Waking Charley Vaughan (16 page)

“You don’t need to worry about that,” I assured him. “We haven’t even had a date yet,” I told him.

He just smiled and said, “We’ll see, son. We’ll see.”

CHAPTER 10 – BRENNAN

After leaving the coffee shop, I headed toward Adam’s shop to see what his call had been about. When I pulled up to his shop, he was waiting outside, pacing up and down the sidewalk in front of the garage doors.

“What’s up?” I asked him as I got out of my truck.

“What do you remember about the night that your friend Charley got hit?” He was still pacing. He always paced when he was anxious.

“Why? What’s going on?” I asked him.

“Before I tell you,” he said with exaggerated slowness, “I need to know what you remember.”

“Fine,” I said, leaning against my truck. “Not a lot, honestly. It happened really fast. I was locking up. I heard a nose, I think Charley screamed. When I turned around, she was on the ground.”

“What about the car?” He prompted me.

I was starting to see why I was at his shop and not at our apartment. “I don’t remember much,” I told him. “It was dark.”

“What was dark?” he asked, his voice full of anxiety. “The car or the night?”

“Dude, breathe!” I half yelled at him. “The car was dark, I couldn’t see much else.”

Adam refused to be calm. It was then that I knew he was onto something. “What do you know?” I asked him.

“I think you need to call whoever is in charge of the hit and run case,” was all he said before turning to go inside the office of the shop. When he was inside he put a sign in the window that read, “Sorry, we’re closed.”

I pulled out my wallet and retrieved the card that the officer had given me the night of Charley’s accident. When I dialed his number from my phone, my hands were shaking with anxiety, and I knew exactly how Adam had felt a minute ago. We got the guy.

***

About half an hour later, the officer—officer Vasquez, and a detective—detective Schmidt, were standing in Adam’s shop, examining the car, and listening to him explain why he thought this could be the car. It was during his explanation that I realized part of why he was so nervous.

“I destroyed some of the evidence! I had no idea, man. You’ve gotta believe me!”  He went over to a bucket full of dirty rags and grabbed a couple out. “I saved the what I could, and I stopped working on it as soon as I realized what was up.” He held the rags up to the detective’s face.

Detective Schmidt looked like he was trying to hold back a laugh. “Do you watch CSI?” he asked Adam

“Miami and New York,” I chimed in. He gave a slight laugh.

“You’re not going to be in any trouble, kid,” Detective Schmidt said. “You did the right thing. Now, tell us what happened.”

“This guy brings the car in a couple of days before Christmas. Says it got dinged up at the mall, and the person didn’t leave a note. He was real tool about it, and gave me a whole line about  how he needed it fixed right away…blah blah blah. So, I tell the guy, with the holidays, its gonna take a while, and I put him off for a while ‘cause he was such a tool.”

He looked around for a response to this, and when no one gave one, he went on. “Anyway, I don’t start working on the bumper until today. I thought maybe I could just pop the dent out. When I was wiping at the paint to see if the scuffs would come out, I noticed the rag had that reddish brown stuff on it…I thought it might be dried blood. That’s when I made the connection between the girl—I mean, my brother’s fiancé, and the car.”

He shot me a look that said, “oops,” but the detective didn’t seem to notice Adam’s misstep.

The detective sighed. “I appreciate your enthusiasm,” he said. “But, that blood could easily be from an animal.”

“Fair enough,” Adam said. “But, this guy doesn’t seem like the outdoor type.” He walked over to the car and knelt down, “And,” he added. “This looks like hair, and not like fur. If I’m wrong, I’m wrong. I just thought it was worth the call.”

Just then, my phone rang. I looked at the screen to see that it was Sara. She didn’t usually call for no reason, so I stepped away from Adam and the cops to answer.

“Hey, Sara,” I said into the receiver.

“Hey, Matt!” she said in her cheery tone. She was even more perky since Charley had been released from the hospital. “Okay,” she continued before I could reply to her greeting, “So, Charley called me and told me that you guys had a date coming up, and I thought maybe you could use some tips from her best friend,” she shot out rapidly.

“Um, Sara--” I began.

“I know, I know,” she said quickly, “You two get along really fine and all that. I’m just talking about little tips, you know? Like, little things that will make that extra special difference. You’re a good guy, I know that. But someone’s gotta tell you what her favorite flowers are, and what kind of candy she likes, and what her favorite color is so that you can--” this time I cut her off.

“No, Sara, I appreciate that. It’s just that right now isn’t a good time…”

“It’s Daisies,” she said, apparently not hearing me. “She loves daisies. And if you can find yellow Gerber daisies then that’s perfect! She just loves those…”

“Sara,” I tried again

“I know it will be hard to find daisies this time of year, but if you hit the florist on Taft—you know the one, by the Colorado Rd. intersection—they usually have a good selection,” I didn’t think she was breathing, but finally she paused to inhale, “I’m telling you, that little touch will really set the date off on a great foot!”

“Sara!!” I tried, a little louder this time.

“Mmmhmm?” she asked innocently, sounding like I hadn’t just been trying to interject for the past two minutes.

“I’m here at my brother, Adam’s shop right now. It’s not for sure, but he thinks he may have the car here—the one that hit Charley.”

She was silent for a good minute. It had to be a record for her.

“Where’s his shop?” she asked, all of previous peppiness gone from her tone.

“It’s on College,” I told her. “Over behind the Mario’s Pizza.” She took another breath.

“I’m just down the street,” she said quickly. “I’m on my way. I’ll be there in like, two minutes. One if I catch this light.”  With that, she hung up.

Just like she’d said, it was only a couple of minutes before I saw her black Honda pull up behind my truck. She jumped out to greet me.

