Charming (18 page)

ick up. Pick up. Pick up.”

She’d already tried Niles without getting through, and now Chris’s phone rang and rang and rang. Haley wanted to pull him aside and spill every secret locked inside her soul. At least he’d be able to protect his family. If the psycho framed Haley? Fine. She’d live. Right? She survived Mom’s death.

A sob rumbled from her chest as the call went into voicemail. Haley didn’t think she could survive Joce’s, Dad’s, or Niles’s death, because Haley hadn’t actually survived Mom’s.

But, still, this was the right thing to do.

Haley dialed again, breaking a pen in half while waiting. She left the blue ink stain on the table.
Who cares
? One ring, two, three…

“Hello?”

“Chris, we need to talk.”

“I can’t right now.” He sounded distant, cold, disinterested—and like he had company. A girl giggled in the background, then asked who he was talking to. “Jessica, give me a minute, will you?”

He was with a girl—a girl who giggled and knew him well enough to ask who was talking to. His family, hers, everyone would suffer because Chris didn’t really like Haley.

“Okay. Call—”

The girl announced “minute’s up”, and Chris sighed. “
Seriously
, Jessica.”

The phone went dead.

What the hell? Maybe she should go to his house? Pound on the door. Demand to be let in?

Haley called again, like any good stalker girlfriend, like the scum of the earth Joce considered Christine, not appropriate for the bottom of a bum’s shoe. That’s how Chris acted, like Haley meant nothing to him.

Voicemail. “Look, not trying to be nutso girl here, but seriously have to talk to you. Life. Death. Lifetime of misery kind of talk. No, I’m not pregnant. Just in case you’re wondering, like the rest of the town.”

Giving up on truth for now, Haley searched Dad’s room for a written combination to his gun safe, because lord knows the drunk probably couldn’t remember a string of numbers over one and had to write them down. She located several combinations in the top drawer of his nightstand, then ran to the closet, where he and Mom had kept weapons in the old house, though Mom hated them.

Haley yanked open the door and waterworks assaulted her eyes, waterworks she had no chance of controlling. “Oh, God.”

All Mom’s suits were hanging, color coordinated how they’d been in her old closet, shoes lined up along the back wall. Why did Dad keep everything? Why did he place things in here as if she weren’t really gone? As if she were on a trip and would be home soon?

Haley touched some of the suits Mom had worn to work. When she died, Haley spent a month, two months, maybe three, walking around in a vegetative state. She figured Dad gave everything away when he furiously packed boxes and moved houses while she and Joce were away at school. He took care of everything, bought this new place and locked up the old one, stuck a for sale sign in the yard without ever giving the girls an opportunity to be a part of it.

But why? Why keep this? Haley didn’t figure he’d saved everything and hung it up. How much did he miss Mom? How much of the loving man Haley knew before he turned to the bottle, before he fell off that crane, actually existed inside?

None.

None Haley could forgive.

She shook her head and dug through his rumpled clothes in the back of the closet, locating the safe beneath. Grabbing the gun and some ammo, Haley shoved them into her waistband, then jumped in Dad’s truck, heading for the closest grocery store in Greenfield. She checked out The Barn first, realized it didn’t have carts, then drove around more, stopping at every farmer’s market, every produce stand, every small store—and there were so many. None of them shared the same sounds as what Haley’d heard coming through the phone.

She stopped at Fosters, a brown building with a covered area for carts. This had to be it.

Haley ran inside and right up to one of the clerks. “Excuse me.”

“Haley,” the tall, broad-shouldered pimply guy said, color draining from his already pale cheeks. “I’m Thomas, in case you don’t know. We have Y block Calculus together.”

O-kay. “Look, Thomas, does the store have a public phone?”

He leaned his head to the side and shrugged. “Out front.”

“Thanks. See you around.”

“Sure.”

Haley ran back outside, and there, an ancient metal and black plastic contraption hung loosely from the brick wall, graffiti decorating every inch: phone numbers labeled with ‘good lay’, ‘blows hard’, images of body parts best saved for the bedroom.

She didn’t really know what she was doing but looked around for people, cameras, for anything. Haley spotted a camera mounted above the sliding glass doors of the store. No one would give her footage without reason, and telling them why she really needed the tapes would be dangerous.

“Dammit.” Haley kicked the pay phone, over and over. “Why does this have to be so hard?”

She kicked it again, and again, and again.

“I take it inanimate objects offend you?”
Chris
.

“You have no”—Haley turned and forced a scream of frustration into a little box, tucked it deep inside—“idea.”

A beautiful girl, a beautiful rich girl, wearing a cream colored pencil skirt, a navy-blue button-up, sleeves rolled to her elbows, bright red belt and matching high heels, dark blonde hair pulled into a sloppy but perfect side ponytail, had her arm linked through Chris’s.

He wore black slacks and a pale blue sports coat. “What did it do?”

They were on a date.

A date.

The girl—presumably Jessica—didn’t spare Haley the courtesy of a glance. Haley had been that girl once. Maybe. She certainly didn’t miss that
type
of girl.

Haley missed Mom though, and Dad, and hope, and definitely love.

Chris laughed nervously, then leaned close and whispered, “Forget how to speak in your animalistic rage?”

No. Yes. “I need to talk to you.”

The girl pushed her bug-eyed sized sunglasses to rest on her head. She frowned and tugged on Chris’s coat sleeve. “We’re going to be late, Christopher.”

“And your point?” he snapped, removing her arm from his.

“You’re being a dick. Tell your little charity case you have to go.” She stomped off and into the store.

