“I see.”
Charlie’s sister looked at the final card, raised an eyebrow, and grinned. “Ooooh. Looks like there’s a taboo that you’re in danger of breaking.”
Charlie frowned. “Which card is that?”
Posey showed it to her. A religious figure sat on a throne in red robes holding up his hands as two monks knelt before him. The Hierophant.
* * *
That night, Charlie went down to the basement and took out the aerial silk that she hadn’t practiced on for months, the one that was supposed to keep her limber enough to slither through windows like the Grinch.
She strung the cloth up on a hook, shook off the dust and at least one annoyed spider. Then she climbed in and went through the old exercises. The ones she used to do every morning, before pickpocketing practice. She was stiffer than she used to be, but as her muscles warmed, she found herself relaxing into the rhythm of it.
On the wall, her shadow followed every pose.
24
SAD SONGS ON REPEAT
The next morning, Charlie brought a cup of coffee back to her mattress on the floor and finally returned the call from Rapture. They wanted her to come in the following night and then go back to working regular hours for the rest of the week.
Charlie was fine with that, so long as she could take off Saturday, for Salt’s party. Book or not, she was going to have to attend.
Then, after taking a huge sip of coffee, as the lazy golden light spilled over her worn sheets, she called the bursar’s office at UMass. A grouchy-sounding woman picked up.
“Can you look up my outstanding bill?” Charlie asked. “It’s under Posey Hall.”
“Hold on,” the woman said with a long-suffering sigh.
Charlie bit the skin around the edge of her thumb, trying not to play out the worst possible scenarios.
“It looks like you missed a deadline,” the woman said. “There’s a hold on your account.”
Charlie’s heart kicked up. “No, I had until the end of the month. I have the letter around here somewhere.”
“End of last month,” the woman said.
For a moment, all Charlie could do was stare at the wall. It was possible that Doreen had gotten her brother to do this, but it was equally possible that Charlie had made a mistake.
“I can get it to you,” she said. “Monday.”
“Monday, or you wash out and have to reapply for next semester,” the woman said impatiently, and hung up.
Charlie flopped back on her bed, looking up at the ceiling, trying to convince herself to keep going. If she stopped, she might not get out of that bed for weeks.
She dialed Vince’s boss, a story ready. But as soon as he picked up the phone, he launched into a tirade. “Tell that son of a bitch that he’s dead to me! You hear that? You tell him that he can’t just go on a bender and expect to have a job when he sobers up.”
“He’s not—” Charlie started, but he’d already hung up. And even if he hadn’t, he obviously had no idea where Vince was.
Three calls. Two hang-ups. Maybe she’d lost her touch.
Charlie sighed, letting her head fall back to her pillow. She missed him, and wasn’t sure she’d ever known him. She might be able to guess where Vince would go, but Remy Carver was an utter mystery.
But maybe not to Dr. Liam Clovin, who’d sold three valuable books to Paul Ecco. Who’d obviously known a lot more than he’d let on.
Charlie got up and started pulling off the sweatpants she’d slept in, her shadow following her motions. She watched it against the wall, stepping into panties, tugging its bra over its head, tying back its hair with an elastic band.
“We’re magic,” she whispered to her shadow, to herself.
There was no response.
“Are you hungry?” she asked.
As she moved her hand to her leg, the hairs stood up on the back of her neck and prickled all along her arms. She hooked a nail under the hard edge of a scab and pulled at it, like she was ripping off a Band-Aid. Blood came sluggishly, beading up and running off her ankle.
It never hit the floor.
* * *
After a breakup, it was normal to listen to sad songs on repeat. It was normal to spend hours staring at old photos and letters, or burning them on the grill, or even drawing devil horns on every picture you could find of your ex. Normal to eat an entire carton of ice cream on the couch and wash it down with a bottle of chardonnay. Normal to talk about the guy incessantly to your friends, to call his number just to hear his voice on the answering machine and then hang up without leaving a message.
But just because people did those things didn’t mean they were good ideas. More like pressing a bruise to check if it still hurt.
Going to bother your ex-boyfriend’s roommate felt a lot like one of those things people did but shouldn’t.
It took a few more calls, but Charlie discovered that Liam Clovin was a resident at Baystate Medical Center. That made getting to him more difficult in some ways and simpler in others. Charlie couldn’t just make an appointment and confront him when he came in to treat her for her bunions, or whatever.
But medical residents are famously exhausted, and exhaustion means limited attention. Liam was going to be concentrating on his job, which meant that he’d have nothing left over to detect a trap before it sprang.
Not only that, but Liam Clovin was on the cusp of all his hard work paying off. He’d sacrificed a lot of wild nights to get where he was, put in the time studying, took out loans. As a medical resident, he was so close to six figures that he must be able to taste them. He had plenty to lose.
Charlie had practically nothing.
There were several ways to waylay medical students, but the simplest was to hang out in the cafeteria around lunchtime. They might have lectures, or other duties keeping them from a particular hour, but if she waited, he’d get hungry eventually.
But to spot him, she was going to have to figure out what he looked like. Her initial searches online were fruitless. No photos of him with other medical residents at Baystate, although she scrolled through official images for the better part of an hour. He didn’t seem to even have a Facebook. Finally, she discovered a picture of him in Remy’s graduating class at NYU. There he was, Liam Clovin, red-haired, squinting against the sun. And not far off, Edmund Vincent Carver, looking straight into the camera.
Charlie pulled out clothes she used for this kind of role. A pale blue turtleneck to cover her tattoos. Her regular jeans. A brown bobbed wig that she could shove her hair under. Neutral makeup.
By the time she’d driven to Baystate Medical Center and parked as far out into the visitor lot as was possible, she’d slid into character.
Inside, she gave her driver’s license to the bored woman at the desk, and when asked, claimed to be meeting a cousin in the cafeteria. That part of the hospital was open to the public, so no one had any follow-up questions.
She asked for directions at the gift shop, her gaze checking for cameras as she went. There were plenty.
The Baystate cafeteria reminded her of the one at the community college where she’d taken two classes in psychology before dropping out and taking a six-week bartending course instead. It had steel counters, no surface that couldn’t be quickly wiped clean. The smells were familiar too—reheated frozen things in gravies thickened with cornstarch, milky chowder, onions, and hazelnut coffee.
Charlie found a table in a corner and waited. After the first half hour went by without incident, she got up and found herself a prepackaged ham with swiss on rye, a coffee, and a water. By the time Charlie returned, someone had snagged her table. She found a new spot, chewed, and checked her phone.