Deirdre strode out of the room without another word. Charlotte listened to the front door slam behind her. She stood in her closet for a few more seconds before she hesitantly pushed open the door. Sean was standing by the wall, his hands on his hips. He took a deep breath and turned to look at her. He looked like their dad when he was thinking.
“Stay right there and I’ll tell you everything,” he said. “The truth, from start to finish.”
thirty-four
Charlotte burst out of the house, ducked under the caution tape, and down the rickety steps. She pulled out her phone. Eight missed calls from Max. She slammed the phone to her ear, stumbling over the muddy ground and trying to find her way back to the elementary school parking lot.
“Charlotte!” Max barked when he picked up.
“Max, we were wrong, I’m at the house—”
“I knew you were there as soon as I woke up. I’m on the path now.”
Charlotte tugged her hood around her face. She was disoriented and couldn’t find the opening at the trees that led to the path.
“It was Deirdre. We were wrong.”
“What?” Max’s voice was crackly, like the service was breaking up in the storm.
Charlotte circled back to get her bearings, and she spotted a car around the corner of the house. There must be a back road, and that must be how Deirdre and Simon got there. She squinted at the car. A Buick. A nice one. Deirdre.
“Shit,” Charlotte breathed.
“Charlie?” Max asked over the phone.
She heard the rustling of trees behind her. That had to be him. She pivoted, but it was Deirdre, her normally perfect hair slicked down the sides of her head.
“I knew I heard someone!” Deirdre shouted over the wind and rain. She raised the gun before Charlotte could move.
The bullet missed her by some miracle, probably lodging into the porch behind her. Without thinking, Charlotte spun, scrambling for the trees closest to the house. She thought she heard Deirdre fire a second time. The sun was starting to set on what had been a gloomy day anyway. The dark would be to her advantage.
Charlotte wound herself through the trees, trying to put as much space between her and the house as possible. She didn’t know if Deirdre was following her into the woods. She heard the snapping of branches on her left—Deirdre or an animal or the wind.
Charlotte stopped. Or Max, who was almost to the house, looking for her. She glanced down at her phone; the call she’d forgotten about had disconnected.
“Charlie?”
Through slivers of trees, she could just make out a figure in the clearing by the house. Max.
“Max!” Charlotte cried, but she didn’t even know if any sound came out. She weaved back toward him. She must have yelled his name again, because as soon as she cleared the trees he saw her.
“Charlie,” Max bellowed, his face breaking with relief. His back was to the house, to Deirdre.
There was another crack that might have been thunder, if Charlotte didn’t know Deirdre had a gun. Max rippled like he was surprised, his upper body lurching. She watched his hand fly to his side, pressing against his shirt, a dark pool blooming under his fingers. He looked back at her and it was like all of River John was holding its breath before he crumpled.
It was Deirdre’s screaming that finally made Charlotte move.
Charlotte must have choked over his name a hundred times in just a few seconds, half-wailing, and once she reached him in the dark her hands flew over him like she knew what she could do to help. The blood spilled over her hands as she tried to stop the bleeding, but it just leaked between her fingers the same way it did his. He was still on his knees, half upright, hinged at the hip and his hands dug into the mud. He looked at her, his eyes holding a mutual agreement of how much trouble they were in.
Deirdre was at his other side, and for a second Charlotte wondered if she was going to help them. Deirdre looked wild, like a trapped animal—surprised and scared, and something else she couldn’t quite recognize. Charlotte was reminded then, as she looked at her, that Deirdre was barely older than them.
“Help,” Charlotte managed. “Help him. Do you have your phone?”
She knew it was naive to cling to the tiny shred of hope that Deirdre was going to help them. Deirdre stared back at her, and as the rain splattered down on them Charlotte realized the look on Deirdre’s face was anger.
“I thought he was you,” Deirdre sputtered. Her mouth was opening and closing, like she couldn’t process what she’d accidentally done.
Charlotte could see Deirdre’s hands scrambling around in the wet leaves and dirt. Searching. The gun. Charlotte snapped her eyes back to the clearing where they’d been moments earlier. Deirdre must have dropped it, and Charlotte watched her realize the same thing.
She and Max would have a head start, if Deirdre wanted to kill them.
As if someone had blared an air horn, Deirdre leapt backwards and scrambled towards the farmhouse, while Charlotte heaved all her weight against Max.
“We gotta go, Max, c’mon,” she begged, pulling his arm across her shoulder and pushing his legs back beneath him. “We have to get back to the road.”
“It hurts,” Max bit out, the words slipping through gritted teeth. “Charlie.”
She was glad he was talking. Good. No one died mid-sentence. Not in real life. “I know, I know, come on.”
She had to get them away from Deirdre. Max kept his free hand pressed to his side. She was half-dragging him over the uneven ground and between the trees, trying to keep him upright and make sense of where they were in the rain.
Charlotte could see lights in the distance, filtering through branches. A road. Maybe houses. She could get help. They might actually make it. He would be okay. She thought of her favourite things—Sean laughing and Max playing with her hair and the look Sophie used to give her when she knew exactly what she was thinking. Adrenaline pumped through her, and she was shaking all over as she pushed them both forward.
