Conviction (Wated Series Book 2)

by Lance, Amanda

  “No.”

  “Just tell me what’s going on. Whatever it is, I can help. If you’ve done something illegal—”

  “Leave me alone”

  I stormed back inside, leaving him with the admiring campus police and fawning underclassmen.

  I waited until Melinda was in the shower before sneaking off down the hall. I had always been under the impression that college was supposed to be an evolutionary step up from high-school in the sense that people did less gossiping and more minding of their own business. Maybe it was because I had gone to high-school in the safety of my room and kitchen that I was unprepared for the chatter that accompanied the window-smashing incident. Regardless, I was not keen to hear any of it.

  Three girls freshly returned from the library tried to flirt with the repair guy and campus security. For them, I imagined it was a great relief from the mundane, not to mention an opportunity to gain favor if they were ever in trouble. Two other girls lingered in the stairway, relating the incidents to people on the other end of their phone.

  I made my way into the lobby slowly; it seemed that in addition to shattering the window, some mailboxes had been ripped out of the wall. Though they weren’t used all that much, it seemed clear that this disturbed the officer who took pictures. Another made scribbles into a notebook.

  “Hey,” a girl asked me. “Did you see what happened?”

  I shrugged. “Some guys were playing baseball in the courtyard.”

  Even though the courtyard was too far away for someone to realistically hit a baseball through the window—not to mention that there didn’t appear to be a single hole but instead the entire glass pane had been knocked loose—I hoped people would accept the logical explanation instead of the truth.

  One of the cops nudged the other one and whispered something to him, “footprints outside,” I read his lips, then rushed back into the safety of my dorm, with the hope that they would be done soon.

  For now, I had to reach Charlie, everything else was a moot point. So I ignored my brain when it tried to come up with explanations for the mailbox destruction, when it implored whether or not anyone had seen Charlie. Instead, I picked up the phone and counted the rings, counted the cracks in the ceiling, the loose hairs that had gotten tangled in my brush. I counted and counted and counted.

  But the phone just rang and rang and rang.

  “I hear they might put in security cameras,” Melinda said later, while the phone was still to my ear, and she stared in the mirror. “Do you think that’ll bring living rates up next year? It freaking better not. One jerk breaks a window, and the rest of us have to pay for it? Give me a break.”

  One jerk indeed, one loveable, wonderful jerk.

  But why wasn’t he picking up the phone?

  “Is everything okay? You keep dialing the same number and hanging up repeatedly.”

  “Yeah,” I faltered. “I—ah, just really wanted to talk to my Dad.”

  “I know what you mean. I’m feeling a little spooked, too. What if a serial rapist or something was trying to get in here?”

  Eventually, I did try and call Dad, but only because I was afraid he had heard something from Adam and would be worried. Adam had, after all, never made any promises not to tell Dad about any of this; and I could only imagine how worried he would really be when he found out someone had burglarized my dorm. Would he assume, like Adam, that it had been Charlie? Or someone else out to hurt me?

  At least he picked up the phone.

  “Dad?”

  “Oh, hey there, missy. I was just thinking about you.”

  I froze, backed away from the hall, and further into my phone. If Dad knew something was up, he might try and visit, or worse yet, insist I come back home.

  “Y-yeah?” My voice was shaky, but I couldn’t help it. “Why’s t-that?”

  “I just saw a re-run on the Travel channel. That, ah—” I heard something click in the background, the lever for the recliner go down. “—those islands off of Asia.”

  “Say, Dad?”

  “Say, Daughter?”

  I made myself laugh, at least Dad’s lame humor was a decent indication that nothing was wrong—on his end of the line, anyway—but still, I had to make sure.

  “Anything, um, interesting going on?”

  It was probably my tone that set him off, the skepticism in my own voice that swayed him into knowing that something wasn’t quite right.

  “Interesting? What is it, Addie? Did you hear something about Robbie?”

