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“For how long?” she says.
“Awhile, I guess.”
Charlie scans the dashboard, hoping to see a clock that might tell her what Josh can’t—or won’t. But there isn’t a clock on the dashboard. No surprise there. Maddy’s car didn’t have a clock, either. Only fancier cars do, like the tan Mercedes Nana Norma inherited from one of her elderly boyfriends who’d passed away two summers ago.
“I need you to be more specific than that,” she says.
“Why does it matter?”
It matters because she has no idea what really happened and what was just a dark, twisted fantasy occurring only in her mind. One that still might be occurring, although Charlie has her doubts. She assumes she’d have snapped out of it by now. Then there’s the fact that everything currently feels depressingly real. The movies in her mind are usually stylized. Life amplified. This has the dullness of reality.
“Just give me a time,” she says.
She finds herself hoping Josh will give her an outlandish figure. One long enough to erase every unsettling thing she’s experienced during the drive. It could easily happen. A long drive. Nothing to see out the window but night. Boredom settling in, just like it did when she was a kid. Her thoughts drifting, turning the drab reality of a car trip into something exciting, something new.
“Five minutes,” Josh says, sounding like he picked that number simply because he thinks it will please her.
“You sure?”
“Maybe six. Or longer. I honestly don’t know.”
Charlie wonders if Josh is being vague on purpose. That he knows he slipped up by mentioning the tooth and is now trying to cover it by confusing her. Then again, it’s also possible he truly doesn’t know how long she was lost in her own head and is trying to be helpful.
“You have to havesomeidea of how long it lasted,” she says. “I was sitting next to you the entire time.”
“I don’t get why you’re asking me all these questions,” Josh says, growing annoyed. “It’s been nonstop ever since we hit the highway. If I’d known this would become an interrogation, I wouldn’t have offered you a ride.”
This is, in its own backhanded way, helpful. Charlie hopes that through Josh’s experience of the drive she’ll get a better idea of her own.
“So Ididask you all those questions?” she says.
“Yes. About my dad and where I grew up and my damn work schedule.”
Since that part was real, so was everything that came before it. Including her seeing Josh’s driver’s license, which prompted all those questions in the first place. That particular worry hasn’t changed.
It still exists.
It’s still potentially dangerous.
As if to underscore that thought, Josh says, “Are you scared of me, Charlie? I get the feeling I make you nervous. Can’t say I blame you. Considering what happened to your friend and all. In fact, I’d be surprised if you weren’t nervous. You don’t know me. Not really. Don’t know what I’m capable of doing.”
Charlie eyes him from the other side of the car. His expressionreveals nothing. It’s just a blank slate facing an open road. She hates how unreadable he is. So maddeningly opaque. Yet she’s jealous, too. She longs to know how he does it. How it seems so easy for him to hide his emotions when it feels like her every thought and feeling are visible, like an image projected onto a movie screen.
“Yes,” she says. Since he clearly suspects it, there’s no point in denying it. “You make me nervous.”
“Why?”
Because her best friend was murdered and she thinks Josh is the man who did it and if she can’t even trust her mind, then she sure as hell isn’t going to trust him. He’s lied to her, after all. This uncertainty about the movie in her mind doesn’t change that.
“Because I know you’re lying,” she blurts out. “I know your name isn’t Josh Baxter. I saw your driver’s license.”
Josh furrows his brow. “I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about, Charlie.”
“I saw it, Josh. Or should I start calling you Jake?”
The furrow across Josh’s forehead grows deeper—a ridge of confusion stretching from temple to temple. “Who’s Jake?”
“Your real name,” Charlie says. “Which I saw on your real driver’s license. When your wallet fell off the dashboard, it flopped open and there it was. Jake Collins.”