Page 83 of All These Beautiful Strangers

I looked back at Alistair.

Alistair nodded as if he understood. “Go,” he said. “I’ll make sure he doesn’t follow you.” His voice was tight, laced with fury.

It was the second time that Alistair had saved me, and for the second time, I was too distracted to thank him. I just turned the corner and ran, without a backward glance.

Twenty-One

Charlie Calloway

2017

I stayed until Ms. Stanfeld did her nightly curfew check and then I grabbed a duffel out of my closet and hastily packed. I threw in a change of clothes, my laptop, and everything I could fit from my mother’s case file.

“Can you please level with me?” Drew asked as she watched me from her bed. “Just tell me what’s going on.”

“I don’t know what’s going on,” I said, grabbing my toiletries bag and throwing in all my stuff from my shower caddy. “But I sure as hell am going to find out.”

“Okay,” Drew said. “But you’re kinda scaring me. Can you at least tell me where you’re going?”

“I’m going to Hillsborough,” I said. “But you can’t tell anybody—not even Leo. I need you to cover for me in case I don’t make it back by curfew tomorrow, okay?”

“Okay,” Drew said.

I lowered myself out of the window first and then Drew tossed me my duffel.

“Promise me you’ll be careful,” Drew whispered down to me.

“I’ll try,” I whispered back.

I drove through the night and got to my grandparents’ house at two in the morning. My uncle Hank’s truck was in the driveway and the house was dark. I didn’t want to wake them, so I reclined my seat and closed my eyes. I expected sleep to elude me, but I woke to a loud rapping on my window.

“Charlotte?”

I sat up, rubbing the crust from my eyes. I groaned when I felt how stiff my neck was from dozing in the car.

My grandma opened my car door.

“Charlotte?” she said again. “Dear, what are you doing out here?”

“Hi, Grandma,” I said. I blinked at her in the early morning light. “What time is it?”

She was dressed in her bathrobe and slippers and she had the morning paper in her hands.

I must have looked really lost, because she didn’t press me about why I was there again. Instead, she said, “Let’s get you inside. I’ll make you something to eat.”

I followed her into the house and folded myself into a chair at the kitchen table. I could smell coffee brewing and looked around for the source. Grandma greased a pan and set it on the stove.

“Pancakes and eggs sound good, sweetheart?”

“Mhm,” I said.

“Here,” she said, pouring me a mug of coffee and setting it down in front of me.

She busied herself beating the eggs and whipping up the pancake batter but I could feel her constant worried glances. I sipped at my coffee and tried to arrange a coherent thought.

Jake. Jake Griffin. Jake Griffin and my mother. I needed to know about them. What happened to Jake? How did he die? And what was the connection between Jake and my mother and my father? Because there had to be something that connected them. I knew I had the pieces; I just had to figure out how they all fit together.

I was about to open my mouth to ask about Jake, to tell my grandma I had listened to her interview in the PI’s files and I needed to know everything there was to know right that instant, when my uncle Hank came in.