  “No, Dad. No. Everything is fine. I just, had a bad feeling is all.”

  This seemed to relieve him considerably. Dad was never a big believer in female intuition and I couldn’t expect that to change overnight.

  “Oh yeah?” He chuckled and that sound made me miss home more in those few seconds than I had since I had arrived at school. “Remember when your Mom used to get those?”

  “Yeah.” I laughed. “It usually just meant she forgot something.”

  “Turning off the oven.”

  “Her headlights.”

  “Your birthday.”

  “Her purse.”

  We went back and forth until I stopped laughing and heard the beeping of the phone begging for a charge.

  “So what is it that you’ve forgotten?”

  The police were finally gone and the window was boarded up an hour later. It’s my understanding that some of the girls were questioned as to whether or not they saw anything, but being a weekday and late afternoon, most of the dorms were empty and the sidewalks desolate. One girl who was returning from class said she saw someone speed away on a motorcycle, but that was it.

  I lingered in the lobby and paced the halls, trying to pick up what gossip I could without being obvious. Whenever someone asked me what I thought, I repeated my story about guys playing baseball. I said it so many times that it almost felt real.

  None of that explains the mailboxes, Addie.

  I kept picturing how it might have happened: Charlie storming through the window, uncaring about the consequences or even just waiting until someone else came in the front door and then casually walking in after them. I imagined him tearing out the metal boxes from their slots, probably with his switchblade, until the knife was dull. I could feel his rage after he broke into my room and found e-mails, not proving anything, but suggesting untrustworthiness anyway. Charlie had probably been looking through the mail for some indicators of my imaginary infidelity…maybe smashing the window later…Yet what was really scary was that if he really thought I could cheat on him, what else did he think?

  I tried again to call Yuri and Elise, but Yuri’s number was disconnected and Elise’s just kept ringing. It wasn’t until after I made my way outside that I saw the remnants of a pre-paid phone in the parking lot. Smashed to bits in a fury.

  I picked up the pieces of the phone I could find and brought them back to my dorm. Since Melinda had gone out again, I was alone and had some time to consider my options.

  I could have gone to Healdsburg right then and there, but of course there was the problem of being noticed by campus police as I left. And then I wasn’t sure what the bus schedule for Mondays were, if they didn’t have an evening drop-off, how would I even get there?

  Still, I was pretty confident I could slip campus security. If Adam wasn’t bluffing and if they had the manpower to escort me to classes, I could probably slip out the fire exit of a classroom, or even a bathroom window if I really had to. But would that only draw more attention? If I was truly desperate I could leave right now, hitchhike as close as possible, see Charlie, and be back before I had to miss class in the morning. As it was, I figured missing class would only make Adam worry more about me and maybe even call Dad, another exposure I didn’t want to risk.

  I texted Elise again.

  I called again.

  No answer.

  By the time evening finally came around, I was ready to go. I even practiced my hitchhiking thumb and everything, ignor
ing the Charlie voice in my head when he told me I was being too stubborn, reckless.

  Yet the feeling I had told Dad about wasn’t a lie, it wasn’t even a half-truth. I did feel the inexplicable dread of something creeping up on me, and though the window incident was quickly replaced by chatter of who had done what, I couldn’t deter the feeling that something worse was already taking place.

  I figured it would be best to wait until Melinda went to bed. I knew she had class early on Tuesday morning and would shut off her light at a reasonable hour. If I left now or waited until morning, I’d only have that many more questions to answer since I never missed class or stayed out on a weeknight.

  Tapping my foot to the music someone played in the next room, I counted beats until I was certain Melinda was asleep and I could safely sneak out without being noticed. It gave me some time to rationalize the dangers of hitchhiking and opt instead for a not-so-local cab company. I scribbled down the name of the cab company and cleared my computer history. This was also a practice I had become accustomed to over the last few months, though now for some reason it didn’t seem as natural as it had before; now it seemed dirty, felt wrong, like I was doing something I wasn’t supposed to, and I literally looked over my shoulder, as though someone would be there to stop me at any second.

