First Girl Gone: An absolutely addictive crime thriller with a twist (Detective Charlotte Winters Book 1)

by L. T. Vargus

  “Well, not everyone.”

  “You told people? Back then?” Charlie asked, and she couldn’t help but feel a twinge of disappointment. Like maybe Zoe hadn’t trusted Charlie enough to tell her. Which was silly, because not only was it ancient history, it also wasn’t Charlie’s right to know.

  “I told one person. And that’s why—” Zoe stopped herself, seeming to change her mind about whatever she was going to say. “Never mind.”

  Charlie’s curiosity was piqued. She stared hard at her friend, and a moment of silence stretched out between them before Zoe crumbled.

  “Allie knew.”

  “Allie?” Charlie repeated.

  Whatever she’d been expecting Zoe to say, that hadn’t been it. Zoe had always been more Charlie’s friend than Allie’s, though her twin always had a way of charming Charlie’s friends.

  “I…” Zoe paused again, her cheeks flushing. “Jesus, this is so embarrassing. We were at a party once—I think it was at Cassie Whindon’s. We were both drunk. And for some reason I thought it would be a good time to tell Allie that I had a crush on her.”

  “Oh,” Charlie said, suddenly understanding why Zoe had been so reluctant to talk about it. “What did she say?”

  “In the moment she was totally cool about it. But when I woke up the next morning and remembered it all, I couldn’t believe what I’d done. I was sure she’d tell someone, and then it would be out there for everyone to know. I was so terrified I stayed home sick from school for the next two days.”

  Charlie tried to imagine how much dread Zoe must have felt in that moment. She didn’t know what to say, so she put a hand on her friend’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze.

  “Eventually my mom figured out I wasn’t really sick and made me go back to school. And even though no one said anything, for at least a week I was still convinced everyone knew. I overanalyzed every look. Every word.” She blinked and a sad smile spread over her lips. “When you’re young you just assume that everyone is secretly judging you. Like you’re constantly on everyone’s mind, and they’re just desperate to find your flaws. Truth is closer to the opposite. No one is paying attention. They’re too busy thinking the world is watching them.”

  It was true, Charlie thought. She remembered a bad haircut in eighth grade, thinking everyone would notice and laugh and judge. But no one said a thing about it.

  “Anyway,” Zoe said, “that’s the real reason I’m surprised you didn’t already know. I guess I just figured you guys told each other everything sooner or later.”

  Charlie’s smile faded some.

  “Not everything.”

  She spun her bottle in her hands and wondered at the secrets we kept. Zoe’s secrets. Allie’s secrets. Kara’s secrets.

  Beside her, she heard Zoe swear under her breath.

  “What?” Charlie asked.

  “Leroy Gibbs just walked in,” Zoe muttered, her voice still low. “Come on, we can go somewhere else.”

  She was already starting to drain her bottle, but Charlie stopped her.

  “It’s fine. Really. We can stay.”

  Zoe’s forehead puckered into a series of concerned lines.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  Charlie watched him saunter over to one of the pool tables at the far end of the tavern, his eyes wild, his salt-and-pepper beard in its usual state of disarray, covering most everything from his cheekbones down to his shirt collar in messy tangles of hair. In all the many times she’d driven past his house over the years, she’d never seen him in the flesh. She knew what he looked like, of course. There’d been plenty of pictures of him in the paper when he was first arrested for Allie’s murder. And again when the charges were dropped due to insufficient evidence.

  But it was different seeing him now, in person. He was bigger, more imposing than photographs could accurately depict. Broad and burly with massive hands, fingers as thick as serpents.

  She couldn’t help but imagine the strong fingers wrapping around Allie’s throat and squeezing. Constricting. Charlie’s blood ran cold at the thought.

  Pinching her eyes shut, she forced herself to look away. She drank, tried to wash down the dark thoughts. She’d told Zoe it was OK if they stayed. She needed to be OK.

  She opened her mouth, about to ask Zoe how her parents were, when she was jostled by someone sidling up to the bar behind her. Charlie turned, annoyed, and found Will Crawford smirking down at her.

