Bone Music

by Christopher Rice

  And she could see all this, of course.

  Maybe because he’d told her things about himself.

  Or maybe because he wore this truth about himself like clothes.

  Or maybe because she’d always been able to see these types of things about people.

  Isn’t that part of why he’d been such a dick to her back in high school? Why he’d fixated on her? Because what she’d been through had taught her things about the world most teenagers didn’t know. Or if they did know them, the knowledge had put them in a mental hospital. The fact is, even at sixteen, Trina Pierce / Burning Girl / Charlotte Rowe had been the type of person who could see through your bullshit, your poses. And that had made her scary and threatening. And also special. Remarkable.

  Back then he’d chosen fear. Fear and cruelty.

  But ever since then, he’d felt himself tilting in the other direction.

  Now he’s wobbling back and forth between the two like a metronome, and all he wants is his own shitty sofa in his own shitty house with a less than shitty beer.

  He’s turning into his driveway when his old roommate’s warning voice speaks up again.

  Uh-oh, dude. You’re totally into her, and you probably always have been.

  29

  After Luke leaves them in stilted silence, Marty says, “This is my fault.”

  “It’s not your fault,” Charley answers.

  “If I hadn’t made you go see him—”

  “You didn’t make me. You wanted to check him out; that’s all. I’m the one who wanted to see him.”

  Because I thought you were full of it, she thinks.

  “So,” Kayla interjects, “you think he’ll really be able to keep all this a secret?”

  “Will you?” Charley asks.

  “Attorney-client privilege.” Her smile is strained.

  “Seriously, though?” Charley asks.

  Kayla clears her throat, studies the ceiling while she works her jaw. Charley’s seen her perform this trio of movements before; it’s her usual routine when she’s trying to collect thoughts she doesn’t like.

  “Well, considering you haven’t made me aware of any intention to commit a crime—”

  “The hacking doesn’t count?” Marty asks.

  “She’s not doing any hacking,” Kayla answers. “She simply asked someone with a history of hacking to find someone for her. That’s all.”

  “Not just someone.” Charlotte feels guilty Kayla’s resorting to verbal acrobatics to defend her. In fact, she’ll feel guilty if Kayla stays here much longer.

  “True,” Kayla says. “So I guess what it comes down to are the specifics of what you’re going to do to this guy once you find him.”

  “You heard her,” Marty says. “She’s going to stop him from killing.”

  “Yeah, I heard her, and it’s vague.”

  “Well,” Charley says, “maybe when it comes to you, I should keep it that way.”

  “Suit yourself.” Kayla gets to her feet. She reaches into her briefcase and hands Charley a slender manila folder. “That’s everything I found on Graydon and Dylan Cody before you told me to stop. Most of it’s public. Some of it took a little digging. Do what you will with it.”

  She’s pissed; Charley can tell.

  “Kayla, there’s only one person in my life who’s done better by me than you, and that’s my grandmother. I can’t drag you into the middle of this. If you lost your career, I’d never forgive myself.”

  She nods, studies Charley’s face for a bit, her eyes unreadable. “That’s fair, I guess.” She surprises Charlotte with a strong, quick hug. “You know where I am if you need me.”

  So do they, Charlotte thinks, the pit of her stomach going cold as Kayla pulls away.

  Her lawyer’s got one foot out the door when Charlotte calls to her. “Do you think I’m crazy?”

  “No,” she answers. “I think this whole thing’s crazy, and you’re just adapting. ’Night, guys.”

  “I’m gonna miss you, Mothra,” Marty says.

  It takes Charlotte a second to remember Marty’s comment from the night before, the one comparing him and Kayla to Godzilla and Mothra.

  “Huh?” Kayla asks.

  “Ignore him,” Charlotte says.

  Kayla takes her advice.

  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 murder
s, 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.

  Good luck with your treatment, Burning Girl.

  The second she steps back inside, Luke’s words slap her across the face. Maybe because she’s standing in roughly the same place she was when he spoke them.

  There’s a rustling off to her left. Blinking back sleep and holding one of the biggest guns she’s ever seen, Marty emerges from the bedroom, hiking up his jeans with his non-gun hand.

  “You OK?” he grumbles.

  “Fine. Just bringing the guys some sodas.”

  Marty nods, gives her a thumbs-up. Draws his bedroom door gently shut behind him, leaving her once again with other men’s voices ringing in her head.

  First Dylan. Now Luke.

