A Sublime Casualty Read online

  “Hey!” She breezes into the truck with a pair of black yoga pants hugging her every curve, a matching tank top and white sweater tied around her waist. But it’s her bulging cleavage my eyes sink to. Try as I might to fight it, there’s no help for me in that area. “It’s supposed to hit the high sixties today, but I always get hot when I walk.” She opens her tote bag my way. “I brought water for the both of us. I haven’t hiked in so long. I used to love the ridges on the east side of—” Her mouth remains open a second too long as she stops mid-flight. “Connecticut.” She blinks my way.

  We continue our conversation on hiking, about the natural springs we’re headed out to. She lets me know that Gabby was ecstatic about our pancake standoff.

  I can’t help but laugh as I pull into a space at the base of the trail. “In that case, I’ll have to challenge you to a rematch.”

  “Ha! Match accepted.” She bites down on her lower lip before getting out of the truck, and a part of me wants to believe she’s seducing me.

  “Secret Falls, huh?” She sinks a pink Conrad ball cap over her head and hitches her bag over her shoulder. “You think we’ll see a rainbow?”

  “This isn’t Hawaii, so no promises, but I think I can guarantee you a damn good time.” Crap. “I didn’t mean it that way.”

  “Please.” She averts her gaze skyward as she skips ahead of me. Her chest expands as she takes in a full breath. “I’m already having a damn good time”—she motions me forward with a tick of her head—“with you.”

  And just like that, Charlie manages to dissolve the clouds that have hung heavy in my life for over a year, spearing a shot of sunshine my way—so bright and heated, I’m afraid it might be fatal.

  The trailhead that leads to the Secret Falls is set on an incline, just steep enough to let your muscles know you’ve been somewhere. Cedars and evergreens cling to the cliff side where rows and rows of leafy ferns spread wide like wings guiding us to our ultimate destination. The sky is blotched a dark ominous gray, the earth already damp and muddy.

  “I guess I should confess. I haven’t walked this trail in years,” I start as I lead us through the underbrush as the trail narrows to a razor’s edge. The ridge below us sits about six feet down. It wouldn’t kill you if you fell, but if you landed the right way, it could snap your leg like a candy cane. “I don’t remember it being a tightrope.”

  “I guess a quick picnic in a meadow is firmly off the table.” She laughs while balancing herself with both arms spread wide. “But don’t be too hard on yourself. I’m enjoying this far more than I thought possible. I guess I have a confession of my own. I’m not much of a hiker. But this is really fun.” Her left shoe sinks into the mud, clear to her ankle, and she plucks it out as the ground suctions out a belch. “And I spoke too soon.” Her eyes brighten the world around me as she glances my way with a smile.

  Easy. That’s the first word I would use to describe Charlie Neville. And fun. I can’t remember feeling so relaxed around a girl before, so natural.

  I offer her a hand, and she takes it as I navigate us carefully through the chokehold of strangulating ferns, the sticky black mud, thick as molasses.

  My foot sinks into a slimy pit, and my sneaker damn near slips off. “Shit,” I hiss, pulling my foot out slowly.

  “It looks like the earth is hungry. Maybe I should toss the PB&Js I brought at it and it’ll leave us alone.”

  “You made PB&Js? Man. First pancakes and now this? If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were hitting hard on my stomach.”

  “You know what they say. The fastest way to a man’s heart is through the hole you bear in his esophagus.”

  We share a quick laugh at her play on words. Charlie gives my hand a firm tug, and I cinch my fingers around hers. She feels soft, fragile, and her skin smells like honey and her hair like wildflowers. It’s almost a shame at how quickly I’ve taken to her. But she makes me forget the world. She interrupts the quickened intervals that Lizzy’s face pops into my mind. That poster of hers is tattooed over my gray matter. That’s how I see her now. A two-dimensional impression. About once a week, I look at pictures of her on my phone. I’m ashamed to say I don’t have many, but the ones I do have help to jog my memory as to what she really looked like. Especially the one where she’s staring me down. At the end of the day, Lizzy could be a handful, thus the quickie divorce—thus just about everything that went wrong in her life. And who the hell knows? It might just be why she’s missing.

