First Girl Gone(70)

After a few moments of sitting in the silence of the office, Charlie stood, tucking the computer under her arm, and turned out the light.

“You’re giving up?” Allie asked. “Just like that?”

“No, but I’m running in circles at this point. I need sleep.”

On the walk up to the apartment, Charlie could only hope tomorrow would be more fruitful.





Chapter Fifty-Five





Charlie woke before dawn, some remnant of a dream still twitching in her skull. A gasp parted her lips. It was the sound that woke her, she thought. The hiss and the harried breath that followed.

Her eyes snapped open. Shadows blanketed the apartment, the predawn gloom still ruling this space.

Her heart punched in her chest. Flexing. Squeezing.

Everything seemed in order, but the warning signal going off in her head remained even after the waking world had vanquished the dream threat, whatever it might have been. She must have had a nightmare—that seemed obvious enough—but she couldn’t remember.

Her mind groped after any small detail, but it had fled her mind. In any case, she found herself awake now. No use fighting it, even if the clock showed an absurd pre-7 a.m. hour.

She sat up, swinging her legs out from under the covers. The cold wood planks of the floor assaulted her feet, the chill swarming over her flesh. She slid on a pair of slippers to block it out.

Then she shuffled over to the kitchen area, the soles of the slippers scuffing along. Sleep still possessed her legs to some extent, kept her wobbly atop them.

By the dim glow of her laptop screen at the end of the counter, she put on a pot of coffee. Some kind of autopilot kicked in, moving her arms and feet as necessary to grind the beans, fill the machine with water, turn it on.

Her eyes only half-watched what she was doing, her thoughts roaming elsewhere. First she tried to remember the dream one more time. Then, giving that up as a lost cause, she played back some of the recent discoveries in her case: Kara working at the Red Velvet Lounge. Robbie Turner peddling White Rabbit ecstasy.

The coffee machine gurgled, hollow sounds stuttering out now and again. She couldn’t see the stream of brown fluid cascading down into the carafe in the half-light, but she could watch the rising tide as the pot filled.

The aroma of fresh coffee slowly permeated the room and made Charlie’s mouth water. Made her feel a little warmer out of sheer anticipation. She pictured the black fluid swirling down into the cup, sloshing and tilting toward the rim as she leaned in to drink it.

She couldn’t wait for that first sip, then that first cup, and then the second. And, hey, perhaps the third. Why not? It was early as hell, right? That made for as good an excuse as any, as far as she was concerned.

Her phone rumbled, rattling hard against the nightstand across the room. The sudden noise in the quiet made her jump.

She reached it just as the screen went dark again. Waking the screen and squinting against the bright glare, she saw the notification was for a new email and opened it.

All caps. Choppy fragments. And again, it appeared as if Charlie had sent the email to herself.

PACKAGE FOR YOU.



HARBOR BEACH.



BENCH ON THE BLUFFS.



YOU KNOW THE PLACE.





A cold feeling snaked around her, her skin pulling itself tight.

Her eyes locked on that string of capital letters, scanning the words over and over, backward and forward.

She did know the place. She knew it too well. Still dreamed about it often. The exact spot on the beach where Allie’s foot had washed up all those years ago.

And part of her wondered, with a lump swelling in her throat, if that was what she’d dreamed last night. The park bench along the water’s edge. Was it possible?

The coffee machine coughed a few more times and then fell silent.

Charlie barely heard it. Didn’t bother pouring herself a cup. She dressed quickly and headed out the door.





Chapter Fifty-Six





Charlie parked in the lot next to the public beach. She’d passed a few cars on the ride over, headlights gleaming in the dark of the morning, but this area, out near the water, was utterly dead at this hour. Empty. Motionless save for the water lapping at the sand.

It was a gray morning. Misty and murky. The predawn twilight was just poking its head over the horizon.

Down the beach, she could make out the rusting hulk of the Poseidon’s Kingdom Ferris wheel. The skeletal metal thrust up from the land, its rounded top reminding her of a skull.

The cold breeze rolled off the water to nip at her as she climbed out of the car, reaching right through her jacket as though it had punctured the fabric. She hugged her arms around herself, wishing she’d thought to wear a heavier coat, not to mention a hat and gloves. She’d forgotten how much colder it felt down here by the water. At least she still had a touch of sleep warmth in her core to help fight it off.

She walked north, crossing the parking lot and moving away from the swimming area where she and Allie had spent hours of their childhood collecting shells, sea glass, Petoskey stones. Her trajectory pointed her toward the secluded area beyond the sand, where the rolling dunes extended to within just a few feet of the shore.

That was where the bench was. That was where, she supposed, the package would be. Whatever it was.