Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The day passed quickly, with the sun melting away most of the ice and snow by mid-afternoon.
We received an updated weather forecast that the warm air that’d finally pushed the snowstorm out of the mountains would usher in a tailwind of potentially severe thunderstorms. We’d need to prepare for overtime during the evenings and this coming weekend.
I didn’t mind. With Charlie and me tag-teaming the hourly passes and logs, it didn’t feel monotonous, and I didn’t resent the extra time on the clock.
I also didn’t mind finally being able to touch him all the time.
And kiss him.
And feel the way he melted beneath my hands when I teased along the small of his back.
“Mmph…” he moaned, leaning into where I pressed a kiss into the soft patch of skin behind his ear. I turned him to face me, and he easily folded into my arms, breathing each other in.
“Reece?”
“Hmm?”
He tucked his head more solidly against me. “Remember when you said you could find people on the internet? Like, look them up so you can talk to them?”
“I remember,” I said quietly.
“I think I’m ready for you to look for my family, now.”
I pulled away just enough to look at him. “Depending on how private their information is, it might be hard to find, or not possible without the help of someone like a private investigator. But I’ll try for you.”
He nodded. “I understand. If anyone’s still alive, it’s probably my sister. Maybe.” He swallowed. “Frances Randolph is her full name. My parents are Charles Sr. and Carey.”
“Do you want to look with me, or would you rather I tell you what I find?”
He fingered the collar of my shirt. “I think I need to go and rest for a bit. I’ll try to be back this evening for dinner. Could you look while I’m away, and tell me what you find?”
“Of course, baby,” I said, dropping a kiss into his hair. “Go. I’ll be here when you get back.”
Ifound his dad’s obituary first.
Charles Randolph Sr. passed away peacefully on February 12th, 2013, in St. Luke’s Memorial Hospital.
He was preceded in death by his loving wife, Carey.
He leaves behind his beloved son and daughter, Charles Jr., and Frances.
In lieu of flowers, please make your donations to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
With tears streaming down my face, I opened a new tab and began the search for Frankie.
By the time Charlie reappeared in the cabin, I’d prepared dinner—ground beef burritos with a not-so-fresh tomato pico and a spicy lime crema—because I didn’t know what else to do while I waited for him to return, and I wanted him to have something to eat if it’d make him feel better.
He took one look at my face and put a hand over his mouth to stifle a sob. Wrapping him up tight in my arms, I guided him to where I had my laptop open and ready.
“Who?” he asked through his tears. “Just tell me who, first.”
“Both of your parents have passed away. Your mom went first, twenty years ago, and your dad passed twelve years ago. I’m so sorry, Charlie.”
He shook his head. “It’s stupid to be s-so upset over it, isn’t it? It was twenty years ago,” he sobbed.
I held him close, gently rocking. “It’s not stupid. For you, they didn’t die until today. You need to let yourself mourn that.”
He cried for a long time, leaning heavily into me. “Frankie?” he asked eventually. “What about Frankie?”
I grimaced. “I couldn’t find anything about her, other than she was still alive at the time of your dad’s passing. She and your parents gave a handful of interviews back when you first went missing, but none of them spoke to the press after that.”
He wouldn’t look me in the eye. “So they think I did it, then,” he said gruffly, trying to pull away.
I took his hand to stop him. “I think you should read your dad’s obituary for yourself.”
Charlie only hesitated a second before he agreed; the trust that I wouldn’t make him look at something that would hurt him was heady.
He cried all over again after he read it. “Beloved son…” A sob cut off his words.
“I looked up their interviews, Charlie. They did not believe you were the killer. They were treated pretty badly by the press after their last few interviews; I think that’s why they stopped. But I don’t read this as the obituary of a man who lost hope his son would come home.”
Grief poured out of him. We spent the rest of the night huddled in bed, where he picked at dinner and then curled up, falling into whatever version of sleep he was capable of while I held him.
Days passed that way. Eventually, Charlie asked to read the interviews his family had given, which upset him almost more than the obituary.
“It’s not because it’s bad,” he whispered into the scant space between us, late one night. “It’s not that I would’ve preferred they believe something awful about me. It’s that they were hurting, too. All that time, some part of them hoped I’d come home.”
