Chapter 46
Chapter Forty-Six
ALICE
Charlie’s been gone for hours. He left while I was writing upstairs, and I’m not sure where he went. By the time I go to bed, he still isn’t home, but that isn’t why I can’t sleep.
I wish it was. I worked on my book for hours—writing about a new love interest who’s more like Charlie than I want to admit—and we had such a nice day after that perfect first kiss. Still thinking about him would be natural, the best kind of torture. But my brain would rather go for the real stuff instead.
Actual torture. Medical what-if torture.
I’m not sure what time it is when I hear the noises outside. All I know is it’s well past midnight and nowhere near dawn.
The front gate rattles with the breeze, but there are other sounds: faint growls, grunts, and snuffles. Real wildlife-slasher-movie stuff. Creatures with claws that go bump in the night.
Be reasonable, Alice.
Stay inside.
This is Tyler’s fault. He put up new screens, so we could leave the windows open, but I’d rather overheat. I hear those noises outside, and I wish our windows were shut .
I’m not an idiot; I know better than to investigate scary noises in the middle of the night. But I get up anyway—I have to.
There’s an elaborate raccoon trap in the yard that involves a trash can and water. The Sharp twins swear it’s safe, but I have my doubts. Maybe I don’t like that ghost squirrel, but I still don’t want anything bad to happen to it.
Tyler and Lydia are no help. They fell asleep in the middle of their big stakeout, and I can hear them snoring gently in the living room as I sneak outside. It’s just me and the terrifying animal noises.
Using my phone as a flashlight, I edge across the darkened lawn toward shadows in the distance—our raccoon trap. As I get closer, I can make out all the different components. There’s a picnic table with a long plank of wood balanced on top. That plank hangs off the edge of the table like a diving board, and there’s a small dish of Cookie’s dog kibble waiting at the very end. The perfect bait for a raccoon.
The outdoor trash can is the finishing touch. It’s right underneath that makeshift diving board, and it’s filled with a foot of water. Just enough to make it harder for the raccoon to jump back out.
Walk the plank.
Grab some kibble.
Fall in the trash can.
Take a bath while we call for help.
It’s a beautiful plan, a wonder of desperate engineering where everything’s balanced just right so gravity can do the dirty work. Where as soon as that raccoon walks out far enough, the wood plank will tip, and his reign of terror will finally be over. This plan has everything.
And it could go wrong a million different ways.
Normal traps—the humane ones Bill Tipton has set up in the past—haven’t worked so far. I’m not even sure if this one’s going to work; that ghost squirrel is one smart raccoon. But Cookie has been sad about his missing stuffed bee all day, and a dog mom’s got to do what a dog mom’s got to do.
A soft growl echoes in the distance. It’s either coming from inside the trash can or right behind it. Or maybe I’m imagining that sound.
As I inch toward danger, I’d swear the wind whispers my name. Low and soft, just once. But I’m probably imagining that too.
Before I can reach the trash can, my phone buzzes in my hand, nearly startling me out of my skin. When I glance at the screen to see who’s texting me, my terror only grows. Jason.
This is what’s kept me up all night. Not missing my ex, but wondering why he left. If it was normal relationship problems that did us in or my sister’s eye condition. All those medical what-ifs that I might have to face one day too.
That’s what really scares me. Not raccoons or heights or all these noises around me. If Jason left because he was too worried about the future to stay with me, are other guys going to feel the same way? Are all those medical what-ifs going to follow me to the next guy and the next?
Would it make Charlie back away too?
I don’t want to think about that now. Wondering isn’t going to make me feel better; Jason’s text isn’t going to make me feel better. We broke up. I should ignore his message or delete it or?—
My phone vibrates as he sends another text, and I give in. Curiosity is going to be the death of me. Bring on the pain…
Jason: Sorry about everything earlier on the tram.
An apology? I almost exhale with relief—but then I keep reading.
Jason: It’s been a rough few days, that’s all. I miss you—but I know we made the right decision.
We didn’t make a decision; he dumped me. Though it’s that last part that really gets me. I know we made the right decision.
How?
Our breakup was hard, but I don’t miss Jason the way I should—that’s how I know we shouldn’t be together. But what about him? If Jason misses me, how does he still know he made the right choice?
