“There has to be someone you can talk to about this, Char.”
“Maybe if it was only Luke. Maybe someone would cut him a break. But it’s the system right now. You can’t fight it. At least one person can’t fight it.”
They sat in silence for several long seconds. The flames of the fire licked and spit. Crickets chirruped. The breeze changed direction and blew smoke in Charlotte’s direction. She covered her nose with her hand but didn’t move from the heat.
“So, what’s wrong with Luke then?” Emma asked. “Is he, like, depressed or something?”
“That, plus anxiety, nightmares. He’s even been having hallucinations and flashbacks.” She shrugged. “Post-traumatic stress kind of stuff—which, I should mention, the army does acknowledge can be a result of combat trauma, and which his disability benefits would have covered.”
“Can’t you take him to a normal doctor or something?”
“A civilian doctor?” Charlotte said. “I’ve mentioned it to Luke. I’m hoping I can convince him to go when we get back to the city.” She put on a brave face. “But who knows? Luke, he’s tough. He’s only been back for a few weeks. This all might pass. He might get better on his own.”
“Or he might get worse.” Emma fiddled with one of her nails. “Have you ever thought of...well…like, leaving him? Just listen,” she added quickly. “I don’t want to sound indifferent to what he’s going through, but to be honest, I was a bit freaked out when I met him this morning. He was so aloof, shifty. And now, knowing this…”
“It’s not his fault, Em.”
“No, maybe not. But it’s not your fault either, or your responsibility, I guess I should say. You guys really only dated way back in high school. Okay, so you saw him a few times over the years when he was on leave. But that’s a long time not to be with someone on a regular basis. Like you said, he’s changed.”
“What do you expect me to do, Em? Dump him when he needs me the most? He just spent the last six months in a warzone trying to kill people and having them trying to kill him. He needs time to readjust to normal life. Imagine if you were dropped in Afghanistan tomorrow—”
“I’m just saying—”
“I know what you’re saying. And would you be telling me to dump him if he had cancer or something like that?”
“It’s not the same.”
“Why not?”
“Because he’s scary, Char. I mean, I might not know him well, and he might be getting better, I don’t know. But right now I’m worried about you.”
Charlotte shook her head. She didn’t want to talk about Luke anymore. She shouldn’t have bothered in the first place. Emma didn’t understand. She couldn’t understand. Charlotte stood. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s see if Tom found him.”
***
As they started down the path toward the lake Charlotte played the flashlight beam among the hemlock, sugar maple, and birch trees crowding the beaten path. It didn’t reveal much except the shadowy outlines of tree trunks and the canopy of spindly branches overhead.
Abruptly Tom’s voice cut through the night. He sounded panicked.
Charlotte glanced at Emma, who shook her head. Then they broke into a run. The trees thinned, tapering off to smaller shrubs and scrub. Slabs of rock angled down into the three-mile-wide lake that spread away from them like a vast oil spill. The waxing moon cast a silvery reflection over the mirror-smooth surface.
Tom and Luke stood twenty feet away, facing one another. Tom was holding up his hands, palms outward, as if trying to calm Luke. His family was filthy rich, and everyone knew him as a spoiled brat womanizer who’d gotten accepted to Columbia’s MBA program because his father was a Wall Street big shot. Physically, he was a muscular jock type, with a brown mop of hair and an unkempt beard. His shirtless upper body was lean and tanned in the moonlight. Right then, however, backing away from Luke, who stood six four, he looked small and unimpressive.
Luke’s hair was still cut military high and tight. His features, always straight and handsome, now seemed sharper, carved out by black shadows, his eyes lost in the dark recess below his brow. He wore board shorts and a white T-shirt. Sleeve tattoos covered his biceps and forearms, running the gamut from machine guns enshrined in roses to demon drill sergeants to skulls and snakes, a fury of green ink. “You wanna know?” Luke was saying. “You really wanna fucking know?”
“Dude,” Tom said, “I was just chatting.”
