Chapter 38
Chapter Thirty-Eight
WILLIAM
I wake with my heart thumping, and for an instant, I think I’m at work with the tones going off.
But I’m in my bed, with Charlotte’s back nestled against my chest and my arm wrapped around her.
My clock reads just after four a.m. and though I long to stay here with her, the restlessness I managed to put aside last night quickly ramps up.
What caused Charlotte to react like that? Yesterday wasn’t the time to coax her to open up, but it’s weighing on me. I don’t want her to suffer like that ever again.
I stroke down Charlotte’s arm and pull her a little closer to me while my mind drifts back to the break-in.
Does Zach’s team have any leads yet? That one of the missing record books is tied to Dagney Cole has been bugging me.
Could someone be trying to cover their tracks?
It makes me think that Ballard’s working much more than some hunch.
He left me a voicemail yesterday but I was too busy taking care of Charlotte to call him back. I need to get him that intel.
After easing out of bed so I don’t wake Charlotte, I dress in a pair of sweats and a hoody, then pad to the kitchen and stoke the wood stove.
Ollie scarfs her breakfast, and while the coffee brews, I let her outside.
The early morning air is crisp, and a harvest moon hangs low in the sky, a reminder that summer’s long gone.
When are Charlotte’s auditions? She said next month, and yesterday was October first. Time is running out.
After Ollie returns, I dry her paws then grab a cup of coffee, unpack my laptop, and slide on my reading glasses.
Though I’m eager to get started on the data Luke’s asked for, I skim my inbox first. Oscar’s sent me some menu ideas, Mike’s completed his inventory, and I have a new hostess starting today.
There’s a message from someone named Steve Pax at Now Live Entertainment regarding my VIP passes to a show at Creekside tonight.
The message is addressed to Ray, so I flag it to follow up later.
It’s not the first email like it. Why didn’t Ray bother to tell anyone about the change in The Limelight’s ownership before he dropped off the face of the earth?
Finally, I turn my attention to the booking software.
I may not have been the best student, but thanks to a geology grad student TA my sophomore year, I’m not completely inept when it comes to using spreadsheets.
After downloading all the records, I categorize everything by year.
Then I grab the relevant staffing records and add as much detail as I can scrape together, though Ray’s system is a haphazard mess, so it’s not easy or fast. I do a simple search for duplicate names, just to see if there are any obvious results I could share with Luke, but the list is surprisingly long.
If only I could cross reference with the records from Creekside, but I’m sure Luke has that covered.
So I send him copies of everything in an email with a note about the break-in, making sure to highlight my find regarding Dagney Cole.
The light warms outside the windows, turning the dewdrops coating the grass into tiny diamonds.
Maybe it’s the data crunching, or the startling mix of events yesterday, but my mind feels muddled, heavy with unanswered questions.
I make a pot of oatmeal and a skillet of Zach’s stewed pears, filling the kitchen with the rich aroma of butter and cinnamon-sugar.
Theo comes home just as I’m serving myself a bowl and a second cup of coffee. Ollie trots over and he squats down to greet her. His eyes look bloodshot and there are dark circles beneath them.
“Breakfast?” I ask.
He gives me a thoughtful glance. “Sure.”
I bring my bowl and coffee to the table. The woodstove gives a soft whump as one of the logs settles, followed by crackling.
“Long night?” I ask as he serves himself at the stove.
“Yeah. Interesting though.”
Interesting to Theo could be anything from a ruptured appendix to repairing a hole in someone’s chest, so I don’t ask for details.
I blow on my bite before gulping it down. It’s not quite as good as Zach’s. He’s more patient than me, letting the pears stew for longer, but it’s still damn good.
“You and Charlie have plans today?” he asks, glancing down the hallway as he settles in next to me.
“Not sure yet.” I carve out another bite, but my questions churning in my gut make it go down like a slippery eel. “How did Morgan end up with all that land? Did you guys inherit it or something?”
He gives me a curious frown. “Uh, Morgan sold a few of her songs to some bigshot, like…six years ago maybe? Charlotte helped her buy the property. Mo already knew the place because she’d worked there all through high school.
The woman used to breed horses, but in her later years ran a kind of a rescue, so it already had the barn and some of the corrals. ”
“Why wasn’t Ray involved?”
“What makes you think he wasn’t?” Theo replies with a shrug. “I was away at Western when it went down.”
I take another bite, thinking about this.
Charlotte always said Morgan was a gifted songwriter and the backbone of Boxcar Doves.
So why does something feel off about this story?
Does Morgan still sell her music? How does something like that even work?
