Page 23 of Thief of Night (The Charlatan Duology #2)

I Plan on Dying in Your Arms

Red drove, one hand easy on the wheel, the other on the gearshift.

From the passenger seat, Charlie texted Fiona her regrets, pleading a sore throat. She was glad for an excuse to weasel out of sitting across from the intimidating old lady.

In black slacks, a white button-down, and a green sweater, Charlie hoped she looked the part of an insurance adjuster.

She swiped concealer over her bruise, along with mascara and a little blush.

She’d found some small golden hoops to stick in her ears, but was reluctant to take off the onyx.

In the end, she left them on. They were neutral enough.

Between texting and attaching the forms she’d printed out at Staples to the clipboard (also purchased at Staples), she didn’t notice they’d pulled into a gas station until they were stopping.

The realization hit Charlie like a punch to the gut.

This was where Rose had promised to leave Red a message.

He got out, went to the pump, then hesitated. He had his wallet in one hand and the black card he got from Adeline in the other. A muscle jumped in his jaw and his fingers curled around the card so tightly that Charlie was afraid it would cut into his skin.

She leaned across the driver’s seat, then pushed a button to roll down his window. “Everything okay?”

“I’m going to pay inside. You want anything?”

Inside, where it would be easy for Red to slip into the bathroom and get the address. And yet, he hadn’t behaved like someone who planned on leading her to her doom. Who fixed someone’s coffeepot before they murdered them?

Someone who felt guilty about doing the murder, she supposed.

As soon as the door on the store swung closed, she tried the exercise that Balthazar had attempted to teach her. Tried to see out of Red’s eyes. Tried to focus on being there with him, on the line of shadow between them.

But it didn’t work any better than it had in Balthazar’s place.

Sooner than she expected, Red was walking back to the car, hands in the pockets of his coat. He must have found the message easily. A few people glanced his way as he crossed the parking lot. Tall and broad-shouldered, handsome, driving a Porsche—what wasn’t there to like?

Immensely annoyed, Charlie got out of the car and headed for the store.

“Gotta pee,” she said as she passed him. What was he going to do, stop her?

Inside, it turned out there was a men’s and women’s bathroom. She pushed her way into the men’s, startling a guy in a backward baseball cap at the urinals.

“Hey!” the guy yelled, having pissed on his own shoes.

“Sorry!” she said cheerily as she headed for the single stall.

Rose hadn’t been subtle. The words “For a good time, kill” followed by an address in Greenfield were written in red marker over the toilet. Charlie took a photo with her phone.

“You’re not supposed to be in here,” the guy told her, zipping up his trousers.

“Whoops! Wrong bathroom,” she said as she went out the door.

Just in case he was going to follow and scold her some more, she walked quickly to the car.

If Red heard what she’d been up to, he would definitely be able to guess why.

But he’d evidently finished filling the gas tank, because the car was idling, waiting for her, and as soon as she got in, they sped away.

“Carli, you said your name was?” the church receptionist asked. She was in a plum sweater over a navy skirt, her hair dyed a dark red with gray showing at the roots. Charlie didn’t remember her from when Mom got married, but it seemed possible that she’d been there.

“And you’re Melissa, right?” Charlie confirmed, clipboard in hand.

Her head hurt from lack of sleep and her heart hurt from Red failing to confess during the rest of the drive, but at least she’d made it to Grace Covenant Church on time.

“We spoke on the phone. It won’t take long to document the damage to the, uh, undercroft. ”

Melissa wrinkled her nose. “We don’t call it that. Ours is just a regular church basement, nothing fancy. It has wall-to-wall carpeting and a drop ceiling, for goodness’ sake! It’s not some medieval tomb.”

“Wall-to-wall carpeting?” Charlie echoed with a wince.

“Yes, that will have to be replaced,” Melissa said sharply.

“But that’s the least of it. The cement floor underneath is ruined.

It wasn’t sealed, you know, and cement is a very porous material.

We need it replaced, not just some skim coat over it and certainly not just new carpeting.

Don’t even think about cheaping out. This is a historical building . ”

“I’m just doing a job,” Charlie said, holding up a hand and hoping she was playing this right. “Sometimes people think they’re going to use an insurance claim to get all kinds of deferred maintenance done for free.”

