A minute or two later, they’re listening to her car leave the driveway as Charlotte rifles through the contents of the file.
Her attention catches on a color printout of some magazine profile of Graydon’s CEO, probably because it has the most photos. The man in question is seated on the edge of a sofa in a sprawling office that’s all glass, steel, sunlight, and cream-colored upholstery. His blazing-blue eyes practically bore a hole in the paper. The rest of his face is a collection of bones so sharp it looks like a peck on the cheek from him could draw blood. No suit and tie for this billionaire. But he doesn’t look like a scooter-riding tech mogul, either. Rather, his powder-blue dress shirt, the top three buttons undone over a hairless chest, along with his black designer jeans, make him look like a dad just home from the law firm on a network television show.
Cole Graydon’s his name, and the first few paragraphs of the article make it clear he inherited the company from his late father. No mention of the fact that he looks so tightly wound his head might pop off at any second and go spinning across the floor. Maybe it’s just the picture. Or maybe not. Charlotte recognizes the look; it’s been hers for years.
“Luke won’t blab about any of this.” Marty’s started reading over her shoulder. “Not with his brother in the middle of it now.”
“Here’s hoping.”
He uses his fingertips to slide the papers she’s not reading out from under the magazine article.
“And what about you?” she asks.
“What about me, darlin’?”
“Do you want out of this?”
“So your grandmother can rise up out of the grave and wring my neck? No, thanks.”
“She was cremated.”
“Fine. Tear me apart on the wind, then.”
“Seriously, Marty.”
“When’d you get this idea in your head that you’re some kind of burden to me? Never mind. Don’t answer that, ’cause I don’t care. Let’s just get it out. Let’s just reach in there with whatever it takes and get that thought off your mind for good.”
She studies his face, looking for signs of doubt. Instead she finds a warm, sincere smile that softens her chest. He opens his arms; she steps into them. And for a while she just leans into the embrace.
“Marty, do you think I was too hard on him?”
“He was out of line. He doesn’t know you well enough to say all that shit. And when he called you Burning Girl, I almost knocked his teeth out.”
“Still.”
He kisses her on the forehead, takes a step back, but doesn’t release her shoulders. “You got enough on your plate right now without having to worry about Luke Prescott.”
“Right,” she answers, but she’s not sure she’s convinced.
“Speaking of which . . . What do we do now, just wait for Bailey to get back to us?”
“Pretty much. And pray that Dylan and his friends let us.”
He nods, turns to the fridge. “Got you a sandwich from the Copper Pot. You hungry?”
“I’ll eat it later.”
“OK. Try to get some rest, Charley. I know Marcia didn’t find anything wrong with you, but I don’t figure wearing yourself out while you’re taking this stuff is gonna be a good idea.”
She nods.
But she doesn’t rest.
Nightmares aren’t her problem. They never have been. She suffers from a different kind of nocturnal affliction.
Sometimes, like tonight, right when she’s about to nod off, some horrifying image blazes big as a drive-in movie screen in her mind, and the end result leaves her feeling like she’s been snatched back from the edge of sleep by a giant claw. Sometimes it’s a detail from one of Abigail’s murders, committed just a few yards from where she was probably filling in a coloring book with crayons at the time. And sometimes it’s Abigail, clawing her way through a window, gripping the blade of her bowie knife in her teeth, her thick golden hair fanned out around her head like a lion’s mane. Other times her kidnapper waits patiently on the living room sofa, or hides behind the shower curtain, or tucks herself into the kitchen’s deepest pool of shadow.
They’re brief, these images, but when they come, they’re powerful enough to leave her awake and pacing the house for the next few hours. What saves her from them now is Marty’s trailer; it’s new and unfamiliar. Nothing inside this tiny guest bedroom—a glorified train compartment, really—reminds her of old abductors or old night terrors.
Instead she keeps seeing Luke.
She sees the hurt in his eyes before he steeled himself with anger and stormed out the door. Then she remembers his parting shot, his accusation that she was caving in to Dylan’s plans and not resisting them, and her anger shoots through the veins of her guilt like ice. Then, as sleep starts to tug at her again, the thaw begins, and the process repeats itself.
Hurt, rage, thaw. Hurt, rage, thaw.
Marty’s right. Luke doesn’t know her well enough to see inside her mind, to peek into her soul. If he’s right—even if this new plan means she’s giving in to Dylan’s deceit—he’s not the one to make that call.
Enough of this debate.
She swings her feet to the floor, pads into the kitchen, and makes short work of the sandwich Marty saved for her. He’s sawing logs in his bedroom, which can mean only one thing. A peek out the nearest window confirms it. Two of Marty’s buddies are standing watch. Sitting watch is more like it. They’re in a dark pickup truck in the driveway. Beneath the cloudless, star-filled sky, with the town twinkling below, they look like a moody California postcard.
She pulls some sodas from the fridge, drops them in a recyclable grocery bag she finds under the sink—two diet, two regular, just in case either guy’s watching his sugar intake.
When she knocks on the roof of the car, they both jump.
She’s surprised to find them awake and talking. The dashboard clock says it’s almost 2:00 a.m. After she shows them what’s in the bag, they step from the truck, introduce themselves with wide-eyed looks and tentative handshakes, taking the sodas like they’re unexpected offerings from a queen.
The wiry, balding one’s named Dale. He’s got dense tattoos peeking out from the sleeves of his AC/DC T-shirt. His partner, for the night at least, is named Lonnie. He’s older, but at first he doesn’t look it because he sports a mane of gray hair that’s not quite as healthy and full as Marty’s, but almost. The guy smells so strongly of cigarettes, Charlotte feels like she just took a puff of one. She knows a bunch of Marty’s crew, but these guys are newbies. She’s not sure if that means they’re newly sober or just new to the area. The thought that Marty might feel compelled to enlist the aid of AA members who are closer to their checkered pasts than he is makes her stomach knot.
For a while they just talk in the darkness. They sip their sodas hesitantly, give her looks both wary and curious that would probably make her uncomfortable in broad daylight. It’s empty chitchat, for the most part. About their lives. Where they lived before Altamira (Dale, Saint Louis; Lonnie, San Diego, Indio, and West Covina). For the most part, they don’t touch on the big stuff. The heavy stuff. Like whether or not they’re sober, and if they are, for how long. But the talk, idle as it is, soothes her, and the deference they show her doesn’t feel half-bad, either.
By the time she’s bid them good night and is heading back to the trailer, she’s thinking about how many conversations she’s had just like that her entire life. Conversations with folks who already know her story but are trying not to let it show. She always tries to do her best during those talks; meaning she tries not to twitch or say anything neurotic, or psychotic, or even forlorn. She always tries to look, for lack of a better word, healthy. Well. And even with everything that’s going on now, she reverted right back to form with Dale and Lonnie. Big smiles, safe, polite questions. Some of it fueled by genuine curiosity, most of it driven by a desire to appear stable and sane in the eyes of two men she doesn’t know.