Chapter 46 – Charlie
CHARLIE
Mitchell and I continue sparring, going round for round and testing each other’s skills until it’s well passed lunchtime and we’re both exhausted.
Well, I am. I have a feeling Mitchell could have kept going, and only suggested we stop for my benefit. He barely sounds out of breath, taking small even sips from his bottle while I’m guzzling down my water, chest heaving and body aching.
As soon as we’re inside, I head for the kitchen and refill my bottle from the tap. Once it’s full, I down it in one go, not bothering to put the lid back on. “You’re gonna make yourself sick if you keep that up,” Mitchell states, shrugging when I continue drinking.
“If I end up getting sick, it’ll be more to do with your brand of torture and less to do with my water intake.”
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” He sets his bottle down on the bench and heads to the fridge, looking over his shoulder before asking, “Steak and chips sound alright?”
“Huh?”
“Lunch.” He turns, a tray of steaks in his hand and I nod before heading upstairs when he tells me to go take a shower.
When I’m done, I don’t see Mitchell anywhere in the kitchen, the only noise from downstairs is that of the air fryer. Frowning, I follow my nose, heading out the backdoor to find him already cooking the steaks on the barbeque.
“I didn’t realise you guys had a barbie,” I mutter, closing the door behind me and wincing when I hear the lock engage, reminding me that the key he gave me is inside.
“Yep,” he replies, his eyes focused on the two searing steaks. Other than him asking how I like mine cooked, we don’t really talk, but the silence isn’t awkward.
Finally, he pulls the steaks off the barbie and onto a plate, then turns the gas canister off before using the brush to clean off the residue, scraping it into the little hole for it to fall into the catcher.
Once he’s done, he grabs everything and looks at me. “Get the door, will you?”
“Uh.” I laugh nervously, scratching the back of my neck. “I would, but-” before I can explain I forgot my key; he’s rolling his eyes and tossing his to me.
I snatch them out of the air, thankful that I don’t drop them, and unlock the door, holding it open for him.
“Mind wrapping that in foil while I quickly grab a shower?” he asks, placing the plate on the bench before heading upstairs to do just that when I agree.
I quickly wrap the plate in foil, placing it in the microwave to sit and stay warm before grabbing us plates and leftover salad from last night.
We’re washing up when Mitchell’s phone starts ringing. He leans over, looking at the screen and quickly dries his hands. “It’s the school.”
“Mitchell speaking.” I can’t hear what’s being said on the other line, but his face doesn’t bode well. Right as I’m about to ask him to put it on loudspeaker, my own starts ringing.
Drying my hands, I dig it out of my pocket. “Eric?” I say into the phone as the call connects.
“Where is Jace?” His question sends a chill down my spine, forcing the hairs on the back of my neck to rise.
“What? Um, he’s not here. He’s out with Bonnie.”
“When was the last time you spoke with him?”
“After they picked up his gear, he called to tell me they were going to a tattoo parlour. Then Bonnie messaged us when they left.”
“When was that?”
“Um, I dunno, t-two and a half hours ago, maybe? But the drive back is about an hour, and they were going to hang out by the river before picking Charlotte up.” I pull my phone from my ear, checking the time and my stomach drops.
“I’m leaving now,” Mitchell says into his phone, hanging up and meeting my eyes. My skin crawls, and he and Eric talk at the same time. “Jace and Bonnie didn’t pick Charlotte up.”
“Jace’s phone location has been sitting by the motorway back into town for the past hour and a half.”
“Maybe he got a flat?” They didn’t. I can feel it in my gut. Switching the phone to loudspeaker, I open the app Jace and I use to share our locations.
I feel numb as I shove my feet into the first pair of shoes I find. I’m pretty sure they’re Jace’s but right now I couldn’t give a fuck.
His location is showing he’s sitting a few metres into the bush beside the motorway between our small town and the one they drove to get his grooming equipment.
“Y-You said he’s been sitting in the same spot for over an hour?” I stutter out, climbing into Mitchell’s car as I stare at the little red dot representing Jace, not hearing Eric’s response.
“Seatbelt,” Mitchell says absentmindedly, reversing the car out of the garage at a higher speed that at any other time I'd normally be uncomfortable with.
Mitchell tosses me his phone, telling me the password and how to pull up Bonnie’s car’s GPS.
I do as he says and freeze when I see where the car is. “It’s…in town.” That…doesn’t make sense.
“What?” Mitchell and Eric ask. I’d kind of forgotten he was still on the phone.
“Y-Yeah, um…the car’s GPS shows it’s a few blocks from the school and river. Fuck, how did we not notice? Should we go there first?”
“We can’t. Charlotte needs us. We’ve never not shown up or even been late to pick her up. As much as I want to go right there…I swore to Marissa that if something like this ever happened, Charlotte would come first.”
I close my eyes, rubbing a hand over my face. He’s right. Charlotte is probably sitting in the office, surrounded by teachers who are giving her pitiful looks, wondering why her mother didn’t show.
Something I’m also wondering and dreading the answer to. I know Bonnie would never willingly leave Charlotte alone like this, and neither would Jace.
The thought forms a lump in my throat as I try to rationalise why Jace’s phone location would be showing so far away from Bonnie’s car, but can’t come up with a single logical explanation for it.
We’re silent for a few minutes, and every second the silence stretches, the harder it gets to suck in a breath. “I can’t lose them again,” I choke out, trying to force breath into my lungs.
Mitchell’s voice sounds distant as he calls my name. I pull at the collar of my shirt; thoughts of the last time they disappeared filtering through my head. Waking up to find their house empty, their car gone. No messages, no calls, no note. Just…gone.
