Chapter 4 - The Harbor View Motel
Cape Hope in late December was a desolate wasteland of salt-crusted docks, shuttered seafood shacks, and wind-whipped dunes. The Atlantic Ocean churned black and violent beneath a leaden sky, tossing frothy gray waves against the rocky sea wall.
I screeched into the gravel lot of the Harbor View Service Station, spraying slush against the rusted gas pumps. The bell above the convenience store door jingled cheerfully as I burst inside, shivering violently from head to toe.
An elderly man with thick glasses and a knit watch cap looked up from behind the counter, startled by my sudden entrance.
""Help you with something, mister?"" he asked slowly, resting a paperback book on the counter.
I pulled out my phone, pulling up the most recent photo I had of Emma—taken four months ago on her birthday, her hands framing her tiny bump, her eyes sparkling with radiant joy.
""Sir, please look at this picture,"" I begged, shoving the screen forward. ""Her name is Emma. She used a credit card here around one in the morning last night. Did you see her? Do you remember her?""
The clerk adjusted his spectacles, squinting at the screen for a long, agonizing moment. His weathered brow furrowed.
""Yeah... yeah, I remember her,"" he said quietly. ""Hard to forget a girl that pregnant driving all by herself in the middle of a blizzard on Christmas Eve.""
""Did she say where she was going? Did she look okay?""
The clerk frowned, shaking his head with genuine concern. ""She didn't look good at all, son. Pale as a bedsheet. She came inside to buy a bottle of water and some crackers. When she tried to sign the receipt, her hand was trembling so hard she dropped the pen twice. I asked her if she had family meeting her out here. She just looked down, touched her belly, and said she was trying to find a quiet place to sleep.""
My heart shattered into a thousand jagged pieces. A quiet place to sleep. While I had been sitting on Rachel’s plush designer couch, listening to stories about college road trips and offering empty comforting platitudes, my pregnant wife had been standing in a freezing gas station, barely able to hold a pen, searching for a place to curl up and endure her agony in solitude.
""Did she mention the Blue Gull Inn?"" I asked, my voice cracking.
""The Blue Gull has been closed for three years, son. Old Mrs. Gable passed on, and the place has been boarded up since,"" the clerk replied. ""Only place with a vacancy light on in the whole township is the Driftwood Motel, about two miles down the coastal bluff road. It's a rough little joint, but the manager keeps the heaters running.""
""Thank you,"" I gasped, bolting back toward the glass doors.
""Hey, mister!"" the clerk called out after me. ""If that's your wife, you better hurry. The volunteer fire department was talking about a power outage down near the bluffs. Lines snapped an hour ago.""
I didn't answer. I threw myself into the driver's seat, gunning the engine so hard the tires spun against the wet gravel before catching the asphalt.
Two miles down the coastal road, the world felt like it was ending. The ocean winds howled against my car’s chassis, threatening to push me into the rocky ditch. The streetlights were completely dead. The homes along the ridge were pitch black, their chimneys spitting thin gray smoke into the freezing squall.
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Then, through the swirling curtain of white, a flickering, buzzing neon sign appeared on the right: DRIFTWOOD MOTEL - VACANCY.
And there, parked crookedly in the far corner of the icy lot, covered in a three-inch blanket of fresh snow, sat Emma’s small blue crossover.
