“Didn’t ask. You want me to tell him to go?”
“No, I’ll be down in a sec.”
She climbed out of the tub and toweled herself dry. She left the water as it was, figuring she’d be back soon. Then she tugged on the clothes she’d worn earlier, glanced at her reflection in the mirror, and left the bathroom.
Halfway down the stairway to the first floor she hit an invisible wall.
No!
CHAPTER 2
Charlotte’s mind reeled. She was thinking this couldn’t be real, Luke couldn’t be standing in the foyer, looking up at her. Someone was playing a trick on her—only she knew it was real, he was standing there, it was no trick.
“Hey, Char,” Luke said in his deep, gruff voice. He was dressed in black jeans and a black pullover that covered his sleeve tattoos. His hair was longer than it had been before, scruffy. His skin was pale, but he was as lean and muscular as ever, and she had to admit he looked good, healthy. Nevertheless, that was a clinical observation. Charlotte didn’t feel nostalgia for him, nor attraction. She didn’t feel anything right then except a cold lump of fear in her throat.
What the fuck was he doing here?
“Luke?” she said.
“Surprise.” He opened his arms in a ta-da type of way.
Rashid, who was standing in the foyer next to Luke, frowned.
“Rashid?” she said, clearing her throat. “Can you give us a few minutes alone?”
“You sure?” But he was already heading to his bedroom, which was off the living room. “You need anything, I’m here.” He closed the door.
“Luke?” Charlotte said again, forcing a smile.
“I would have called,” he said. “But your number wasn’t working.”
“I lost my old phone.” That wasn’t true. She’d gotten a new number precisely so Luke wouldn’t be able to get in touch with her when he got out of prison. “How’d you know I left New York?”
“It’s not a secret, is it?”
“I’m just curious.”
“Your friends told me you were accepted to UNC. Congrats, by the way.”
Charlotte was livid. Which of her friends would tell Luke this? They all knew what happened on the Catskills trip. However, she kept her expression neutral. She had no idea of Luke’s state of mind, whether he was still a ticking time bomb, what might set him off.
“How did you—when did you get here?” she asked.
“To Asheville? This afternoon.”
“How—?” Her nice-to-see-you act crumbled. Her forehead creased. This was all too bizarre. “How’d you get this address?”
“The university gave it to me.” He took a step forward, and she resisted the urge to back up a step. “Look, Char,” he said, “we have some things to talk about. Can we sit down somewhere?”
Sit? I want you to leave. Go home! You’re not supposed to be here.
She said, “I’m heading out in a bit, to a friend’s birthday.”
“It won’t take long.”
Charlotte hesitated, then decided she didn’t have much of a choice in the matter short of throwing him out. “This way,” she said, descending the rest of the stairs. She led him to the kitchen and gestured at the table. He sat in one of the metal folding chairs. Charlotte couldn’t bring herself to sit across from him. It was too close. In fact, the entire kitchen seemed suddenly too small for two people. “Do you want a glass of water or anything?” she asked, an excuse to keep on her feet.
“Sure,” he said.
She took two glasses from the cupboard and filled them with water from a Brita jug in the fridge. She passed one to Luke, then leaned against the counter with the other.
“You don’t want to sit?” he said.
“I’m okay.” She sipped the water. “Luke—why are you here?”
He rolled his glass between his palms without looking at her. “You remember when we met?”
“Of course,” she said. They had been seniors in high school. She and her best friend had gone to a house party of an acquaintance. Halfway through the evening her friend abandoned her for a guy with a mouthful of braces. Alone, Charlotte was hit on by a few different guys before Luke gave it a shot. He went to a different school. Still, she knew who he was. She’d seen him around at dances and events. They ended up chatting all night, then for an hour the next day on the phone. By Monday afternoon they were dating.
“Jay’s party,” he said.
She nodded.
“We were a good couple,” he added. “Everyone thought so.”
“That was a long time ago.”
“Look, Char,” he said, lifting his eyes to meet hers. “I never should have enlisted. I should have listened to you. I should have stayed with you.”
“It’s what you wanted,” she said.
“It’s what my dad wanted.”
“You could have told him no.”
“He’s a three-star general, Char. You don’t say no to him. I had to give the army a shot. Four years. It didn’t seem like so long back in high school.”
“What’s done is done.”
“I’ve changed,” he said. “I want to prove that to you.”
She was shaking her head. “Luke—”
“Hear me out,” he said. “When I came back, I was fucked, I know that. I wasn’t myself. And your friends—I can’t even remember doing what I did to them. It’s like I blacked out, or someone else had taken over.”
“You almost killed Emma.”
“And I turned myself in. I did the time. Ten fucking months in prison, two in the box. You know what solitary confinement’s like?”
“Why were you in solitary confinement?”
“Some bullshit reason,” he said dismissively. “Everything in prison’s bullshit. You look at a screw the wrong way, you’re fucked.”
“I’m sorry, Luke,” she said.
“I sent you letters,” he said.
“I got them.”
“Did you read them?”
“Yes,” she lied.
“You didn’t write back.”