They broke through the treeline and Charlotte realized where they were. They must have gotten turned around in the confusion and in the dark. The river. The road was dim, the streetlights barely working, and the bridge that ran over the churning water led into town, to the library and the bank. Nowhere to run to in the little time they had.
Max made a quiet sound and she made the decision to hide, to re-evaluate. She clumsily navigated a path for them down the muddy bank beside the bridge. She and Sean, and every other kid in town, used to spend summers here, hurling themselves into the water. She pulled Max down toward shelter from the wind and rain, forcing him to sit so he would be at least half-hidden by the guardrail.
“Okay, it’s gonna be fine.” Charlotte sniffed, kneeling beside him and touching his face, mostly to see if he still noticed it. “Do you have your phone?”
Max looked like he tried to answer but all that came out was a shrug that used his whole body. “Left it in my car,” he finally said.
Hers was long gone; she must have dropped it when she ran back to the house. Damnit. Charlotte tried to think of every movie and detective show she’d ever watched, wracking her brain for everything she knew about getting shot. The bullet had hit him low, just below his ribcage, but more in the centre. What organ was there? His appendix? Liver? Kidney? She had no idea.
She watched Max’s face, watched him squirm and twist his hand against his bloody side. Nothing. She knew nothing about getting shot.
“I have to go,” she said quickly, “I can find help.”
Would he be safe here? It would be a risk, but the alternative was—
“No,” Max rasped. He circled a bloody hand around her wrist. “Don’t go.”
“Max,” she cried. Her hand grazed his side, where eighteen years of life was steadily pouring out of him. “I don’t know what to do.”
H
e didn’t say anything, and his head was rolling like he was falling asleep. But for a split second his eyes settled on her face, and she was reminded of when he’d looked at her through the passenger window of his truck. The night he found her walking on the side of the road, and they saw each other for the first time in a year. She’d come home then, and they were home now.
She moved closer to him. Charlotte spotted movement in the trees, from the direction they’d come. It could only be one person. Deirdre, miraculously still in heels, stumbled toward them. Charlotte counted her options: none. She held Max tighter.
“You done?” Deirdre spat. She had her gun again.
Charlotte just cried and prayed and didn’t answer.
“Never rely on anyone,” Deirdre said vaguely, and Charlotte didn’t know if she was talking to Charlotte or to herself. Deirdre shook her head quickly, like she was trying clear it. “But yourself. That’s how you lose. Simon thought she’d be quiet…that the money would be enough…didn’t realize she was a liability, you know? I did it for him.”
Charlotte closed her eyes.
Another earth-shattering crack, and a few beats of silence.
No pain.
Nothing.
“Charlie.” A new voice, or an old one.
Sean, who had gotten them into this, would get them out. In the dark, Charlotte could see his eyes focused on her from behind Deirdre’s shoulder. She had never thought that she and Sean looked very much alike, but they did now. They did when they were desperate.
Deirdre had her arm circled around her own shoulders, trying to reach onto her back. Charlotte could see a stain of blood, and it was spreading.
“Shit,” Deirdre croaked. Her gun fell to the ground.
Sean took a step to the left, and Charlotte could see what he was holding in his right hand. Where had he gotten a gun? Deirdre stumbled sideways to the bank and Sean stepped around her.
“Are you hurt?” Sean asked, dropping to his knees. He looked unsure of what to do with Max, who was still clinging to her, quiet. “I called 911.”
“I’m okay. You have to help him,” Charlotte said, her hands flying over Max as if to explain. “She shot him.”
“I….” Sean trailed off. “I don’t know what—”
“Charlie,” Max groaned and it almost sounded like a warning.
“Sean, do something,” she sobbed, “fix this.”
Sean wasn’t able to manage a response before time seemed to stop. The faint whirring of sirens in the distance sounded over and replaced Max’s breathing. There was the slamming of car doors and the rotation of pale lights against the dark wood beams of the bridge. Shouting grew louder as the police jumped the barrier onto the bridge, a few minutes too late.
“Max, they’re here, the police are here,” Charlotte said gently, mostly to herself. This couldn’t be happening. They didn’t get this far to only get this far.
She looked up. Sean was standing now, dangerously close to the railing. The water underneath them folded over itself over and over, dark and cold and unforgiving.
She knew there had to be several armed police officers right behind her.
“Hands on your head!”
Her brother glanced down at her for a second.
“Like dad used to say, right?” he asked, slowly lifting his hands toward the black sky.
But she knew him too well. Sean wasn’t the type for quiet surrender. Sean jumped, clearing the guardrail, and disappeared from view.
Hell or high water. She realized her dad had never left them any advice for what happened when you got both.
thirty-five
one week later
september
Charlotte Romer must have walked the path up to Sophie Thompson’s house more than a thousand times. Some she couldn’t remember and some she could, but Charlotte didn’t think there were any that she had shown up to say goodbye. The only time they’d left each other, she hadn’t said it—which they both knew too well.