“Where is it? And who does it belong to?” She was already flushed.

“We don’t know yet, Adam was explaining everything when I walked out to grab your call.”

“I can’t wait to get a name,” she said with a look of violent intent on her face. “I’ll kill the sonofabitch!” she went charging into the garage. I had to rush to catch her because her charge caught me off guard. I grabbed her by the arm.

“Hey,” I said, trying to be soothing. “Just take a breath. The cops are here. They’ll get him.”

When we walked back into the garage, Adam and the officers turned to look at us. I introduced Sara to Adam as Officer Vasquez called in the plate number on his radio. When she heard the numbers, Sara went over closer to Adam to get a better look at the car. She gasped.

“What’s up?” I asked her.

“I can tell them who the owner is,” she said sadly.

Detective Schmidt turned quickly to look at her. “You know the owner of this vehicle?” he said sharply.

“Yeah,” she said bitterly, “I should.” She looked over at me. “The asshole’s my brother.”

Just then, we heard the dispatcher come in over the radio and confirm what Sara said: Matt had run over Charley.

CHAPTER 11 - SARA

From the moment I walked into Adam’s shop, I’d had an uneasy feeling. I couldn’t explain it, but something in me must have known that finding out who hit Charley was going to be bad.

Everything seemed to move too fast. As soon as the words that connected my brother to the car in Adam’s shop had come out of my mouth, I’d felt sick to my stomach. By the time the police dispatcher came back over the radio to verify what I already knew, I was panicking and ready to throw up.

‘What’s going to happen?” I asked Brennan, my voice showing every last ounce of the horror that I felt. Beyond that horror though, was anger. A deep, seething, and unrelenting anger at my brother, and at myself for not realizing that it was him all along. I had known, after all. Some part of me had known, or at least suspected, from the moment he told me his car was in the shop.

Brennan looked down at me, his expression intense. “It’s probably not going to be good,” he said gently. “I mean,” he added, “I’m not a cop, but it just doesn’t seem like it’s going to go well for him.”

“Do you think he did it on purpose?” I asked, but I wasn’t really asking Brennan. I was probably asking myself.

He seemed to know that I wasn’t expecting an answer from him. He just wrapped one of his long arms around my shoulders and pulled me into him in a friendly, sideways kind of hug.

Looking back, I think it was that moment that I realized he really was my friend. He had been thrown into my life and Charley’s life through ridiculous circumstances, and in a short time, I’d already begun to really appreciate his friendship. He was, once again, acting like Matt should have been acting. He was comforting me like a brother should—like a friend should.

He was doing what Matt had never done, and probably never would do. Instead of making me mad like it had when I had realized this about him with Charley, it made me sad. Tears filled my eyes as I stood there staring at my brother’s car, and listening to the police discuss partial plate numbers, blood tests, and arrest warrants over the radio.

Brennan followed the officers out as they left the shop, but I was too numb to move. I sat on a small dirty couch that was placed in the corner of the large shop, staring forward, and trying to wrap my brain around what had just happened. I knew I was going to have to call my parents eventually. I couldn’t even begin to think about how I was going to tell them this. They were angry enough at him for breaking Charley’s heart. My parent’s had been so excited at the thought of Charley being their daughter. They had been equally devastated when they found out that, not only was she not going to be their daughter, but she had been hit by a car and was in the hospital. It had crushed them. They hadn’t wanted to be an imposition while she was in the hospital, so instead of visiting everyday like I knew they wanted to, they asked me for updates regularly, and made me bring Charley messages and candy, and hugs, and whatever else my mom had decided she might need that day.

How was I going to tell them that Matt was responsible for putting her there? It was too much to think about. I put my face into my hands and started to cry, completely forgetting that Brennan’s brother, Adam was still in the shop. I felt him sit down next to me.

“Uhh,” he said awkwardly. “You okay?”

I sniffed and wiped my eyes. “Yeah, I’m fine,” I lied. It’s just kind of a shock, you know?”

“I have no idea,” he said honestly. “But I’m really sorry.” He gave my back an awkward pat, reminding me of how Brennan had tried to be comforting that first night I’d met him in Charley’s hospital room. I laughed a little at that.

“Why don’t you come into the office?” he asked, standing up and holding out his hand. “I’ll make us some coffee, or get you a water or something.”

“I need to call my parents,” I said as I stood. I looked up at him, realizing that I actually had to look up to meet his eyes. That was rare for me, and it caught me off guard.

“I think you should take a couple of minutes to catch your breath first,” he said. “But if you want to get it out of the way now, that’s cool, too.”

I followed him into the office where he handed me a bottle of water and some tissues. After taking a couple of sips, I decided it was time to call my mother. There was no use in delaying it. She needed to know before Matt got arrested. I pulled my phone out of my purse and pressed the speed dial number for my mother’s cell phone.

She picked up on the second ring. “Hello,” she chirped.

“Hey Mom,” I said soberly. She caught onto my tone quickly.

“Sara, honey,” she said, sounding concerned. “Is everything okay? You sound upset. What’s wrong?” I wondered only briefly if this rapid succession of words was how I sounded to other people when I was anxious or excited or mad, or…any mood whatsoever. I quickly dismissed the thought, getting to the point.

“Mom,” I said before taking a deep breath, “I need to tell you something. It’s not good.”

“What is it honey? Are you okay?” she sounded even more worried now.

“I’m fine, Mom. It’s about Matt…and it’s about Charley,” I paused. “…and her accident.”

“Oh,” my mom said softly.

“Mom, it looks like Matt might be the one who hit Charley.”

“He
what?”
she asked.