  Well, if she’s being technical about it, first Luke, then Dylan, then a second version of Luke, who claimed to be better than the first Luke. But in the end, they’re both men who barged their way into her head, insisting they know her better than she knows herself. Trying, she suspects, to bend her behavior to suit their own fears. She knows what makes Luke tick, or at least she’s pretty sure. For now Dylan remains a mystery, and she’s afraid if she learns too much, she’ll start making excuses for the bastard. Because sometimes that’s easier than admitting you’ve been betrayed.

  There’s only one way to keep the voices of both men from hijacking her every other thought. She has to make sure her own voice is louder. In her mind, at least. And she can think of only one way to do that right now.

  In a corner of the living room, there’s a compact desk Marty’s turned into an office area. It’s just a square piece of wood attached to the wall that folds up almost like a Murphy bed. Underneath it are some file boxes he’s pushed into a crazy arrangement that must give his legs some room to move. It’s more than enough for her. In the desk drawer she looks for some paper. She’s pleasantly surprised to find a couple of Mead college-ruled notebooks, one of which is completely blank.

  When she opens the cover to the first blank page, the impetus to turn her thoughts into ink gets lodged somewhere just above her wrist.

  The reason she’s never kept a journal is because she grew up terrified her father would find it and publish it somehow. By the time she moved in with Luanne, this fear had spoiled the act forever. Privacy, she was convinced, existed only inside her head. Diaries were for normal girls.

  But now her need to tell her own story is stronger than it’s ever been. Maybe because Luke tried to force his own definition of that story on her, and Dylan’s trying to bend it to an ending he’s designed.

  The memories overwhelm her now.

  Where does she begin?

  Maybe with the road trip she took after she won the settlement from her father.

  It wasn’t exactly a restful vacation. After the victory, and after she’d staked out a little town in Arizona as her new home, she’d driven to the grave sites of every Banning victim who’d died on the farm while she was there, including her own mother.

  If she couldn’t find out what the victim’s favorite flower was, she brought them white roses, and she sat with each of them for a good, long while, as if her new name, her new identity, gave her the space and the quiet to grieve them the way they deserved. They were all from the South, either tourists who’d unwittingly wandered into the Bannings’ hunting ground in the Chattahoochee National Forest or, like her mother, were on their way to visit family in a nearby city or town like Atlanta, Chattanooga, or Asheville.

  She started in New Orleans, with Cassie Murdoch and Jane Blaire, best friends buried together in one of those aboveground tombs so popular in the city. Cassie loved yellow roses; Jane was a big fan of peonies. She left them a little vase of each.

  Then she headed due east, to Pensacola and the grave of Jennifer Albright, a flight a
ttendant from Augusta, Georgia. If the Dateline special was to be believed, the fiancé Jennifer left behind ended up being a wonderful father to her two kids from her first marriage, but he didn’t respond to any of Charlotte’s e-mails about Jennifer’s favorite flower, so she got white roses. She shouldn’t have been surprised by his silence. The families of the victims had always resented her father for the Savage Woods films. She’d hoped the lawsuit she’d won against him might change their opinion of her, but maybe they just saw it as her own grab for profits, and not an attempt to break free and build her own life.

  Next stop, Knoxville, Tennessee, and the grave of Emily Connolly, a CPA who’d decided to take the scenic route to Gainesville, Georgia, for her first meeting with a man she’d been chatting with online. When she never showed up, the man she was scheduled to meet, Zach Pike, remained a suspect in her disappearance up until her body was unearthed on the Bannings’ farm. Charlotte and Zach had traded e-mails over the years—no surprise, given that in her own way she was also wrongly accused, by Hollywood, if not law enforcement—and that’s how she knew Emily liked tulips.

  Next stop, Atlanta. Her mother’s grave, which she’d visited countless times before, but since it was on the way to her last stop, she brought her another vase of stargazer lilies.

  Lilah Turlington and her boyfriend, Eddie Stevens, were the only mixed-gender couple the Bannings killed, but that’s not why Charlotte saved them for last. They were both buried in Asheville, North Carolina, and unless she wanted to go out of her way by several days, the drive there would take her closer to the “Murder Farm,” as the press had dubbed it, than she’d been since her rescue at age seven.

  She remembers the drive now.

  The mountains, low, rolling, and green, gentler and more inviting than the coastal peaks near Altamira. But within the seductive folds of their threadlike valleys, a place of nightmares had endured and thrived.

  She knew the farm’s main house was still standing, but the root cellar, where the victims had been held captive and raped, had been dragged from its foundation by the FBI during their search for buried bodies.