by Clare Kauter
I rolled my eyes. “You can just say no.”
“No, Charlie,” said James. “We have nothing. He’s no one.”
While we all contemplated just how fucked we were, I decided to give Arnold a bowl of oat milk, warmed a little in the microwave, before joining Adam and James on the stools by the counter. Halfway through lapping it up, Arnold’s eyelids started drooping. James found her a blanket and created a little bed for her to snuggle up in. I smiled as I watched him tuck Arnold in, thinking that he’d make a good dad, and then silently chiding myself for thinking that. Now was not the time to be thinking of raising a child (or piglet) with James McKenzie. Although watching him now, I had a hard time believing he was capable of spying on me.
My mind drifted to the note in my bag. Would it be inappropriate for me to bring it up again so soon? We’d run out of leads on the other case, after all, and… No. I couldn’t do that. What the hell was wrong with me? At first whenever I’d thought about Gracie I couldn’t breathe properly and now it was like I didn’t really believe she was missing. My brain just couldn’t deal. I had to be either a nervous wreck or a callous bitch about it. It was like there was no in between.
“We can’t just sit here,” I said finally. “We have to do something.”
“What do you suggest?”
I thought for a moment. If I were a detective on a TV show, what would I do? Of course, that would largely depend on the TV show. I needed to pick a sensible investigator. “OK,” I said finally, settling on Veronica Mars. “I think we need to interview some people from the conservative party thingo we went to. That’s the only connection I can think of between the two cases – me and…”
I trailed off as my eyes drifted to Adam. He and I made eye contact.
“You,” James finished for me, looking at Adam.
Adam shook his head. “I’ve already looked into it. No one from any of my past cases has been released recently. Besides, the body was dumped at your house, Charlie, not mine. Most people don’t know I’m that close to Gracie, either.”
“If someone had been following you, though, they would have seen us together a few times, and they definitely would have seen me with Gracie.”
Adam took a moment to think about it. “OK, it’s worth considering. First, though, I think it’s a good idea to interview the people from the luncheon. If someone was following either of us, they might have been seen. Plus they may know something more about Ralph.”
James nodded. “Yeah, good idea. Should we all go?”
Adam nodded. “How do you want to split up?”
I was about to answer as I stood from my chair. The thing was, with it being a tall chair and me being short, I couldn’t just step off it like a normal person and – well, it kind of tipped. And I kind of fell. And the bag I had been clinging to all night kind of went flying. My head whacked the counter as I went down and I hit the ground with a loud thud. Adam was next to me in a second, inspecting the wound on my forehead.
“How’s your vision?” Adam asked.
“Are you OK?” James asked.
“Fine,” I answered, addressing both of them.
Seemingly convinced by my answer, James moved around the room picking up all the belongings that had spilled out of my bag.
“Persuasion? I wouldn’t have pegged you as a fan,” he said. I held my tongue, hoping he would just put it back in my bag without thinking too much about it, but he made a movement like he was going to open the cover.
“Put it down!” I screeched.
James pulled his head back, startled. Adam, who had taken a first aid kit from the medicine cabinet in the kitchen, didn’t even react. He just continued to mop up the blood on my forehead.
“Charlie, I –”
“Put in my bag and leave it there!”
James did as he was told, but tossed the bag down a little harder than was strictly necessary. The equivalent of a tantrum for him.
“For fuck’s sake, Charlie, why are you acting so weird? You’ve been all over the place today.”
My heart sped up to a pace I’d previously thought impossible.
“What do you expect? There’s a child missing, James.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Don’t lie to me. What is it?”
“I – uh…”
“What?”
“It’s – I –”
“Charlie…”
“I slept with Adam!” I blurted out.
What? Why the hell had that come out of my mouth?
“You… you two…”
“Really, Charlie?” Adam asked, looking at me in disbelief.
“It just slipped out!” I said.
The three of us were silent for a moment as we contemplated just how poor a choice of words that was.
“Seriously?” said James eventually, finally breaking the silence. “You don’t even like him!”
My goodness, of all the lies I could have come up with.
“Well,” I said with a shrug, “the opportunity arose.”
Again with the poor choice of words.
James looked at Adam. “And then you fired her? You’re despicable.”
“I’m sorry I acted weird,” I said. “It was just – I thought you’d realise and it might get awkward for us all to – to work together, you know?”
“When?” James asked.
I hesitated. I hadn’t exactly planned this lie out properly. What would make the most sense? Uh…
“This weekend,” said Adam. “Last night, after the political luncheon thing.”
James nodded slowly. “Right. So you guys are –”
“It was a one-off,” said Adam. “It was unprofessional and it shouldn’t have happened. And it was totally unrelated to my firing her. I didn’t really have a choice in that matter once she’d been caught on camera breaking into Harry’s office. I’d appreciate it if you could keep this information to yourself, James.”
James nodded slowly. “Of course.” He paused. “I – um – I just need a second,” he said. He walked out of the room in a daze.
“You owe me more favours than you will be able to fulfil in one lifetime,” Adam whispered in my ear.