  “Charlie Winters and Zoe Wyatt. Why do I get a nervous sloshing in my stomach when I walk in and see the two of you sitting together?”

  Clutching the neck of her beer bottle, Zoe pointed at him with her pinky finger.

  “Probably because of that time we put a giant inflatable penis in your locker.”

  Will blinked.

  “That was you?”

  Charlie slugged Zoe’s arm.

  “Damn it, Zoe. You shouldn’t have told him.” Charlie sighed and took a drink. “We could have kept him wondering for the rest of his life.”

  “I can’t believe you let all this time pass without fessing up,” Will said, shaking his head.

  “That’ll teach you to rig up a system to keep your locker permanently unlocked.”

  “A lesson you waited until the last week of my senior year to teach me?”

  “Better late than never,” Zoe said.

  The bartender set down a tumbler of Scotch in front of Will, who paid and collected his drink.

  “You ladies enjoy your evening,” Will said before moving on.

  Charlie watched him for a few seconds, still mystified that Will Crawford had become a Scotch-drinking, suit-wearing lawyer. When she swiveled back, Zoe had a stupid smile on her face.

  “Didn’t you have a thing for Will?”

  Charlie scoffed.

  “No.”

  “Liar. You totally did.”

  “Like a teensy little crush,” Charlie admitted, rolling her eyes. “It wasn’t a big deal.”

  Zoe snorted. “Uh-huh.”

  Across the bar, Charlie spotted two men drinking. They bore the telltale signs of the classic Michigan-man archetype. They wore flannel shirts and baseball hats—one Lions, one Red Wings—and both sported bushy beards. She couldn’t see their feet, but they were almost definitely wearing chunky Dad shoes. They kept taking turns glancing over their shoulders at where Leroy Gibbs stood playing pool, scowling as they glared at him. Every once in a while, Charlie caught a snippet of what they were saying.

  “It ain’t right, him strutting in here like that. We all know what he done,” the one in the Red Wings hat said. His voice was loud and slurred.

  “Well then let’s stop talkin’ and do something about it,” said Lions hat.

  Charlie’s gut tightened. She was starting to get a bad feeling. Everyone in town had an opinion on Allie’s murder, with half the population seeming to think Gibbs had been railroaded by a police force eager to close the case and the other half believing that the rushed investigation had let the murderous Gibbs walk free. The two gentlemen across the bar seemed to fall in the latter camp.

  She peeked over at Zoe, but she was going on about the time an unknown perpetrator interrupted their tenth-grade history class by throwing a tube of hemorrhoid cream into the room and shouting, “Anal relief!” before running off. She hadn’t seemed to notice the two angry Michigan-men across the way.

  Charlie watched Lions hat gulp down the rest of his beer. His empty mug thudded onto the bar, and then he pushed up from his stool.

  “I still wonder who that was,” Zoe was saying. “By the time Mrs. Gregson got to the door, he was just gone. Like the Flash. The joke I can still appreciate on a certain level, but it’s the sheer footspeed that really stuck with me.”

  Lions and Red Wings stalked over to where Gibbs stood, chalking the end of his pool cue. Lions hat crowded closer to Gibbs, saying something low and giving him a rough push.

  “Uh, Zoe?” Charlie said. “I think something
bad is about to—”

  She was cut off by the sound of a fully-grown Michigan-man being hoisted in the air by Leroy Gibbs and slammed onto the pool table like a child, pool balls clacking and rolling about, the Lions hat fluttering to the floor. The small crowd of onlookers all jumped back and groaned collectively.

  Leroy Gibbs, having just dispatched one member of the two-man mob, lurched for the other. His hulking figure looked, in this moment, very apelike. Between his oddly animal posture and the unkempt beard crawling so high on his cheeks, Charlie couldn’t help but think of him as a man about halfway through the transition to werewolf.

  Zoe’s head jolted toward the commotion.

  “Ah, crap,” she said, snapping for the bartender’s attention. “Glenn, we got a situation. Do me a favor and call down to the station for backup.”

