by Nancy Bush
“Lumber mill?”
“Yessum.”
“I think I’m okay,” she said, turning away. “Thank you for everything.”
He nodded and shifted away and Gemma walked to her truck. Heading back toward the highway, her head was full of new questions. Had she been chasing Letton? It didn’t feel like it. If so, what was she doing so far west from the soccer fields, so far west from Quarry? In the foothills of the Coast Range?
And if she hadn’t been chasing Letton, who was the man she’d blasted out after from LuLu’s? What had happened to him?
“And who was following you?” she asked aloud. The hunched man who’d creeped out Charlotte.
She really wished her on-again/off-again brain would just get to “on” and stay there.
Charlotte sat on the stool near the kitchen and tried to control her rising panic. She’d stolen Robbie Bereth’s bike. Stolen it! Committed a crime. Her heart felt like it was going to gallop right out of her chest. Why had she done that? It was like a bad Charlotte had taken over the good one and there was nothing she could do but pump her legs as fast as she could and race to the diner. As soon as she’d arrived she’d jumped off the bike and pushed it into the shed behind the restaurant. There’d barely been enough room because of all the supplies. Now, she didn’t know what to do.
Chewing at her fingernails she felt slightly light-headed. Robbie knew who’d taken it. It wasn’t like she could lie and pretend it never happened. And now it was the dinner hour and she still had no idea what to do next.
“Shit,” she whispered, then looked over at Milo, who was busy frying burgers and looked to be in his own world.
She could tell her mother, but she cringed from the look she knew she would see in Macie’s eyes. This was way worse than cutting out of school early. This was like…what you went to jail for.
Maybe she should just get back on the bike and ride it back to Robbie’s. Tell him it was a joke. Ha, ha, ha. It kinda was a joke, really. She’d never intended to steal it. She just wanted to…have it for a while. It was gonna be dark real soon, so if she decided to ride back it would be dangerous and her mother would wonder where she went.
And anyway, what would happen if she did take it back? She pictured Robbie’s mother, who always looked kinda worn down and tired. And Robbie’s dad was back, according to Robbie, so what would he be like? He was a bad, bad dude. Maybe he would hit her and knock out a permanent tooth.
Charlotte whimpered, then wanted to slap her own self silly. She’d done this, and she had to take care of it. But how?
Gemma. Gemma would help her.
She eased off the stool and snuck around the corner to the back room and the wall phone. There was a list of numbers written on a notepad affixed above the phone but Charlotte scornfully ignored it. She knew Gemma’s number from memory. Dialing quickly, she listened to it ring and ring on the other end. When the voice mail answered, she cleared her throat and said, “Gemma? It’s Charlotte. Could you call me at LuLu’s? Thanks.”
She sat back down on the stool, feeling slightly better. She hoped Gemma would call soon, though, because her mom might decide to leave early to take her home, and home was over five miles away. There would be no way she could take the bike back.
Tearing off a bit of thumbnail with her teeth, she glowered at the customers in the booth at the end of the row. Teenagers. With cell phones.
How am I going to get one of those? she wondered, enviously watching them texting their friends like mad.
It was completely dark by the time Gemma returned to the house, heading in the back door, tossing the truck’s keys on the counter. She walked into the living room, remembered she’d woken up naked there, wondered what that was all about, then decided she didn’t want to know. If she’d been having a dream she couldn’t recall it now.
Although she did think it might have been about Detective Tanninger.
Walking into the den, she threw herself into the chair, then stared up at the ceiling. She didn’t know what the hell was happening to her but she felt completely, utterly exhausted.
The voice mail light was blinking on the phone. She almost left it. Probably Davinia Noack or Sally Van Kamp or Allie Bolt. Or Little Tim. She had her cell phone back now, so after she charged it she could pretty much rely on it completely and forget the would-be customers who knew Jean’s phone number.
Still…
She punched in the code and accessed her messages. There was only one. “Gemma? It’s Charlotte. Could you call me at LuLu’s? Thanks.”
