Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
Charlie shoves the Ovilus in my direction like it’s a bomb about to detonate. I take it, gladly. I’m ready for answers.
“If you’re really James Dewhurst, what were you locked up here for?”
Charlie winces and leans into my ear. “You sure you want to ask him that? Don’t think it’s a sore subject?”
“I’m ready to cut to the chase,” I growl.
Except the Ovilus is silent. It doesn’t even spit out an irrelevant word.
But maybe the silence is James’s answer, he was wrongfully locked up here after all.
“Were you a guilty man?” I ask.
“MAYBE.”
Charlie casts me a worried look, but I pay him no mind as the corner of my mouth lifts in a smirk. “I guess we’re all guilty of something, aren’t we?” I was born to parlay with a morally gray ghost.
“ABOVE.”
I frown at the word on the screen, trying to make sense of it.
“What’s above?” Charlie asks before I can.
The warmth of premature delight that he’s coming around to all this spreads on my cheeks, but before I can rib him about it, the Ovilus replies, “STORM.”
Charlie and I gape at each other, and my brows pitch, laughter spilling from me like a deluge.
I send my elbow into his side in response to the arrogant grin he’s wearing, because of course he had an ulterior motive with that question.
But I can’t even be mad; I’m overwhelmed with the level of activity we’re getting, with how intelligent the responses are. I can’t believe it.
Then it hits me: no one else will believe it either. Because I’m not recording. Dammit.
I shove the Ovilus back toward Charlie and scramble to my backpack for the camera. With clumsy hands, I affix it to the stabilizer and race back to the desk as I flick it on and hit record.
“James? Can you talk to us again, please?” I ask, eyes trained on the viewfinder.
Silence.
“You were convicted of murder, but I have reason to believe you were innocent. Is that true?”
More silence. I swallow my frustrated scream.
“Look, James. I’m really trying hard here to clear your name. I can’t do that if you won’t help us.” A big old fuck-you-and-your-camera silence, and I start to wonder if James Dewhurst was actually a raging misogynist. “What? You’ll talk to Charlie but not me?”
“Guess I’m your good luck charm,” Charlie quips.
“Everyone’s always loved you. Even the dead prefer you to me.”
Sliding his hands in his pockets, he rounds the desk, gazing out the window. “You were always so fixated on everyone liking me,” he starts, low enough the camera probably isn’t picking him up, “but never the fact that your’s was the only opinion I cared about.”
Not only does his sudden raw honesty catch me off guard, but I never even knew he felt that way.
I stumble over a response as I twist the lens in his direction and he turns, the light from his headlamp glaring in the viewfinder.
“Do you think you could—” Transferring the camera to my left hand, I circle the desk to him. I tug the dorky thing off.
The headlamp dangles between us and I notice how close we’re standing.
He holds his hand palm up, and I drop it.
His fingers curl around it, gaze still on me, but neither of us move back.
Neither of us says anything either. And, god help me, I can’t stop myself from looking at his mouth, the way it’s so deliciously crafted.
Like whoever sculpted him pinched a heart on its edges, stretching, stretching, stretching, until it was just wide enough.
Worked their thumb over his cupid’s bow until it formed a smooth curve.
And then, because no one can be too perfect, edged the left side up a little higher than the right.
“LICK,” the Ovilus spits out.
A grin cracks on my face as my nose scrunches. “Truth or Dare’s over, James.”
Charlie’s smirk twists into something risky. “Guess we dodged a bullet considering that wasn’t the dare earlier.”
As my skin heats, I twist, feigning like I’m panning a shot around the room. “Because you would’ve embarrassed yourself when you backed down?”
“Sure. Let’s go with that.” He laughs, running a hand through his hair, as he backs up, clearly feeling the same need for space as I am. “Look at us. Getting along. Remember how excited you were to run into me a few hours ago?”
“What can I say, you’re not as bad as I remember,” I deadpan, winning a chuckle in response. I zoom the camera in on the Ovilus, willing it to say something.
“You know, I—” Charlie pauses mid sentence and I turn to look at him.
“What?”
He points to the desk. “That cabinet. I didn’t notice it earlier. I didn’t check that one.”
My pulse races. Is that why that noise lured us in here? Was something trying to tell us we didn’t search every last inch of this place? I scoot sideways out of his way as he kneels in front of it and jerks it open.
I set the camera down and lean over, trying to peer in around him. “Anything?”
He lets out a low whistle and eases a bulky turntable from the cabinet. “Look at this.” Settling it on his thighs, he reaches back in the cabinet. “There’s some vinyls in here too.”
I squat down next to him. He hands me the handful of paper sleeves and I fan them out between us.
Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, Elvis, Patsy Cline, Merle Haggard, Buddy Holly.
They’ve been tucked away in that stubborn drawer for who knows how long, and they’re in pristine condition.
The wide smile on Charlie’s face is tinged with nostalgia as he taps Patsy Cline.
“I grew up on this stuff. My grandparents used to have this one.” He shifts backward, lifting the turntable as he glances over his shoulder. “What do you think the chances are that this place still has power?”
“Slim to none.”
He sets the record player down next to an outlet behind us, and fishes the power cable until he grips the pronged end. “How about this? If ghosts are real, this thing will work. If they’re not, it won’t.”
I laugh and twist to face him. “You’re ridiculous.”
“Or,” he stresses as he plugs it in, “I’m lucky.”
He flips the power switch, and sure enough, the small screen flares a dull blue. It works. He flashes me the kind of grin that demands bragging rights.
“You’re kidding me.” I gape.
