“What the hell?” Nora demanded. She let her focus linger on Phil longer than the rest, trying hard to show him that she knew exactly what the hell.
“I had to take a leak and Charles spotted a pod of whales,” Vince said quickly.
“Charlie said he’d never seen whales,” said Charles.
“Sorry,” said Phil. “We just got distracted. I promise I’ll get to your car.”
“And you?” Nora turned on Charlie.
“I wanted to see whales,” said Charlie with a shrug.
Unbelievable.
“How did you get all the way out here anyway?” asked Phil, eyes narrowed.
“I borrowed Charles’s car. I hope that’s okay, Charles,” said Nora.
“Oh,” said Charles. Then: “Of course.”
“Thanks. Okay.” Nora choked back the kind of tears that usually crept up her throat when she was overwhelmed. “Well, I’m sure Charlie has been enough of a distraction. We’ll leave you guys to it, right, Charlie?”
Charlie gave a salute.
“I might head back with you, if that’s all right,” said Charles. “I’m not much of a car man myself, and that was more than enough excitement for one day.”
* * *
Charles drove them back to town, which was just as well because Nora was still shaking too hard to even think about operating heavy machinery. Charlie rode shotgun, his face cast out over the sea, reflecting back at Nora from the side-view mirror. She never could make sense of him. What kind of maniac willingly goes to the edge of a cliff with near strangers when he knows someone wants him dead? In his shoes, Nora would be hard-pressed to leave the house. A house that was outfitted with fresh locks. And an alarm system. And a really big dog. But that would never be Charlie. Even a middle ground between a safe house and the cliff’s edge would never be Charlie. Nora leaned her head against the car window and felt the cool of the outside world pressed against it. It steadied her nerves just a bit, just enough to make it back to the little red house.
Charles dropped them near the door and headed home. The rain was still falling, and while Nora was mostly spared its touch under her coat and hood, Charlie was soaked to the bone. Still, Nora wasn’t ready to let him go inside just yet. She had too much to say, and most of it was for his ears only.
“Charlie,” she said as he moved to the door.
The way he stopped, like a dog whose leash had just been yanked, said he knew that tone. His shoulders went up defensively. “What? Hey, look, I figured there’d be a bunch of us going and Phil probably wasn’t dumb enough to try anything with witnesses around. A little guys’ outing sounded fun. And this place is really lacking in the fun department, Nor. I figured I’d take what I could get.”
“What you could ‘get’ might be dead, Charlie. Phil isn’t our only suspect, remember? The whole town is a question mark. And I was right, theyhaveall been hiding something.”
“You found something at the house in the woods? I figured that would be a dead end. Like, no offense, but sometimes your imagination gets the better of you.”
Nora’s jaw tightened, her cheek muscle twitching. She’d been given that lecture enough as a child. The last person she needed it from was Charlie.
“Yeah, well, turns out I was right. Kind of. It’s not Phil living in there, it’s Richard’s dad, Oliver.”
“Wanna run that by me again?”
So Nora did, along with everything else she’d learned from Ruby and Richard about the town.
“Death’s Blind Spot,” Charlie said on a whistle once Nora had stopped talking. “That would make a sick band name. Can I have that?”
“You don’t even play an instrument, Charlie,” Nora said, letting herself get sidetracked by her brother’s usual nonsense before her own sense returned to her. “That’s not the point. The point is, this place…it’s safe.”
“Aside from the person trying to murder me.”
“Aside from that,” Nora agreed. “But think about it, Charlie, a place where you can live forever without life harming you.”
“Without life,” Charlie interjected.
“If we could just figure out who’s after you and stop them, properly stop them, we could stay here, with our family, where it’s safe. You wouldn’t have to worry about making rent or paying back whoever you owe money to this month. And I wouldn’t have to worry about…I wouldn’t have to worry.”