He said he wasn’t ready to try contacting Frankie. “She clearly doesn’t want anyone to talk to her about when I went missing. What if she’s moved on? I’m sure she’s married, probably has a family. It would be cruel to insert myself back into the peace she may have found.”
“I understand,” I replied. “I won’t try to find her if you don’t want me to. But if you do, I will. I can’t promise it would go well, but I think she’d want to hear from you. I think she’d want those answers, maybe the chance to talk to you again. Even if it’s only once.”
He tucked himself farther beneath the blankets, scooting as close to me as possible before pressing a chaste kiss to my lips. “I’ll think about it.”
My next resupply trip quickly approached.
Sitting at my desk with weeks of observation logs scattered in front of me, begging to be organized, I dropped my head into my hands and rubbed my temples. “Do you remember if we have any onions left?”
I’d never been a very creative meal planner, and my skills were already stretched beyond their limits. Coming up with dinner ideas felt like more and more of a chore as the days went on.
“I think so? I’ll go check,” Charlie replied, standing from the bed. He ran a hand along my shoulders as he passed, a soft smile on his face.
My phone rang, and I hit the ignore button.
“Tate again?” he asked, his brow furrowed in displeasure.
“Mmhmm.”
“Why don’t you just answer it?”
I sighed. “Because I really don’t want to talk to him. I check in with Dad and Bobby every day. If he wants to know whether or not I’m alive, he can ask them.”
Charlie trailed his hand from my shoulder down across my chest and leaned over to kiss me. I turned my whole body into it, twisting in the chair to face him for a better angle.
“Mmm,” he hummed when I deepened the kiss with my tongue. Throwing both arms around my shoulders, his fingers dug in. “I was going somewhere,” he breathed, tipping his head back to allow my searching mouth to taste the column of his neck.
“Onions,” I said, palming his ass.
He laughed. “Oh my, talk dirty to me.”
I pulled away a bit to watch the way his laughter made him glow. “Onion rings,” I said with a grin.
Charlie laughed harder, his head thrown back and dimples on full display. “Only you.”
His words held such fondness, such warmth, I thought I might be glowing, too.
He was mourning, yes, and there were times I didn’t know how to be there for him or what I could do to make him feel better, but then he’d just ask me to hold him again, and the squirmy feeling of not being enough during his time of need fled.
We hadn’t gone any further since that first time, but it somehow deepened the intimacy between us when all he needed from me at night was to be held. Just being in each other’s presence was enough.
I still thought about him all the time, though. I still wanted. But only if he was ready, only if he also wanted that with me again, too.
With one more chaste kiss, he walked toward the door.
“Please be safe,” I said.
He grinned at me through the glass, blinked away, and then re-materialized at the bottom of the tower, right in front of the utility shed.
I couldn’t even pretend to roll my eyes at the sight of those dimples reappearing.
With a sigh, I returned to the tedious chore of sorting our weather data records and field observation logs by date. An easier task now that Charlie and I had both filled out the forms—his chicken scratch was slightly more legible than mine.
Squinting between two forms, attempting to decipher which was from the thirteenth and which was the eighteenth of the month, movement outside caught my eye.
Far in the distance, a truck trundled down the only stretch of park service access road visible from this lookout’s vantage point. I stood and snagged my binoculars from the windowsill, brow furrowing when I caught a glimpse just before the road curved and the truck drove out of sight.
It wasn’t extraordinary to see cars on the road, but Forest Service or other government vehicles were the only ones legally allowed in the park, and this was clearly privately owned.
Even more confusing, however, was that I knew exactly who it belonged to.
Bobby.
It was a 1986 Chevy Silverado, blue with a bold white stripe down the body.
I knew that, because he’d bought it off my dad when he’d sold our house in town and moved out to the cabin.
It’d been Dad’s back when it was new, and he’d always planned to keep it maintained, but when Mom moved and he got busy with work and solo parenting, it’d fallen into disrepair.
Bobby was good with cars; he’d loved flipping through restoration magazines as a kid, and he’d done a great job fixing the old truck up.
I thought back on our conversations over the last few weeks and couldn’t remember him ever mentioning he’d be out this way.
If so, I’d have invited him to come up to the lookout.
Of all the people in my life, I’d want Bobby to meet Charlie first. He’d probably struggle with the idea of ghosts and be worried for me, but he’d also be the most understanding of how I felt.