Chapter 18
Charles’s house, it turned out, was a clean white clapboard just down from the little general store and directly across from the church with no graveyard at the entrance of town.
The front door, like every other front door in Virgo Bay, was unlocked.
Nora climbed the steps and crept inside.
The quiet bounced off a neutral interior that was somehow pristine and cozy at the same time.
The floors and countertops were a creamy marble, their sheen clear and bright, putting the sky just beyond the windows to shame.
A gilded birdcage sat beside an austere cream sofa, which Nora regarded as very brave.
Pale-colored furniture always seemed too big a risk to her.
Charles also seemed to have the only TV in town, which she supposed was a perk of being the one to do supply runs.
She found the little table by the front door, simple and white, a glass bowl perched on top with only a single set of keys inside.
Nora slipped the keys from the bowl, whispered an apology to Charles, and went around the house to where a gray-blue van was parked in the driveway.
Nora had never driven recklessly in all the years she’d been driving.
Cars were enough of a hazard without adding your own.
But that afternoon, head flooded with too many thoughts and gut twisting with too many fears, Nora found herself speeding around the bends of the road that she’d already crashed on once.
When she finally came upon the wreckage of her car, Charlie wasn’t there.
And neither was anyone else, for that matter.
Phil’s pickup truck sat just behind her car, a toolbox on the grass between the two, but there were no people in sight.
She quickly parked Charles’s van behind the other two cars and hopped out, scanning the surroundings, the woods to one side and the boulders to the other.
They could have taken Charlie into the forest. If they’d ventured deep enough, she’d never find them.
Fucking Charlie. Nora had told him in no uncertain terms to avoid Phil.
To avoid everyone. But instead he’d decided to throw himself at the others.
Did he have a death wish? Anger and concern fought for emotional supremacy within her, each evenly armed.
Nora started to cross the street towards the woods, when the wind picked up the echo of voices.
They were coming from the opposite direction, from somewhere behind the rocks.
Nora followed the sound until she found a break in the boulders and slipped through.
Beyond the rock wall sat layers of cliff side looking out over the turbulent sea.
Both sky and ocean were so gray she could barely see the horizon between them.
On a lower cliff up ahead, she spotted the backs of four men, roughly mouse-sized from her vantage point.
She scrambled after them, uncertain of what the hell they were up to but convinced it was no good.
She caught sight of the brassy mass of Charlie’s hair bopping along with the others. He was still alive. For now.
The unmarked path down the cliff was a bumpy mess of wet grass tufts and half-hidden stones.
Nora did her best to avoid both as she hurried down, her eyes locked on the men.
By the time she’d nearly closed the gap between them, they’d reached the cliff’s edge.
What the hell were they doing? They seemed to be talking, joking maybe, playfully slapping one another’s backs in that way men seemed to do when they couldn’t figure out how to show actual affection.
They all stood in what could have passed for a friendly half circle under different circumstances.
Someone pointed over the edge, and they all stepped closer to look down into the sea.
Nora immediately pictured Phil giving Charlie a shove just forceful enough to send him tumbling to the jagged rocks below.
Her feet had already picked things up to top speed before she could tell them to, which brought her inches from the small crowd when it happened.
She barely recognized the sound of her brother’s yelp, Charlie’s silhouette suddenly jerking forward, arms flailing in a desperate attempt to regain balance before his head slipped out of view to the sound of loose rocks breaking free on the cliff side and a chorus of gasps.
It was impossible to tell from Nora’s vantage point whether her brother had tripped or if he’d been pushed by one of the men around him; all she knew was that he was toppling forward and she needed to keep him from completing the fall.
No one else seemed quick to do the job, though whether that was from shock or something more malicious she couldn’t be sure.
Before she could catch up with herself, she was holding on to Charlie’s legs as the rest of him dangled helplessly over the cliff’s edge.
Charlie had never been a delicate boy. Even when they were kids, despite being twins, he had always dwarfed Nora.
She was narrow while he was broad, short while he was tall, thin while he was stocky.
None of this worked in her favor as she tried to hold on to his lower half, the rest of him swinging like a rag doll over the sheer drop.
A second pair of hands gripped Charlie’s ankles, just above Nora’s.
Nora looked over to find Charles holding firm.
He wasn’t a huge upgrade as far as strength or size, but at least she was no longer attempting this alone.
Vince, the fourth member of this death excursion, grabbed on next.
Eventually, and with what Nora was certain was reluctance, Phil hooked a fist around Charlie’s waistband and they all pulled in tandem until he was upright again.