Charlotte stopped a few feet from them. “Luke, what’s going on?” she demanded.
“This motherfucker asked me if I’d shot anyone.”
Tom shrugged. “I didn’t know it was such a big deal.”
“Shooting someone’s no big deal? You ever shoot someone, dickhead?”
“It’s all right, Luke,” Charlotte said.
“He’s fucking crazy—” Tom said.
Luke head butted Tom in the face. The sound was like someone snapping their finger and thumb together, and that might have been Tom’s nose breaking.
Tom collapsed to his knees, then to his side, where he rocked back and forth moaning and cupping his face in his hands.
“Luke!” Charlotte cried, seizing his arm and yanking him away from Tom. He shoved her hard, sending her flying through the air. She landed on her tailbone. The flashlight clattered away from her.
Yelling, Emma attacked Luke, batting him with her hands, but she might have been a butterfly attacking a bear for all the good she was doing. He swung a sideways closed fist at her, striking her temple. She collapsed to the rocky ground, unmoving.
Luke kicked her in the head with his bare foot. The impact made little noise but snapped her head sideways.
Leaping to her feet, Charlotte felt ill, and all she could think was: This can’t be happening! This isn’t happening! He’s going to kill them!
Luke raised his foot over Emma’s head, as if to stomp it like an egg.
Charlotte crashed into him, pleading with him to stop.
One of his hands clamped her around her throat. His eyes shone like an animal’s, intense, emotionless, unrecognizable.
She raked her nails down his cheek, drawing blood.
Cursing, he let her go.
She ran.
***
Dead leaves and moss and lichen scattered beneath her feet. The scent of rot and evergreen seared her nostrils. Her heart was pounding. Her breathing came in gasping sobs. Everything whipped past her in a blur of darkness.
She risked a glance over her shoulder to gauge Luke’s pursuit.
He was a dozen feet back, gaining on her.
She reached the campsite moments later and blew past the two dome-shaped tents, knowing there was no time to search them for the car keys. She ducked the clothesline they’d strung up and leapt over the orange ice box. She landed awkwardly, touched a knee to the ground, then barreled through waist-high grass and cattails. Trees closed around her once more.
She didn’t need to risk another glance over her shoulder to know Luke had followed her into the thicket. She heard the racket of his pursuit.
She thought she was running parallel to the road they’d driven in on, which meant if she continued in a straight line she would end up at the main camping area, where there would be others.
Yet would this matter? Would Luke get hold of himself and calm down? Or would he continue his insane rampage and attack everyone? Was she putting others in danger by leading him to them?
But what else could she do?
The trees became denser. Branches tore her dress and skin, scraping and cutting her bare arms and legs.
She had never been this terrified in her life. She wanted to scream, to tell Luke to leave her the fuck alone. But she was too scared, too winded, to do so.
Luke barked something at her, something vicious, and just as she was thinking he was going to catch her, and beat her to a pulp, and maybe kill her in his madness, she burst into a clearing—a clearing filled with a handful of cabins. She veered toward one wh
ich had light seeping from a window.
Luke tackled her from behind. The impact with the ground blasted the air from her lungs. She skinned the palms of her hands and bit her lower lip. She tried to yell for help but choked on blood.
She rolled onto her back, gasping, struggling to free herself from beneath his bulk. He raised a fist. She shoved her hands into his face, pushing with all her strength. One of her thumbs found an eye socket. She dug it into his eyeball.
Luke cried out. Charlotte wormed out from beneath him and scrambled to her feet. Before she could flee, however, he snagged her hair and yanked hard. Her feet flew out from beneath her and the back of her head struck the ground with blinding force.
Blackness washed over her like a monster wave.
ONE YEAR LATER
CHAPTER 1
They were learning how to make Neapolitan-style pizza that evening.