Gemma instantly dialed the diner. Charlotte answered on the second ring. “LuLu’s,” she said breathlessly.
“Charlotte, it’s Gemma.”
“Oh, Gemma…” Her voice was heavy with dread. In a whispered tone, she quickly told her of her exploits with Robbie Bereth’s bike.
“You need to tell your mother,” Gemma said.
“Would you take me back there? Please? I just want to get the bike back to him and apologize. Mom’s busy. That Heather never showed up today, so she can’t leave yet.”
“I’ll take you, but you have to tell Macie what we’re doing,” Gemma said. “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
By the time Gemma pulled the truck to a stop outside the diner Charlotte was standing beside her, the exterior lights a halo behind her head. She pointed in the direction of the shed, then ran to it. Gemma half-followed, losing Charlotte in the darkness. Then she heard the creak of a door and soon Charlotte was pushing the bike toward the truck. Gemma helped her stow it in the back, slamming the tailgate shut.
“Did you tell Macie?” Gemma asked as Charlotte hopped in beside her.
“Ye-e-s-s-s.”
“What did you tell her?” Gemma asked suspiciously.
“I told her I was going to your place for a few minutes, and that I would be right back. She’s real busy. I didn’t have time to explain everything. Please, Gemma. I’ll do it when we get back. Please?”
Gemma shot her a hard look. “We’ll talk to her together,” she warned.
“Fine.” Charlotte sat back in the seat, relieved.
She guided Gemma toward Robbie’s house, which was set off the road behind some bushes about halfway to the school. They pulled into the yard. A yellow light shone from above the porch and through the front window there was a strip of illumination between heavy curtains. A head peeked through the slit. A young boy’s.
“That’s Robbie,” Charlotte murmured as they both climbed out of the truck’s cab.
A brighter light snapped on and the door opened and the boy sprang out. Behind him a woman trudged out, and she stood on the porch smoking a cigarette as he shot toward where Gemma was hauling out the bike.
“I should smack you!” he declared.
“Robbie,” the woman warned wearily.
“I wasn’t stealing it,” Charlotte said. “I’m sorry. I just wanted it for a while.”
“You were stealing it!” he insisted. “I was gonna call the cops!”
“I brought it back,” Charlotte said stubbornly, her lack of repentance very clear.
Gemma said sternly, “Charlotte is very glad you didn’t turn her into the authorities. She feels very bad that she caused so much trouble.”
“Are you her mom?” Robbie asked suspiciously.
Charlotte snapped, “She’s my friend.”
“It’s all right,” the woman on the porch said to Gemma. “Thank you for bringing it back.”
Robbie’s brows drew into a scowl and he blasted his mom. “You should have let me call the police. They would have thrown her in the drunk tank! She deserves it!”
“No, they wouldn’t have, Robbie,” the woman said. “Now, get back in here. Thank you for the bike,” she added with more energy. “I was going to call Macie tomorrow and get it straightened out.” She snapped her fingers at Robbie, who grabbed his bike and threw it alongside the porch, then stamped up the stairs and preceded his mom back into the house. As she turned Gemma saw the bruises along h
er cheekbone.
“I would never treat my bike that way,” Charlotte sniffed as they climbed back in the truck.
“Where is your bike?”
“At my house. Mom won’t let me ride it because…”
“It makes it easy for you to skip school?”
“I treat my bike way better.” A few minutes later, she said in a worried voice, “She knows my mom.”
“This is the woman you told me about whose husband beats her,” Gemma said.
Charlotte didn’t deny it. “I thought he was gone, but he’s back.”
“How do you know?”
“Robbie said so. I just got so mad at him.” She looked out the window into the night.
“Why?”
“Because I just did.” They drove on for a few more minutes and then she asked, “What’s a drunk tank?”
Gemma pulled into LuLu’s parking lot. “Sounds like somewhere Robbie’s dad spends a bit of time.”
“Why didn’t you pick me up today?” Charlotte asked suddenly.