The back window of Sophie’s SUV in the driveway was blocked with Rubbermaid containers of what Charlotte guessed to be Sophie’s university stuff. Sophie was the one leaving this time. Charlotte crossed the lawn, climbed the porch steps, and knocked on the door. It was the first time in a long while she didn’t pray no one answered. The day was warm and bright and the air was soft, an ocean breeze without an edge. It would have been a nice beach day.
“It’s open!”
Charlotte cracked the door. Stuff was scattered all over the living room—very Sophie. A mess until the last minute and then completely pulled together in a split second. Sophie emerged from down the hall, a stack of folded laundry on her lap. It was hard to gauge her reaction.
“Hi,” Sophie said. “I wondered if you’d come.”
Charlotte studied her feet and lined them up with the tile in the entryway. “Well, last time I didn’t say goodbye it didn’t go over too well.”
Sophie smiled.
“How are you?”
“Um.” Sophie dropped her laundry into a larger pile on the floor. Charlotte wasn’t sure which pile meant what. “I’m fine, I guess. Busy. You?”
Charlotte shifted to sit in one of the dining chairs near Sophie, but stopped herself. Maybe it was easier from here.
“I’m still,”—what, kicking?—“here.”
Sophie didn’t ask what she meant by it.
“Any news?” Sophie didn’t look at her when she asked, instead focusing on flipping through a different pile of clothing.
“No. I was just there. No change.” Charlotte said it robotically, automatically, quickly. She didn’t like thinking of Max lying in a hospital bed where machines were keeping him alive. She watched Sophie’s face contort for half a second.
“I begged my mom to let me stay,” Sophie explained. “But she and my dad want me to move in when everyone else does. So it’ll feel normal. At least I get the best dorm room on campus,” she said with a small smile.
“It’s okay.” Charlotte waved her hand dismissively. “I’ll be here. I’ll call you when he wakes up.”
If Sophie thought if and when were interchangeable in this scenario, she didn’t say anything.
Charlotte glanced down the hall. “Is your mom home?”
“No, she went to get emergency Advil. Apparently they don’t sell it in Halifax.”
Charlotte focused on the boxes, full and empty. “You’re the one leaving this time. Did you consider sneaking off without saying goodbye?”
Sophie raised an eyebrow. “I’m actually just waiting for nightfall.”
Charlotte snorted.
“Too soon?” Sophie asked.
“I think we’ll both lose it if we don’t start to joke about things.”
“Can I ask you about something not so funny?”
Charlotte leaned back against the dining room table in preparation. “Shoot.”
“Simon must be, like, going to prison.”
“Uh, yeah,” Charlotte said, studying the floor. “I’m not sure of the details. They let him visit Max, but otherwise I don’t really know.”
“And I heard she’s awake.”
Charlotte raised her eyes from the ground. “Yeah. I think they said she’ll be fine, but…she’s guilty of a lot, too. They said she’d go into custody as soon as she’s released from the hospital.”
“Huh.” Sophie drummed her fingers along her cheek. “I bet Deirdre’ll take her time recovering, then.”
There was weight in the air, and she could almost feel Sophie debating whether or not to bring up the one thing they hadn’t talked about.
“Any news about….” Sophie trailed off, like she couldn’t say Sean’s name. “Did they find his—him?” Sophie corrected herself quickly.
“No,” Charlotte levelled out. Investigators from Halifax had searched the riv
er and area the next day, but the storm, when it finally ended, washed away any evidence and washed away Sean.
“I’m sorry,” Sophie said.
Charlotte shook her head. “You don’t have to be.”
“Do you think there’s a chance he’s—”
“No,” Charlotte blurted almost immediately. “I would have heard from him, if he was. He’s gone.”
“I am sorry,” Sophie said gently. “He was your family.”
Charlotte cleared her throat. There was only one thing that had been consoling her this week. “I wanted you to tell you: Sean didn’t know. He told me the last time I saw him. Deirdre only told him the car he would be hitting was someone Simon needed to get rid of so they wouldn’t expose him. That doesn’t make it better, but….”
“Do you think Sean wouldn’t have gone through with it, if he’d known?”
It was a question Charlotte had asked herself a hundred times this week. She wanted to say no. Wanted to. But she knew if she asked anyone what Sean would do if it came down to protecting her, they would say Sean would do anything, no matter what.
Charlotte let her thoughts pull her back to a week earlier, after the night on the bridge. She remembered seeing Sophie, a distance down the hospital hallway, for the first time since they had pieced everything together. There had been a few seconds of silence: would Sophie be angry? If so, at her? That shouldn’t have been Charlotte’s first concern, and she knew that.
Charlotte remembered thinking about the last time they had been at that hospital together. She still wasn’t sure who had told Sophie the full story the first time. Charlotte assumed a police officer? A regurgitated, facts-only version that didn’t even begin to scrape the surface. Charlotte had been sitting down in one of the hard plastic chairs that lined the hallway when Sophie showed up. More silence.
“Did we do this?” Sophie had asked eventually.
Charlotte couldn’t answer. They were alone. They sat in silence for a few hours, waiting for news. Sophie’s parents showed up. Leo, too. Sophie started crying and Charlotte did, too. When the sun came up, they had looked at each other and Charlotte felt reassured for the first time in a long time that things might be okay.
The Last Time I Saw Her Page 28