Besides, she’d be damned before she rolled over for Lionel Salt.
She was going to have to con him. She wasn’t sure how, but she would have to beat him at his own manipulative game. Realizing she had to manage that or die trying brought her a great calm, like letting a riptide drag you away with it.
As she waved good night to Odette and got in her car, Charlie had the bittersweet feeling one gets just before leaving town. Bidding farewell to everything, because you’re not sure you’re going to see it again.
Charlie parked a block down from her house and walked over. As she got close, she saw lights moving on a screen inside. The television was on.
She slowed her step. Had Posey forgotten to turn it off before leaving? Was Adam so arrogant that he’d broken in to the house and then kicked up his heels?
Quietly she took the ladder from where it was leaned against the side of the house and set it against the gutters.
As she climbed up the rungs, she could see inside more easily.
Someone was in the house. In the shifting light of the television, she was able to make out a figure slumped to one side of the couch, as though he’d fallen asleep while waiting for someone to return home.
28
ABANDON ALL HOPE
Up on the roof, Charlie crawled over the asphalt shingles. The pitch wasn’t particularly steep and the moon was bright enough for her to see her way to the short faux chimney, with a metal grating covering the top. She pulled herself upright, looking out over the neighborhood for a moment, then, satisfied that no one was out on the street watching, she checked for bolts screwing down the cover. To her surprise, the whole thing lifted off. It was flimsy, like tin or aluminum. Looking down the chimney, she saw that the inside edges were lined in heavier metal strips.
And there, attached to one side, was a steel box with a lock on it.
Her heart stuttered. Stealing had often been a game to Charlie, one where her cleverness was pitted against that of the person who’d hidden the prize. Solving their puzzle was the goal, and the thrill. But as her hands reached for the box, what she felt was uneasiness. She couldn’t shake the feeling that the darkness itself was watching her, waiting to strike.
Charlie pulled the box free, sending two of the magnets falling down the flue. They made a clanging sound that she hoped wasn’t amplified inside.
For a moment, she went still, listening.
No sound from inside. Was it Adam? Certainly, he’d been angry enough to break in and trash her place, looking for Knight Singh’s book. But she didn’t think he had the patience to wait more than twenty-four hours for her to return.
Vince, however, had fallen asleep in front of the television like that loads of times.
Maybe he was ready to tell her the truth. Or maybe he’d come up with a fresh bouquet of lies. He wouldn’t know what Salt told her, or what she’d ferreted out on her own. He certainly wouldn’t know that she’d already stolen his prize. It’d be satisfying to explain how wrong he’d been about her and Adam.
It made her a little giddy to think of having another fight with him. It made her want to put on lipstick.
Carefully, she crawled back to the ladder and slid down, box cradled against her, wincing at the sound of the wood creaking.
Quietly, she eased to the ground and padded through her neighbor’s yard, staying away from the light. At her car, she stuffed the metal box under the front seat.
What she ought to do was leave. Go back to her mother’s motel room and try to jimmy the lock on the box. But the combination of hoping for Vince and hating Adam lured her.
She crept back to the house. It was odd to evaluate her own place like a burglar. But the first thing she tried was the first thing she always tried—the front door. She turned the knob and found that it was unlocked.
Posey might have left it open when she ran out. And Adam could have broken in another way and then used the front door if he’d left and come back. But the simplest explanation was that Vince had used his key to let himself in and hadn’t locked up after since he expected Charlie home later that night, after she’d finished work.
She reached up to smother the sound of the bell on the screen door as she eased it open. She slid through the kitchen, pausing to pick up a heavy pan with little pieces of burnt noodle attached to it, just in case.
A few steps more, and she stopped in the doorway to the living room. It was the smell that hit her first, the odor of decaying flesh that made her gag. There was something dark smeared on the walls.
The body on the couch was too still. Dread turned her limbs to lead.
Vince.
Her trembling hand went to the light switch and everything became obscenely clear.
Writing in blood, thick and clotted, covered the walls. In some places caught with hair. The words continued high up on the walls, where a human hand couldn’t reach.
On the couch, Adam’s body lay cracked open, ribs exposed. Charlie stared at the open cave of his chest and the too-dry mess of his insides. At the tattered sail of his shadow, flying off the mast of his feet.
Her gaze went back to the walls. Over and over. The same word in finger-painted letters: RED. RED. RED. RED.
* * *
Charlie was still in that doorway when the police arrived. She wasn’t sure she remembered calling them. She didn’t remember how long she’d been standing there.
“You,” one of them said, hand on his gun. “Drop what you’re holding. Hands in the air.”
She discovered she was still gripping the pan from the kitchen. She let go. Distantly, she heard it clang as it hit the floor, but that felt very far away. Outside, the strobe of blue and red lights added another layer to the surrealness of the moment. She raised her hands.
It wasn’t that Charlie hadn’t seen a corpse before. She’d seen two in the last week. But this belonged to someone she knew. Someone who’d been murdered in her living room. His blood soaking her secondhand couch, which they were going to have to throw out. The rug would have to go too. Maybe she should just burn the whole place to the ground and let her landlord get the insurance money.
Another cop—a woman—crossed to Charlie and patted her down. The buzz of radios in the background and muttered conversation made it hard to focus.
“This is your place?” the cop demanded, obviously having asked the question twice. “Are you the one that called this in?”
“Yeah, I think so,” Charlie said. “Yes.”
“Did you kill him?” one of the others asked her.
Charlie laughed, which wasn’t a great look. “You think I could do all this?”
They exchanged glances.
“Did you?” the woman asked.
“No. I just got off work. My sister and I were at our mom’s place all yesterday.” She kept her hands up and open.
A photographer from forensics came in. At least Charlie thought they were from forensics. She wondered if someone would have to climb up the walls and get those invisible hairs. She wondered if the police would recommend someone from Vince’s company to clean this all up once the body was gone.
“Did you know the deceased?”
She nodded. “Adam Lokken.”
“He live here? Your neighbor said a man shared the place with two young women.”
Charlie considered what she could say. No matter what name she gave, his prints were all over the house. The minute they ran them, they’d discover Edmund Carver wasn’t dead. And they would believe he was the killer. “That was my boyfriend, Vincent. But he moved out.”
“Last name?”
“Damiano,” she told them, wondering if such a person even existed.
“What’s with the message?” one of them asked. “Do you know what it means?”
RED.
The color of blood. The name a boy gave his shadow.