“I just did.” She yanked on the emergency brake.
“I mean when I was walking. I waved at you and you waved back, but you didn’t stop.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Charlotte leaned forward and gazed at her hard, searching for something in Gemma’s face in the gloom of the cab. “On the road in front of Robbie’s house. I saw you!”
Gemma regarded her blankly and shook her head.
“It was you,” Charlotte said stubbornly.
“No, Charlotte. I was working today at the diner. I left and went home and I was there until this evening.”
“I know it was you!” she declared. “You musta forgot. Did you go to the store or something?”
“No, I took a nap.”
And woke up naked.
“Maybe you were sleepwalking. Sleep driving,” Charlotte corrected.
“I see Macie in the window,” Gemma deflected, not liking the way this conversation was going. “Let’s go talk to her.”
By the time Gemma returned to the farmhouse she felt like it had been the longest day in history. She yanked the truck to a halt and headed inside. She poured herself a glass of tap water and drank it standing at the kitchen sink, gazing at her own reflection in the window, her image backdropped by the kitchen cabinets and hanging lights. She couldn’t see into the black night beyond.
Macie had been understandably upset with Charlotte. She’d sunk into one of the booths and said, “What am I going to do with you?” so Charlotte pointed out that if she’d had access to her bike none of this would have happened. Macie turned eyes covered in parrot-green shadow to Gemma for help. Gemma hadn’t had any answers.
She thought about her mother’s mangled Camry. It could either be her salvation or her downfall. If she told Tanninger about it, the car would be tested and if there was even the most microscopic evidence that it had made contact with Edward Letton then she would be arrested for vehicular homicide, or manslaughter, or some other equally serious crime that would send her to prison.
If it couldn’t be proven that it had made contact with Letton, then she would be off the hook. So, if she hadn’t actually rammed the bastard, she was home free.
The question was: was she innocent?
And why had Charlotte thought she’d seen her this afternoon? What did that mean?
She trudged upstairs, dug out the charger for her cell phone, plugged it in, then as it fed the battery she checked the last numbers that she’d dialed. Her home phone. LuLu’s. A couple of numbers she didn’t recognize which she tried calling now. The first was to a movie theater, which reminded her she’d called about show times. When she punched in the second she was connected to the Noack residence. Luckily an answering machine picked up and Gemma hung up quickly. Hopefully Davinia didn’t have her cell number.
Next she checked to see if she had any messages on her cell voice mail. Nothing. Nothing at all. Gemma sighed. She had this depressing sense that she’d been living life in a vacuum, insulated from the real world. She’d made Nate Dorrell her whole world and since being back home had simply been going through the motions of a life.
Putting aside the phone, she dumped the contents of her purse onto the bed. Lipstick. Pens. A comb and brush. Her wallet. She unsnapped the wallet and examined the old bank card and a credit card, which she’d cancelled. There were a couple small pictures tucked behind a checkbook. One of her with Jean and Peter, a number of years earlier. Another of Charlotte. Another of her with Macie and Charlotte in front of LuLu’s.
In the checkbook register she saw the listings of utility bills, credit card payments, and deposits from the various clients she’d still been seeing. So she had taken money for her services. Maybe Macie was right and she should just “go with it,” but she found the idea distasteful.
Closing the wallet, she went to the drawer that held old credit card statements. She’d run across them earlier and had paid little attention. Now she examined her last few purchases. No surprise she was a steady customer at LuLu’s. She also purchased groceries and gas and occasionally went to a department store. She even had a bill or two from the PickAxe.
Back down in the kitchen, she looked at her reflection in the window again.
“You need to tell Tanninger about the car,” she said aloud.
She slowly picked up the receiver, stood undecided for several minutes, then replaced it just as slowly.
Maybe tomorrow.
Will stripped naked and ran through the shower. For reasons he didn’t want to look at too closely he couldn’t get Gemma LaPorte out of his head. And it didn’t help that he was in the shower with warm water cascading over his head, thinking about Gemma in a thoroughly non-professional way.