The kitchen was warm and homely with brick walls and wood furniture and blue countertops. The seven students, including Charlotte, sat around a long rectangular table with their ingredients placed before them. The teacher wasn’t a personable Paula Dean or Jamie Oliver type. Her name was Lucinda, a robust Scottish woman with a perm that resembled a helmet and a front tooth that had decayed and turned a rotten gray. She was loud and crass and ran the workshop like a gastronomic boot camp, browbeating anyone who dared make a mistake. Having said that, she was funny too, and Charlotte was laughing with everyone else when she told one of the students that her pizza looked like it had been set on fire and put out with a golf shoe.
This was Charlotte’s third workshop since she’d arrived in Asheville, North Carolina, last month. Her plan was to take one a week until she knew Italian cuisine inside-out.
When Lucinda dismissed the class at eight thirty, Charlotte said goodbye to the other students and stepped outside into the pleasantly cool autumn night. Asheville has been called everything from a New Age mecca, to one of the most beautiful places in America, to the “New Freak Capital of the US,” courtesy of Rolling Stone magazine. Primarily known for its relaxed artistic community and panoramic mountain views, it was nevertheless gaining recognition for its burgeoning culinary scene, which was the reason Charlotte had chosen to do her masters of hospitality management at the University of North Carolina Asheville campus.
While heading down Broadway, trying to remember what time her first class at the university began tomorrow, a pair of hands clapped over her eyes. She froze mid-step.
“Guess who?”
She turned around. “God, Tony,” she said, touching a hand to her heart. “You scared me half to death.”
He grinned. “Who did you think it was?”
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“Stalking you.”
“I thought you had something with your friends?”
“Dan’s birthday. We’re going to Off the Wagon. Your cooking school was on the way, so I thought I’d pop by.”
Tony was also enrolled in hospitality management. They’d met in one of their classes. He came late and sat beside her, then asked her out for a drink afterward. He had a dark, mysterious look with long black hair, brown eyes, and mocha skin. Thinking it wouldn’t hurt to get to know some people in her course, maybe start a study group, she accepted his invitation. After a few drinks, however, one thing led to another and she ended up back at his place. Fast forward three weeks and they were unofficially dating—unofficially because neither of them had brought up the topic of dating. They were friends who had sex every now and then, no strings attached. So far Charlotte was fine with that arrangement. She wasn’t ready for anything more serious.
“Dan…” she said, trying to put a face to the name. She’d only met Tony’s friends a few times.
“You don’t like him, remember?” Tony said.
“Was he the one who puked everywhere Monday?”
“And wiped his mouth on your shirt.”
“It was my jacket.”
“Yeah, I know, and sorry about that. He can be a prick sometimes. You want to come for a drink or two now?”
“So Dan can wipe his puke on me again? No thanks.”
“It’s early. He won’t be smashed for a good couple hours.”
“Sounds riveting, Tony. But I haven’t even looked at the readings I have for my classes tomorrow.”
“I haven’t opened a textbook all week.”
“I plan to graduate.”
“I’ll graduate. Don’t worry about that. I’m more of a crammer than a planner.”
They stopped at the corner to her street. “Give Dan my best wishes on his birthday,” she said.
“You free tomorrow night?”
She pretended to think about it. “I have this speed dating thing between six and nine. But after that…”
“Speed dating? Just get on Tinder.” He shrugged. “So how about dinner?”
“Sure. There’s a place called Eddie Spaghetti I want to try.”
“You and your Italian.”
“That’s the kind of restaurant I’m going to open.”
“Hey, I’m in on that too. We just need to round up a million bucks somewhere first. By the way, I’m going to be away this weekend. I gotta go to Charleston. My sister’s in the theatre company there. Her new play’s opening.”
Charlotte raised her eyebrows. “She’s an actor?”
“She prefers performer. She sings and stuff.”
“When are you coming back?”
“Sunday. Classes on Monday, right?”
“Well, enjoy,” she said, stepping close to him. “I’ll miss you.”
“Me too. You—I mean. I’ll miss you.”
