Keep the Ghost

9. Stash

“Rough day?” the taxi driver asks, brown eyes squinting into the sun.

I don’t even answer. Don’t want to do the whole thing; don’t want to explain I’m from Cork, or fake-laugh about how funny it is that a city shares a name with a kind of wood. I damn sure don’t want to talk about being the suspect in a murder case.

We pull in front of a dingy motel. The Beach. Beige paint faded on the side facing the sea, where the salted wind blows hard every day. The sign out front advertises a mini-fridge and free HBO. Home, sweet home.

“I’m totally broke, and I just got out of jail,” I tell the cabby when we stop. 

“I’ve been paid,” he says. All hostile, now, I guess because I wouldn’t talk with him. I open the door and step out. 

Two rows of red motel doors face me, with a small office on the far side. I start walking toward the office, but one of the doors opens. A thin, pale arm emerges; I can only just see it from fifty feet away. It beckons for me. 

I point at myself, mouthing me? 

The hand beckons harder. A little nervous tremor starts in my stomach, some fluttering spasm, but I walk over to the door. It’s so hot that the tar is sticky, and rocks cling to my trainers when my feet lift from the pitch. 

Room 13. The door swings open.

Morgan is inside. 

 “You?” I ask. 

She smiles, freckles shifting across her face, lights across a dance floor. “Me,” she says. “Get in here; I can’t be seen.”

I step inside. Little room, hard gray carpet, smells like cigarettes and piss. “You bailed me out,” I say even as I realize it, because it must be true. She’s standing here, after all.

“Sarah Fiesel,” Morgan says. “For that transaction. If anyone asks, I’m a nurse who worked at Mercy University for your father, and he gave me the money to bail you out.”

“How did you…”

“I can search the Internet, Sean. Are you okay?”

I shake my head. I am not ready to be asked that question. “No, not really. Not even close.” 

Don’t know if I’ve ever felt worse, actually. I’m starving, exhausted. I rub my face and my fingers tremble. “I can’t go back.”

Morgan steps forward, wraps an arm around my back. I resist, leaning away, but she moves in closer. It’s a strange invasion—I barely know her. 

But, it feels good. Warm, when I petrified myself so I can survive. When I’m so tired of quivering fear that my whole being is frozen, feeling nothing because if I don’t, I’ll feel everything.

Then both arms are around me, reaching above my elbows, her hair pressed against my collar. The hard knot in my chest that should be my soul starts to melt. Slowly, my hands come up, hug back. 

 I realize what’s happened, where I am. Arrested for killing Kayla. The lies I told the police, the drain plugs in my closet—the fact I’m the last person to see her alive. It’s not over; I’m going back. Back to jail, then to an even worse place, and eventually, strapped to a table and injected with toxins while people watch, happy I’ll be dead. 

When I open my eyes, I see tears ran down my cheeks and onto the back of Morgan’s shirt. Little streaks of wetness, like someone’s pricked her with needles. She pats my back, then releases me. I sniff, looking away so she can’t see my eyes. 

“Get off me,” I whisper, scared to talk any louder, because my voice will be cut with a sob. I turn and stare into the clouded mirror which rests over the chipped pewter sink. “I just want to go home. Back to Ireland. I’m done with this country. I miss my parents, my family.”