Page 86 of Our Last Resort

30Escalante, Utah

The Seventh Day

A faint tapping sound nudges its way into my sleep until, finally, I wake up.

For a moment, I feel amazing, like my brain has had a massage. Then I remember: the Ara, Gabriel, the Staircase Inn.

I identify the sound, too: Someone’s knocking on the door. Pretty impatiently, by the sound of it.

“Just a second!”

My clothes are still crumpled in a corner of the room. I step into my underwear, try to untangle my running shorts. The knocking grows faster and louder.

“Let me in, please!”

Thepleaseis a formality: The voice on the other side of the door, which I think I recognize as Ronda’s, is pissed off and possibly spooked.

“Just a sec!”

“I have a key, honey, and if you force me to use it, I’ll—”

“Wait!”

I give up on my shorts, wrap myself in the bedsheet, and crack the door open.

Ronda peers at me. She’s holding a newspaper in one hand, a bundle of keys in the other.

“You’ve gotta go, honey.”

“What?”

“Will you just let me in?”

Reluctantly, I step back and—securing the sheet in place with one hand—open the door wider.

“Sorry,” I say as Ronda steps in. “I’m not dressed.”

Why am I telling her something she can clearly see for herself?

“Then get dressed,” Ronda says. “And please leave.”

“What’s going on?”

Ronda puts her hands on her hips.

“Look,” she says. “I don’t want any trouble. I’m not going to call the police. I’m just asking you to please go.”

“Why would y—”

Ronda thrusts the newspaper under my face.

Here, on the front page—the front page, really?—is a photo of me and Gabriel at the Ara. We’re sitting in the dining room. I’m twisted on my chair, looking back in the direction of the camera, while Gabriel is staring straight ahead. Both of our faces are clearly visible. Above us, a headline screams:Man Whose Wife Died in “Suspicious” Circumstances and Sister Named Persons of Interest in Hotel Murder Probe.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.I snatch the paper from Ronda.

“Investigators have identified two persons of interest in the death of Sabrina Brenner at the upscale Ara hotel, a police source has revealed exclusively.” Words jump out at me: there’s Gabriel’s name, “a man who was once a potential suspect in his wife’s death in 2014, in a high-profile New Jersey case that remains unsolved.” Then, my own name, and a mention of our “troubled childhood” in “an infamous cult.” The legalese, of course: Gabriel, the article says, “was never charged with any crime and has always maintained his innocence.” Some background on the Brenners: They got married two years ago, “in what was the groom’s third wedding.” The article describes William as “a successful media magnate,” who “was arrested early on in the case, then released due to a lack of evidence.”

“The police have apologized for my unfair arrest andinvestigators are now working diligently to find whoever hurt my wife,” William is quoted as saying. “I appreciate their efforts and am confident they won’t rest until the person responsible is behind bars.”

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