“I thought you said last night was a one-off?”
Again, I swear that just slipped out. (Don’t.)
Adam rolled his eyes at me as he put butterfly clips on my forehead. I cracked my knuckles nervously as I waited for James to return, but the door remained shut.
Adam rolled his eyes at me again. “Just go after him.”
“What?”
“Don’t just sit here and think about it. Go after him.”
“Why?”
Adam sighed. “How many reasons would you like? Because we need his help to find Gracie, because you need to keep him onside if you want to find out what happened to your brother, because you’re hopelessly in love with him and have been since you were fourteen, because –”
“Do you ever get sick of being such a know it all?” I asked, narrowing my eyes at him.
“No,” he said. “Literally never.”
I groaned. Of course he didn’t. “I’m not in love with him,” I said.
“Sure.”
“Besides,” I continued, ignoring him, “what if he’s a bad guy?”
“What if he isn’t? If you don’t make up and make out now, you might ruin your chances,” he said with faux sincerity.
“But –”
“Go,” said Adam. It wasn’t a suggestion.
“Why do you suddenly care so much about whether I get with James or not?”
“As hard as it might be for you to believe, the romantic life of a teenage girl is not my primary concern at this moment. We need his help to find Grace. Just this once, I need you to swallow your pride and at least you pretend you care about something other than yourself.”
I was rendered momentarily speechless. Me? Selfish? I, Charlotte Regina Davies – me – self-centred? How dare he imply that all I thought about was myself? I spent at leas
t 17% of my time thinking about other people.
OK, maybe he had a point.
“What do I say?” I asked.
“It’ll come to you.”
“Unlike you, I don’t spend my every spare moment seducing people. I don’t think I have the necessary skillset.”
“The first step is trying. Just fuck off and do it.”
I rolled my eyes at him and stood. I felt a little unstable on my feet, but no worse than usual. (I had terrible balance even at the best of times.) James had walked out the back into his huge yard. When I exited the back door I spotted him standing by the pool, staring across the water like Gatsby. He didn’t even look at me when I drew up beside him.
After a moment of silence, I spoke. “I’m sorry, James. I – I know I said I didn’t like him, but –”
James shook his head. “You don’t have to explain yourself to me.”
He didn’t sound angry. I knew he was upset, but he wasn’t being a dick about it, which kind of made me feel worse.
“But I just –”
“It’s none of my business who you have sex with.”
“Well, no, it’s not, but we’re friends and I shouldn’t have been so weird about it,” I said. “It didn’t really mean anything.”
“Really, Charlie –”
“It was dumb and – and he wasn’t really who I wanted to be with.”
Wow. Really, brain? That was all you could come up with?
James raised his eyebrows at me. “What are you trying to say?”
“I got angry and sad about Harcourt and Topher and things just sort of…” This was becoming a very well fleshed out story. Sometimes I was worried about my skill at lying. “Adam’s hot and all, but he’s not my first choice of rich arsehole to have sex with.”
A small smile appeared on his face. “And who is?”
“Donald Trump, of course.”
The smile turned to a grimace. “I know that’s a joke, but he’s really just too repulsive to even consider naked.”
“Yeah. Besides, we both know Trump would prefer to be with his own daughter.”
He shuddered. “Gross. But accurate.”
“Anyway,” I said, “I know I have horrible timing and this is totally inappropriate…”
At some point during the conversation we’d gone from standing side by side to facing each other. I stepped a little closer to him.
“And like, I recognise that I have accused you of searching my underwear drawer and screamed at you for touching a book and smeared vomit all over you…”
“Just an average Monday, really.”
“And I know there’s a little girl missing and an old guy is dead and you’re my missing brother’s best friend and all…”
I shifted a little closer and stood on my tiptoes, placing my hands flat on his chest. His heart was beating just as fast as mine. Was it because he wanted to kiss me, or was he nervous for another reason? His pupils were dilated, although that could have been from the dark. Just for the moment, though, I was going to at least pretend that I thought James was a good guy. I ignored the niggling doubts in my head. After all this time, I was going to enjoy this damn kiss.
“But?” he whispered, tilting his head down to meet mine. I took a breath before answering. Playing it cool. Contrary to what James believed, it had been a while since I had so much as kissed a guy, and it had been about five years since I’d kissed anyone worthwhile.
“But…” I leaned in a little closer and our lips brushed against each other. His eyes floated shut and my heart fluttered. Finally, it was –
“Trump,” I whispered.
James pulled back. “OK, it was a funny joke the first time, but please don’t start whispering Trump while you’re making out with me. I don’t think I can deal with that.”
“No,” I said, pulling back. “I’ve just thought of something. God, I’m such an idiot. We need to talk to Tim.”
To his credit, James managed to calm his breathing and start acting like a functioning human again very quickly. I was not recovering so well. Why had my brain decided to kick in at that moment? All the times in my life it had let me down and now was when it decided to shine.
“OK, um,” James said, taking a step back. “What – what’s going on? What did you think of?”
I sighed. “Worst timing ever,” I said.