  The rain starts in, a light peppering at first, then a full-blown assault with knife-like shards, an entire barrage of broken glass spraying down from heaven. Maybe this is how I die, in the wilderness, a thousand paper cuts by way of heavy rains. That’s what I get for having a good time while my sister lingers in some unknowable abyss.

  “We’re going to drown!” Charlie screams through laughter, and I laugh right along with her as I pull us under the shelter of an old umbrella-like oak. A river picks up from nowhere, whipping around our ankles at thirty miles an hour, sending rocks and branches hurling against my legs, tearing my skin open as easy as gutting a fish.

  Charlie’s legs give out with the current and I give her hand a quick yank, pulling her over to me, looping my arm around her waist. The rush of water swells three feet in a span of two minutes.

  “Shit.” I land her arms around my neck abruptly. The rain is falling so hard and fast it’s blinding. “Hold on!” I shout over the thunderous roar.

  Flash flood.

  What the hell was I thinking? I’m a damn cop. I should know better. Check the damn weather. It’s not that hard a job.

  I climb up to the lowest bow as Charlie wraps her legs around me tight like a coil. I find a spot at the base next to the trunk, just enough space for my back to rest against it as my left leg digs into an adjoining branch, offering a false sense of stability. The rain pummels us hard and fast, like a punishment, as Charlie burrows her face in my neck, her warm tears pressing against my skin like coals.

  It’s becoming clear that if we survive this date it will most likely be our last.

  She looks up, mascara down to her chin in black muddy trails, but she’s still stunning, arrestingly so.

  “Are we going to live?” she shouts up at me, blinking hard as she struggles to keep her gaze on mine.

  “Yes!” I try to laugh it off. “I promise you will.” It might be a different story, but only because I’ll voluntarily drown before I let anything happen to her. I’ve already disappointed one girl. There’s no way in hell I’m losing another. “How about a do-over in the spring?” I flash a quick smile at her, the one my mother says I can steal the world with, and she grins right back.

  “Gunning for the spring, huh? You’re pretty brave.” Her chest vibrates with a laugh. “Sounds like a plan!” Her arms and legs tighten around me, the bony protrusions of her knees cut into my back. “Theo?” A pained expression grips her and I’m terrified as to what she might say next. “I have to pee!” she screams at the top of her lungs, but the rain pummels us at a quickened pace as if to tune her out entirely.

  A million thoughts race through my mind. That river is at the base of my ass. Neither one of us is getting off this branch, not anytime soon at least, not if we want to live.

  “Go ahead!” I shout back and wince. “It’s fine.”

  Her mouth squares out in a silent scream, her eyes stinging me with their disbelief. She burrows her face in my neck a moment, and just like that, a warmth spreads between us, over my belly and down my legs. It’s over before it really began, and sadly I didn’t mind it all that much.

  She looks back up with her nose wrinkled, adorable as hell. “Sorry,” she mouths. “I guess I owe you.”

  “Honey, I think I owe you.” After this near-death experience, I’ll be apologizing the rest of my life. A bright jag of lightning goes off overhead. A crackle of thunder roars out its fury, right on its tail, and her body bucks hard against me. I pull her in close, her limbs still tangled and
tight over my torso. The afternoon turns to evening, and the night comes without warning, a darkness so thick you could touch it. At about one in the morning, the rain starts to give. And once the sun crests over the horizon, the waters have receded, leaving the mud smoothed of its wrinkles, moist with the promise of sucking off both our shoes. The storm already vacuumed out our souls. The sun is out, the birds are chirping as if nothing had ever happened.

  Charlie rouses herself, drugged and exhausted, not sure if she really caught a wink. “Did you sleep?” She gives me a light slap over the cheek, and I’m pretty sure I deserve something harder with a little more power behind it.