A couple more minutes of that and he switched the hot water to cold and stood under the spray as long as he could stand it. He finally yiped and slammed off the spigot. Jesus, that was freezing.
But it did the trick. All he could think about now was warmth as he grabbed a towel and rubbed his shaking body briskly.
He threw on a pair of sweats and a Georgia Bulldogs jersey, not that he was necessarily a fan but it was something he’d had awhile and it was available. Dressing for success wasn’t on his top ten list.
Checking the time, he saw that the news was on and as he clicked on the remote his cell phone rang. He snatched it up from the kitchen counter. Caller ID said: Mom.
“Hi, Mom,” he answered, his gaze on his forty-two-inch LCD screen. For the little amount of time he had to watch TV it sometimes caught him up short that he’d splurged for this toy. Not that he didn’t enjoy it when he did watch. It just seemed excessive for his lifestyle. The weatherman was predicting a windstorm coupled with driving rain.
“Dylan?” she asked in confusion.
“It’s Will, Mom. Dylan’s been gone for years.”
“Oh.” There was a pause and Will used the time to grab a beer from the refrigerator. There was absolutely no food inside and he determined he would head to a nearby tavern that made a decent pastrami, jack cheese, and red onion sandwich. He sometimes asked for them to add a lettuce leaf, just to make himself believe he was eating healthy.
“Do you know where I am?” she asked at length.
“You’re at home. At your house. Is Noreen there?”
“Noreen? Oh. No. She went to the grocery store.”
“Okay.”
This was where it got hard. The struggle to come up with conversation. He’d watched other people with their loved ones just chatter away about nothing. But Will didn’t possess the knack. He wanted a meaningful conversation, or he wanted out. He couldn’t do small talk. Couldn’t fake that he couldn’t do it.
“Are you still seeing that girl? What’s her name?”
Will instantly had a vision of Gemma. Naked. Hair down. Hazel eyes hit by sunlight so they gazed like glittering emeralds. Skin taut. Breasts round and smooth, and he could visualize his hands moving t
oward them. He made a sound of frustration, wondering if another cold shower was in order.
But he knew his mother meant Shari, Dylan’s ex.
“No, Mom. That was over years ago.”
“She was a nice girl.” She waxed rhapsodic about Shari for a few disjointed minutes, which made Will want to jump in and deny everything. Shari hadn’t been nice. She’d been needy and emotionally manipulative. Why Will had gotten involved was a mystery to him now. Maybe it was because he went for a type. Shari and Gemma shared a passing resemblance, although when he thought of Shari he mostly remembered her complaining.
“I was thinking about her,” she went on, her voice turning to a smile.
But Will couldn’t hear her anymore. His attention snapped to the television as Mandy Letton appeared in a brief interview.
“The police know who ran him down,” she was saying tightly. “They just won’t do anything about it!” She’d stuffed herself in a low-cut, tight black dress that pushed her breasts up alarmingly. Will half-expected them to spill onto the screen. Her hair was scraped back from her face and her eyes, her best feature, were huge and wide, full of innocence and disbelief. “She was in the hospital while my husband was…suffering.” Crocodile tears slid from the corners of those big eyes. “She actually confronted me and called me names. I know people are saying terrible things about Edward, but she killed him. Why won’t the police arrest her? They know she did it.”
“Goddammit,” Will muttered harshly.
“Will?” his mother said uncertainly.
“Mom, I have to go. Are you all right? You need anything?”
“I don’t want to be alone.”
“I’ll stay on the phone till Noreen gets back,” he said shortly. Now the reporter was asking Mandy if she’d spoken to someone at the police department.
“The sheriff’s department,” she confirmed. “They’re not very cooperative. One of their detectives tried to shut me up and hustle me away. They know I know what they’re doing and they’re trying to cover up.”
“Noreen? She’s coming here?”
“Yes, Mom. That’s what you said.” Will grabbed the remote and hit the volume.
