First Girl Gone(86)

Charlie swallowed, the mean words seeming to disappear down her throat unspoken.

Betty’s eyes didn’t look quite so bright when she spoke again. A kind of sadness softened the skin around them, that excited bulge dying back, a wetness rising to take its place.

“Guess he just feels like a protector, you know? A watcher. Looking out for all of us, all our families, for all these years and years. It’s like he’s the police without the politics of all that. Maybe better than the police in a lot of ways. More pure, somehow, if that makes sense.”

Charlie swallowed again. Throat going tight. Her guilt swelled some for insulting the woman, even internally.

Betty stared off into the middle distance, her voice getting quieter.

“I always wondered why he never started a family of his own, but maybe that’s how it has to be for a watcher like him. They’re so busy taking care of everyone else, they can’t do all the domestic stuff for themselves. It’s like a price he had to pay, maybe. For us. For all of us.” Then Betty aimed a smile at her. “Of course, he always had you girls. Talks about you like you’re his own.”

Charlie burst into tears. All of the hurt rushing to the surface. Face going hot.

The water in her eyes blurred the room around her, and the hospital felt more and more distant. Like she was sinking into herself again. Drowning in the depths.

Betty clenched Charlie’s hand in hers. She spoke comforting words, even if Charlie couldn’t make them out specifically. She could hear the soothing tone, the reassuring lilt in the soft coos and mutters, and it helped, she thought, if only a little.





Chapter Seventy





Charlie woke just after sunrise, the first rays beaming through the windows of the waiting room and sweeping her eyelids. She squinted against the bright light. It took several seconds of rapid blinking before she could fully open her eyes and look at the clock.

It was still too early for visiting hours, but Charlie slipped down the hallway to peer through Frank’s window. He looked the same. Frail. Ashen. Much older than his sixty-two years.

Charlie put her hand on the glass and tried to beam a thought into her uncle’s head the same way she’d sought out Allie last night.

Hold on, Frank. Hold on, and don’t you dare give up.

She spun on her heel, heading back the way she’d come. She needed to go home. Needed to feed Marlowe and take a shower and maybe sleep for a few hours in an actual bed. She’d be back, though. This afternoon, she’d return during visiting hours, and she’d finally have a chance to hold Frank’s hand and tell him to his face that she expected him to put up one hell of a fight.



She pushed through the back door, stepping into the hush of Frank’s house. The weight of his keys tugged at Charlie’s hand as she pulled them from the deadbolt. Somehow it already seemed so vacant with him gone, even as she took just one step into the kitchen.

The quiet was unsettling. It made her chest go tight, made her eyes open a little wider, seemed to still her thoughts. She suddenly found herself conscious of the void, the sense of empty space that always accompanied silence, surrounded it.

Shadows shrouded the room, not a light on in the house, and Charlie couldn’t help but wonder if it was Betty Humphrey or the EMTs who had turned them off. Probably Betty, she thought. It seemed like the kind of detail she’d consider, even in a crisis.

She flicked on the lights, and the sudden flare stung her eyes. The bulbs gleamed off the counter and the tile floor. Maybe her eyes were tired—a flash of the scene in the waiting room replayed in her head, the tears, Betty Humphrey squeezing her hands, cooing at her.

Something thumped in the next room. Charlie stared into the dark doorway beyond the kitchen. Held her breath. Listened.

A tiny patter pelted over the wood floor. Different from the earlier sound. Getting closer.

The black cat came trotting out of the darkness, crossed the threshold into the bright light of the kitchen. Marlowe. Already purring. Making eye contact with her. Tail curled at the top like a furry question mark extending from the cat’s body.

Charlie couldn’t help but smile at the creature. He seemed to be smiling back. Lips turning up. The tips of his top fangs exposed as always.

Frank always said Marlowe only came out like that for a small, small group of people. Always knew who was in the house, even several rooms away—by smell or by sound, he wasn’t sure. That he was affectionate but very shy, and mostly hid from guests.

Charlie couldn’t help but feel proud—a little special, even—to have curried the cat’s favor. Of course, maybe he was just hungry.

He trotted over to his bowl and sat down, like a gentleman at a fancy restaurant, waiting patiently for his meal to be served.

Charlie dug in the cupboard. Plucked out a can of food. Read the label.

“Looks like our special this morning is turkey and giblets served in a light gravy of congealed fat,” she said, eyeballing the can and then the cat. “I hope that’s acceptable.”

She popped the can open, dug about half of it out with a butter knife, presenting it to the beast in a stainless-steel bowl.

He sniffed it a couple times, head bobbing over it. Then his tongue flicked out, cupped a morsel of the paté. He began to eat.

Charlie knelt and stroked the top of Marlowe’s head a few times.