“This is all just junk,” Tucker grumbled, picking up a stack of blank printer paper. It didn’t even look like McCoy had a computer, much less a printer.
“Keep looking,” I said. “There’s got to be something. . . .” I grabbed the corner of a photograph and slid it out of the mess, careful not to dislodge anything else.
It was a picture of Celia and an older, dark-haired man with an arm around her shoulders. Both of them were smiling. Celia’s father, maybe? The man’s eyes had been burned out, the edges of his face crinkled and red.
But why would McCoy burn Celia’s father’s eyes out? Why would he burn anyone’s eyes out? How could anyone go this far down the rabbit hole without realizing they needed help?
And more importantly, what would he do if he found us here, looking through his things?
I stuffed the picture back where I’d found it, grabbed Miles and Tucker, and pushed them both toward the door. We needed to get out of here, now. “We’re not going to find anything else. Let’s go.” Eyes peeked out of the dark space under the desk. “Charlie! Come on!”
No one asked any questions. Miles pulled the key from his pocket and locked the front door behind us.
“Uh-oh,” Tucker said.
McCoy’s junker of a car trundled down the street. Miles shoved the key above the doorframe, then grabbed us both and yanked us off the porch. He pushed Tucker and me behind the dead shrubs that hugged the side of McCoy’s house, then ducked in after us. Sharp branches dug into my arms and head, and sweat trickled down my neck. McCoy pulled into his driveway, got out of his car, and went inside.
“Is he gone?” Miles whispered, his neck cranked toward me so the shrubs didn’t poke his eyes out.
“Yeah,” I said.
As quietly as possible, we climbed out of the shrubs and dashed for Miles’s truck and Tucker’s SUV.
Charlie wasn’t behind me. I jerked to a halt, pulling Miles with me.
“What? What is it?” he asked.
“Charlie! Where’d Charlie go?” I looked around, back to McCoy’s house. “She came out with us, didn’t she? You saw her come out?”
“Alex—” Miles pulled me forward.
“Miles, if she’s still in that house—we have to go back!”
He kept pulling. I dug my heels in. Stupid, stupid Charlie, had to follow us. I couldn’t believe her. I knew she was only eight, but I couldn’t believe she could be this stupid.
Miles grabbed my shoulders and dragged me to the cars, swung me around so I was pinned between him and his truck. Tucker stood behind him, his face twisted with that awful pity.
“Alex.”
Miles’s voice was low but forceful. His bright blue eyes pierced me.
“Charlie’s not real.”
Why did you leave?
Chapter Forty-nine
The world tipped sideways. “W-what?” I stuttered.
“Charlie’s not real. There’s no one there. There never was.” Miles pulled me around to the other side of his truck. The words buzzed in my ears, and everything stopped. The wind stopped rustling the trees; even the bug on Miles’s windshield froze in its tracks.
“No.” I tore my arm from Miles’s grasp. Shock radiated out through my limbs. “No. You’re lying. She was there— she was right there!” I’d seen her leave the house with us; I was sure. “Don’t lie to me, Miles. Don’t you fucking lie.”
“He’s not lying.” Tucker came around on my other side, his hands up.
“She’s real, Tucker. She’s . . . she’s got to be . . .” I looked toward McCoy’s again, expecting Charlie to pop out from the other side of the house, playing a game. I’d yell at her for scaring me, and I wouldn’t let her out of my sight again until we got home.
But she didn’t appear.
“Go home, Beaumont,” Miles said to Tucker. “I’ll take care of her.”
“Alex,” Tucker said again, moving closer to me. I stepped away, wiping my eyes. I couldn’t cry. Charlie wasn’t here. She was at home. But the more I wiped my eyes, the more tears spilled out.
Home. I had to go home.
I climbed into the passenger seat of Miles’s truck, buckled myself in. Home.
“It’ll be okay.” Tucker leaned through the window, holding my hand and speaking softly.
What was “okay”?
Miles’s door slammed. The truck roared to life. Tucker slipped away with the rest of the scenery.
Miles kept talking to me, but I couldn’t hear what he said.
She was just there. She had always been there.
The front door slammed against the hallway wall when I threw it open.
My parents were at the kitchen table. Eating dinner. Like nothing was wrong. Their heads shot up when I appeared in the doorway. I suddenly realized I couldn’t breathe.
“Charlie,” I choked out.
My mother stood first. She still had her napkin clutched in one hand, and she came at me with it like I was a baby who’d spit up. I backed away from her.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Alex, honey . . .”
“How can she not be real?”