“I’ll call you later.” Chris shrugged and took off after his date, staring back over his shoulder. Maybe he wanted to apologize. Maybe he was just sorry Haley caught him, that his nice guy act was shredded in a single instant.

She would have loved to call out ‘don’t bother’, but that wouldn’t help her at all.

Maybe Haley hadn’t misjudged him. Maybe everything her gut told her about
Christopher
freaking
Charming
was correct. He didn’t care about Haley.

Pity then? Nah.

Chris probably just hated Niles and wanted to prove Haley as his latest conquest.

The air whooshed out of her lungs.

This didn’t feel right. That kind of Chris didn’t fit the profile of the gentle, lost soul she’d gotten to know over the last couple weeks.

Maybe he believed the rumors about Haley? Maybe Chris thought she was using him to get back something she lost. That would make more sense. But… this girl, this new roadblock, wouldn’t stop Haley from protecting Chris and his family.

Haley’s back pocket vibrated. She pulled the cell out. BLOCKED. Again. “What do you want now?”

“You have three days to get Chris far away from the house, three days before I kill them all slowly, painfully, and let them know how easily you could have spared them. Three days until you’re locked up for something so simple, so miniscule, something you could have prevented. Don’t prove me wrong.”

“Prove you wrong?”

“You’re like me, Haley. So much like me, and so much like her.”

Right. Mom
. Somehow this guy was fascinated with Mom.

A bell rang. The same kind of bell that Irving’s used at their full service fuel pump.

“I hate you.”

“I know.” The psycho laughed. “You’ve mentioned that a few times already. Goodbye, Haley.”

Three days to figure out where he was keeping Dad, Joce, and Niles. Three days to protect the Charmings and locate the others.

Haley bolted into the store and ran up to Thomas as he bagged an old woman’s groceries. “Thomas, I need your help. It’s urgent.”

The kid glanced at a girl behind the cash register. She looked Haley over and smiled at Thomas.

“Go ahead,” she said. “We’re pretty slow right now. Take your break.”

“Thanks.” Thomas followed Haley out the sliding doors, fingers holding her elbow. He released her by the brick wall, then leaned next to her, cocky, arrogant—a football player. She finally recognized him. Thomas had asked her out the first day she showed up at Frontier. Great, one more person who would spread rumors and probably tell Richard some fabricated story of these events, and Richard would tell Chris. And like
that
the whole town would most likely label her a whore. “What’s up, Haley?”

Hopefully the sting of her rejection wore off long ago. “You’re going to hate me and probably think I’m an asshole, but I have an extra credit report I have to write for Mr. Thompson’s class. A five-page essay on developing technologies. It’s due Monday, and I’ve slacked, and I’m hoping you can help me get the security footage from that”—Haley pointed to the small black camera above the door—“camera. Can you do that? I want to see how often this phone is used.”

“Mr. Thompson’s been handing out a ton of extra credit assignments this year.” Todd stood on his tiptoes, looking over the cardboard advertisements blocking half the window. “Come on. I see my manager in the office. He’ll probably help you out. Just… smile.”

Smile, a.k.a. flirt. “Thanks, Thomas. I owe you one!”

“A date?” Thomas smiled, revealing so many teeth. Jerk.

“If you get me what I need, I’ll go on a date with you.”

Laughter, high-pitched and girly exited the doors, and right behind it, Rich Girl and Chris not far behind. They each carried a bag of ice toward his Porsche, neither wasting time looking back.

Not going to let it hurt. Not going to. Doesn’t matter.

“You fell for it, huh?” Thomas glanced at Chris as he and Haley re-entered the store. “That ass is a legend in Deerfield.”

“The tape?” Just breathe.

Thomas knocked on a flimsy door on a half-wall surrounding a raised platform, an office built long after the store. “Niles, too.”

Haley glared. “Say one more word, and I’ll talk to your manager and deny you that date.”

“Feisty!”

A middle-aged man with a receding hairline opened the door and dusted crumbs from his stained white shirt. “May I help you?”

Smile. Bat lashes. Hand on hip. “I
need
something, sir. Can you help me with a school project?”

The manager’s eyes widened and he stepped to the side, arm held out. “Come on in.”

“I’ll call you.” Thomas returned to his place at the end of the cash register, an idiotic grin on his face as he carefully placed groceries in bags.

Pigs.

Haley ran down her story with Matthew, the manager, and fifteen uncomfortable minutes later, the man handed her a copy of a tape with two weeks’ worth of footage, all while staring at her chest. She fled the store before him or Thomas could make Haley question her tactics, then drove back to Deerfield, straight for Tilton Library. Taking the tape home would be stupid. The psycho probably replaced all the broken surveillance equipment when she left.

“Hi, Mrs. Fields.” Haley leaned on the library’s counter, tapping her foot, waiting for the woman to turn.

Mrs. Fields flipped through a card file, eyebrows pinched, and didn’t look up. “May I help you?”

“I have a project I’m working on for school and need access to a VCR. Do you still keep one?”

The woman met Haley’s eyes and jumped from the swivel chair. “Oh, Haley Tremaine. It’s been so long, little girl. Too long.” Mrs. Fields patted Haley’s hand with her wrinkled and thin one. “I still have a VCR in the back room. Have at it.”

She ventured to the back of the library, in a storage room stacked with books too old to return to shelves, literature in desperate need of new spines, new wrappers, another home, then popped the tape into a VCR on a rolling stand. Haley turned on the power and waited, fast-forwarding through days, a week, waiting for someone to approach the phone. Near the end of the tape.