Eyes Wide Open

Chapter Twenty-Eight





Charlie didn’t know what to do with the photos of Sherry’s gruesome murder.

He’d hidden them away—at the bottom of a drawer, with all his old music. And Evan’s sneaker.

He didn’t show them to Gabriella. They would only make her more distraught.

And he didn’t know what to make of them anyway. Or what they meant. Why would someone want to harm her? She was someone who wouldn’t hurt a fly. It was a message. After all these years. A message for him.

But what troubled him most was how they had even known where to find him.

His mind was jumbled, running wild with crazy thoughts and long-buried fears. Images he couldn’t put together or stop. The unsettling feeling that the walls of the past were closing in on him.

He was tired of hiding all these years. Tired of the fears, the guilt, the shame. Of having to protect his family.

From what?

Zorn knew of Evan. The old detective had played a role in Charlie’s past, more than thirty years before.

And Sherry—blond, sexy, free-as-a-butterfly Sherry—she was a part of that dark past too.

He sat there on the edge of his bed, head in his hands, afraid of where it was all going. Poor Evan . . . How he wished he could have him back. What hope was left for them now? Charlie knew his part would catch up with him someday. But Evan . . . Evan had been innocent. His innocent little boy.

Yet it had sucked him in too . . .

Charlie had let it.

And now the walls were closing in.

He went downstairs. Gabby was calling for the cat, putting out her food. “Here, Juliet. Here, my baby . . .” She noticed Charlie. “The stupid cat is missing. I haven’t seen her all day. Maybe she misses Evan. Maybe she knows there’s nothing here for her anymore.”

“Maybe it’s time we moved on,” Charlie said, out of the blue.

“Move on?” His words surprised her.

“Yes.” He was excited now. The thought of packing up and starting a new life seemed right. “Maybe we ought to get out of here . . . Go back to Miami. Or Vancouver. We know people there.”

“Vancouver . . . ?” Gabby chortled derisively. “Are you crazy, Charlie? That was twenty years ago. We just lost our son. We live on what the state gives us. We have to be here, Charlie. That rock has killed us. There is nowhere to go. Go where?”

He sat down and put his hands to his head, afraid to contemplate what might be happening. She was right. There was nowhere to go, only to wait. Wait for it to happen.

Go where?

“I don’t know.”