  The hours that slugged in between my intended time of departure were agonizingly slow. I attempted to work on my linguistics paper, look over my notes for International Relations, but most of it was in vain. I must have read the same sentence in my Anatomy textbook nine times before I realized that none of it was processing.

  Instead of studying, I attempted to reassure myself with other thoughts. I knew that Dad was all right, and until I knew otherwise, I had to assume Robbie wasn’t trying to be a hero and had all his limbs intact. Still, I was ashamed at how little comfort I found in those ideas.

  I slammed my head against my desk telling myself that this was all part of Charlie’s idea of keeping me safe, that the lack of information I had here was for my own good somehow. Yet as hard as I tried, I couldn’t make myself believe it. I couldn’t understand how not knowing why he would do something like this, and why Elise or even Yuri wouldn’t respond to my calls would be a good course of action.

  There was more security on campus now after the window incident. And while I was sure they were happy for the overtime, I wanted to crawl out of my skin with nerves. I kept my head down while I walked down the sidewalks, desperate to move quickly and not bring attention to myself. The double standard seemed to be working in my favor; from what I could tell, campus police were keeping an eye on the guys, and my talent for being quiet was working in my favor.

  I passed by dorm housing, looking at windows dark and lit alike. It was easy to picture classmates pulling all-nighters trying to get their GPAs up, girls like Melinda comparing dates, video games, and drinking, job interviews and breakouts. Something slightly closer to average. And if I was a different person, in a different place, I might consider being friends with cute frat boys, with letting Melinda arrange dates for me. If I had never been kidnapped, it might have been easier to be friends with Cora and the rest of the girls, but I wasn’t a different person, and I was only in the present.

  And whether I realized it then or not, I had belonged to Charlie the moment I laid eyes on him.

  The cab ride was exhaustingly painful, but at least I was smart enough to have the driver leave me in the town square instead of dropping me off directly at the house. From there, I walked, looking over my shoulder every eight to ten seconds to make sure no one was behind me, and though I was confident no one was, I couldn’t escape the dread that followed as I walked along the growing fields and ashen roads. It was like I already knew what I would find, and my body was preparing itself for the blowback. My stomach began cramping, my ankles swelled, my skin itched. By causing me pain, my body was trying to protect my mind from the worst of it.

  If only it could.

  I used my key when I got there. Unafraid of the dark, I reached around on the wall for the light switch, finding it after a few seconds of clumsiness. Once my eyes adjusted, I realized the lush living room I saw not too long ago was the same except for one vital element: its occupants were gone.

  “Charlie? Elise! Tyler?”

  I called their names, not forgetting that Tyler didn’t exactly have the verbal skill to yet answer back, yet half hoping his laugh would drift down to me from upstairs as I tore my way from room to room, searching.

  It was clear they had left in a hurry. Every piece of furniture remained, every painting on the wall, the food in the cupboard, even the toys in the hallway were there, as though they had never left, a mausoleum to the people who used to occupy the place, but it was becoming clearer as I went from room to room that they had vanished, not out for the evening like I had originally hoped, but gone; perhaps for a long haul as I saw both SUVs absent from the garage and the safe in Elise and Ben’s bedroom cleared out, it’s door half open.

  Still, I waited. I waited on the couch that I had watched so many movies on, and where I had stolen so many glances at Charlie. I waited, staring out the window at the pool Tyler had nearly fallen in once, and that we had gone swimming in on New Year’s in our clothes…tempting each other to a breaking point.

  No, I wouldn’t let this be the end. I refused to let it be.