  “Nope. I had precious cargo.” I give a sheepish smile as I land us back on the ground, my feet sinking into the soupy ground like quicksand. She tries to dismount, but I don’t let her feet touch the earth. Instead, I cradle her in my arms. “No way. I got you. It’s not a big deal, I promise.” I carry her back to the truck, plucking my feet from the muck and the mire for a half a mile straight. By the time we finally crawl back into my truck, we’re both too exhausted to say a word on the drive home. I drop her off at the gate, her hair, her face, caked in mud.

  “I guess the Secret Falls remain just that until spring.” She picks up my hand and offers a squeeze. “Thank you.”

  “Don’t thank me. Hell, don’t sue me.”

  We share a weak laugh and she offers a friendly wave before heading inside.

  I’m lucky she didn’t give me the finger.

  It’s seven by the time I get to the house. The lights are on in the kitchen, and I can see Jackson hunched over his laptop through the front window. I kick off my shoes on the porch before letting myself in. I bought the house on auction a few years back. Lizzy and Nikki helped decorate it, thus the girly décor and touches of pink interspersed throughout. I think they did it just to get a rise out of me, but I love my sisters too much to change it.

  “Hey, lover boy.” Jackson lifts his mug my way. His dark hair is unruly, his eyes still squinted with sleep. “How was she?” He pulls the mug away from his mouth as he gets a better look at me. “Geez. You went on a date, not Iraq.”

  “We went mudwrestling.” I tell him all about the harrowing experience while making my own cup of coffee.

  “She pissed on you?” Jackson blows out a slow breath. That look on his face spells something out I’m not familiar with. “You’re kidding me, right?

  “I’m telling the truth.”

  “Sit down.” His eyes close a moment as he wipes down his face with his hand.

  “I know. Trust me, I’ve been a toilet for women for years. I’m pretty sure we’re in the friend zone, though. And after last night, we’re in the I-think-you’re-a-hazard-to-my-health zone.”

  “That’s not what I was going to say.” His mouth twitches. Jackson’s father is Irish, and every now and again I’d swear Jack looks like a stereotypical leprechaun. Dark curly crimson hair, bright green eyes with a bit of wicked intent, sharp, pointed ears—you can’t go wrong with that look on St. Patty’s Day. Leprechaun was his nickname straight through seventh grade, no thanks to me. It didn’t do much for him with the girls, but I think he’d admit Gabby was worth the wait. Jackson and I have always been as close as brothers. His dad ditched out around the same time mine did, so it bonded our mothers that much closer. Same issues, divorce, new family in Des Moines. “It’s about Lizzy.”

  “What?” I pull a seat in close to his laptop until we’re staring at his screensaver, rotating pictures of him and Gabby on their Florida vacation two years ago. Life seems to have stopped for the both of us the day Lizzy disappeared. “What is it? Did they find her? Did Neil call?”

  “Neil didn’t call. Gabby did. She got a notification on Facebook. Apparently, Miles has a social media feed that drips through it and she saw something that shook her.”

  I stare at the screen impatiently while my hand swipes his phone over and I shoot a quick text to Neil to get the hell over here. My phone is dead. In fact, getting a replacement was going to be my first move after a shower and power nap. I’m not on duty until later.

  Jackson leans in, his eyes hooking to mine as he gives a slight nod. “It seems Miles has been smoking some really bad shit. Do not freak out. Nothing he says is real. He’s a stoner, thirty-year-old skater boy, remember?”

  He’s not quite thirty. In fact, he’s three full years younger than my sister, and not her type. Hippie, long golden hair. Pretty, my mother called him. His eyes are perpetually glossy, and his wallet is perpetually empty. He was and still is a societal leech. He hooked a hose up to my sister’s bank account while they were dating and kept siphoning funds during the first few months after her disappearance until a friend who worked with my mother at the bank tipped her off when she went into overdraft.

  “He’s a piece of shit.” My voice rides the edge of fury. “He killed her, didn’t he?” I thunder, my fist hammering over the table so hard my coffee jumps right over the lip of the mug.

  “Whoa, big boy.” Jackson holds out his hands as if to steady me.

  The front door cracks open as Neil pokes his head in. “What’s up, girls?”

  Jackson shoots him a look, and before I know it, he’s standing behind me, his aftershave so thick it stifles my next breath.

