Page 50 of Forever Dark
“I can’t talk about the particulars.”
“That’s cool.I just wanted to know what happened to her.It’s horrible.”
The answer might have ended it, but she was already there, already awake, and his mention of Brenda had sharpened something in her.
“Did you know her?”Selena asked.
“Actually… I did.Well, a little.”
“How?”
Eric swirled the whiskey in his glass.“Only through work.”
Selena watched him over the rim of hers.“What do you mean by ‘work’?”
His eyes flicked up, measuring the question.“I probably shouldn’t say much about that.Her business was her business, and I don’t want people thinking bad of the dead.”
The Latin phrase on the church wall came back to her.To take a whore.It had seemed ugly enough in daylight.Here, in the motel office with the horror movie shrieking faintly in the background, it took on a different edge.
“You said‘work.’Brenda stayed here often?”Selena asked.
Eric hesitated, then nodded.“Yeah.She did.”
“With different men?”
“I mean.Whenever she arrived, she arrived alone.”
“That’s not what I asked, Eric.”
He sighed.
“No,” he said.“It wasn’t.”
He leaned back in the chair and stared at the ceiling for a second as if trying to count the visits.
“I saw more than one guy leave her room over time.On different nights.”
Selena kept her voice even.“Can you describe them?”
“Not really.”He rubbed a hand over his jaw.“One of them was tall.Dark hair.That’s about all I’ve got.”
“You never saw their faces clearly?”
“Mostly late.Mostly men who didn’t look like they wanted remembering.People sometimes stay in these sorts of places because they’re just passing through and want to have a good time.I try and keep my nose out of it.”
“What about security cams?”
“Nah, we wipe them every couple of weeks.”
“When was the last time Brenda was here?”Selena asked.
“Uh, I’d say it was more than two weeks ago.”
A roar came from the television.The creature in the film caught fire for some reason.Eric turned toward it.
“Did Brenda have a reputation for being with different men, then?”she asked.
Eric took a drink before answering.“There were rumors.”