He smiled. “Yeah.”
“I think Tim has a suspect he hasn’t told anyone about.”
James looked shocked. “What? Are you serious?”
“Yes,” I said. “I don’t know why he wouldn’t just say, but he seems super reluctant to acknowledge even the possibility that it’s this guy.”
“What guy?”
“I don’t know. He didn’t say,” I answered.
James furrowed his brow. His beautiful, beautiful brow. “How do you know this guy exists, then?”
“Trust me,” I said.
James nodded. “OK. We’d better go tell Adam, then.”
And just like that, he turned and headed back towards the house. He trusted me that easily? Really? And he was just going to go and talk to Adam like it wasn’t even weird? Boys, man. Who understands them?
I followed him back inside where we found Adam mid-conversation on the phone, sitting on the floor next to Arnold and stroking her back. He finished up his call and turned to us. “I’ve got a few people grabbing addresses for the people from the luncheon and heading out to question them now.”
“Adam,” I said, “we need to question Tim again.”
He frowned. “Why?”
“I think he was about to tell me something earlier, just before – before you came back to the hospital room and I ran away.” I paused. “I don’t know. It’s probably nothing, but –”
“Do you know who?”
I took a deep breath. “I think it might be that cowboy from the brunch. He was hanging out with Ralph, plus he said he had a daughter… It says ‘father unknown’ on Grace’s birth certificate, but Ellie said that Grace’s dad was back in America.”
“The cowboy? You mean Bill Reagan?” asked James.
“Um, I didn’t get his name. How do you –”
“He’s the guy I was meant to have a meeting with this morning, but he called to cancel. Oh my god…”
“What?” Adam and I said in unison.
“He said – he said he couldn’t meet up with me because he had to look after his daughter. I’m sure that’s what he said.”
“Are you serious?”
“He said that her uncle was meant to be looking after her but he wasn’t up to the task at the moment.” James looked at me in disbelief. “Do you think he just told me that to amuse himself? God, I’m such an idiot. I didn’t even think…”
“We don’t know that it was him,” I said. “Could be a coincidence. A massive, hugely unlikely –”
“I doubt it’s a coincidence,” said Adam. “When I told Tim about the message that came with the balloons it looked like he might know something but he didn’t want to tell me.”
“You told me you thought the balloons were meant for me!” I said.
“I did at first.”
“Why wouldn’t he tell us if he knew who was responsible?” James asked.
“I got the feeling that he didn’t want to believe it could be the person he was thinking of,” Adam said, standing. “We need to talk to him.”
My stomach turned. I didn’t want to confront him, but what else could we do? The three of us drove to the hospital in Adam’s BMW, James in the passenger seat and me in the back. (They said I should sit in the back because I was the most compact of the three of us, and to be honest I didn’t really mind. I didn’t particularly want to sit in the front with Adam Backstabber.) We found Tim in his hospital room with Ellie, watching TV. Adam picked up the remote and turned the TV off.
“Talk,” he said.
“What?” Ellie said.
“Grace’s father.”
“I don’t know what
you’re talking about,” said Tim evenly. If you didn’t know him it might have been convincing, but Tim rarely spoke that quietly. He was lying.
“We ran into a Republican in a white cowboy suit yesterday,” Adam said. “Thought you might know him. Had an accent like yours.”
“You people think all Americans sound the same,” Tim joked.
“Now’s not the time, Tim.”
“Do you know how many people there are in America?”
“Do you know how many hours your niece has been missing?” Adam shot back. “With every passing second it gets less likely that she’ll return, so I suggest you stop fucking me around and tell me if you know the guy. He shot someone and left the corpse on Charlie’s doorstep, so I don’t think leaving Gracie with him is advisable.”
The room went silent. Adam hadn’t raised his voice. He didn’t need to.
“Oh, fuck,” said Ellie, dissolving into tears. Tim closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
“Fine,” said Tim. “You got a picture of the guy?”
“We have a name. Bill Reagan.”
Tim grew noticeably paler and Ellie began breathing fast, panicked. Adam looked at Tim expectantly.
“Did he do it?”
Tim took a deep breath, hesitated and then nodded. “Yes. If he’s here, he did it.”
“What the fuck, Tim? Why didn’t you tell us about this guy straight away?” I asked.
James nodded in agreement. “That was really fucking dumb. We’ve lost a whole day because you didn’t bother warning us about this guy.”
Adam was a little calmer. “What can you tell us about him?”
Tim hesitated, glancing at Ellie.
“Seriously, Tim? You’re still undecided about whether or not to tell us?”
“Charlie,” said Adam, “I’m sure Tim has his reasons.”
James and I glared at him in disgust. “What exactly do you mean by that? There are no reasons that justify that kind of foolhardy behaviour!”
I often start to talk like a grandma when I get flustered.
“I’m with Charlie,” James said. “There is a child missing.”
“I know!” Tim yelled. “Do you think I’m not aware of that fact? Do you think I wouldn’t have told you about this guy the second Grace disappeared if I didn’t have a damn good fucking reason not to?”