  Jackson takes us right to Miles’ homepage, his banner a picture of his eyes too close to the camera, his fingers shooting up from behind in a peace sign. Under his name it reads, Live, Laugh, Be Free.

  Free is something Lizzy is not.

  “Aw, crap.” Neil slaps my shoulder. “I’m sorry you have to look at this shit.”

  “What shit?” I lean in and furiously scan the words scrambling around the page like ants. And then I see it. Holy hell.

  “You guys won’t believe this.” I read Miles’ post word-for-word, monotone, because he is right. I cannot believe this. “My girlfriend is dead, and she just sent me a DM. She says she’s scared, and she is in hell.” My voice breaks as I say those menacing words. “She’s afraid for herself and that bad dudes keep screaming at her. She says it’s hot, like really fucking hot. And she’s petrified out of her mind. Guys, this is real. It’s her account. I’ll screenshot that shit. Lizzy is dead, and she’s talking to me from beyond the grave.”

  Jackson clasps his hand over my shoulder. “I’m sorry, man. He’s a troubled idiot. We both know that.”

  Neil points at the screen. “Five hundred forty-three shares, one thousand thirty likes, and over six hundred comments. That’s why he did it. He’s a damn attention whore. I’ll pay him a visit.” He slaps his hand over my arm. “I’ll catch you later.” He heads for the door. “And whatever you do, stay away from Miles Wallis. He’s a nutcase. I’ll see what I can do about getting a search warrant. I’ll get his computer to see if I can find something. You know it’s just a matter of time. I told you from the beginning, he’s hiding something.”

  He nods from the door before disappearing. Neil has been more like a brother to me than a partner, the dad I never had. He’s older by a decade, married, separated. He’s tall and muscular with a friendly face that makes everyone instantly trust him, and that’s what makes him the best detective in the entire damn country. Too bad a trusting face isn’t enough to bring back my sister.

  I forgo the shower for the next hour and stare at that cryptic message as if it were a word from God, from the devil, and it probably is the latter. But a fearful part of me believes it. Deep down, I suspect my sister is suffering greatly. Three weeks after she vanished, they found a body—naked and slashed to ribbons. A gray and rotting corpse, later to be discovered sexually assaulted, tossed in a thicket as if she were an animal. Her name was Karen Gilroy. As if finding a body next to Conrad University wasn’t bad enough, they found Lizzy’s wallet nearby. It stung like a warning, a bright red caustic beacon that indicated things had gone horribly wrong for Lizzy. She was in danger. Karen was dead, and my sister was more than likely next.

  Miles Wallis catches my
eye from the screen, and I stare him down with that ridiculous look on his face.

  No, Neil. I will not stay away from Miles. In fact, I’m going to hunt him down and beat the shit out of him right after you pick his apartment clean like a chicken bone.

  Lizzy is out there. Dead or alive, she’s coming home again.

  I’ll make damn sure it happens soon.

  Charlie

  Oh my God, were the only words Gabby said all morning. She moaned them over and over again until I was showered and changed and ready to take off for the Hideaway Café. It appears Lizzy’s boyfriend—the rebound—according to Gabs, is convinced he’s being messaged by his badly misplaced girlfriend. Lizzy has supposedly revealed to him that she is no longer living and rotting in hell.

  Well, isn’t that convenient?

  Gabby offered to drive me to work, and since there’s a cold snap hitting us hard, I don’t decline the offer.

  “I’m grabbing lunch,” she announces as she lurches into a parking spot right out front and we head in together.

  The scent of grilled burgers greets us at the door, savory and rich with smoke. Dena nods as she passes us by, and I’m quick to thank her for covering half my shift.

  “Not a problem.” The marionette lines around her cheeks depress. They look drawn in as if someone took a Sharpie to her pale flesh. “More tips for me.” She winks at Gabby before heading to the kitchen.

  I duck behind the counter and pour Gabby a cup of coffee, decaf only. She doesn’t like the jitters. “You want the usual?”

  I can count on one hand how many times Gabby has eaten here and still have fingers left over, and each time she places the same order. Steel cut oats. Maple syrup.