I looked over at where Charlie stood in the hall, still within sight of me. “Yeah, it will be. But we don’t have to do it alone. And you don’t have to do it without me.”
“Now who’s the Hallmark card?”
I huffed a laugh. “C’mon, there’s someone I want you to meet.”
Introductions were awkward as fuck, but Bobby and Charlie did their best.
“Hi,” Charlie said with a small wave. “Nice to finally meet you. Reece talks about you all the time. I’m Charlie.” He stuck out his hand, which Bobby shook.
Shoulders tense, Bobby ignored Tate’s greeting, but flashed Charlie a weak smile. “Yeah,uh,nice to meet you, too. I mean, I’ve heard of you, but…” he trailed off.
I felt awful for them all. What was Bobby meant to say? “So sorry my dad killed you, but glad you’re alive again. By the way, thanks for also saving my friend from my dad!”
And that wasn’t even considering the elephant in the room that Tate may have been the one to kill Leonard.
They were trying, though. Hopefully, once we all had a chance to process the unconventional circumstances of, well,everything,they’d get to know each other better. Bobby clearly wasn’t ready to discuss details, though, and he excused himself shortly after, never once looking at Tate.
“He’s going to have a hard road,” Tate murmured once he’d left.
Yeah, he would. But I wouldn’t let him go it alone.
I cleared my throat. “So, how did you find Tate?” I asked Charlie. “I thought you could only appear wherever I was or at the lookout.”
He shrugged. “Same way I found you. I thought about him, concentrated, and” he snapped his fingers, “there I was.”
“Scared the absolute shit out of me,” Tate grumbled. “I was driving, for fuck’s sake. On my way to findyou,because you were a stubborn idiot,again,and left my grandmother’s house even though you were already knocking on death’s door. And then he popped up in the passenger seat next to me!”
“You still handled it better than Reece the first few times,” Charlie said. “I know I was a few close calls away from getting bear-sprayed in the face.”
I scowled. “I thoughtIwas the only one you could find.”
Tate raised an eyebrow. “Please don’t tell me you’re jealous?”
“I’m notjealous,”I said, willing my face to go back to normal.
Charlie sat back down on the bed, scooting in close. “Aw,baby, don’t be jealous. You know you’re the only one Iwantto haunt.”
Tate made a face. “You know he saved your life, right? If he hadn’t found me when he did, I wouldn’t have known to intercept your Dad on his way home. We would’ve lost a lot of time trying to figure out what happened and where to find you.”
That sobered me. I’d be at the bottom of a lake by now, had Charlie not reacted immediately.
“How did you know something was wrong?” I asked quietly.
As if haunted by the memory, he looked away. “I didn’t. You came tome.You walked right through the lookout door.”
By his expression, I knew he wasn’t talking aboutourlookout, but the one we’d left behind when we chose life with each other.
I squeezed his hand.
“I can’t figure out why he’d try to kill me at Dad’s, and not the lookout,” I said.
Tate sighed. “He got away with framing someone else once; he may have been trying to do the same to you, or your Dad. I think that’s why he left Janine somewhere she was so easy to find. That, or he didn’t want to dump her body on the side of the lake you could see from the lookout, just in case.”
“Why kill Janine, though?” Charlie asked. “If he wouldn’t be able to hide her body like the rest of us? And why go after Reece?”
“Maybe he thought you saw something,” Tate said. At Charlie’s furrowed brow, he continued, “He was spiraling. I don’t think he was in control anymore. He wanted the thrill of the kill as many times as he could before getting caught. These kinds of people can’t hide who they are forever.”
Like a cornered and wounded animal,I thought again.
