Page 32 of A Sublime Casualt
Neil shakes his head. “I don’t think she will.” He glides his phone across the table my way. “Does she look familiar?”
I glance down at what looks to be a younger version of Charlie. There are a young boy and girl at her side, and they’re all smiling for the camera.
“That’s Charlie.”
“Nope.” Neil takes his phone back. “That’s Phoebe Benedict—runaway from Strafford County. At least that’s what her brother and sister reported to authorities right around the time your sister went missing.”
A knife to the gut. I could bleed out right here and die if I wanted.
“Runaway?” Shit. What if she’s under eighteen? What if I’ve walked into a bear trap unwittingly? I’ll be lucky if I don’t get slammed for statutory rape by her very worried parents. “God.” I press my face into my hands a moment, trying desperately to scrub this conversation out of reality. “This can’t be. Why would Charlie steal Lizzy’s identity?Lizzy, of all people? You think there’s something sinister going on here?”
Jackson clears his throat. “Look, I like the girl. I really do, and Gabby does, too, but you can’t let her get away with this. You’re going to have to press charges.”
“Press charges,” I parrot the words back as if I were clueless as to what they mean. You could hit me over the head with a frying pan and I wouldn’t feel it. I’m numb with shock. “How do you know all this?” I growl over at Neil—inept Neil who couldn’t find out half the information about my sister that Charlie and I have—Phoebe. Hell.
Neil leans in. “I spoke with Joe, asked him a few questions about her. I asked if I could fish around her employee file, and he said I was welcome to it. Charlie Neville. I don’t know where the last name came from, but now that I think about it, Charlie is a play on Charlize. She was purposeful in doing what she did.”
Jackson strums his fingers over the table. “When Gabby found her, she was homeless, eating out of the dumpster behind the Hideaway. She literally appeared from thin air. No sooner did Lizzy vanish than Charlie came into town. I’m not pointing fingers or insinuating she had something to do with your sister’s disappearance, but maybe a part of the reason she’s so willing to help you look for her is because she had something to do with it—an old boyfriend, a twisted pimp. Human trafficking. God only knows what we’re up against.”
Stunned would be too small a word to describe this head-in-the-woodchipper feeling taking over.
Neil starts up again, spewing one theory after another, each one more outlandish than the next, and my mind begs for him to slow down.
“I gotta get out of here.” I get up from the table and nearly knock my seat back.
“Hey!” Jackson barks. “Where are you going?”
“I’m headed to the Hideaway.” I turn abruptly and dig a finger in the air at Neil. “And I’m doing this alone. You don’t say a word about this. You hear me?” There’s a threat in my tone and, damn, if I mean it. “Don’t come after me.”
I take off in a fury, ending up at the Hideaway in a blur, unsure how I ever managed to drive a car across town without incident. I don’t remember a thing. It’s just Charlie occupying my mind. The love of my life. The woman I was so determined would one day be my wife. The mother of my future children.
I step in and spot her behind the counter. A rag sits over her shoulder as she bustles about, and I can’t help but watch her for a moment, mesmerized by her. This, right here, is the last normal moment the two of us will have. Just like with Lizzy, there was a before and an after. Two very different worlds. The after always sucks. These are the final moments of our before.
Her eyes light up as she spots me. “Well, if it isn’t Mr. Handsome himself.” Her smile rings true, and it’s like a dagger to the heart.
“Hey, Phoebe, can I get some coffee?”
“Sure thing!” She starts to take off, then freezes. Her gaze slowly meets with mine, those hazel eyes filled with horror. And that’s when I know. Neil wasn’t full of it. Jackson wasn’t trying to sabotage something good and right in my life. This fresh hell is real, and the flames have long since consumed me, but I was too stupid to notice.
Why? Why is this true?I ask her through my heavy gaze.
How is it possible, and more importantly—what have you done with Lizzy?
Charlie
Run. It’s the haunting refrain that possessed me all those months ago. It’s what landed me here. And now, with Theo shooting me with venom, annunciating my given name as if it were a curse, my mind screams the very same thing.
My mouth opens, and a choking sound emits. My feet take a few staccato steps forward, and he glides a hand across the counter. His eyes stay trained on mine, holding me hostage with his gaze as effective as a steel trap.
“I will outrun you and outgun you if I have to.” His voice shakes low and steady as if it took everything to grit the words through his teeth. His beautiful face is locked in fury. It exudes from him like a toxin. “Take off your apron. You’ve just worked your last shift. You are coming with me.”
“No.” I shake my head, backing away, my muscles vibrating out of control. “I can’t, Theo. I can’t go with you.” I steal a glance out the window, half-expecting to see the SWAT team with guns drawn, an entire infantry out to arrest me. Oh God, I used his sister’s name. He knows. He probably knows everything at this point. “This isn’t what it seems, I promise.”
His eyes slice through me with a fiery contempt. Gone is the kindness, the joy they once exuded in my honor, replaced with cold hardness that lets me know exactly how he feels about me—whoever the hell I am.
“Move slowly,” he instructs. “Keep your hands level to your chest and walk backward.” He takes a few steps over until he’s covering the cutout that has me penned in at the moment.
I do as I’m told. Hands up, slow gait as if I were a common street criminal. I’m far worse, but it feels sacrilegious coming from Theo.