They kissed for a good five seconds, and just as it was heating up Charlotte pulled away. She wasn’t going to make out in the middle of the street.
Tony said, “You sure you don’t want to come for a drink?”
“I really do have work to do. Tomorrow.”
“I’ll call you.”
Charlotte watched Tony cross Broadway, a pang of regret building in her chest. She knew Off the Wagon would be filled with attractive girls, and she almost changed her mind and joined him after all. But then he reached the far sidewalk, a bus grumbled to a halt in front of her, and the moment passed.
***
Charlotte was renting a room in a two-story, mauve-painted townhouse on a gently sloping street lush with greenery. She’d chosen it because it was close to both the university and the cozy downtown center of Asheville. Also, it was clean, well-maintained, and her bedroom window overlooked a small wooded area. She shared the house with three roommates, all students. The two girls stayed at their boyfriends a lot, and the guy was always out at the bars, so she usually only saw them in the mornings getting ready for school. Thankfully, there were two full bathrooms, one on each floor, so there was never a queue to take a shower.
Standing in the kitchen, waiting for the water to boil in the kettle, Charlotte found herself once again thinking about Tony, wondering what he was doing right then. Knocking back beers and chatting up girls? Did he do that—chat up girls—when she wasn’t around? After all, they weren’t a couple. She’d been careful not to open up too much, get too close. She liked his company, but she needed her space too. So if the opportunity presented itself for him to take home some floozy tonight, would he oblige? She didn’t think so. At least, she hoped not.
Maybe she should stop being so aloof, she thought. Maybe it was finally time to move on from Luke. On one level she had. She’d never visited him in prison, and she’d returned her engagement ring. That had been six months ago. She’d mailed it to him in a padded envelope with nothing else.
So on that level—on severing ties—she had moved on. Yet emotionally she hadn’t. She still thought about him too much. She still hated the way she’d abandoned him. She still blamed herself for not doing more to help him.
She still wouldn’t allow herself to get close to someone else.
The kettle whistled. Cha
rlotte poured the steaming water into her mug, stirred the peppermint tea bag with a spoon, then left the kitchen. She was crossing the living room, on the way to the stairs, when the front door opened and Rashid entered.
“Oh, hey, Charlotte,” he said, smiling at her. He was an Arab from Syria with fair hair and Nordic features. The navy three-quarter-length pea coat he always wore was draped over one arm. A beat up leather attaché case hung from his shoulder. “What are you doing home?”
“I live here,” she said.
“Right. I mean, you know, I haven’t seen you around much since you moved in.”
“I was at a cooking class.”
“What were you cooking?”
“Pizza. Learned how to make my own mozzarella cheese to boot.”
“You should make it around here one night.”
“Cheese?”
“Pizza. We’ll have a house dinner or something.”
“Definitely.” She continued to the stairway.
“Oh, hey,” Rashid said. “What’re you up to tonight?”
She touched the railing, looked back. “A bath, then schoolwork.”
“All right, sure.” He was scratching his head. “I’ll see you around.”
Charlotte climbed the stairs to the second floor, wondering whether Rashid had just asked her out in a roundabout way. It wasn’t so much what he said; it was the flow of the conversation. It had felt awkward, forced, like he’d been thinking about it before it happened.
She flicked on the light in her bedroom, grabbed a towel, then her bathrobe from the closet. In the bathroom she drew hot water for a bath, stripped out of her clothes, and lowered herself into the tub. She sighed half in pleasure and half in discomfort at the scorching heat and closed her eyes.
Someone knocked on the door.
Charlotte jerked upright, splashing water over the lip of the tub.
“I’m in the bath!” she said, hoping she’d remembered to depress the button lock.
“Uh, someone’s here to see you,” Rashid said.
Charlotte frowned. She’d made a few friends so far, but nobody who’d drop by without forewarning. Not even Tony had been by yet. She always went to his place. She said, “What’s his name?”
Dark Hearts: Four Novellas of Dark Suspense Page 14
