“She doesn’t want it!”
It’s not exactly a shout, but it’s loud enough to draw the attention of the waitress, and it embarrasses Marty enough to turn his face red and make him reach for his fork even though his plate’s only got bits of pie crust on it.
“Look,” Marty says, once he’s caught his breath. “I appreciate you coming over and—” The man’s cell phone rings, and Luke figures he’ll ignore it. But maybe that’s not a luxury you can afford when your vocation is talking fragile drunks away from the bottle. Whatever number Marty sees flashing on the caller ID, it drains some of the recent color from his face.
He looks up at Luke, confusion in his eyes. It’s like he thinks Luke might have something to do with whoever’s calling.
“I gotta take this,” Marty says.
“You want me to go?” Luke asks.
Marty shakes his head, slides out of the booth, and gets to his feet. He takes the call and brings the phone to his ear. “Give me a second,” he says to the person on the other end. Luke watches as he peels a twenty out of his wallet and drops it on the table.
He’s a few steps from the table when he seems to realize he’s left Luke sitting there without much of an explanation. He turns.
“Later, Deputy Prescott,” he says.
14
The last time Charlotte slept this deeply, anesthesia was involved, and she’d woken up with her wisdom teeth removed. The shrill beeping that calls her out of slumber now is almost as unpleasant as regaining consciousness with bloody gauze in her mouth.
Almost.
The shades are drawn, but around their edges, she can see it’s almost dark outside. As Kayla walks toward the front door, she looks just as put together as she did that morning, which makes Charlotte feel like a drunk emerging from a blackout.
“Don’t be mad,” Kayla says, as if the prospect barely frightens her. An electronic peephole viewer is attached to the wall next to the door frame, about sixty bucks from an appliance store. Charlotte priced them out for her house before she found a system that came with cameras included.
Kayla studies the small monitor, sees whatever she’d hoped to see, and sends a text in response. Whoever this visitor is, she doesn’t want him to just walk up to the front door and ring the bell. Or she’s told him she won’t open the door for anyone who doesn’t also have her phone number.
A minute or two later, Kayla turns the knob.
Charlotte gets to her feet. She’s not sure whom she’s preparing herself for, but she’s sure she should be prepared.
When he steps inside the house, Charlotte’s breath leaves her with a startled grunt, the kind of sound you make when you almost knock over a water glass. Maybe it’s just the sight of him that does her in. Maybe it’s the smell of his Old Spice aftershave, familiar and nostalgic at the same time, wrapping her in a cocoon of such vivid, comforting memories she feels like it might keep her standing even if she let her knees go out from under her.
They’re fragmented, but her earliest memories of him are still vivid.
The memory of his face among the many others in that dull conference room where the psychiatrists brought her a few weeks after her rescue. The way he’d stood behind her grandmother’s chair with one hand resting firmly on her shoulder as Luanne cried softly into a Kleenex. They’d both tried to let her father lead the conversation, even though it was clear, even then, that her father was treating her like an alien being, a creature irreparably changed by her time on the Bannings’ farm.
The way he’d taken her hand and walked her down the stairs to the beach in Altamira during those first early visits to her grandmother’s after she was rescued.
Had there ever been a man in her life she could trust more than Martin Cahill, her grandmother’s on-again, off-again boyfriend? And what had she done? Turned her back on him because her love for him reminded her too much of her grandmother. Practically banished all thoughts of him because they summoned her grief. Now the sight of him, his snow-white hair brushed out over his back, his denim shirt perfectly pressed, his smile warm and welcoming and eager, it’s exactly what she needs to break the hard shell of shock that’s grown around her over the past twenty-four hours.
“Heya, Charley,” he says softly.
That he can manage to say her new name with such warmth, it makes her vision wobble.
At last her knees buckle. And when she tries to say, Hi, Uncle Marty in response, all that comes out is a deep, wrenching sob. With an arm around her waist, he guides her back to the sofa.
Kayla follows from a short distance. Before Charlotte collapses against Marty’s chest, she glimpses Kayla watching them from the doorway, her expression grave but relaxed, as if Charlotte’s breakdown is proof that calling Marty was the right choice.
15
“Arizona?” Marty asks. “What the hell’s in Arizona?”
“It’s beautiful,” Charlotte answers.
“Yeah, if you want to live on Mars.”
“Never been so I can’t compare.”
“Seriously, though. Arizona?”
Marty shakes his head, sips from the coffee Kayla just brought him before disappearing into the kitchen.
“I thought it’d be safe out there,” she says.
“From what? We took care of the Briffel kid the one time he showed up, didn’t we?”
Not well enough, she wants to say, but she knows that’s unfair. Jason never would have found her again without Dylan’s help. Marty and his buddies deserve credit for scaring him off her scent for a good long while.
“There are other Jasons out there. Message boards, websites about the Bannings. All kinds of stuff.”
“Tell me you’re not reading that crap.”
“How much did Kayla tell you?” Charlotte asks.
“That Jason paid you a visit. That it didn’t end well. That’s all.”
“I should have called you.”
“Well, it’s not like I would have been able to make it to Arizona in time.”
“No, sooner. I mean, in general. I should have . . .”
She’d managed to peel herself off his chest a few minutes before, but there’s only about a foot of distance between them on the sofa now. He reaches across it to smooth her bangs back from her forehead.
“You don’t owe me anything, kiddo. That’s not how it works.”
“How what works?”
“Family.”
Real family, is what he seems to be saying, unlike your father, who didn’t treat you like family.
“Maybe not, but I shouldn’t treat family that way.”
Marty shrugs. He agrees with her, but he doesn’t want to rub it in. Not when she’s like this.
And he came as soon as Kayla called. That means more to her than anything in the world.
She’d had lots of plans when she started her self-imposed exile: to get an online degree, to work up the courage to live in a big city again. Or maybe even to move back to Altamira once her grief for Luanne lost some of its darkness. All she needed was time, she’d thought. Time to gather confidence. Time to let her new name sink in and her terrible fame dissipate.
On some days she’d thought it would be as simple as letting herself age to the point where no one recognized her anymore, when the resemblance she bore to the young woman her father used to trot in front of crowds was a passing one. But would that come at a price? With each year it took to gather confidence and anonymity, would it become even harder to bring Marty or Luanne’s other friends, or anyone from Altamira, back into her life again?
After she’d fled to the desert, these questions tormented her. Now the answer seems clear. Marty’s right here beside her, and he came at a moment’s notice.
“How’s everyone?” she asks.
“Same. Pissed, though. Some developers said they were gonna open a big lodge out on PCH. Turned out to be bullshit. Couple folks went under because of it. Mona Sanchez is sheriff now.”
“That’s good. I liked her.”