BEHIND THE LAUNDRY
The following morning, Wade announced that the motel sale had fallen through.
He made the announcement casually while Tessa was refilling coffee in the lobby.
“No buyers?” she asked.
“Changed their minds.”
“Yesterday?”
“Basically.”
“That's fast.”
“Commercial property is like that.”
Tessa poured coffee into her paper cup.
“Guess they won't be tearing up the back lot.”
Wade stared at her.
“Tessa.”
“Yes?”
“I've been patient with you.”
She put the pot down.
“About what?”
“About Sylvia.”
“You mean Kara.”
His mouth flattened.
“You need the job?”
It was the first time Wade had ever threatened her with it.
He did not say fired.
He did not need to.
Tessa had rent, a car payment and a twelve-year-old daughter who had become old enough to understand when money was tight.
Wade knew that.
She knew he knew.
“I need a job,” she said.
“Good.”
He went into the office.
Tessa stood beside the coffee machine until its warmer clicked.
Then she returned to work.
For two days, she said nothing.
On Friday morning, a plumbing contractor named Ben Pollock arrived to deal with a blockage behind the laundry.
He was the same man who had complained about the concrete slab two years earlier.
Tessa found him crouched beside a cleanout pipe.
“You still hate that slab?” she asked.
Ben looked toward the dumpster.
“I hate whoever poured it.”
“Why?”
“Covered everything.”
“What everything?”
“Old storm access. Probably electrical conduit. There's a capped drain under there. Maybe an old holding basin.”
“Can you tell when it was poured?”
He stood.
“I'm a plumber, Tess.”
“Guess.”
“Looks old.”
“Twenty years?”
“Could be.”
“Could it have been poured fast? Like without permits?”
He squinted at her.
“Why are you asking?”
“Wade's talking about selling.”
“He'll have to disclose whatever's under it.”
“Would a buyer dig it up?”
“If they're redeveloping.”
Tessa nodded.
Ben pointed a wrench at her.
“Whatever argument you're having with Wade, leave my name out of it.”
“I don't have an argument.”
“Sure.”
He went back to the pipe.
That afternoon, Tessa called Sylvia.
They had exchanged numbers before leaving Room 214.
“You need to call the detective again,” Tessa said.
“I already did yesterday.”
“What did you tell him?”
“That Wade knew about the sale. That he canceled it after I told you.”
Tessa stepped into the supply room and shut the door.
“Did the detective care?”
“Yes.”
“What happens now?”
“He's coming to see me Monday.”
“Good.”
“Tessa.”
“What?”
“Don't push Wade.”
“I haven't.”
“Don't look around the property. Don't confront him. Don't try to find anything yourself.”
“I clean the property. Looking around is my job.”
“I'm serious.”
“So am I.”
There was a pause.
Sylvia said, “I spent eighteen years convincing myself Wade was the dangerous one because it was easier than admitting how much I helped him.”
Tessa leaned against shelves stacked with toilet paper.
“You were scared.”
“So are you.”
That irritated Tessa because it was true.
When she returned to the office, Wade was waiting.
He held a printed schedule.
“I changed your hours.”
Tessa took it.
She had been removed from Tuesdays.
“You're giving Tuesdays to Andrea?”
“For a while.”
“Why?”
“Coverage.”
“She's already over forty hours.”
“I'll work it out.”
Tessa folded the schedule.
“You don't want me here when Sylvia comes.”
Wade looked toward the lobby window.
“You've become too interested in something that doesn't concern you.”
“A woman disappeared from one of your rooms.”
“She didn't disappear from my room.”
The wording caught Tessa.
Not the motel.
Not here.
My room.
She said, “What happened upstairs?”
Wade pushed his chair back.
“I am asking you, as your employer, to let this go.”
“Why?”
His face became tired.
For one moment he looked less like a man defending a secret and more like a man who had been carrying something too long.
“Because there is no version of this that gives anybody what they think they want.”
“Kara's family might want to know where she is.”
“You don't know what her family wants.”
“No. Because I didn't spend eighteen years lying to them.”
Wade flinched.
Tessa had wanted him to.
She regretted it anyway.
He opened the office door.
“You can go home.”
“My shift isn't over.”
“It is today.”
Tessa took off her name badge.
Not dramatically.
She placed it on the desk because she did not trust herself to keep wearing it.
“If I'm fired, say it.”
Wade looked at the badge.
“Go home, Tessa.”
She left.
That night Sylvia called.
The detective had moved their meeting.
He wanted to meet both of them Sunday morning.
Tessa asked why.
Sylvia said, “Because Wade canceled the motel sale less than twenty-four hours after I told him I had spoken to you.”
“That isn't evidence.”
“No.”
“What changed?”
“The buyer called the police.”
Tessa sat up.
“Why?”
“Wade told them the back lot couldn't be disturbed because there was an undocumented fuel tank under the dumpster pad.”
Tessa remembered Ben Pollock.
The old storm basin.
The drain access.
The utilities Wade had refused to expose.
“There isn't a fuel tank there.”
“That's what the original property plans say.”
For eighteen years Wade had maintained one story about Kara Holt.
It was now forcing him to invent another.