I nod. I know she’s right. But in the back of my head, I’d really like it if she’d send the person responsible to the morgue.
chapter 50
After I’m done with Gekas, I go home. I’m wiped. All I want to do is to lie down and sleep the night away. I’m not sure if I’m ready for Mom and Dad, so I hope I can sneak inside.
Ollie greets me, giving me all the unconditional love I need. I toss my bag on the floor by the shoes at the kitchen door and give him a good rubdown.
The house is quiet. I’m sure Dad is here somewhere and Mom is too, but I don’t want to get into anything. I’m dreaming of the old days when I could make it through a day with only good old uncomplicated teen angst to be concerned about. The normal stuff. Not the parent-fighting-cop-questioning-girlfriend-missing stuff.
Yet, I don’t even get a hello and it stings. Sheri’s disappearance opened a hole in my life and it keeps getting wider and I feel like I’m going to tumble in and never return.
Maybe it’s time to allow some small semblance of normalcy back into my life. Since there’s no supper cooking, I leash the dog and put a plastic bag in my pocket. But before I get outside, Dad calls from somewhere in the house.
“Son?”
“Yeah…” I wait for a moment.
“Where are you headed?” He can be so casual, so passive-aggressive sometimes. I bet what he means is “don’t even think about leaving without saying where you’re going before dinner.”
I try not to sound defensive as I call back, “It’s still a bit early. I was taking Ollie for a walk.”
Silence. Ollie looks impatient and I feel it too.
“Your mom’s picking up Thai on the way home from the clinic. She’ll be home about 7:00.”
“Got it, Dad.” I look down at Ollie. “Come on, boy. Let’s get the hell out of here before he says anything else.”
We head for the creek and walk along the path. The sun has sunk still further and it’s cool out. I pull my hood over my head and settle one hand into a pocket. Ollie walks without pulling and sniffs at everything. He doesn’t leave a tree trunk, bush, or leaf unturned.
I mull over these past few days with Charlie.
Damn, he’s different. Not someone I’d hang out with. He doesn’t think like anyone else I know and some of the things he does—the way his brain works—he doesn’t care or give a crap about what’s right or wrong, or what should or shouldn’t be done. I worry that one day he’s going to cross a line and end up in a whole heap of trouble and I might be around when it happens.
He’s led us—where exactly? He assumes Sheri was attacked in the bathroom on the trails and that Maggie died in the bathroom at the school. But there’s no hard evidence to back up either of these suppositions. All we have for it—no, all I have for it—is a huge fight with my parents, skipping school and practice, and dealing with Gekas while we mess up her investigation. He was wrong about her, and every step forward I make with Charlie wrecks everything else in my life.
And I don’t think we’re any closer to finding out what happened to Sheri.
Still, my gut says that I should pay attention and keep him around. And that scares the crap out of me. That seems unstable. Everything in Gekas’s file makes him a straight-up sociopath, if Ms. Statten’s psych class has taught me anything.
But if Charlie is right, maybe it’ll take someone like him to find this killer. Psychopath, sociopath—aren’t they all the same disorder, one’s just a little further off the rails?
Charlie’s got something on his mind, something going on in his head, and I need to trust him. And now that Gekas knows about us, I wonder if I should warn him. Would it even matter? Would it slow him down? Or stop him? Or would it just push him to do more?
I open my phone, and bring up Hot Diggity.
Gekas knows about you.
I’m sure there’s more I should say but I leave it at that.
Ollie finally does what he came out for. I pull a bag out of my pocket and do the good pet-owner thing.
“All done, buddy? Should we go a little further?”
I’m not in a rush. The only thing waiting for me is take-out and an awkward supper with the parents, followed by a huge, heaping load of homework.
I walk a little further, enjoying the cool wind, the last of the sun, and the auburn trees. I take a deep breath in and close my eyes, the smells of walnut and rich spice spinning in my head.
I open my eyes. A leaf falls from a tree and lands on the path and Ollie pulls me ahead to greet it.
chapter 51
My prediction for an awkward supper is a hundred per cent on the money.
Mom and Dad talk about their day. Dad’s wrapped up the contract he’s working on and Mom’s made some calls to hiring agencies for a new receptionist. It’s all small talk—nothing with real meaning—and dead air fills the room.
I miss Heather. She’s out tonight, but if she were here, she could at least share tales of university and make it a little less uncomfortable. It hasn’t occurred to me until this moment that maybe she’s skipped this family meal on purpose.
I know I would have.
None of us bring up yesterday. By now they likely know I’ve missed most of the afternoon at school again. They probably haven’t asked how my day went, fearing I might lie—or worse, tell the truth.
I’m guessing that if they ever met Charlie, I’d be grounded for sure.
The Thai food is tasty and since there are no dishes, clean-up goes faster than normal. Which is good, since all I want is to get out of here as fast as possible.
In the safety of my room, I shut the door. I sink heavily into my desk chair and stare at my bag of homework. It feels like forever since I cracked a book or did anything school-related. I’ve got assignments from every class.
