“Now,” Salt corrected. “You will find that I am very serious.”
Remy gave Adeline a beseeching look, but she didn’t meet his gaze. She was looking out the window, her face carefully blank as though her thoughts were far away. She’d stopped fighting her father years ago. The price of disobedience was too high.
I could possess you without any needle, Red whispered. If you let me.
But his grandfather didn’t want to know what Red could do, he wanted to know what ketamine could do.
Then let me kill him.
No more murders, Remy thought automatically. All he needed to do was get through this unpleasant thing and then forget it. Shove more fear and anger into Red. And if sometimes Remy felt as though he’d given so much of himself away that there wasn’t much left, he was unwilling to contemplate any of the alternatives.
Remy flopped on the couch, shook off his jacket, and began unbuttoning his shirtsleeve.
Remy’s grandfather took a needle out of plastic packaging and removed the safety thing. Then he stuck it into the top of the vial and sucked up the clear fluid. He was having a hard time telling the difference between his and Red’s thoughts. They were running together in panic.
If Remy stopped breathing, no one would believe that he hadn’t taken ketamine at the club. That was the real genius of his grandfather, to set up things so that no matter what happened, he would never be accountable.
Then there was a sharp prick on the skin of his arm. He glanced at Adeline. She was watching him, her expression soft. And then he felt a sensation like falling.
He tasted blood, as though he’d bit his tongue.
The last thing he remembered was the sound of his own voice, turned unfamiliar in his ears. “No more Remy now. Only Red.”
27
THAT AWFUL THING I LIKE
When Charlie had moved out from her mother’s apartment, she figured that she’d finally be free of the fear and guilt that followed her through adolescence. But seeing her mother always brought its return, ready to fill the air to choking with everything unsaid between them.
She hated the feeling. Hated the long-stay motel where her mom lived because her credit was bad and her job history patchy. Charlie hated the better-than-average chance she was going to wind up living in a place just like it one day.
Lots of people lied to their mothers; there was nothing special about Charlie having lied. The problem was that her mother would never forgive her if she found out. Charlie had made her mom believe that the universe cared about her, that spirits had arrived to protect her in her time of need. If someone took that from her, she’d hate them. Even if it was the person who’d given it to her in the first place. Especially when those lies had made her mother susceptible to more lies from more liars.
As Charlie pulled the Corolla into the parking lot of Residence Suites and around to the side where her mom’s room was, her chest felt tight. This late in November, leaf peepers had stopped coming through the Valley, and no one was driving up from Connecticut to pick apples, so the hotels were mostly empty. There were plenty of places to park and no excuses to delay.
As she took the key from the ignition, Charlie noticed that there was some kind of small metal thing stuck to her keys. It took her a moment to remember that she’d taken it from the bottom of Vince’s duffel, thinking it looked like a watch battery. Apparently, it was magnetic.
Frowning, she tossed the keys back into her purse, magnet still attached.
Posey knocked. Bob, Mom’s current boyfriend, opened the door, took one look at Charlie’s swelling face, and yelled, “Jess!”
Their mother came to the door. She had been in high school in the eighties and still used a crimping iron faithfully. Her long, dry hair fell over her shoulders, rippled with ridges from the hot ceramic, and bottle-black. Her fingers were covered in silver rings and her eyes were thick with liner. “Oh no, what happened? And why do you have the cat?”
Charlie gave an abbreviated version of the story, omitting the theft. Mom was sympathetic, but it wasn’t lost on Charlie that, once again, she’d won that sympathy with lies.
“You should call the police,” Mom said. “Have them escort you home and arrest Adam. He assaulted you!”
Charlie didn’t plan on doing that, but she wasn’t above suggesting to Doreen that she would. Adam wouldn’t want them nosing around, what with his illegal dealings. Maybe it would get him to back off.
Once ushered into the motel room, Charlie let her mother steer her to the couch, while Posey found a perch on a barstool beside the kitchenette counter where she could plug in both her phone and her laptop. The place was essentially three rooms—a bedroom with a door, a bathroom that you had to go through the bedroom to get to, a kitchenette, a little bar-height table with two chairs, and a couch in front of a television. Cable came included in the week-to-week price, no extra charge.
Mom and Bob had brought in some furniture from previous residences. Two lamps Charlie remembered from her childhood, an unfamiliar but obviously not hotel-originated rug, some bookshelves, and stacks of Bob’s cardboard boxes of individually plastic-sleeved Magic: The Gathering cards, of which he had a lot.
He claimed that they were valuable enough that when he was ready, he was going to sell the whole collection and buy a house, but he couldn’t until he finished his legal battle with his old employer. Mission Trucking was the unambiguous cause of his back problems and had been court-ordered to pay for his insurance. They wanted to settle so they could wriggle free from their obligation, but Bob wasn’t taking less than a million.
He kept promising her mom that once he got it, they’d live in style.
It was his version of the big score. And about as likely.
“We need to put something on your eye,” Mom said. “Oh, honey, that doesn’t look good now, but it’s going to look even worse tomorrow.”
“I’ll get her some ice,” Bob said. “You get in a few good hits?”
Charlie laughed. “You bet.”
“Hope you kicked him where it counts.” He brought her a package of frozen peas, and she pressed them to her eye. Bob had a balding head and a paunch and wore a t-shirt proclaiming his love for the Ramones.
Having plugged in all her devices, Posey hopped down off the stool to get the cat some water in a plastic takeout soup container.
“So you two are going to spend the night,” their mother said. “I insist.”
With only days until Salt’s party, Charlie didn’t have time for a black eye or being stuck at her mother’s place. And yet the pain in her face was yielding to exhaustion. Besides, there was something she’d come here to find.
“You want me to get the blow-up mattress out of the station wagon?” Charlie asked.
Her mother shook her head. “No, you stay put. Your sister can go. Or Bob.”
Charlie got up, glad to have an easy excuse for her search. “I got it.”
A constellation of magnets covered the refrigerator. A few were from local businesses, and others were emblazoned with sayings like “All I Need Is Coffee and Wine” or “So Punk Rock I’m Out of Safety Pins.” Charlie grabbed the car key from where it was suspended and headed back out into the cold.
At almost sixty, Charlie’s mother had collected more stuff than was going to fit comfortably into the hotel, especially given Bob’s cards, which required a “climate-controlled environment” and were too important to him not to be kept nearby. And so, the back of Mom’s wagon was full of her clothes for the off-season, decorations, taxes, and, apparently, an air mattress. The bins were crammed in tight. One of them was marked “CHRISTMAS,” another “FAMILY PHOTOS.” Charlie found the stale-smelling plastic mattress under a tub marked “VITAL DOCUMENTS.”
That was what she’d come for.