Melissa sighed. “I knew how this was going to go. Sweet as pie on the phone—making all sorts of promises—and a piranha as soon as you get through the door.”

“No, no,” Charlie reassured her, not wanting to come off as suspiciously generous but not wanting to get tossed out either.

“I’m saying it’s wrong when people take advantage like that and make it harder for good honest folk like you to get the coverage they deserve.

I know you need everything you asked for—my job is to find the codes to submit that will get it done. ”

“The sooner the better. You wouldn’t believe the people wanting to get in and see it the way it is.

” Melissa took off her glasses and rubbed them on her shirt.

“We didn’t need a bunch of rubberneckers making up nonsense about a tragedy.

You can’t believe what they put on the news and especially online. ”

Charlie nodded. “I’m sure and I feel twice as bad after you telling me that, but I am going to have to see the space too.”

“I understand.” The woman picked up keys attached to a large plastic dinosaur.

She smiled when she saw it had drawn Charlie’s eye.

“The reverend loses the keys all the time. We had to put this on it to make sure we could find them for him. He’s a sweet man, but one of those people who would walk straight into the exit door five times before he thought to look for the entrance. ”

Which meant that one of those lost keys could have been stolen with no one the wiser. Time for Charlie to turn on some charm. “You must take care of a lot of things around here.”

“Oh, you don’t even know,” the woman said. “Would you like a cup of coffee?”

“I’d love one.” Rand had always told her that people felt safer when you accepted their generosity. Plus, Charlie never said no to coffee.

“Milk and sugar?”

“Both, please.” Trustworthy people liked things light and sweet. Not Charlie’s normal preference, but light and sweet also covered a lot of caffeinated sins.

The woman poured her a cup and doctored it heavily with powdered creamer. It carried the burnt scent of sitting too long in the pot, but Charlie drank it with a smile. “I needed that,” she said. “Thanks.”

By the time they’d gone down the steps, Melissa seemed in a much better mood. “I have to confess I never much liked going down here and it’s worse now. I’m the one who found them, you know?”

“Wow.” Charlie hadn’t seen that in any of the reporting. “If you want me to go by myself, I can.”

Melissa gave a nervous laugh. “No, I’ll go.”

The basement was damp and carried the scent of bleach. It reminded her of how Vince’s clothes had smelled, back when he worked under the table for the forensic cleaning team.

A few metal chairs were folded against a wall, along with a long plastic table.

As she looked around, Charlie realized how unlikely it was that there was anything left to find.

She wasn’t even sure what she was supposed to look for.

This wasn’t like searching for where people hid their valuables.

This wasn’t like figuring out door codes or cracking a safe.

Do you see anything? Charlie thought at Red.

Walk around, he whispered back.

“So they met down here?” Charlie said aloud, pacing across the basement to give Red a better view.

Melissa shivered. “Lots of organizations do— did, anyway. That’s how most churches make a little extra money—and I do mean a very little.

We had a yoga class. Narcotics Anonymous.

There was even an after-school Dungeons and Dragons club that met here.

No one wants to use the space now, of course.

Town hall overcharges, but everyone’s going there anyway. ”

Charlie took another sip of coffee. “How long had the people who died been coming?”

“Three years. They called themselves a Seekers Discussion Group and seemed like very normal people. A retired college professor, a homemaker with three kids under ten, a couple of girls still in college, a clerk at the Big Y. Ordinary people.”

Charlie thought of those horrible photos.

“And their shadows were intact?” she asked, hoping the woman might mention the girl whose shadow had been missing.

The woman looked surprised. “I don’t know. I didn’t think about that.”

It wasn’t the kind of thing an insurance adjuster should ask. “I’m sorry,” Charlie said. “I guess it’s hard not to be curious.”

Melissa pursed her lips. “That night was so normal. Marv got there early with cookies. I guess that was the only thing that stood out to me. Baked goods. I usually let him close up—he had a set of keys. This is a small town. Everyone knows everyone. Margie wasn’t there.

Neither was Nate. They found Margie at home, safe and sound.

Nate, they didn’t, which made the police interested in him, but it turned out he was just on vacation.

But there were always new members coming and going. It wasn’t like there was a roll call.”

Had the baked goods been because a speaker was coming? “Look, obviously don’t answer if you don’t want to, but what do you think happened that night?”

“Just between us?” Melissa asked.