The investigators obviously didn’t find the loose floorboard that housed these appalling notes addressed to my aunt, or the Charlie tapes. If they did, I think we would have heard about them. If they meant nothing, they would probably be sitting somewhere in the Deschutes County cold-case room, collecting dust. These notes could have been the break they needed four years ago; her murderer is still out there and the police gave up. They let Liam go, and then they had nothing. It’s four years later and they still have no leads. The cops never found any evidence in her house that they could use to charge Liam. They searched his home too and nothing. Everything was a dead end. Maybe this is what they needed. Perhaps these notes were the connection to Liam. The cops never believed me. The cops were angry that I led them toward an innocent man. They lectured me, and so did my parents. I gave them a solid lead and they were ungrateful. They wouldn’t have known Liam existed if it weren’t for me. What thanks did I get? None.
I have to know what is on the Charlie tapes before I go to the police. They will question why the notes were in the box and why they were under the floorboard hiding. Why did Jenny feel the need to hide them? I need to know what I’m dealing with before I go to the useless PD. They had full access to Jenny’s house and they never found what was right under their feet. Literally.
I need to know what is on the tapes. Tomorrow can’t come quick enough.
CHAPTER 50
Charlie
August 2012
I wait for my parents to leave for work, then I sneak back over to the guest house. I move the table, pull the rug back, and pry the floorboard back open. I’m almost afraid everything will be gone when I look back inside. I’m relieved to see everything is as I left it last night. I can’t handle any more surprises.
Tightly gripping the fateful box, I pace the room, debating with myself. Should I listen to the tapes? What good is it going to do if I hear something that Jenny never intended for me to hear? On the other hand, if my tapes weren’t a big deal, then why would they be hidden in the floor? Jenny could have easily just have placed them with her other patients’ files. There is something I’m not supposed to know.
If I listen to the tapes, will I have more questions? Jenny isn’t here to give me any answers.
It seems like everything I do lately ends in more unanswerable questions. It’s like getting caught in a spider web; the more I move, the more wrapped up I get. I’m trapped.
The tapes. The box. The notes. Liam. Quinn. Asher. Jenny.
My personal hell.
I have to know. OK, just the first tape. I can find out what I’m dealing with, then I can decide if I should continue. I place the small cherrywood box of secrets down on Jenny’s desk. The first cassette is shaking in my hands as I push it into the recorder. Here we go. Pandora’s box has been opened. I can’t unhear what is on this tape. I bring my finger up to push play before I have a chance to change my mind.
Nothing. Static. Papers moving on the desk echo through the recording.
A hushed, whispered voice speaks. It’s Jenny. A chill runs down my spine. I’ve missed her sweet voice so much. It hurts.
“The date is April thirtieth, 2008.”
Tears rush down my face as I hear Jenny’s sweet, calm voice.
“Charlie has fallen asleep. I’m going to try a natural approach to hypnotherapy,” Jenny says with her voice lowering.
I wiggle in the chair. My feelings from just moments ago of longing to hear her voice shift to a different emotion of confusion. Why would Jenny do this? Maybe she needed to test out hypnotherapy for one of her clients and if she told me about it, it wouldn’t work? Maybe I was just part of a study for her. That must be it. Maybe she was going to tell me later, but never got the chance because someone took her life before she could.
“Charlie, are you awake?” Jenny’s soft voice whispers. The sound of papers rustling and then static again projects from the recorder. “Charlie, I need you to hear me.”
My own sleepy voice enters the room. “Eh? Go away. I’m sleeping.”
I don’t remember any of this. Is she in my bedroom? I don’t remember falling asleep at her house. I feel violated. She has to be in my room. It’s a very eerie feeling hearing your own voice saying words you don’t remember.
Jenny continues. “I’m going to need you to take a long, deep breath. Fill your lungs up. Keep your eyes closed but follow along. I know you are sleepy and that’s OK. Follow my voice. Let your breath out and now breathe in another long breath.”