“I’m absolutely not kidding you.” He flaps his hand at me, requesting a vinyl. I pass him Patsy.
His large hands handle the vinyl with care, and I visually trace the veins running along the backs of them as he lines it up just so and places the stylus on the outer groove.
Static crackles in the stale air, then leads into the soft, feminine vocalizations of That Wonderful Someone.
He scoots back and leans against the desk next to me, our legs grazing.
For a moment, we sit and listen. It’s an ethereal moment.
Thunder rolls somewhere in the distance as I tune back into the soft patter of raindrops on the roof of the decrepit prison.
Patsy’s rich, deep resonant vocals, the dreamy, harmonious backup layering behind her, the twang of a steel guitar, sends me straight to an era long-past as I close my eyes and soak it in.
“I see that hasn’t changed.” I hear the smile in Charlie’s voice and open my eyes as the song transitions.
“Hm?”
He juts his chin toward my hand on my thigh, where my thumb rhythmically taps to the beat, tracking the counts of the song. Six, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.
“I don’t think it’s possible for me to break the habit at this point.” I still my hand, curling it into a loose fist. “Even if I stopped dancing altogether.”
The hours I spend testing choreography for my students, the brief moments I steal for myself when I’m alone in the studio—it’s nothing compared to what I used to be able to do, but at least it’s something.
“I can’t picture that. I can’t imagine a universe where you don’t dance.” He lolls his head sideways to me, his mouth made even more uneven by the pull of a half-smile. “You remember the first day we met?”
“Of course I do.” We speak in soft, hushed tones, like we’re nervous to wake the sleeping ghosts of our past.
“I used to love watching you.”
“I know you did.”
His brow furrows. “You really think you’d stop?”
“If the pain got bad enough,” I mutter, rubbing my joint absentmindedly.
“It still bothers you? I thought the doctor said it would heal?”
“I pushed too hard on it,” I say simply.
He clicks his tongue, a mix of disappointed-yet-not-surprised. But it’s not a disappointment in me—a disappointment for me. “Win,” he scolds. “The doctor told you rest was key. Easing back in. Slow.”
“Yeah. Well. I didn’t listen.”
“Right. Of course not.” A shadow of amusement tugs at the corner of his mouth as he nudges his hand sideways, grazing the bare skin of my thigh beneath my shorts with the back of his knuckles.
This moment’s so tender, yielding like an overripe peach when you sink a thumb in on accident. And I plunge in right behind it.
“It was a lot,” I choke out. “Being back there. In Kansas. With my family.” Charlie freezes—I swear he even stops breathing—and his eyes go a little wide, like he’s amazed at what he’s seeing and terrified to spook me.
“Dance was the only way I knew how to cope with it when I was younger. So I just . . . I just couldn’t stay away when I went back. ”
The pain in my still-healing cartilage had been nothing compared to the way I felt in that little Kansas rambler with the gravel driveway.
The helplessness. The hopelessness. The rage.
How small and caged—like I reverted back to who I’d been before I’d left.
It all faded away to counts of eight as I watched my body move in the mirrors of the same rickety studio where I grew up trading janitorial work for class hours.
“You never told me that,” he says softly. Sadly. It whittles out a chunk of my heart, how much he cares. Still cares.
“I never told you a lot of things.”
“I know.” His knuckles meet my legs again, but this time he doesn’t pull them away. He arcs them back and forth across the hairs so thin I never bother shaving them. A silent message I hear loud and clear: I’m here for you. “You like teaching, at least?”
I nod. “More than I thought I would.”
“Bet you scare the shit out of the kids.” He chuckles.
I suck my smile back. “I—well. Scare is . . . a strong word.”
“Right. I bet you convince yourself they just really respect you.”
“They do!”
His laughter crescendos, and the sound is so warm and smooth, I can’t resist joining in. It balms every single scab he unknowingly picked at.
“I’m a better choreographer than I am dancer, actually, so teaching’s worked out great.”
He scoffs. “C’mon. Don’t play like that, Winnie. You were good. Fuck, you were more than good. You were incredible.”
“You just didn’t know what you were looking for—”
“Bullshit. I told you earlier I believe in the things I see hard evidence for. And that? That’s something I’ve never questioned.”
It’s not often I feel bashful. Normally, it’s easy to convince myself someone’s just bullshitting me, but that’s not who Charlie is. I try to scrub the unfamiliar feeling from my cheeks. “I really wasn’t—”
He squeezes my thigh above my knee. “C’mon. Prove me wrong then. Show me how bad you are, Winona.”
“I don’t—”
He laughs and doesn’t draw his hand back. “Don’t make me run all the way back to the dining hall to grab the moonshine. Because I will make you drink on that.”
“You’re embarrassing me in front of my friends,” I whine, waving a hand vaguely around us as I try and fail to swallow my grin.
He drops his voice into a ridiculously deep, growly register, the perfect parody of a grumpy dad. “I never liked the company you kept. Seemed a little dead in the eyes.”
That’s when I burst, folding in half with shaking laughter, and he does too.
I curl sideways, leaning my weight on him, and his arm instinctively wraps around my waist, tightening around me as I clutch at the front of his T-shirt.
Gripping my hips, he attempts to push me to my feet, both of us struggling to breathe.
Even still, that possessive hold on my body does embarrassing things to me, specifically the spot between my legs, shocking my awareness like a bolt of energy.
It’s the only reason I get it together, gasping for air as my side stitches and I extricate myself from him.
“Okay, okay! Fine.” I stand. “But only so you’ll stop harassing me.”