“Just tell me where—” Charlie began, but Odette cut her off.
“Don’t be ridiculous. Stay.” She headed into the back again.
Charlie sighed, and deliberately did not look at her shadow, which might or might not be moving. Which might or might not mean something. “I’m fine.”
“I know.” Vince squatted down next to her and ran his hands lightly over her arms, checking for cuts. His fingers were careful. Careful, like how he kissed. Not the rough, blunt pressure against a jaw.
“Vince?” she said.
He took her hand and smiled like any kindly boyfriend, one who didn’t believe he’d been overheard talking about magic. Who hoped she didn’t know, or wouldn’t mind too much about him being a murderer.
Odette returned with the kit, cell phone tucked against her cheek. “You know that if I had called you from a goddamn Fridays you would have sent someone immediately.” She dumped a lumpy red bag with the caduceus symbol unceremoniously beside Vince. “You think my tax money’s no good because there’s a whip painted on my sign?”
Vince searched through, took out a length of gauze, and then wetted it with soap and water from the bar sink. “There are a few pieces of glass I want to get out.”
“You better go,” she whispered to him. “Now.” He had a body in his van. It seemed impossible that the police would overlook that piece of evidence.
“Just a second.” He wiped off some blood.
He discovered what Charlie thought were probably eyebrow tweezers in the kit. Charlie wondered if there was emergency eyeliner in there too. Knowing Odette, very possibly.
The glass came out easily. At the sight of the shard, the gleaming blue of a Bombay Sapphire gin bottle, Charlie felt a bit dizzy. Part of her wished she’d taken a shot of something before he started, but the last thing she needed right then was to be slow-witted.
“If the police aren’t here in ten minutes, I am going to wake up the mayor,” Odette purred into the phone. “Mark my words.”
Charlie had no idea if Odette knew the mayor or not; it wasn’t impossible.
“I’ll see you at home,” Vince said. He didn’t stop bandaging her leg, his hands steady and sure, as though he’d done this before too, not just the murdering.
Charlie took a breath, let it out. The whole night had felt like one long tumble down a well. And she might still be falling. “Yeah, go. You have to go.”
Vince rose, put his hand on her shoulder, and then headed for the door in the back.
“Where’s your fella off to?” Odette asked. She was behind the bar, rummaging in the drawers, pulling out extra napkins and themed drink stirrers.
“He wants to avoid the local constabulary.” Charlie pushed herself up. “What are you hunting for?”
Odette raised her tattooed eyebrows, but when it was clear that Charlie wasn’t going to say anything more about Vince, she relented. “An ancient pack of clove cigarettes. I know I put some in here, maybe five years ago? Ten? I need something. My hands are shaking. Maybe I should take a gummy.”
“Maybe,” Charlie agreed.
“Would you like one?” Odette asked.
She was tempted but shook her head. She hadn’t taken a shot, so there seemed like no point in anything less immediately effective.
Odette got a plastic bottle out of her handbag, opened it, and popped a handful of THC gummies into her mouth. In about a half hour, she was going to be either unconscious or tripping balls.
“You okay not mentioning Vince?” Charlie asked her.
“I could be,” Odette said. “But I’d like it if you told me what kind of trouble he’s avoiding.”
“I don’t know,” Charlie said, inventing a whole backstory as she spoke. “He said it was from when he was a kid. We’ve all got stuff. What’s in the past doesn’t matter now.”
“Oh, honey.” Odette put her hand on Charlie’s arm, giving her a fond squeeze. “The past is the only thing that matters.”
The police arrived fifteen minutes later, sirens going as though they’d been in a rush the whole time, rather than moseying up fifty-five minutes after being called. Odette let them in. A detective named Juarez took down Charlie’s statement that a man had pushed his way in and trashed the place. He saved his eye-roll for when Odette explained that there were no cameras because she believed in the privacy of her patrons. No one said anything about shadows or magic.
Detective Juarez told them he’d write up a report and that a photographer and someone from forensics would come over tomorrow to document the damage. Then he gave Odette his card and said he’d be in touch. Personally, Charlie doubted Odette would ever hear from him again.
11
SOME BRIGHTER STAR
Charlie got into the Corolla and turned it on, letting the warm air from the heater wash over her. Resting on the passenger seat was a bag with the sparkly dress and wig that she’d brought to get in and out of the casino hotel. So much for her easy shot at Adam and the manuscript.
The time on her dash read two thirty. Her burner phone had a cracked case and three angry texts on it, culminating in a disturbing one that warned her if she was playing him, he was going to bash her head in. She tapped out an excuse about a car breaking down, but there was no confirmation of delivery. He’d probably blocked her number.
Meanwhile, Vince was waiting for her at the house.
Charlie put her head down on the steering wheel and took a shuddering breath.
At least her car had started. She drove the few blocks home, taking the long way that avoided passing the alley where she’d seen Paul Ecco’s corpse two nights ago.
Vince’s van wasn’t there when Charlie pulled into the driveway.
Of course it wasn’t. He was disposing of the body, and who knew how long that took or what it entailed. Charlie’s unhelpful brain supplied images from movies—concrete blocks tied to feet, acid baths, wood chippers.
As she got out of her car, stiff-limbed and shaking, she was reminded of how it had felt to come home from a job. She’d return from some carefully planned and frenetically executed heist to a world which she no longer seemed to belong. Like then, it felt surreal to walk through the same tiny front yard in need of mowing, across the same porch with an unplugged and dirty ghost lantern from Target lying on its side.
As she opened the door, exhaustion settled over her as adrenaline ebbed away.
Posey was standing at the stove, frying chopped meat and onions. She looked over as the screen door banged behind Charlie and gasped. “What happened to you?”
“Someone came into Rapture looking for a guy. The one I told you about, with the shredded shadow. I got knocked around a little.”
Posey put her hand on her hip. “A little?”
Charlie made herself shrug. “Could have been worse. What are you making?”
“Spaghetti Bolognese. Who cares? You want to tell me what’s really going on?”
She had to say something. And she needed a minute or two to figure out how to jump-start her brain. “After a shower. I’m soaked with liquor; it’s disgusting and stinging the hell out of the cuts.”
Posey pushed the metal spatula violently through the meat. “Where’s Vince? I thought he was going to get you.”
“I sent him to pick something up. Band-Aids.” A wobbly lie, given the hour, but they had become something of a nocturnal family. Bats, with their night work and their night feasts and their night-mart shopping. By the time he came back empty-handed, Posey would have the pressing matter of magic to worry about.