  Gibbs had his hands on the second man’s throat, and Charlie found herself unable to stop staring at the way his knuckles flexed as he choked his attacker.

  From behind, the now hatless Michigan-man rose from the pool table and sucker-punched Gibbs in the left kidney. Gibbs clutched his side instinctively, freeing Red Wings hat as he did. It was two on one now, about to get ugly.

  “That’s enough, boys,” Zoe said, stepping into the scrum. “Break it up.”

  The hatless man ignored her, rushing Gibbs and swinging on him. But Gibbs sidestepped the blow and gave the man a shove, which sent him careening into Zoe. The two of them crashed into a nearby table, glasses and dishes and silverware clattering to the floor.

  Seeing that things were only escalating, Charlie jumped down from her stool, intent on helping her friend, but someone caught her by the arm.

  “I wouldn’t,” Will said, gesturing across the bar. “Glenn’s got it handled.”

  The lanky bartender came around the bar with a shotgun in hand. He racked it once, the sound somehow rising over the din, and the brawl ceased, almost as if someone had pressed the pause button on the whole thing.

  “You three are going to sit quietly until the police come, ya hear?” the bartender said.

  While the two Michigan-men nodded with eyes wide, Gibbs said nothing, looking unperturbed.

  Will let out a breath from beside her.

  “Well, that was quite a show,” he said with a smirk.

  Zoe strode over to them, and Charlie noticed a wide gash on her arm oozing bright red blood.

  “Zoe, you’re bleeding,” she said, pointing at the wound.

  Lifting her arm, Zoe poked at the laceration and winced.

  “Balls. That’s deep.” Zoe’s voice was remarkably calm, and Charlie wondered if she was in shock or just that unflappable.

  Charlie grabbed a stack of cocktail napkins and handed them to her.

  “I should take you to the ER.”

  “Nah,” Zoe said, waving her away. “I’ll slap a bandage on it. I’m gonna have to go down to the station anyway to make a statement. If the bleeding hasn’t stopped by then, I’ll go get some stitches.”

  “Are you sure?” Charlie said. “It looks bad.”

  “This is nothing. Remember the time I biffed a hippie jump on my skateboard and landed on my chin?”

  Just the memory of the row of black stitching along Zoe’s jaw made Charlie grimace.

  There was a commotion near the front door as four Salem County deputies filed in. Zoe waved them over with the hand not clutching a wad of bloodied napkins, and then her eyes flicked over to Will.

  “Hello again, Will.”

  “Zoe.”

  With a look of mischief in her eyes, Zoe glanced from Will to Charlie, then back to Will.

  “Do me a favor, Will?”

  “Of course.”

  “See that Charlie here gets home in one piece?”

  “It would be my pleasure.”

  Before Zoe turned to join her comrades in uniform, she winked at Charlie.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “It’s still early,” Will said. “You want to stay for another drink before we go?”

  “Honestly, I don’t know why she’s making a fuss. I’m just down the street. I can walk.”

  “Then I’ll walk you. I made a promise to Zoe, and truth be told, she scares me.”

  “Zoe scares you?” Charlie repeated.

  “Oh yeah. She’s got a wicked sense of vengeance.” He pointed to a small mark on his cheek. “See this scar?”

  “Yeah,” Charlie said, then recoiled. “Zoe did that?”

  “Hit me in the face with a rock.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Well, I might have started it. But I was only throwing tiny stones at her. Pebbles, practically. But eventually she got annoyed enough that she picked up this massive, potato-sized rock and let it rip.”

  “Ouch,” Charlie said, shuddering. “I don’t know if I can ever remember seeing Zoe mad.”

  “We were young. I think I was twelve. Still… I make every effort to stay on her good side these days. In any case, we don’t have to stay for a drink if you’d rather leave now.”

  “No, let’s stay. Maybe you can help me with that University of Michigan law degree brain of yours.”

  Will sighed.

  “You know, it’s hard when women are only interested in you for your brilliant mind.”

  They sat at the bar, and since Will was drinking Scotch, Charlie ordered another Negroni.