I can’t do this again. All I can think about is sitting by the phone, then the letter box, waiting for a call, a message, anything to tell me they were okay. The years that followed, seeing them at every turn only to be heartbroken again and again when it wasn’t them.
The hopelessness every time a lead turned up empty.
The heartache every time we came home without her.
I clutch at my chest. “I can’t go through this again, Mitchell. I can’t. I just, I can’t-”
“Charlie!” Mitchell’s voice booms through the car and he shakes my shoulder, snapping me out of it.
I blink. We’re parked, the school’s open gates looming in front of us.
“Get your shit together. I need to go in there and get Charlotte, and when we come back out…she can’t see you like this.
It’ll scare her. I know it’s hard, but you need to breathe. You need to be strong, for them.”
“I don’t know if I can.”
“You have to,” his voice breaks, and for a second, I can see the fear and panic he’s hiding. Then he blinks and it’s gone.
I close my eyes, trying to do the same, taking several long, deep breaths to calm myself. When I’ve semi-managed it, I reopen my eyes and nod to indicate I’ve gotten a hold of myself. Barely.
He nods back and reaches for his door handle, but I snap an arm out to stop him. “Wait.”
“Charlie, I need to go get Charlotte.”
“I know.” Licking my lips, I try to swallow around the lump in my throat and dry mouth, because a thought occurs to me. We both can’t go look for Bonnie and Jace.
One of us needs to be there for Charlotte, and as much as I want to be the one to go out and look for them…it can’t be me. “It has to be you.”
“What has to be me?”
“You need to take me and Charlotte home. Then…then you need to…It has to be you. I’ll keep Charlotte safe, just…just bring them home to me, please.”
I can’t stand the thought of sitting at home, twiddling my thumbs while someone else does the leg work, looking for the loves of my life, but…Charlotte needs to come first. It’s what Bonnie would want. She gave up her life for Charlotte. She gave everything up for her daughter.
As much as it kills me…I can do this for her. For both of them.
I can do this.
I have to.
“Hey Charlie,” Charlotte greets as she climbs into the back, her voice lacking some of that upbeat energy I’ve come to associate with her.
Keeping my eyes locked on the windscreen, I force a smile onto my face before I look over my shoulder. “Hey, munchkin. How was school?”
She perks up at my question, scooting over into the middle seat and pulling the belt around her body. “It was good!” Mitchell closes the door once she’s safely buckled in and jumps into the driver’s seat.
We share a look before he pulls out onto the road, glancing at Charlotte in the rearview mirror as she continues her story, talking about everything that happened today.
I try to pay attention, I really do, but the best I can manage is chiming in with an ‘ah huh’ or ‘that’s great’ when she pauses waiting for a reaction or response from me.
Mitchell takes a turn, veering from our normal route back to the house. I look his way as we approach the intersection that crosses with the side road Bonnie’s car is still sitting at.
He slows down as we drive straight through the intersection, not enough for Charlotte to notice, but enough that we can glimpse her car.
It’s stopped haphazardly on the side of the road, parked in front of a telegraph pole, the front doors wide open; the car abandoned.
My hand slams over my mouth and Mitchell’s grip tightens on the steering wheel as he reluctantly keeps driving.
Fuck, driving away hurts so much.
Silence fills the car, and it takes me a moment to realise it’s because Charlotte has stopped talking, waiting for me to answer a question I wasn’t listening to.
“Yeah, we had crazy hair days when we were in school,” Mitchell answers for me.
“But you have no hair!” She giggles, before diving right back into her story.
Mitchell’s phone chimes and I freeze. “That’s the cameras.” He leans his bodyweight on his right side, pulling his phone out of his back pocket and tosses it into my lap.
Numbly, I swallow around the lump still in my throat and enter his password, ignoring the way my hand trembles as I click the ‘Motion Detected’ notification.
An app instantly opens, dozens of tiles loading into a grid. I’m momentarily taken aback by the number of thumbnails, each representing a different camera around the house.
“The ones flashing orange are cameras that are detecting movement,” Mitchell explains, and I nod, scrolling down the list and selecting the first flashing orange tile I see.
Mitchell takes the next turn, and I look out the window, waiting for the app to load the live camera feed.
My eyes snap back to the phone, two grey four-wheel drives driving passed the camera by the road. I relay the information to Mitchell, keeping my voice low so as not to worry Charlotte.
Exiting out of the camera, I load another one. It’s another side view, but this one shows them slowing down until, “They’re turning into our driveway.”
My heartrate picks up, and I exit out of that camera’s feed, scrolling until I find another flashing orange tile. While it loads, Mitchell turns onto our road.
“They’re stopping.” The next camera is an almost bird’s eye view of the two cars idling in front of the closed and lock gate.
“Can you see the drivers?”
I shake my head. “I can’t find a camera that has a front view of the cars.” I click the next one, frustrated when it shows the rear of the second car.
“Go to camera 27.” I nod, scrolling through the list until I find it.
My eyes flick up as I feel the car make the slight bend in the road. “Well?” Mitchell asks impatiently.
“Hang on, it’s too far away. I’m zooming in.” The image takes a second to render and I look up as the road straightens. From here, I can make out the two cars peeking through the trees that hide the property and gate from view.
Mitchell slows, backing off the accelerator as we approach. He creeps forward, overtaking the rear idling vehicle; the window tinting making it too hard to see inside.
“That’s my dad,” I say as the image on the screen finally loads. Sure enough, as we pull up beside the lead car, the front window winds down to reveal two of my dads inside. “Dad?”