A long pause of dead air on the tape.
“And now let it out. OK, good. Your eyes are heavy. Let all your muscles relax from your toes to your ears. You will feel relaxed now. Imagine your eyes getting heavier. Can you raise your hand for me?” Another pause. “OK good, now lower it.”
“I’m going to need you to count backward from one hundred with me,” Jenny says soothingly.
I obey. “One hundred, ninety-nine, ninety-eight, ninety-seven . . .”
Jenny counts down with me, repeating each number after I do. “Ninety-four, ninety-three. Watch as each number disappears. Watch it float away. Eighty-eight, eighty-seven . . .”
This is strange.
My counting continues down to eighty. And I stop.
“Charlie, can you hear me?” Jenny asks.
“Yes.”
“Can we talk about what has been bothering you?” Jenny asks directly, but with concern hovering in her voice.
Bothering me? What is she talking about?
This is not about her patients; this is about me. What the hell?
“No,” I say.
“Charlie, I’m going to ask you a series of questions, and I want you to answer them. OK?” Jenny pauses. “Are you worried about college at Oregon State?”
“No.”
“Are you excited about college, then?”
“I’m just excited to leave, but I wish he could come with me. Maybe he could transfer.”
Oh, my gosh. Am I talking about Liam to Jenny? My secret.
“Who is he, Charlie? Who are you talking about?” Jenny asks.
“My boyfriend.”
I’m shocked at the ease with which my secrets vacate my mouth without my will. I’m stunned by the betrayal from Jenny. Why couldn’t she just have asked me about all of this? Why did she feel the need to do this in such a sneaky way?
“I didn’t know you had a boyfriend. Who is your boyfriend?” Jenny asks nicely, although I’m sure she’s dying to shake me awake and demand I tell her my secrets.
“He is my . . .” My voice trails off.
A loud noise interrupts the tape. Perhaps a car backfiring or something. Either way, it sounds like it ended my session. The static on the tape stops.
I leave the tape playing. A few moments of silence, and then Jenny’s voice fills the air again. She is louder this time. I suspect she was in my room when she taped the session, and now, she is sitting in her office, just as I presently am. Sitting at her large oak desk in this very leather chair. I feel like I’m sitting on a ghost now.
“Session One with Charlie Faye.”
Charlie took to hypnotherapy quickly. She was open to answering questions without too much prying. Hypnotherapy is worth trying again until we get to the underlying cause of her panic attacks.”
Panic attacks? What is she talking about? I never had any panic attacks.
She continues. “We were interrupted by a noise outside that broke her trance-like state. Next session, find out who she thinks her boyfriend is. Maybe she is confused with a movie or book she is reading. She never leaves the house, so having a real boyfriend seems unlikely. Perhaps an online boyfriend? I will look into her browser history. Proceed with second session.”
What other sneaky questions do you have for me in tape two, Jenny? You sneaky bitch.
CHAPTER 51
Charlie
August 2012
Again, Jenny’s voice fills the air the moment that I press play on tape two. “The
date is May ninth, 2008.”
She goes through the same routine with putting me into my hypnotic state. I’m in shock now as I listen. I’m not even sure what emotions to feel anymore. I have gone through sadness, anger, and fear all in one day. I feel like I’m going to explode. I try to focus on my breathing as I listen, but it’s hard when I feel so much betrayal.
“Ninety, eighty-nine, eighty-eight . . .”
“Charlie, can you hear me?” Jenny asks soothingly and in a hushed voice.
“No.”
“Well, you responded. Can you hear me now?”
“Sure.”
“OK. So, you have a boyfriend now. Do you want to tell me about him?” Jenny asks.
“No,” I respond.
“Why not?”
“You know why.”
My voice sounds different from what it did on the last tape. I seem almost angry and very agitated. Why the change?
“No, I don’t know why. Can you tell me why?” Jenny asks.
“Nope.”