Nora continued pulling until they were a solid fifteen feet away from the cliff’s edge, and then tentatively let go.
She looked at each of the men individually, her eyes aflame.
They each made a sheepish expression in turn, like kids being scolded by a strict teacher.
“What the hell?” Nora demanded. She let her focus linger on Phil longer than the rest, trying hard to show him that she knew exactly what the hell.
“I had to take a leak and Charles spotted a pod of whales,” Vince said quickly.
“Charlie said he’d never seen whales,” said Charles.
“Sorry,” said Phil. “We just got distracted. I promise I’ll get to your car.”
“And you?” Nora turned on Charlie.
“I wanted to see whales,” said Charlie with a shrug.
Unbelievable.
“How did you get all the way out here anyway?” asked Phil, eyes narrowed.
“I borrowed Charles’s car. I hope that’s okay, Charles,” said Nora.
“Oh,” said Charles. Then: “Of course.”
“Thanks. Okay.” Nora choked back the kind of tears that usually crept up her throat when she was overwhelmed. “Well, I’m sure Charlie has been enough of a distraction. We’ll leave you guys to it, right, Charlie?”
Charlie gave a salute.
“I might head back with you, if that’s all right,” said Charles. “I’m not much of a car man myself, and that was more than enough excitement for one day.”
* * *
Charles drove them back to town, which was just as well because Nora was still shaking too hard to even think about operating heavy machinery.
Charlie rode shotgun, his face cast out over the sea, reflecting back at Nora from the side-view mirror.
She never could make sense of him. What kind of maniac willingly goes to the edge of a cliff with near strangers when he knows someone wants him dead?
In his shoes, Nora would be hard-pressed to leave the house.
A house that was outfitted with fresh locks.
And an alarm system. And a really big dog.
But that would never be Charlie. Even a middle ground between a safe house and the cliff’s edge would never be Charlie.
Nora leaned her head against the car window and felt the cool of the outside world pressed against it.
It steadied her nerves just a bit, just enough to make it back to the little red house.
Charles dropped them near the door and headed home. The rain was still falling, and while Nora was mostly spared its touch under her coat and hood, Charlie was soaked to the bone. Still, Nora wasn’t ready to let him go inside just yet. She had too much to say, and most of it was for his ears only.
“Charlie,” she said as he moved to the door.
The way he stopped, like a dog whose leash had just been yanked, said he knew that tone.
His shoulders went up defensively. “What? Hey, look, I figured there’d be a bunch of us going and Phil probably wasn’t dumb enough to try anything with witnesses around.
A little guys’ outing sounded fun. And this place is really lacking in the fun department, Nor. I figured I’d take what I could get.”
“What you could ‘get’ might be dead, Charlie. Phil isn’t our only suspect, remember? The whole town is a question mark. And I was right, they have all been hiding something.”
“You found something at the house in the woods? I figured that would be a dead end. Like, no offense, but sometimes your imagination gets the better of you.”
Nora’s jaw tightened, her cheek muscle twitching. She’d been given that lecture enough as a child. The last person she needed it from was Charlie.
“Yeah, well, turns out I was right. Kind of. It’s not Phil living in there, it’s Richard’s dad, Oliver.”
“Wanna run that by me again?”
So Nora did, along with everything else she’d learned from Ruby and Richard about the town.
“Death’s Blind Spot,” Charlie said on a whistle once Nora had stopped talking. “That would make a sick band name. Can I have that?”
“You don’t even play an instrument, Charlie,” Nora said, letting herself get sidetracked by her brother’s usual nonsense before her own sense returned to her. “That’s not the point. The point is, this place…it’s safe.”
“Aside from the person trying to murder me.”
“Aside from that,” Nora agreed. “But think about it, Charlie, a place where you can live forever without life harming you.”
“Without life,” Charlie interjected.
“If we could just figure out who’s after you and stop them, properly stop them, we could stay here, with our family, where it’s safe. You wouldn’t have to worry about making rent or paying back whoever you owe money to this month. And I wouldn’t have to worry about…I wouldn’t have to worry.”
Charlie shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “Weren’t you just complaining about how we can’t trust anyone in this hellhole?”
“Sure, but in the end there’s only one person we actually can’t trust. We just need to weed them out, and then this could be our home. Right?”
Charlie just shrugged. “Dude, I’m wetter than a soccer mom at a Magic Mike show out here. Can I go get into something that isn’t actively growing moss?”
“Okay,” said Nora, deflating. “Yeah, of course. Go dry off, and just think about it, okay?”
Charlie gave a salute and disappeared inside.