The right thing to do is to cut ties with Charlie, let Gekas do her job. I can go back to my ordinary life of school, practice, and regular meals with my folks. In a week or two, life will go back to normal, and maybe with Charlie and me out of the way, Gekas will find Sheri’s killer.
I pause on that thought. Somewhere along the way, I’ve come to terms with the worst possible scenario. I’ve accepted that Sheri isn’t coming home, and sadly, it’s almost a relief.
I sway in my chair, looking at the books stacked high on my desk and sigh. I pick up my phone and see a message from Mike and another from Jessica. Both are asking me to come to the party this weekend.
I’m not in the mood to socialize.
I’m not in the mood to do much of anything.
I turn off my desk lamp and my room slips into darkness. I lie back on my bed, headphones on, and go to my playlist. I cue up some music and open a mindless first-person shooter app. I’m in my own little bubble, listening to Run the Jewels, defending the Earth from an alien invasion, letting everything else fall away.
chapter 52
“Anthony!”
I’m jolted out of sleep. My earbuds lie somewhere beneath me, and my phone is nowhere to be found. I look at the clock. It’s almost 9:00 p.m.
“Anthony!” Dad yells at me from downstairs.
I go to the door, unwilling to leave the safety of my room. “Yeah?”
“There’s someone here to see you.”
I run through the list of who it could be, and although I wish it were Mike, or even Gekas, I’m sure I know who it is.“Be right down.”
At the bottom of the stairs, I take a quick peek around the corner.
Damn.
Charlie Wolfe is standing in my front hall and Dad is right there, talking to him.
“I read The Spy Who Came in From the Cold and thought, ‘Whoa, this is great. I need more of this.’ ”
“You should read Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. I found it most satisfying.”
“I hated that one. I kept waiting for some
thing to happen. It’s like Le Carré was being obstinately obtuse.”
Dad’s quite a bit taller than him, but Charlie holds his own, not seeming intimidated at all.
“What about craft and subtlety?”
Charlie laughs. “What about a good story? And the mole? I knew it was him all along.”
I can’t believe my ears. Or my eyes. He’s here, standing in my house, arguing with my dad. I want to ask how he knows where I live but it might be better if I don’t.
I need to cut in. “Hey.”
They both stop and look at me.
“Oh, Anthony. Charlie here dropped by to check on you.”
“I see that.”
“Hey,” he says, nonchalantly.
I think I want to punch him.
I nod back, and the most silent moment of silence follows.
Dad stands between us, waiting, and finally he can’t take it. “Well, I’ll let you two chat. Charlie, it was nice to meet you. If you get a chance, try The Secret Pilgrim.”
“Thank you, Mr. Shepherd. I will.”
Dad goes back into the family room. I watch him go.
Once he’s out of earshot, I close the distance between me and Charlie. “What the hell was that?”
“What the hell was what?”
I don’t have time for his bullshit. “What are you doing here?
“Maybe we should go outside.”
chapter 53
Charlie and I stand on the front step. Getting him out of the house makes me feel a little better, but it’s dark out and I shiver in the cold.
Charlie nods at me. “You should have put a jacket on.”
“Why are you here? What’s going on?”
“Your dad seems nice.”
“I know he is, Charlie. Answer the question.”
“I never knew mine.” He looks up at the porch light and I think he’s genuinely sad.
I soften. “What’s going on?”
“I think you should stay in for the next couple of nights.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Don’t hang around me. Get back to your usual schedule. Go back to practice. Hang out with your friends. Then come home, do your homework.”
“Where is this coming from? Is this because of the text?”
He’s distracted, his mind struggling to catch up to the conversation we’re having. “Oh, yeah, the text. I figured as much.”
“Gekas knows everything we’ve been up to so far,” I say, debating whether or not to tell him everything.
He beats me to the punch. “Did she show you my file?”
I don’t answer and he smiles. “It’s thick, huh? Every cop likes to show that off when I go in, thinking it’ll scare me straight.” He shakes his head. “Everyone—school, cops, parents—expects us to want redemption. You know who doesn’t care? The kooks out there hurting people who try to play it straight.”
The look on his face reminds me of the first day I met him, but I’m exhausted and now I can’t keep up with the conversation. “Charlie—?”
He pulls out the gas station map he bought earlier in the day. He unfolds it quickly and I see he’s labelled it with a marker.
“Sheri disappeared here,” he points. “We don’t know what happened to her, but we don’t think it’s good.”
I know he’s avoiding the word “murdered” on purpose and I’m grateful for it.
“Our theory—” he looks at me, “okay, my theory, is that whoever attacked her did it in the bathroom on the trail.”
He flips the map over to the other side. “Maggie was found here, dumped in a ditch behind the construction site in the new subdivision. Two young women attacked? Most likely the same guy. So, I go on the hunch that he’ll stick to his mo and check the location where she was last seen,” he indicates Ashworth Comp, “where I find some writing on a toilet in a bathroom near the student council room where she was working.”