“Why not?” Jenny says with calmness in her voice, pressing me to answer.
“Because you know why.”
Wow. My sass. This doesn’t sound like me. I’m actually a little freaked out, like I’m in a horror film and my head is going to do a 360 and snakes are going to pop from my head. What is going on with me?
“I’m sorry, I don’t know why you can’t tell me, Charlie. Can you elaborate on why you’re feeling this way?” Jenny says, sounding so professional.
Silence and then static rips through the speaker.
“No. Mind your own business.”
“OK, that is fine. We don’t have to talk about that right now. How are things with your friends?”
“Not great.”
“Can we talk about that?”
“No.”
“OK. How are you feeling right now?”
“Angry.”
“Who are you angry with at school? A teacher? Mike or Zoey?”
I’m dying to know who I’m angry with. I have to be dreaming. She must be pulling answers from my dreams. I was sleeping when she rudely interrupted my thoughts. That has to be it, just dreams. Sure, my friends were annoying me, but I don’t think I would have chosen the word angry.
“It’s not at school. Don’t worry about it. OK.”
A long pause.
“Maybe he can transfer with me so he will forget about her. I saw them together, you know? He doesn’t love her. She is a fucking slut!”
My heart plummets to my feet. Why would I say that? Who did I see together? I’m even more convinced that it is all just a dream or perhaps a nightmare that she is pulling my so-called memories from. I couldn’t have known about . . . No.
“You know he hasn’t shared with me much since he met her. I will get him back, and she will be gone. I will win.”
“Who are you talking about? Where will she go?” Jenny asks. Her voice is anxious. I can tell my words have shaken her. They shook me. They have no meaning to me either, Jenny.
“She will just go away. Don’t worry about it.”
A loud, untamed laugh erupts from the tape. A high-pitch evil laugh, the kind you hear in movies. Is that me? I’ve never laughed like that before. That couldn’t be me. Goosebumps run up and down my entire body. Is it possible to be disturbed by your own self? Oh my gosh.
The recording pauses.
Just like the last tape, Jenny’s voice enters again with her post-session notes.
“I’m frightened by this session. Charlie wasn’t acting like herself. She says she is angry with someone. Who? I still haven’t seen her leave the house much except to go to school. Again, unknown who her boyfriend could be. Maybe it’s a boy she sees only at school. I wonder if she is confused with a book she is reading. Sometimes people get caught up in a book or television show, thinking it’s real life. They create an obsession with an alternate experience that never happened, but it feels real to them. Almost a state of delusion. Sadly, this tends to happen more in lonely people who avoid or have a hard time making friends or struggle to create genuine connections. I will have to look around her room and see what books she is reading and what movies or TV shows she has been watching. I still need to check her browser history. She used the word slut, which is not in her regular vocabulary. Continue with hypnotherapy.”
The sound of three long claps makes me leap from my seat. The noise is out of place.
Was that on the tape?
Three more slow but long claps echo through the house. Not from the tape. It’s coming from inside the house right now.
My eyes have to be playing tricks on me. It just can’t be . . .
“How are you here?”
CHAPTER 52
Charlie
August 2012
“How are you here?” I repeat my question.
“Well, you didn’t leave me any options. I had to come get my shit, didn’t I? Wasn’t that all part of your plan?”
Quinn is standing in the doorway. In my fucking doorway. How? Why?
“Quinn!” I shout. “Thank God you’re OK, but what the hell happened to you? Where were you and why have you been lying to me?” I stand up from my chair, pushing it up against the wall.
I’m grateful to see my so-called friend is OK, but I’m angry at the same time. She lied to me.
Quinn doesn’t respond. I watch as she struts into the house. She flips her perfect blonde hair behind her shoulders and takes a seat on Jenny’s couch. She looks untouched. Unruffled. Pretty and perfect. Not one scratch on her. I glance down at my arms, which are slowly healing.
I don’t give her but a moment before I leap back into my questioning. “Do you know I reported you missing, Quinn? I didn’t know what else to do?”
