Page 11 of Our Last Resort

“We have no idea what’s going on out there,” he says.

But I do.

The images are right here in my head.

“Come on,” I say.

Before he can protest again, I unlock the door.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

I know where to go.

Three hotel employees have already gathered at the spot. Two standing, one on her knees.

We stand at the border between two worlds, where the hotel fades into the desert. Just a few feet from where the Brenners argued last night.

The three hotel employees are looking downward.

Gabriel moves closer. I move with him. I don’t want to look, but I have to. I don’t get to skip this part.

Sabrina Brenner lies on the ground.

Her body in the shape of a lightning bolt. Her head like Pandora’s box, her skull its cracked lid. Blood—so much blood—on the Ara’s precious sandstone.

My knees give.

Gabriel clasps my arm and steadies me.

More guests rush over in pajamas, robes, baggy sweaters. They gather in a half circle, faces puffy with sleep, eyelids crinkling in the morning sun. Mouths drop open. Faces turn away from the scene.

One of the standing hotel employees—whom I now recognize as Catalina—leans over her kneeling colleague. The one who evidently found the body, whose scream tore us from our suites. Catalina wraps her arms around the other woman’s shoulders and holds her tight.

“Stand back, please!”

Two EMTs burst through the crowd, boots clattering on the tiled path. The guests shift to let them approach. One kneels by Sabrina. The other lifts a radio to his lips: “Unit one-three-four to base. We need paramedics and law enforcement.”

“Let me through.”

That voice.

William Brenner nudges his way to the paramedics. His bathrobe, half-tied, reveals an expanse of pale stomach. This man we have only known to dress carefully, who wore a suit to dinner and kept a polo shirt on even by the pool. Now he’s exposed: his white chest hair, his skin dappled with liver spots, his torso already glistening in the morning heat. His legs poking out of a pair of faded blue boxer shorts.

William looks at Sabrina and doubles over.

“My wife,” he says with the breathy, disbelieving start of aheaving sob. “My wife,” he repeats, this time through tears. “Oh, god,” he implores. “My love. My sweet, sweet love.” He brings his hands to his head. His shoulders quiver as he takes deep, gulping breaths. “My poor sweetheart.”

He falls to his knees. His hands reach for her.

“Sir, please stand back for now,” the kneeling EMT says. She’s young, moving with a focused competence, pressing two fingers to Sabrina’s neck.

“Don’t tell me what to do,” William cries, and grabs his wife’s hand.

The EMT glances up at her male colleague. Softly, he approaches William, sets a hand on his robed shoulder.

“Sir, please,” he says. “You have to let us work. It’s better for—”

“I said,” William snarls, “do not tell me what to do.”

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