“Luke—”
“But whatever. I understood,” he went on. “I fucked up. I scared you. You needed a break.”
“No, not a break, Luke,” she said, edging her words with something between frustration and anger. “It’s not a break. We’re done. I’m sorry, but I’ve moved on, and you need to too. I don’t know what else to say.”
Luke sat back in his seat. The metal groaned beneath his weight. “You’re not listening to me, Char.”
She glared at him. “You’re not listening to me.”
Something shifted in his eyes. It was there one second, then gone the next, like a blip on a radar.
She said, “I have to go, Luke.”
He stood. “I haven’t had a drink since that night.”
“Last I checked they didn’t have bars in prison.” She regretted the quip immediately. “I didn’t mean that…”
“I’ve been out for two weeks,” he said, “and I haven’t had a drop. I don’t need booze anymore. I’m different. You need to believe that.”
“I do,” she said, though she wasn’t sure she did. He might have learned to cope with his anxiety and depression and paranoia while in prison. But he wasn’t the Luke she had fallen in love with in high school, the Luke who had proposed to her at the top of Diamond Head in Hawaii. There was still that hardness to him he’d brought back from Afghanistan, that simmering anger, like he could snap at any moment. He was doing a good job masking it, but it was there. It’s what she’d seen in his eyes.
She glanced at her wristwatch. “I really have to go.”
“Nearly five years, Char,” he said, moving around the table toward her. “That’s longer than most people stay married for nowadays. You can’t throw it away. I want another chance. Just a few weeks, you’ll see.” He stopped before her, slipped his hand down the throat of his pullover, and produced a necklace. He snapped it free from around his neck with a quick tug and he
ld it for her to take.
Looped on the silver chain was the engagement ring she’d sent back to him.
She stared at it with dread and sadness—and mounting anger. Did he really think he would just show up on her doorstep, give her back her ring, and everything would be hunky dory between them. She’d cut off communication, moved to a different city. She wanted nothing to do with him. Couldn’t he take the hint?
“Take it,” he insisted. “You don’t have to wear it. But you didn’t need to send it back. It’s yours.”
She stepped away from him. “No, Luke.”
“Take it.”
“Listen to me, Luke!” she said. “No, okay? No to everything. I’m sorry you came all this way, but we’re not getting back together. We’re just not.”
She tried brushing past him. He gripped her left biceps, hard.
He said, “Where’s this birthday party of yours?”
“Let go of me.”
“I’ll come. Meet some of your friends.”
“Let go!”
She jerked her arm but couldn’t free it.
“You seeing someone?” he asked.
“No,” she said.
“Who is he?”
“I’m not seeing anyone! Now let me fucking go!” She jerked her arm again, this time with all her strength, and stumbled free. She dashed from the kitchen.
Rashid’s bedroom door was ajar. He stood half in his room, half out, apparently eavesdropping on her and Luke.
Something loud crashed in the kitchen. It sounded like one of the metal chairs being launched into the wall.
Another crash, glass shattering.
“Jesus!” Rashid said.
Charlotte pushed him into his room and slammed the door closed behind them.
***
Two long minutes later Rashid whispered, “Should we go check?”
“He might be waiting in there,” Charlotte said.
“We can’t stay in here all night.”
“You don’t know what he’s like.”
“Do you want me to call the cops?”
She shook her head, then eased open the door.
“Hold on.” Rashid grabbed a bronze bookend in the shape of a bear, presumably to use as a weapon.
Charlotte peeked her head inside the kitchen first.
The table lay on its side. The glass bowl that had served as its centerpiece was shattered into a thousand pieces on the floor. Both metal chairs were overturned. A couple of the legs were bent at different angles. The door that led to the backyard was wide open.
Charlotte circumvented the mess and stuck her head outside.
Luke was gone.
***
Later that night Charlotte lay in bed, unable to sleep, the surreal scene that had played out in the kitchen turning over and over in her head, a hundred questions racing through her mind. Luke obviously hadn’t gotten better in prison, like he’d said he had. He’d been acting, the way practiced alcoholics could pass off being sober, only he was passing off being sane. So how bad had his mental state deteriorated? And where had he gone after trashing the kitchen? To a bar, to get drunk? Would he come back tonight, or tomorrow, or the next day? What if he decided to stick around Asheville? Jesus, he wouldn’t do that—would he? No. Once he calmed down, slept on what she’d told him, the reality that they were finished as a couple would settle in, he’d realize there was nothing to gain from harassing her. He’d leave, go back to New York. It would be over—
Charlotte sat up quickly in the dark. She’d heard a creak. The house settling, or a footstep? She tilted her head, listening. She heard it again. Floorboards. Someone was coming down the hallway.
It’s just Sarah, she told herself. Getting home from her boyfriend’s late.
Only the footsteps didn’t continue past Charlotte’s room; they stopped on the other side of her door.
Luke!
Charlotte threw off the covers and jumped out of bed. For a crazy moment she considered escaping through the window, but it was a straight drop to the ground.
Instead she pressed her back against the wall that was flush with the door, which was about four feet to her right.
