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Rae dozed off sometime around midnight, the vigil at her motel-room window proving uneventful until the sound of someone slamming their car door woke her. She rubbed her burning eyes and searched the parking lot below. She had been right about the red Corvette. There Mark was, carrying a small paper bag she was certain contained a bottle of liquor and climbing the stairs to the second story, the same floor she was on. He must’ve left at some point after she’d fallen asleep.
She ducked when he passed by her room. She quickly cracked her door open to see if she could tell which room was his. He was only four doors down from her, and she felt sick. Her head told her to call the police and let them know where Mark was staying, but her heart told her to hurt him.
She rubbed her belly. Lily must’ve been asleep since she wasn’t moving.
No, she couldn’t simply stomp over to Mark’s room and bash him in the head, as much as she wanted to. But if he still had Viv’s watch,she would find it and take it back. Viv once told her she wanted Rae to have it if something ever happened to her, but Rae didn’t know how she could ever accept something so precious. If anything, she wanted to bring it to Viv, to place it on her wrist before her funeral.
God, the funeral. Rae knew Viv had many friends and some extended family she spoke with in New Mexico, and Detective Kennedy had told Rae they were contacting her next of kin. Rae was thankful she didn’t have to figure out those arrangements because she didn’t know what Viv would’ve wanted. Cremation? Burial? Her chest hurt thinking about it.
She rubbed her eyes again. She had to stay awake this time so she could see when Mark left his room. Her can of Coke was empty, and she had one dollar in change left in her purse. She decided to risk leaving her room for another can. She needed every bit of caffeine to stay awake, and she said a silent apology to Lily.
The vending machines were in the opposite direction of Mark’s room, and she walked as quietly as she could to them, the dimes and nickels sweating in her fist even as the October evening cooled her skin.
She slid the coins one at a time into the machine.
“Can you hurry it up?” a man’s voice said behind her.
She knew the voice, and her body tensed up.Shit.She had nowhere to go. She punched in the code for a Coke, lowered her head, and turned around, hoping to walk on past him.
“Preggo? What the fuck are you doing here?”
Scared as hell, Rae threw the can of Coke at his head and ran. But instead of running to her own room, she kept going until she got to Mark’s. The door was cracked, and she rushed inside and shut it. She locked him out just as he came up to the door, banging it with his fists.
“You fucking cunt! Open the fucking door!”
“Fuck you, you murdering piece of shit!” Rae said.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“I’m calling the cops!”
All she could hear was her heart pounding in her ears, her lungs burning from running, as she called 911 from the room’s phone. She relayed where she was to the dispatcher as calmly as she could with Mark still pounding away at the door.
When she hung up the phone, she searched the room for the watch. She looked in his small suitcase but didn’t see it. She checked all the drawers and the bathroom, but it wasn’t there.
“Where’s her watch?” she yelled at the door.
“Tell her if she wants it, she can fucking get it herself. She knows what I want.”
He was lying, pretending like Viv was still alive; she knew it. The cops would arrive any minute. It was now or never.
“Where is it?”
He kicked the door so hard, the frame cracked. Rae scanned the room and saw something poking out from under the bed’s pillows. The butt of a gun. She grabbed it just as the door flew open. Mark stopped charging forward as soon as he saw the gun in her hands.
“Hey, now,” he said, his hands out in front of him. “Put the gun down. We can talk about this.”
Tears streaked down Rae’s face, and she blinked hard and fast to clear her eyes. “There’s nothing to talk about. You killed her, and I’m getting her watch back, you motherfucker.”
Mark’s hazel eyes were wide, and she saw the left side of his forehead had a goose egg where the Coke can had hit him. “Look, I didn’t do anything to Vivien, but I’ll get you the watch, okay? Just put the gun down.”
“Get it now.” She kept the gun aimed at his head, but her hands were shaking bad.
He noticed. “Listen, girl, you’re going to hurt yourself with that. Just put it down.”
“No.You’regoing to hurt if you don’t give me the watch right fucking now!”
Mark moved his hand to his jeans pocket, but instead of pulling out the watch, he lunged for Rae. She pulled the trigger, but she missed him, and then he was straddling her on the bed, working to get the gun from her hand. He dug his fingers into her wrist hard, and she had no choice but to let go. He didn’t aim the gun at her, but he didn’t need to since she was now terrified to move.
