Chapter 15 #2
“Is it the paycheck?”
“I’m not worried about the money.” I reach for her arm again and stop us in front of my car. “Just give me a minute.” I pop the trunk of my big SUV open and pull the bag of salt toward me, then open it and scoop with the plastic cup.
“You keep salt in your car?” Callie watches me curiously.
I walk back to the slippery part of the sidewalk and gently shake salt over the ice. The town did a pretty good job of shoveling, but this bit is always in the shade, so it’s hard to keep clear.
It’s useful to keep a big bag of salt in the car, for multiple reasons. I never know when my brother is going to call me with a dead-body-related emergency.
“Yup. Don’t want someone falling. There’s a lot of older people in town.” I toss the cup back in my car and close the trunk, then hold out my arm. “Just in case there’s more ice.”
She slides her hand around my elbow and gives me a funny look.
We walk in silence for a minute, and I’m hoping she forgot her question about why I’m looking out for her.
Because I’m not completely sure how I’d respond.
It’s true that I have an obsessive personality.
I’ve scared off many women this way. But what’s closer to the truth is that Callie is an anomaly as she hasn’t already run screaming from me, and that’s more than intriguing.
Which is why I need to be careful not to let myself actually care about Callie. Keeping Noah safe is a full-time job, I don’t have room for anyone else.
“Wes?” Callie says in a sweet voice as she squeezes my arm, just on the verge of too hard. We’re at the end of the shops and the sidewalk stops in about five feet. “Where the fuck are you taking me?”
“Here.” I gesture down a path that leads behind the general store.
Callie follows, and a gorgeous view of the icy lake spans out in front of us.
It’s a dramatic difference from what it looks like in the summer months, when tourists converge on the lake and there are jet skis, motorboats, canoes, families swimming at private docks, ducks, and the occasional loon.
The general store bustles and families eat ice cream at the picnic tables down by the water.
At this point in the winter, the lake is frozen.
Solid with snow on top. No boats or people.
“It’s beautiful,” Callie says, her voice wistful. “But cold.” She shivers.
“Here.” I pull off my beanie and secure it onto her head. She looks up at me with big eyes while I do it. I adjust the hat gently.
“Thanks.”
“No problem. Look. That’s my cabin across the lake.
” I point to the distant short dock and pathway up to the screened-in porch of my cabin and the door which I snuck out of to catch her that first night she followed me home.
“And my brother’s cabin is there.” Now I point a stretch further down the shore to Noah’s dock.
“You’re lucky he’s so close,” Callie says. “Do you have other family?”
I freeze with my finger pointed in the air.
“No,” I say and drop my hand. “It’s just us.
” And that’s the truth. Our parents are dead, our little sister is gone with them, and my twin cut us out.
I can feel Callie’s gaze on the side of my face.
I don’t turn toward her. I’m not looking to share that dark part of my life, the series of events which turned Noah and I into what we are today, the sisters I lost.
Please don’t ask anything else, I beg her silently.
“Welp, I’m an ice cube, even with your hat.”
“Ready to go?” I finally have the nerve to turn toward her.
She nods and looks like she wants to say something else but doesn’t. We walk back down Main Street in silence until we get to her car in front of Killer Beans.
“So I can’t convince you to let me drive you to Boston next week?” Noah isn’t going to be pleased if I do convince her. When I floated the idea of going to Boston, he insisted we go early to check out Chad Smith.
“Nope.” She stops in front of her car and turns to me. “I can drive myself. We’re not actually friends, Wesley, it might be weird.” But she’s got an exasperated smirk on her face.
I’m totally winning her over.
“Ouch, Calliope. We already have special names for each other. How can you say we’re not friends?”
“They’re not special. They’re literally just our names.” But she sighs when I give her a goofy grin. “Just send me the address to meet you at.” She opens her car door and tosses me a withering look.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Callie rolls her eyes and slides into the driver’s seat. I knock on the passenger side window, and she rolls it down.
“We could be friends, Calliope. If you wanted to.”
Callie makes a face. “You’re exactly the type of person I should not be friends with.”
“What? That hurts.” I press my hand to my chest in mock pain, but in reality, her words do sting.
“Look.” She grabs her phone and taps a few times, then hands me the device.
On it is a picture of an adorable small ranch house with a covered front porch, a tiny lawn, and an actual white picket fence.
“What’s this?”
“It’s a house in Seattle. The suburbs. I probably can’t afford it right now, but that’s the goal. Start over in a place like that. Leave all this drama far behind me.”
“Got it.” I nod and give the phone back to her with a smile, but it feels overly forced. Right. She’s trying to get away from the criminal life. She’s told me that already.
I’d never be the someone Callie would choose. Not after the life she’s led so far with her asshole husband and her worthless father and brother.
She doesn’t want to be here anymore, and certainly not anywhere near me.
Callie pulls away, and I feel something akin to regret.
Regret for what? I am who I am, and there’s nothing that would change that.
And even if I did change for her, I can’t erase all the things I’ve done in the past. All the white picket fences in the world won’t bring back the people I’ve helped kill.
Someone like Callie doesn’t belong with someone like me. I’ll have to keep reminding myself of that. Maybe in a parallel universe she and I could be something. A universe in which my family is still alive, and Noah and I weren’t pushed into becoming serial killers.
But not in this one.