The doorknob jiggled, rotated. The door inched open. Light spilled into the room, creating a triangular wedge on the floor.
Luke appeared in the crack between the door and doorframe, silhouetted against the bright hallway light.
Charlotte’s heart was galloping inside her chest.
What the fuck was he thinking? What was he planning on doing?
Screw it, she decided.
She reached blindly along the wall and flicked the light switch.
Luke spun toward her, squinting—only it wasn’t Luke. It was Rashid.
“Rashid!” she said, dizzy with relief.
“Oh, hey, you’re up.”
His eyes went to her legs. She was wearing a cotton camisole, panties, and nothing else.
“Don’t look!” She grabbed a pair of track pants from the hamper next to her and yanked them on, almost toppling over in her embarrassment. “Jesus, Rashid,” she said, folding her arms across her chest. “What the hell are you doing?”
“I just wanted to check on you, see if you were all right.”
She smelled alcohol on him.
“You’re drunk.”
“Naw, I’m good.”
“Haven’t you heard of knocking?”
“I was about to say something.”
“Well, I’m fine,” she said. “Thanks.”
“You sure?”
“I’m fine, Rashid! Now get out!”
“Okay, okay. Jeez.”
He left, pulling the door closed behind him.
She listened to him retreat down the hall, then down the stairs. She shook her head, thinking this night couldn’t possibly get any creepier.
Leaving the light on, Charlotte got back in bed, but she didn’t fall asleep for a long time.
CHAPTER 3
Charlotte got up as soon as dawn broke. She sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the gray sky outside the window. Raindrops pattered the windowpane, foretelling a gloomy, overcast day. She’d slept lightly, waking every hour or so, and now she felt somehow both exhausted and wide awake.
By the time she showered, dressed, and made herself up, it was six thirty, though no one else in the house had stirred. In the kitchen, which she and Rashid had cleaned up the night before, she grabbed an apple for breakfast and ate it during the twenty-minute walk along Broadway to the university. The campus was dead at the early hour. There was a scattering of cars in the parking lots she passed, and an odd person walking their dog or riding their bike through the forested grounds, but the organized chaos of academia wouldn’t kick in for another hour or so.
As she approached Rhoades-Robinson Hall she noticed a girl sitting on a bench, bent over, her head in her hands. Charlotte had seen her a few times downtown before, usually sitting outside restaurants and bars begging for change. She couldn’t have been any older than eighteen or nineteen, and Charlotte could never understand how her life had gone downhill so quickly, so one evening she sat next to her and tried to start a dialogue. The girl smelled like she hadn’t had a bath for a week. She was also incoherent and strung out, likely on heroin, which explained a lot. Charlotte left a couple dollars in the Bob Marley crochet cap the girl was using as a collection tin and went on her way.
Now she stopped before the girl and said, “Hi.”
The girl looked up at her with glazed, suspicious eyes.
“Are you okay?” Charlotte asked.
The girl looked away. “Get lost.”
“I’ve seen you around.”
“So?”
“Listen, I don’t want to sound like a charity case, but I’m friends with the owner of the Lexington Avenue Brewery. You know it?”
“So?”
“It’s just that, if you want, I’ll talk to him, and if you stop in on a Friday night, every Friday night if you want, I’ll l
et him know your meal’s on me.”
The girl studied her dirty shoes in silence.
“What’s your name?”
“Krista.”
“I’m Charlotte. You tell the waiter that. Tell them Charlotte is paying for the meal. Okay?”
No reply.
Charlotte hesitated a moment, not sure if she’d gotten through to the girl, then decided there was nothing more she could do. She started away. She wasn’t actually friends with the owner of the LAB. She had met him. He’d come up to Tony and her table one night while they were dining there to introduce himself and inquire how their evening was progressing. They chatted for a good five minutes, and Charlotte believed him to be a kind, generous man who’d have no objection to Charlotte starting a tab to cover Krista’s meals each Friday—no booze permitted.
Buoyed by the good deed, Charlotte found a dry spot beneath a tree out front Ramsey Library and caught up on her reading, which she hadn’t gotten to the night before. At quarter to eight she made her way to Hospitality Financial Accounting. She had five classes in total today, but for once she was glad for the heavy load. They would distract her from thinking too much about Luke, and his state of mind.
***
She spotted Luke shortly past noon. She was rushing from Marketing to Food Safety—the classes were located in buildings on opposite corners of the campus—and she had to do a double take. He stood twenty feet away, a hood pulled over his head, staring directly at her. He turned and began walking away.
Charlotte chased after him, her incredulity that he was stalking her trumping her fear that he might have another meltdown.
“Luke!” she said.
He ignored her.
“Luke!” She gripped his shoulder. “Stop!”
He turned around—only it wasn’t Luke. He was the same size and build, had the same purposeful walk, but he had a bony brow, a birdish nose, and wide-spaced eyes. In fact, he didn’t look anything like Luke.
“You talking to me?” he said, taking ear buds from his ears.
Dark Hearts: Four Novellas of Dark Suspense Page 15