“Charlie, you shouldn’t have done that,” Quinn says disapprovingly. She looks at me with a pouty face, her bottom lip sticking out further than the top. I can’t help but notice her lip gloss. She had time to get ready and put herself together. She doesn’t seem like a woman who was missing or in danger.
“What did you expect me to do? You weren’t returning any of my phone calls and you never came back to the hotel,” I shout.
“Charlie, Charlie, Charlie, I thought you would have understood things better by now, but my dear, sweet friend you just won’t take a hint.” Quinn laughs as she crosses her legs and resituates herself on the couch. She pulls a decorative pillow over her lap and gets even more comfortable.
“I don’t understand,” I scream.
“Oh, Charlie. You never understand.”
“What is that supposed to mean? You’re not making any sense right now. I demand you answer me. Why are you lying to me, Quinn?” I plead.
“I’m not the one lying, Charlie.”
“Quit the games, Quinn. Just tell me what the fuck is going on!” I say, pounding my fist against the desk. It stings all the way down my hand and up my forearm to my elbow.
“So, this is Jenny’s place, huh, Charlie.” Quinn says, more in the form of a statement rather than a question.
“How do you know about Jenny? I never told you about her.”
Quinn ignores the question. “Ah, yes the infamous Aunt Jenny. The super aunt who could do no wrong.” Quinn’s words slice through me, cutting my soul in half. I fall back into my chair; I want to wither down to the ground and hide under the desk.
“Tell me now! Where were you? Who are you? And how the hell do you know anything about Jenny?” I scream.
Quinn gets up from the couch. She isn’t fazed by my outburst. She calmly walks around the room. I’m shaking; vibrating. I feel rage rising from my feet, rushing up my entire body. Quinn continues to slowly walk the length of the room until she is right in front of me, hovering over the big oak desk. She stares me directly in the eye, and then I watch her eyes change direction and move toward a picture on the desk. She points at the photo on the desk.
“Charlie, is this Mrs. Perfect Aunt Jenny?” Quinn says in a sinister voic
e. She picks up a framed photo of my mom and Jenny that was taken the year before Jenny died. I know the photo well. We have the same one framed in our house. It’s my mom’s favorite picture of Jenny.
“Yes, and that’s my mom,” I respond with my head down. A tear rolls down my cheek. I don’t want Quinn to see that she is really hurting me right now, although I suspect that is her intent, but why? Who would do the things this girl has done to a friend?
A malicious smile spreads across her face and her brow furrows. “Interesting. She is quite beautiful, like me, wouldn’t you agree?”
Narcissistic much, Quinn?
“Your mom is a little old-looking, though, but still pretty. Do you think she was ever jealous of Jenny? Were you ever jealous of Jenny? It’s clear that Auntie was definitely the prettiest one in this family. Wouldn’t you agree? I’m mean, look at her. She’s hot! Her long, thick brown hair, and dang look at that smile. Tall and skinny. The perfect female specimen. I bet all the guys flocked to her. How are you even related to her? I just don’t see it,” Quinn says all of this so casually, but she knows she is getting under my skin.
“What is your point, Quinn? Can’t you just knock it off? You’re really hurting me. Don’t you care about me?”
“Yes, I care about you, Charlie. Why do you think I’m here? I think, it’s time you play the last tape. You know that little box with the tapes labeled ‘Charlie’s Sessions.’”
I just found them yesterday. How could she possibly know that?
“Are you stalking me? Have you been watching me? I’ve been so worried, and you’ve been here the whole goddamn time!” I shout at her.
Quinn has a smug look on her face, and she starts twirling her hair around her fingers. “Hey Charlie, why don’t you pop in that last tape? Let’s take a listen together, shall we?”
“What! No! I don’t understand. Get out of my house,” I demand.
“Don’t you mean Jenny’s house?” Quinn taunts.
The Pretty Ones Page 18