And six years ago, Morgan would have been nineteen or twenty.
Kind of young to take on a project like Thunder Mountain.
Sure, Morgan’s always had a lot of energy and liked to dream big, but could it have been too much, too fast?
“Has Charlotte ever had a bad experience with a dentist?” I ask.
Theo leans back in his chair, scowling. “What’s gotten into you this morning?”
I rub down my chin. He’s right. I’m all over the place, but every question running through my brain feels urgent, so I plow on. “Yesterday, Charlotte cracked a tooth. So I took her to a dentist her friend Wren recommended, but once we got there, things didn’t go so well.”
His eyes flash with impatience. “What do you mean?”
I huff a sigh, trying to put it into a gentle package, but my heart is twisting into knots.
The memory of Charlotte disappearing inside herself while her body erupted in fear keeps playing in my mind.
She’s always been so confident. Even when her stage fright got bad, she just bulldozed ahead.
Yesterday, it was like watching all that beautiful strength crumble before my eyes. “I think she had a panic attack.”
“Shit,” Theo replies, worry creasing his brow. He releases a slow breath, then glances down the hall. “That’s serious.”
“Yeah.”
“We saw Dr. Paulson as kids,” Theo says. “We always went together for our cleanings and stuff, so Dad would only have to take off one afternoon instead of three. I don’t remember any kind of bad experience. In fact, she actually liked the dentist.”
“Huh.” So if Charlotte never had a bad reaction in a dentist’s chair until after she left Finn River, does that mean the source of whatever caused her to react that way also happened then? “Dr. Wilson pulled her records. I guess Charlotte sees a children’s dentist in Seattle.”
Theo pauses mid-chew. “Has she told you why?”
“No…but yesterday was…intense. By the time I got her home, she was exhausted.”
He huffs a slow breath. “I don’t know, man. Charlie and I aren’t close…like we used to be. Her life’s in Seattle now. ”
He scrapes the last bite of his oatmeal.
“That first winter Charlie came home from college, I had the feeling something wasn’t right.
I assumed it was you”—he shoots me a steely glare—“and whatever had happened between you two. But she insisted she was fine. That you guys had decided the distance and your lives were too different to stick it out. I thought whatever was bugging her might be something that Crosby kid pulled. But she said if anything, she was the one who had hurt him .”
That Christmas, I was only home for a few days because the Ducks were headed to the Rose Bowl and our training schedule was nuts.
I was still too confused and hurt to try to see Charlotte.
Plus, she’d blocked my number, never answered my emails or letters.
I wasn’t keen to show up at her door only to have her slam it in my face.
Our rushed conversation Sunday night flashes through my mind. I trust you, Will. I always have.
While that reassured me in the moment, I realize now that it wasn’t an answer to my question. Not a complete one.
“I promised Charlotte I’d never hurt her,” I say. “I meant it back then and it’s just as true now.”
“Yeah, I know.” Emotion plays across his face. “But it’s obvious someone else has.”
I stand, adrenaline pumping through me. Is this what I’ve been missing all this time? Someone hurt her, and for reasons she’s kept to herself, she felt the need to push me away?
The soft click of a door down the hallway draws both of our attention.
“Think she’ll tell you about it?” Theo asks in a soft voice.
Hot anger claws at my insides, making me want to hit something. “I don’t know.”
Theo grips my shoulder and our eyes lock, then he crosses to the stairs and climbs out of sight.
Charlotte shuffles into the kitchen wearing leggings and one of my Finn River Fire & Rescue hoodies, her silky hair swept to one side. Ollie trots over, and she smiles, even bending low to scratch her head.
The simple gesture of trust gives the chains surrounding my heart a sharp tug.
I want to freeze this moment in time. She’s here, safe with me, learning to trust me again.
But she obviously hasn’t trusted me all the way.
As much as I’d like to think I could hold out, hoping that someday she opens up to me, what if she refuses?
Could we build the future we dreamed of with secrets left between us?
“Morning,” Charlotte says as she straightens, her eyes calm. She walks into my embrace, and I savor the way our bodies fit together.
“Nice hoody,” I say, kissing the top of her head. “You know what it means, right?”
She laughs, and it’s light and carefree, like yesterday never happened. Like she’s not hiding something important from me. “Hmm, enlighten me.”
“The only way you get to wear a firefighter’s gear is to be one, or do one.”
“Well, we both know I don’t have any plans to be one.” She laughs again, sliding her hand to the small of my back, her warm fingers lighting up my bare skin.
In one motion, I lift her over my shoulder. “Just for that, I’ll let you leave it on.”