Chapter 58 Charlie
CHARLIE
“The man who helped Freya yesterday dropped this round earlier,” says Charlie, as he walks back into the restaurant from his office. He throws the brown envelope down onto the bar in front of Anita.
She eyes it with caution, as if there might be a corrosive substance inside. “What is it?” she asks.
“Take a look.”
She frowns as she pulls out two Australian passports—one with the top corner cut off.
“What’s this?” she croaks, turning them over in her hands.
If Charlie didn’t know better, he’d say she already knows, because instinct would otherwise tell her to open them. But she almost looks too scared to.
“I guess this is her next move,” he says. “The master plan that they’ve been working on together for months.”
Anita shakes her head, holding a hand to her mouth when she sees Pete’s expressionless face staring out at her.
“He’s applied for a new passport, and she went to pick it up,” says Charlie. “It doesn’t take Einstein to work out what’s going on.” His jaw locks as he chastises himself for ignoring the signs that have been staring him in the face. “He’s come back, and they’ve picked up where they left off.”
Anita is still shaking her head. “He never left,” she says, her voice shaking.
Charlie’s hollow laugh rings out around the restaurant. “So I’ve been played for a fool all this time?”
Anita gets off her stool and starts walking around the restaurant, looking more and more angst-ridden with every circuit she completes. “He never left,” she says again, as she clutches the navy right-to-travel document in her hand.
Charlie wonders what’s stirring her up. Hadn’t she always praised Pete?
She’d certainly taken every opportunity to tell Charlie how woefully short he fell in comparison.
She should be ecstatic that Freya has finally chosen to be with him.
So why is she going around and around in circles, looking like a wide-eyed maniac?
“Anita!” Charlie says, going to her and standing in her path. She seems to look right through him.
“I should have gone to the police,” she says. “I should have trusted my instinct.”
“We’ve been through all this,” says Charlie, assuming she’s referring to the accident.
She shakes her head. “I knew he hadn’t gone back to Australia. I knew something had happened.”
Charlies takes hold of her trembling hands. “Anita, you’re not making any sense. What do you mean? What happened?”
She sits back down on the stool, wringing her hands in her lap. “I found Pete’s passport when Freya was moving into your place.”
Charlie leans in, as if it will help him understand what she’s trying to say.
“It was at the bottom of a box that she kept all her school stuff in.”
“Right,” says Charlie, still not seeing where this is leading.
“She said he had to go back to Australia because of visa issues,” says Anita.
Charlie shakes his head. “She caught him with another girl,” he says, seeing no reason for her not to know. Far worse has already been laid on the table tonight.
Anita shakes her head. “He wouldn’t have so much as looked at another woman.
He was obsessed with Freya. He would have done anything for her—just like you.
Though whether it’s out of love or fear, I still haven’t worked out.
Because once she gets her claws in, I don’t think even you know the difference. ”
Charlie rubs at his eyes as if it will help him see clearer.
“She probably accused him of such, without any real proof, because that’s what she does. But his days would have been numbered.”
“She said he went back home shortly after the breakup,” says Charlie.
Anita closes her eyes. “You don’t get it, do you? He didn’t have his passport. She did. He couldn’t have left, even if he wanted to.”
Charlie forces a laugh. “You’re making it sound as if she’s killed him.”
Her eyes shoot open. “Who’s to say she didn’t?”