground and then stood on either side of him, only about twenty feet outside of my room.

  The accosted person scrambled to his feet, but one of the men pushed him to his knees on the snow-dusted asphalt. The lighting was poor, so I had trouble making out any of the men’s distinguishing features, but I could see that the kneeling man wasn’t wearing a coat. And that one of the men standing over him was pointing a handgun at him.

  Panic had me reeling and dark spots flashed before my eyes.

  “What are you doin’ here, boy?” one of the men asked. He sounded familiar. “And on a school night, no less.”

  “Nothin’.”

  “Nothin’?” the other man asked in exaggerated disbelief. I didn’t recognize the voice.

  “I was just out havin’ a good time. You know.”

  “Actually,” the second guy said, “I don’t know. I always shot the shit with my friends. You got any friends with you?”

  “No, sir,” the boy said, and from the way his voice cracked, I realized he was a teenager. “I don’t.”

  “Then let me repeat my original question, son,” the first guy said in an icy tone. “What. Are. You. Doin’. Here?”

  What was I doing here? I was witnessing a crime and I was just gawking at it. I rushed toward the phone to call 911, only to realize there wasn’t a dial tone. The phone didn’t work. I scrambled to dig my cell phone out of my purse. No service. I carried it around the room, moving carefully, quietly—if I could hear them, they might be able to hear me—hoping to find a bar of service. Nothing.

  “Did you find it, boy?” the second man asked.

  “Find what?” the boy said, and then I heard a grunt.

  “Don’t you back-talk me, son,” the second man said. “You know damn good and well what I’m talkin’ about.”

  I moved carefully back to the window and peeked out of the blinds again. The kid was still hunched over in the parking lot.

  What should I do? Rush out there with my gun to stop the men? I suspected they’d kill us both.

  “Find anything?” the first guy called over his shoulder. A third man approached him from the motel room several doors down, his features shrouded in shadow.

  “It’s all gone. Every last bit of it, but you’ll be interested in what we did find.” He held something in his hand that I couldn’t make out.

  “What is it?” the first guy asked.

  “One of them digital video cameras. The kid stole our shit, then set up a camera to record us when we showed up to get it.”

  “That true?” the first guy asked the boy. He backhanded him in the face before he could answer. “Where’d you hide it, boy?”

  “Nowhere,” the boy said. “I didn’t have nothing to do with any of that!”

  “Bullshit,” the second man snarled, then hit him again.

  “Check the other rooms,” the first guy said. “All of them. They were stashin’ it in a room. Maybe we got the wrong one.”

  “How do you explain the kid bein’ in there?” the third guy asked. “And the damn camera?”

  “I dunno,” the first guy drawled out disdainfully. “Why don’t we ask ’im?”

  “Why’re you here, kid?” the second guy asked.

  The boy remained silent.

  “Start kickin’ the doors in,” the first guy said. “It’s supposed to be in a bag on the dresser.” He motioned to the guy next to him. “Go with him.”

  The second and third guys moved to the unit a couple of doors down from mine, and the sound of splintering wood filled my ears. A couple of seconds later, I heard one of their muffled voices. “Nothin’.”

  “If you don’t tell me right now,” the second guy said, whipping out a gun as he strode from the unit and pointing it at the boy’s forehead. “I’m gonna blow yer brains out.”

  “I don’t know!” the boy cried out. “I didn’t take it!”

  “Keep searchin’,” the first guy said.

  My hand tightened on the gun in my own hand. Unless they found what they were looking for, they would eventually bust into my room, and from the look of it, it would be sooner rather than later. Would I shoot them? Could I shoot them?

  I felt like a coward hiding in my room, leaving that boy defenseless.

  I had to do something. Something that might save us both.

  What if I created a distraction?

  I had a spare key fob in my purse. I could press the panic button on my keychain and hope I was close enough to Wyatt’s garage it would set off the car alarm. But if I did it, they’d likely know I was the person who’d set it off. They would know I’d seen something.

  I had to take the chance.

  My hands were shaking, so it took me a couple of seconds longer than usual to grab the key out of my bag and press the button. Sweet relief rushed through me when the horn started blaring.

  “Fuck!” the second man said. “What the hell is that?”

  “Car alarm,” I heard the third guy say.

  “We gotta get out of here,” the first guy said.

  “We haven’t found it yet!” the third guy protested, then kicked in the door to the room next to mine.

  “Where the fuck is the stash, boy?” the second guy demanded, his tightly controlled voice more alarming than if he’d sounded mad.

  “Go to hell,” the boy spat out.

  “How about you go first, you little pissant!”

  The unmistakable sound of muffled gunfire rang out twice and the boy fell onto his back.

  I covered my mouth to stifle a scream.

  “What the fuck did you do that for?” the third guy said in disgust. “Now we’ll never find it.”

  “It wasn’t in any of the rooms we checked or the one where he was hidin’. He moved it and planted that camera to implicate us,” the first man said. “I suggest we keep lookin’.”

  The second guy turned directly toward my unit, but a streetlamp was behind him, and a dark shadow crossed over his face.

  “Goddammit!” he cursed, then stomped acro
ss the street toward a red truck parked on the opposite side of the road. A long scratch ran along the back panel. I could see a figure sitting behind the steering wheel. The second guy climbed into the passenger side as the other two followed, jumping into the pickup bed before the truck drove away.

  I stared after them in shock. I’d tried to save that boy and all I’d done was hasten his assassination.

  Bolting for the door, I fumbled for the latch. Once I got it open, I clicked the button to turn off the car alarm as I ran to the boy, only second-guessing my decision when it occurred to me that he was still alive and might be armed himself.

  “Help,” he said. Between the dark and the bruising and swelling, it was hard to make out his features, but he looked young. Barely driving age.

  I fell to my knees next to him, dropping the gun and the key fob onto the concrete as I searched for his wounds. The parking lot lights didn’t illuminate much, but it wasn’t hard to see the spreading stains on the shirt over his chest.

  “Oh, God…” I briefly considered running into my room to get a towel but didn’t want to leave him. In desperation, I stripped off my long-sleeved thermal shirt, leaving me in a cami in the cold, but I barely noticed. My focus was on pressing the shirt to his chest to stop the bleeding.

  He whimpered in pain.

  “You’re her, ain’t you? Are you gonna finish me off?” he asked in a reedy voice, his eyes wide with fear.

  Why would he think that?

  “No, I most definitely am not. I’m here to help you,” I said, trying not to panic. “I need to go call 911.”

  I started to get up, but he grabbed my arm. I could have easily broken free from his weak grip, but I stopped.

  “You have kind eyes,” he said with a soft smile. “My momma always said you could tell a lot about a person by lookin’ ’em square in the eyes.”

  I wasn’t sure how to respond to that, so I asked, “Will you let me help you now?”