  I went back to searching, only this time instead of looking for people, I was looking for information. I shuffled through drawers, the organized ones and the junk ones. I looked through notebooks, read old grocery lists, and turned over envelopes, all in an effort for something, anything that would tell me where they had gone. An hour went by before I gave up on the kitchen and the living room and went upstairs, beginning the search in the library. I paged through books and unlocked file cabinets, the garbage can, and even looked through Tyler’s coloring books for something in my desperation. The modem for the desktop was gone, so that hope left with it. I collapsed in the twirling desk chair and folded my head in my hands. Where would something else be? An address, a name? A number? Anything? I considered going to the Healdsburg airport and asking questions there, though I figured if they did know anything, Ben would more than likely have paid them off to keep quiet like he always did. I remembered the name of Ben’s attorney, but I already knew attorney-client privilege would only lead me to a dead-end.

  I had to think. Think, think, think, think. A headache was threatening to set in and I was feeling desperate enough to consider searching for Elise and Tyler’s friends from the Mommy and Me class when I looked at the whiteboard on the floor. It had been taken off the wall, its contents erased, but as I picked it up and peered closer, the old shadows indicated a set of numbers there. I squinted at them under the light making sure I had them right before jotting them down.

  And then I searched some more.

  I wandered into the west wing as I had so many times before, but the light switch didn’t work. I reached up and tried to twist the gauge manually, only it wasn’t there. I felt my way across the wall like a blind woman until I reached an open room. At least there the light switch was working. Once the light flickered on I could see the damage clearly enough: every other fixture had been ripped directly from the wall, fist shaped imprints were ingrained into the wall, one after the other, smaller onto themselves until wire slipped out of the wall. A putter in the middle of the room also suggested a worthy colleague. At the sight my heart began dancing in my throat. Clearly it was the work of Charlie in his rage.

  Only too clearly could I see the ghost of him just hours before, a human hulk slamming his way down the hall, taking out anything and everything in his way. I wondered what his goal was. I was too afraid to know.

  Then I saw it.

  At first it was difficult to tell what his method of destruction was, but as my eyes adjusted to the dark it became obvious that it wasn’t a single method but many.

  The dresser drawers were ripped from their foundation, then s
lammed into the adjacent wall. The shelves planked just above the garden of blue roses were ripped from their home, breaking the glass in the windows, though not shattering them all the way.

  The mattress took the most damage. Every blanket was torn to shreds, the pillow-top destroyed, and finally the plastic springs damaged until they no longer bounced. It took a moment for it to sink in what had happened, the inlay of the transfixed wrath from kicked in walls to ripped out doorknobs.

  I kept myself from crying only because it was still fixable. They were probably at a safe house somewhere or even in a hotel down the street for all I knew. In all likelihood, the damage of Charlie’s rage had frightened Ben into sending Elise and Tyler away as a precaution while the boys took him to cool off somewhere. I told myself this over and over even as I pointlessly attempted to clean up my sort-of-room. I chanted it in my head even as I called the number I’d found on the whiteboard. No one answered. But I wasn’t done yet.

  I searched the house for two more hours, only pausing to try and reach Charlie. But when my search of the rest of the house and the garage turned up nothing, I waited for as long as I possibly could and walked down the field before calling a taxi. It cost me the rest of the cash I had left, but I gave the driver Charlie’s address and silently prayed; prayed that at the little trailer I would find some kind of an answer.

  ***

  The door was unlocked, as I expected, and I felt slightly relieved. I braced myself before walking inside though, half expecting to see a sight as bad as the one I just came from, but Charlie’s place seemed to be exactly as he had left it. Empty bottles from a local brewery were in the sink, shirts half-strung over the table with sketchbooks and pencils alike, with the bed as unmade as we had left it. A typical bachelor’s mess, but nothing more.

  Chapter 11

  Class the next morning was a fog of words and facts. Professors lectured on the importance of studying for finals, but many of the students were already in the early throes of summer, preoccupied with how much leg their shorts were showing off or what they were doing when the weekend came. I wrote things down, but they were blurred just like the rest of me. I had also tried to call the phone number from the whiteboard, but again, no answer. Searching for its owner on the internet had also proved to be fruitless.