Do Not Disturb || ONC2023

CHAPTER 3

ROXANNE

Monday, July 19 - 5:47 PM

How does one commit a murder without a murder weapon? The question plagues my mind even after hours of trying to push the thought from my mind. After clearing the entire hotel room of the remnants of last night's deadly tussle that I still can't recall, Agatha and I have yet to come across a gun. The gun. The one that took a certain someone's life just like that.

It must be here somewhere. It has to be, because thinking about the alternative is making my headache triple in intensity.

My palms press into the wooden surface of the vanity table located in the corner of the room, the mirror in front of me not only showing me my worried face, but also the now empty bed in the background.

The covers are made, the pillows in perfect position. It almost succeeds in beckoning me over, willing my fatigued body to take a ten-minute nap— or ten-hour, same difference. But I can't. Not when a dead body was laying lifeless there just this morning. Mystery Milf might be relocated into the deepest depths of the closet, but I could still picture her bloody form perfectly if I stare at the mattress long enough.

"Good thinking," Agatha said, clapping me on the back after finding a waterproof mattress protector installed under the blood-spoilt bedsheet she had just pulled up and wrapped around the corpse. Rigor mortis has already set in so we were struggling to fit her into the closet. I didn't put it there though. Every bed in the hotel must've had those already.

I put the last pin in my hair, focusing my gaze on myself instead of behind me. I'm careful not to aggravate my stitches too much while thinking about the woman who sewed them there.

No last name, Agatha, to me, is an enigma. Agatha, with the suaveness and the acting skills. Agatha, with the quick thinking and the shady past and the nursing me back to health and the morally gray speech. Agatha, with the flowing red hair and the distracting lips and the leather jacket.

Agatha, Agatha, Agatha.

Escaping the deja vu-ish memory of holding her up against the wall, feeling her chest graze mine as her breathing grew heavier and heavier, is a task I have yet to accomplish. The way her pupils seem to expand and darken, glazing over as if she were playing back a memory of her own. The way an overpowering instinct to replace my hand on her mouth with my own almost took over. The way I unconsciously press just a little bit closer to feel her— Ring!

I startle from my thoughts when a blaring sound echoes around the room, jarring me and worsening my already pounding headache. The ringing is muffled however, like it's coming from underneath something. I follow the sound, trying to pinpoint its location, except it stops before I actually do.

I sigh. Great. That phone is the least of my worries right now though so I don't even bother to continue searching.

Speaking of Agatha, she invited me to have dinner tonight, to talk about the next steps, as she put it. We're supposed to meet at the hotel's restaurant at seven o'clock sharp, the one we passed by the lobby this morning. It looked fancy enough that I couldn't just stroll in in this too casual-looking sundress and sandals without turning heads and earning weird looks. Luckily, deeper under the bed earlier, we found a small luggage that fit all of the clothes from the closet we just emptied to make room for a corpse.

My eyes snag for a second on the tiny notebook I placed amongst my supposed belongings, forcing me to once again think about what kind of shit I got up to before this fateful day. Most of the pieces of this puzzle are missing, and I don't like it one bit.