Chapter 57
Luke
In the early afternoon, I go downstairs again. Water. Charles drinks it without speaking.
I stand in the doorframe. Watch him set the glass down.
“I’m going to say something,” I say. “And I need you to hear it.”
He opens his eyes. Looks at me. Wary.
“You can’t stay here forever. We both know that. She knows that, even if she won’t say it.”
“Is this the part where you kill me?”
“This is the part where I let you go.”
Silence. The basement kind. The kind that has weight.
“Walk out the front door. Go home. Go wherever you want. Just don’t go to the police.”
He stares at me. Not the usual disdain. Not fear. Something else. The look of a man trying to find the trap in a room he’s already been trapped in.
“She put you up to this.”
“She’s in New York.”
“She put you up to this before she left. This is one of her things. A test. See if I run. See if I’m—”
“Nobody put me up to anything, Charles. I’m standing in a basement telling you the door is open because we both know you can’t stay here forever and the longer this goes on the worse it gets for everyone.”
He’s quiet for a long time. Looking at me. Looking at the stairs behind me. The stairs that lead to a kitchen and a front door and a road and a world he hasn’t seen in weeks.
“Why?” he says. “Why now? You could have let me go the first day you walked into this house.”
“Because this doesn’t end well. Not for you. Not for her. Not for anyone.”
“That’s not what I’m asking.” He leans forward. “Why would you let me go? What do you get out of it?”
“I don’t get anything.”
“Everyone gets something. That’s how deals work.”
“This isn’t a deal. This is me telling you the door is open.”
“And I’m supposed to believe that the man who fucked my girlfriend on the kitchen table and then discussed burying me in the yard is now offering me freedom out of—what? Decency?”
“Believe whatever you want. The door is open.”
He looks at the stairs. Looks at me. Looks at his wrists in the cuffs.
“You can’t guarantee she won’t come after me.”
“She won’t.”
“You don’t know that. You’ve known her for three weeks. I’ve known her for two years. You don’t know what she does when things go sideways.”
“I know her better than you think.”
“Then you know she doesn’t let things go. That’s why I’m in this basement. That’s why you’re in this house.”
“Maybe she loves you as much as she knows I love this house.”
“God.” His eyes widen. “You’re as crazy as she is.”
“I’m sure you’re right about that too.”
Charles leans his head against the wall. Closes his eyes. I can see him working it—the angles, the risks, the probabilities. “How do I know this isn’t a setup?” he asks. Eyes still closed.
“You don’t.”
“How do I know you won’t call her the second I walk out?”
“You don’t.”
“How do I know she’s not parked at the end of the road waiting to—”
“You don’t know anything, Charles. That’s the point. You’ve been in a basement for weeks. You don’t know what day it is. You don’t know what’s real. You don’t know if I’m lying or telling the truth and you won’t know until you’re standing on the other side of that door.”
He opens his eyes.
“That’s a hell of a sales pitch.”
“I’m not selling anything. I’m telling you the door is open. You can walk through it or you can sit here and wait for whatever comes next. But I’m telling you right now—what comes next isn’t better than this.”
He looks at the stairs one more time. Long. Hard. The look of a man measuring the distance between where he is and where he could be.
“No,” he says.
“No?”
“I don’t trust you. I don’t trust her. I don’t trust this house or your so-called deal or anything that’s happened since I woke up in a trailer with a headache and a woman who thinks love is a felony.”
He settles back against the wall. “And you don’t take deals from people you don’t trust. First thing they teach you in law school.”
I stand there. Looking at a man who just turned down freedom.
“Your call,” I say.
I go upstairs. Close the basement door.
He had the door. He had the road. He had everything he’s been asking for since that night at dinner when he told Marin he was leaving her.
And he said no.
I stand in the kitchen and think about Marin. About every meal she carried down those stairs. Every movie night. Every cuff she adjusted. Every time she tried to fix a man who wouldn’t leave but wouldn’t stay. And now I’ve offered him the door and he won’t walk through it.
No wonder she lost her mind.
Because Charles doesn’t take deals he can’t control. Even when the deal is his life.