My medical what-ifs creep back in, and I’d do just about anything to make them go away. Another growl echoes in the dark, and I choose that path instead. I choose raccoon.
Sneaking toward that sound, I ignore Jason’s messages as I close in on our homemade animal trap. Once I reach the trash can, I brace for the worst. Please don’t let there be an animal inside. Please let it only be water.
Leaning forward, I aim my phone light into the murky depths below, trying to see what’s inside that trash can. What wilderness horrors await me.
Nothing.
No horrors at all.
The water in the trash can is inky black in the dark, an endless void, but that’s all there is. Then I glance up and find the real horror waiting for me. That trash can isn’t the only thing that’s empty.
The kibble bowl sits perched at the end of the plank, right where it should be. Except there’s nothing inside. There isn’t even a stray crumb left. No raccoon bait whatsoever.
Something was here.
Another growl pierces the night. Lower this time. Closer.
Behind me, the wind whispers my name over and over. Alice. Allliiiiccceee. Before I can turn around, a breeze rustles the trees, and two terrifying things happen at once.
My phone buzzes in my hand again, making me jump.
And a large dark shadow creeps out of the bushes across the yard.
“Alice?”
I shriek like a frightened raccoon, and everything else happens in slow motion. My phone shoots out of my hand, tumbling down, down, down, as I fumble to catch it in the dark—and fail. It hits the water below with a splash. Drowning in our homemade raccoon trap.
I shriek again, and the dark shadow sprints toward me, my heart nearly exploding until I realize it’s Charlie. He’s got a skateboard under his arm and his phone in his hand. Tossing them both on the ground, he hurries to rescue my phone from its watery grave.
When he fishes it out and gives it back, I shut my phone off as fast as I can, before it short-circuits in my hands. But it’s probably too late. It’s beyond soaked, and I stare down at my phone, not sure what else to do.
I’m almost a thousand miles away from home. My life is on my phone, my easy connection to family and friends. What am I going to do now?
“Rice,” Charlie says. “We have some inside. Tyler’s dropped his phone in water twice since he moved in.”
We run into his house, and he grabs a Ziplock bag from the pantry. The words “phone hotel” are written on the outside in Sharpie. As if that bag of rice is a fun place for a phone to wind up instead of a punishment.
“I’m not sure if rice actually helps,” Charlie admits as he buries my phone in the bag. “But we haven’t lost one yet, so it couldn’t hurt. In seventy-two hours, you should be all set.”
Seventy-two hours?
Without my phone?
I try not to panic as I smile and thank him, suddenly bashful as I remember that kiss we shared earlier today. My body relives it in vivid detail, and the heat of that memory makes me blush.
“What were you doing out so late?” I ask when I remember how to talk. “Why were you hiding in the yard?”
He looks cuter than I want him to this late at night. More rumpled and up-to-no-good than I’d ever want a guy to look when I wasn’t sure where they’d been. He doesn’t owe me anything—especially not answers to questions like that—but I’d love some anyway.
He shrugs. “My mom was helping me with my résumé, and I accidentally fell asleep. They have the best couch.”
I can’t help smiling at how sweet that answer is, and he keeps going.
“Then I got home, saw the twins asleep through the window, and spotted this.”
Charlie grabs his phone to show me a video he recorded in his yard, our favorite evil raccoon gaming the system. He’s lying on his stomach, stretched across that plank of wood we set up so it stays perfectly balanced. His furry hindquarters over the table while his front paws reach into the kibble bowl. Eating that raccoon bait one delicious morsel at a time.
“That. Monster.”
But I’m smiling again. Our enemy is too smart for our own good. Even when we create an obstacle course of doom.
Charlie’s smiling too, then he glances at me. “I called your name half a dozen times, but you didn’t hear me. Why were you up so late?” He hesitates. “I saw you looking at your phone. It seemed pretty serious.”
I panic. Of all the things I want to tell Charlie this late at night, I think my ex broke up with me because he couldn’t handle my medical what-ifs will never be one of them.
“Nothing!” I say instead. “It was just a notification!”
But Charlie’s brow scrunches like he doesn’t believe me, and I can’t blame him. I wouldn’t believe me, either.