“I wanted to start over.” Vince’s voice stayed soft. “With no part of my old life. I didn’t want you to see me the way I used to be.”
“That’s a good line. But it doesn’t explain how you’re supposed to be dead,” Charlie told him. “Or how everyone’s looking for a book you stole, including the guy who tried to kill me. Too bad you didn’t keep that in the duffel in the back of our bedroom closet, along with your real license.”
“You went through my things?” The sudden flatness of his voice was unnerving.
But Charlie rushed on, all her hurt finally alchemizing into anger. “That’s right. I found the license. And then I found the newspaper story about how you murdered a girl, and then yourself,” she said. “You want me to feel bad about invading your privacy?”
“Yes,” he said, rubbing his hand over his face. “A little. I don’t know.”
“You know what else? I heard everything you said to Hermes. All of it. That’s when I knew you were lying. And now I know why you killed him—because he recognized you.”
Vince shook his head again, as though he could shake off her words.
“Go on,” she said. “Deny it. Tell me you’re not a pretend person in a pretend relationship.”
“Is that what you really think?” His eyes were bright with a fury she’d never seen before. Shining with rage.
It made her hesitate. “What am I supposed to think? How many people did you kill for Lionel Salt?”
“Lots,” he said, and closed his eyes.
She stared at him in horror. “The girl?”
He shook his head. “No, not Rose.”
“How about the man they found in the car? The body you let everyone think was yours?” Her voice was as cold as she could have hoped, and as relentless.
“I couldn’t make myself stop—” he began.
“—killing?” she finished for him. “My hand slipped and it happened to have an axe in it! Again. Whoops!”
“I’ll go,” he said abruptly, and turned toward the hall to their bedroom.
“You’d rather leave than answer?” she shouted after him.
He kept walking, his hand going to the wall at one point, as though he needed to catch himself. Of course he was going to go. Of course he was only there when she was easy, when everything was easy.
The cat followed him, tail lashing in an accusatory manner.
Charlie followed him. “Okay, where’s the Liber Noctem? How about that? Everyone wants to know. Hermes did.”
“What, so you can steal the book from me?” he asked, yanking open a drawer.
“Ideally,” Charlie told him from the doorway, watching him start to stuff clothes in a bag. “It would sure make me a lot of money.”
He stopped packing. “Salt is playing a game, and someone is playing a game with him. They want to make pawns out of all of us. The worst thing anyone could do is find that book.”
“Okay, explain,” she said. “Tell me what’s going on.”
“I can’t,” he told her.
“You don’t want to,” she said. “You never wanted me, did you? You only wanted somewhere to hide out and lick your wounds. You never loved me.”
He looked as though she’d slapped him. Then something in his expression shifted, became a locked house at night, alarms set. “What do you know about love?” he said, hefting his duffel onto his shoulder. “I wasn’t the only one who lied.”
Charlie opened her mouth, but of all the things she had been ready to answer for, that hadn’t been one of them. “Maybe I didn’t tell you everything about me, but that’s not the same as pretending to be someone—”
“You’re right,” he shouted, interrupting her. It was frightening to see him let go after so many months of restraint, and there was something in his eyes that made her wonder if he was afraid too. “I couldn’t give you what you needed. I kept things from you. Even if you didn’t know what was wrong, you could tell there wasn’t enough of me. I wish I could say I was sorry, that I wanted to be honest the whole time, but I didn’t. I never wanted to be honest. I just wanted what I told you to be the truth.”
“Tell me anyway,” she yelled back, unwilling to back down. “Be honest now. At least you owe me that.”
“I don’t,” he said. “I won’t.”
“Fine, then fuck you. Run away. That’s what you do, right? Go find another stupid girl to con.”
The cat lunged and climbed halfway up Charlie’s ankle and bit down on her calf three times in succession.
“Ow! Shit!” she shouted as Lucipurrr leaped away, racing into the other room. “The fuck is your problem, cat?”
Vince smiled, eyebrows going up, and Charlie laughed. A moment later, she was furious with herself for laughing, and with the cat, for being a demonic asshole, but she couldn’t help it. And in that moment, she wondered if maybe she was wrong in thinking she didn’t know Vince, that maybe there was some truer truth beneath the lies.
There was still a trace of a grin on his face when he turned away from her, duffel over his shoulder.
“It’s not what you think,” Vince said, from the mouth of the hall. He didn’t turn, so she couldn’t even try to interpret his expression. The humor had left his voice, though.
“Oh yeah?” she called after him. “Then why are you leaving?”
“Because it’s worse.”
A few minutes later she heard the screen door bang.
Charlie had to press her nails into her palm to force herself not to chase after him. Then the engine of the van started. Then the sound of tires on the crumbling asphalt of the driveway.
Charlie kicked the dresser. It hurt her bare feet more than she hurt the chipboard. She kicked it again.
Not only was there something so deeply wrong with her that the guy she’d been sure was a good person turned out to be a murderer who faked his own death and also the grandson of a person she hated, but even that guy left her.
She was a poisoned well of a girl.
Charlie kicked the dresser a third time for good measure.
And yet she wouldn’t unknow any of it. She would have still stolen the receipt. Called the bookstore. Whispered mangled French. Gone through his stuff. That was her problem. Charlie Hall, never satisfied unless every last carcass was turned over and every last maggot revealed.
No, she was going to not think about the last forty-eight hours. She was going to rob Adam and then turn him over to Doreen, just like she’d planned. At least Charlie could torment someone else’s terrible boyfriend, since she no longer had one of her own.
Charlie vaguely remembered that she wasn’t supposed to want to do things like that, but that was back when she was trying to be good.
Trouble had found her once again, and she was ready to welcome it back. And if Adam happened to have the Liber Noctem, if by some chance he’d lifted it off Vince, so much the better.
Revenge on everybody. That would fill her time. That would keep her busy. Keep her from feeling her feelings.
If she couldn’t be responsible or careful or good or loved, if she was doomed to be a lit match, then Charlie might as well go back to finding stuff to burn.
17
DO NOT DISTURB
One wonderful thing about heists was all the attention they absorbed.
When you were going to steal something or con someone, you couldn’t think about your quickening shadow and whether to feed it blood or starve it back to sleep. Couldn’t think about Vince’s last words, or the way he’d looked at you when he’d come in from the store, grocery bags still in his arms.
What do you know about love?
Couldn’t think about how she’d left the food on the counter and it was probably rotting.
No, she had to put aside whatever pain or trouble or sorrow she had. Table all her feelings until the work was done.
It stung to admit how right Rand had been about her, all those years ago. She’d taken to the hustle like a tiger takes to water, finding in it a respite from the heat.
Balthazar was right too. This was the only thing she’d ever been good at.
* * *