  “Well?” he said. “My brain is ripe for the picking.”

  “Does ‘white rabbit’ mean anything to you?”

  He squinted, looking confused.

  “When I was a kid, I had a pet rabbit that was white. Why?”

  “I got this cryptic email today telling me to ‘Follow the white rabbit,’ and then ‘Find her.’”

  “‘Find her?’” Will repeated. “Does this have something to do with Kara Dawkins?”

  “That was my thought, but at this point, who knows? It could have been spam. Maybe white rabbit is the name of a boner pill.”

  Will smiled, sipping his drink.

  “You don’t actually think that, though. Or else you wouldn’t be asking me if I know what it means.”

  “Truthfully, I thought I’d be done with this case by now. I figured it’d be like everyone said: I’d find Kara camped out on a friend’s couch somewhere.”

  “I take it things aren’t going well, then?”

  “Just a lot of unanswered questions. I’m pretty sure she was sneaking out at night, probably had a fake ID, and one of her friends said something about her working at a club. This is the only club on Salem Island I could think of, but it didn’t pan out. It’s just dead end after dead end.”

  “What about the Red Velvet Lounge?”

  “The what?”

  “It’s a strip club. Just outside of Port Blanc.”

  Charlie set her glass down.

  “Well, shit. I hadn’t considered that ‘club’ might mean a strip club,” she said, suddenly wondering again about Kara’s fake ID.

  “It’s the only one I know of that has a local connection.”

  “What kind of local connection?”

  “The owner, Silas Demetrio, he’s from here. He was, oh, probably five or six years ahead of us in school?” Will shrugged. “Anyway, there’s also Little Angels in New Baltimore and Night Moves in Mt. Clemens. But they don’t get quite the same local traffic.”

  “You seem to have an encyclopedic knowledge of the local strip clubs. That brilliant mind’s been hard at work, I guess.”

  Will grinned and swirled his Scotch.

  “Let’s just say that legal issues arise wherever booze and nudity intertwine. For a small-town lawyer, it pays to know these things.”

  When they’d finished their drinks, they headed for the door, coats in hand. Will made a show of playing the gallant gentleman by helping her slip into hers.

  In the parking lot, their footsteps crunched over a light layer of snow that had fallen over the course of the evening. It was a clear night, the stars shining bright against th
e ink-blue sky.

  Cars whizzed past as they strolled along Main Street toward Charlie’s place. Their tires made slushy sounds on the road, hissing and spitting.

  “This is probably the Scotch talking, but I have an overwhelming urge to confess something to you right now.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I had a bit of a crush on you in high school.”

  Charlie choked out a disbelieving laugh.

  “You did not.”

  “It’s true. In fact, I know of several guys who had a thing for you.”

  “Uh… I think you’re confusing me with Allie.”

  “Not at all,” Will said, shaking his head adamantly. “Allie was an open book. But you… you were more mysterious. I spent half my senior year trying to work up the nerve to ask you out.”

  A giggle escaped Charlie’s mouth, some combination of booze and Will’s confession working together to make her giddy.

  “You’re full of it.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you never said a word.”

  “Well, you were scary.”

  That got another laugh out of her.

  “Scary? How am I scary?”

  He shrugged. “You were… intense.”

  The laughter ceased, but a smile still played on Charlie’s lips.

  “That’s just a nice way of saying I’m a bitch,” she said.

  “Maybe ‘intense’ isn’t quite right.” He thought on it for a moment. “Unapproachable. Maybe that’s a better word.”

  She smirked and raised an eyebrow.

  “So… a stuck-up bitch?”

  Will pointed at her.

  “You’re twisting my words around on purpose.”

  He sighed, his breath coming out in a whirling cloud of mist.

  “Do you remember our advanced biology class?” he asked.

  “With Mr. Bates? Yeah.”

  “You’d sit in the back of the room, quiet as a cat, barely uttering a word. But you always had this look in your eye… like you were cataloging every little thing that happened.”

  “Like the time you raised your hand in the middle of a lecture about human gestation and asked if breast milk was two percent or skim?”