He looks up at me. “I know it’s all pretty flimsy, but we don’t have much else so far. It also seems that whoever our killer is, he’s been focusing on high schools and, so far, has been trying to keep his distance from the centre of the city.”
“But Sheri—”
“I know. There’s an anomaly. Both are high school students. Both are female. Both final locations are on the edge of the city, but I feel certain that Maggie was attacked in the school. Sheri was nowhere near the school, but that isn’t to say our guy didn’t follow her from the school. All this goes with Gekas’s profile that we’re most likely dealing with a teenage boy.
“If he attacks again, I’m guessing it’ll be up here.” His finger brushes a wide arc across the upper portion of the map, then he taps the top right corner. “This is all industrial warehouses and factories. There’s only one school and it’s more east than north.” He points to the top left. “There are three schools up here. One is a Catholic school, two are public. If he were to attack anywhere, it might be here. The area is twenty years old and the city has grown up around it quite a bit. It might put him off. But there’s also a new mall and a lot of the students wander over there for the food court and the movie theatre.”
I know his mind is buzzing now.
“So, what then, Charlie? You going to watch all of them?”
“Yes.”
“How—?”
“All I need is for you to stay safe and out of trouble for the next while.”
“And what are you planning on doing?”
“Keep yourself surrounded by people,” he ignores me. “Friends are good. Your folks are better.”
“Charlie—”
“I think I can catch him, but I need us not to mess it up.”
“Catch him?”
“Gekas makes it harder, but we just need to keep out of her way.”
“Charlie? What are you going to do?”
He looks at me and his eyes light up. “Me? I’m gonna get thrown in jail.”
part 3
chapter 54
I wake the next morning facedown in my pillow. I’m beyond tired. It seems the events of the last two days—really, that’s it, just two days?—have worn me out. All the conditioning Coach has put me through doesn’t seem to protect me from the runaway train called Charlie Wolfe.
He didn’t explain much to me afterwards, taking off into the night to supposedly get arrested. He seems to enjoy crossing the boundaries that lead to trouble. He’s just plain crazy. That’s the only explanation for his choices. I don’t know how his plans will catch the killer but I don’t think his math adds up. Once again I am left with questions.
Yesterday, I thought he might be a sociopath—and what with his impulsive decisions and total disregard for the law, it’s probably a fair assessment. He just doesn’t care and he’ll keep sliding downhill until one day he takes out everyone in his path. The farther I am from him, the safer my family, my friends, and I will be.
I drag myself out of bed and head downstairs. Mom is drinking a cup of coffee at the breakfast table. There’s no avoiding it: if I want to eat, I’m going to have to sit across from her. I grab some bran and raisins, skip the soy milk in favour of the real stuff, and take a seat.
She starts us off. “Good morning.”
“Morning.” I chew away at the cereal, not sure what to say next, hoping it stops at a short greeting, but knowing it won’t. And it doesn’t.
“Your friend, Charlie—”
“Not my friend—” I’m short about it but the less I associate with him the better. Besides, those were his orders.
“Okay, the boy that stopped by yesterday—” She looks to make sure I approve.
I nod.
“Your dad had a nice visit with him.”
“Yeah.”
I should be more responsive but I don’t know what to say.
Charlie seems like the kind of guy who would say or do anything to get what he wants. Was he actually interested in what Dad had to say? My brain decides to blurt out what I’m thinking, “I’m not even sure he’s read those books.”
“Maybe not, but sometimes we have to give people the benefit of the doubt.”
Is Mom defending Charlie? What the hell is going on around here?
“Is he in a class of yours…?”
I quickly slurp up some cereal and make a show of chewing the raisins, shaking my head, hoping that if I wait long enough she’ll move on.
She doesn’t, though, so I finally say, “He’s from Sheri’s school.”
“Oh, so you met him through Sheri?”
She’s digging.
I wonder if Gekas has already talked to her and Dad. “I think he might’ve been a friend of hers.”
Mom catches my use of the past tense as quickly as I do. We stare at each other across the table, each seeing in the other’s face the understanding that Sheri is likely gone forever.
She clears her throat and swallows. “So, he’s pretty upset as well?”
I nod. “He just wants to know what happened.”
She reaches across the table and takes my hand, giving it a gentle squeeze. “We just need to be patient. Okay, son?”
I look at her. She loves me. I nod again.
It feels good to kick the door open and let Mom back into my bubble after the past few days.
chapter 55
I walk to school, setting my phone on vibrate and stuffing it deep in my bag. I want some silence to prepare myself for what’s ahead. After the media got hold of Maggie’s death yesterday, the school turned on me, even though there was no evidence to back it up. The only way to survive is to ride it out and stay off the radar. Whether Charlie intended it or not, his recommended recipe of family, friends, homework, and practice was probably the best I could do right now.
Along Comes a Wolfe Page 13