“Again, I don’t remember,” I say, my tone sharper. “What were you saying about Charlie?” She takes a breath, dragging her eyes from my wrist back to my face.
“I was saying that seeing him scared the shit out of me. He’s seriously fucked up, that one,” she says. “If I were you, I’d get the hell away from him as fast as you can.” Then she frowns, looking worried. “Do you have flights back? Because I can book you. I have a guy. He can hook it up for cheap. Like less than two hundred. He’s got an in at United. You should go, really,” she says. “I don’t know where Charlie is now, but I’m pretty sure he’s still in Bangkok. You should go before he finds you.” The last line sounds like a warning, and I tense. I’m quite sure there’s something Dana isn’t telling us.
“What do you know?” I ask. “What aren’t you saying?”
Dana brushes on a quick coat of mascara but doesn’t answer me. “I’ve gotta go,” she says, then stands up quickly. “That’s all I’ve got for you. Sorry.” Aubrey and I pull ourselves to our feet. My heart is beating fast, and I feel the back of my neck dampen.
“No,” I say. “There’s something else. I’m right, aren’t I?” Aubrey looks uncertainly from me to Dana. I’m blocking Dana’s path to the door, and a few of her friends are giving us wary looks. I’m not sure how long my confidence will hold.
“Look,” Dana says quietly. “There might be more. But you don’t want to know it. Take my advice and get on a plane soon. Tomorrow. You can stay here tonight. Just stay here while I’m gone. You’re safe here for now. I’ll hook you up with tickets, but you’ll have to give me a little incentive.”
“My ring,” I blurt, pulling my sapphire band off my right hand. It doesn’t matter now that I’m losing an heirloom; all that matters is getting home. Dana examines it closely while Aubrey watches my face. Finally, Dana nods. I breathe a sigh of relief but place my palm over her hand, the one that cups the ring.
“I’ll give it to you when you hand over the tickets,” I tell her.
Dana releases the ring from her grasp without hesitation. “You seem like nice girls,” she says. “So get the hell out of here as soon as you can.”
23
Charlie
You know it’ll take something else, something more than just an explosion and poof, vanished. There’s your mom, for one. She’s not dumb, and she cares. She cares more about you than you’ve ever cared about anyone. You know she won’t settle for a downed plane and a missing body—she’d have the cops plus a dozen private investigators all over that one until the money ran out, and the money isn’t ever going to run out.
And there’s Aubrey. She has so much hope underneath her fragile shell. She acts like she’s made of something hard, but glass shatters if you want it to. She wants you to care, she wants you to show her, she wants you to visit her, she wants you to be this thing she can parade in front of her parents, but she needs you to keep up the act even though you know she knows there’s something going on with you that she can’t explain. She needs you to stay alive for the sake of her guilty conscience. Because if you were dead, it would destroy her. She’d feel responsible because of what she did with Adam. You’ve known about her and Adam for a long time, even before she finally confessed. You know all about her guilt. She needs to feel like a good person, even if she’s a cold, heartless bitch.
You used to be a good person. You don’t know what happened. You don’t know why you couldn’t manage it all, the way your father manages things. His lives, his homes, his mistresses.
For all this to work, you need your mom to let go of you and you need Aubrey to hang on.