Book of Night(12)

“So he took it in high school. So what?”

Posey shook her head. “No one remembers the language they took in high school.”

“I’ve got no idea what bothers you about him,” Charlie said, throwing up her hands. “And I don’t think you do either.”

“I guess he’s good-looking, but you know there’s something missing there. You text other guys behind his back.” Posey grabbed Charlie’s cell phone off the table. “See? Oooh, Adam, let’s meet somewhere private.”

“Give me that!” Charlie grabbed it out of her hand.

“Admit it, what you like best about Vince is how much he’s willing to put up with.”

Before Charlie could explain, Vince’s heavy step announced him. His hair was wet, his shirt tight over the thick, muscled part of his upper arms, his gray eyes tinted greenish from the yellow walls.

Posey got up, then pushed past him, laptop tucked under her arm. She wasn’t gentle either, shoving her shoulder against his chest.

Vince raised his eyebrows. “She finally heading to bed?” he asked, and went to pour coffee from the pot.

“Hopefully,” Charlie said, forcing her gaze away. She wondered how much he’d overheard and if he’d confront her. What he might admit, if rage loosened his tongue. Would he tell her that he wished he was somewhere else, with someone else? That he was just marking time? Would he stop being so careful?

Charlie Hall, imp of the perverse. Appreciated a relationship for being simple and still tempted to see if she could make a complicated mess of it.

Impulsively, she picked up her phone and searched for questions in French.

“Voulez-vous plus de café?” she asked, stumbling over the pronunciation.

He stared at her in confused alarm, which was understandable since she’d just spouted gibberish. “What?”

Charlie shook her head, feeling ridiculous. “Nothing.”

“We better go look at your car,” he said, taking a deep swallow from his mug.

She bit her lip. “Okay. Yeah.”



* * *



Vince drove a white van, rusty parts covered with house paint. It was easily as old as Charlie’s car and equally likely to give up the ghost at an inconvenient moment, although it hadn’t so far. She swung herself up into the passenger seat. An old Dunkin’ foam coffee cup rested in the center console, next to a phone charger with the prepaid phone he always used plugged in and a yellowed paperback entitled Cry of Evil with a lady on the cover holding a gun in a sexy but unlikely position. A tree-shaped air freshener hung from the mirror, only adding a layer of lemon oil to the aggressively bleach, vinegar, and Lysol smell of the back.

Vince’s gaze was on the road. Charlie studied his profile. His jawline. His hands on the wheel.

“Last night,” she said. “I think I saw a dead body.”

He glanced at her. “Is that what you and your sister were arguing about?”

“We weren’t—” she started, then stopped herself. “Posey just needs someone she can shout at. She’s wired from all the caffeine, irritated from not enough sleep. And there was a video of kids breaking into a hospital that bothered her.”

Vince didn’t look as though he entirely believed her. “Where did you see the body?”

“On my way home.”

He glanced at her, frowned. “Walking?”

“I was fine,” she said as he pulled into the empty parking lot of the bar. “It was just weird. I never saw anyone dead before.”

He must see bodies all the time, at his work. But he didn’t try to one-up her by pointing that out.

He didn’t tell her that she shouldn’t have been out alone or try to make her promise that she wouldn’t do it again either. He never told her how to act, or what to wear—which was, for the record, an extremely boring black v-neck t-shirt, black jeans, and checkerboard Vans—and that was good, of course. But there was a part of her that kept wanting to squabble. Like Posey, maybe she needed someone to yell at. Maybe she wanted to be yelled at.

Charlie tried to swallow the impulse.

She turned to sit with the door open, letting her legs dangle out of the van as Vince opened up the hood of her Corolla. He started poking at the insides, then went around to try to turn the car on. It didn’t so much as shudder.

“Can you tell what’s wrong?”

“Starter, I think,” he said, frowning.

It made her twitchy to sit by and watch, even though she knew next to nothing about cars. “You need me to do anything?”

He shook his head. “Not at the moment.”

She watched him work, the bend of his body. The sureness of his hands. And the way he seemed to defy the sunlight, casting nothing on the ground.

Charlie had known a local girl who’d sold her shadow. She’d been a pole dancer, over at what locals unkindly referred to as the Whately Ballet. She finished her shift around the same time as Charlie, so they ran into each other sometimes at the few eateries open all night.

“He paid me five grand,” Linda had confided in a whisper, her expression hard to read. “And it’s not like I was using it.”

“Who paid?” Charlie had asked, taking a bite of very oily fried eggs.

“I’d never seen the guy before. Bought a lap dance, and that’s when he made the offer. At first I laughed, but he was serious. Said there was someone who wanted a shadow just like mine.”