Page 68 of Do Not Disturb

I bite my lip. “Nick said one of our guests was… dead?”

“It looks like she was murdered, actually,” Esposito says. My stomach sinks—my fears are true. “She was stabbed in the chest.”

I look over at Nick, who is staring down at his sneakers, his face pale.

“I’m wondering if I could ask you a few questions, Mrs. Baxter,” Esposito says.

“Of course,” I manage.

When Nick doesn’t budge, the detective shoots him a look. “Mr. Baxter, would you step outside so I could talk to your wife?”

Nick looks like he’s going to be sick. He nods. “Sure. Rosie, if you need anything…”

“She’ll be fine,” Esposito snaps at him. “We’re just going to have a talk.”

My brain is going a mile a minute as my husband leaves the room and shuts the door behind him, leaving me alone with the terrifying detective. I lift my eyes to look at him.

“How are you doing, Mrs. Baxter?” he asks.

“Fine,” I squeak.

“I just have a few questions for you about the motel. Your husband mostly runs it?”

I nod. “Yes. I haven’t been able to recently. I… I can’t get around so easily anymore.”

“He told me you have multiple sclerosis and you can’t walk at all. Is that accurate?”

I flinch at the way he phrased it so harshly. “Yes.”

“When is the last time you’ve been inside the motel?”

“It’s been… a while.”

“Days? Weeks? Months?”

“At least a year,” I admit.

He looks over my shoulder, out the window. “You got a pretty good view of the motel from here?”

“Yes. I suppose.”

“Did you see anything suspicious in the last two days?” He taps his fingers against the top of my dresser. “Any suspicious strangers coming in or out of the motel?”

“No.”

“Anything suspicious at all?”

I close my eyes for an instant, and I can see my husband disposing of something in the dumpster in the middle of the night. I open my eyes again and stare at the detective. “Nothing I can remember.”

He cocks his head to the side. “Did you ever meet Christina Marsh?”

Christina Marsh. That’s her name. I shake my head no.

“Do you know if your husband was friendly with her?”

My heart is beating so fast, it’s making me dizzy. “I… I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

Detective Esposito’s black eyebrows draw together. “What’s your relationship with your husband?”