A Sublime Casualty Page 6

  “Super nice to meet you, Charlie Neville.” He tips his head thoughtfully. His hair is shorn tight with waves, and it reminds me of a sheep. A black sheep. But those eyes, the way they drill into me feels intimate and makes me want to look away. Bullshit rule number seven hundred: Never break eye contact or they will see right through you. They cannot see your heart palpitating like a dying jackrabbit, but they can read your body like a cheap dime store novel. His thumb rubs against my wrist just before he pulls away, and his lips twist as if that single action let him in on all my secrets. “I pop in here every now and again. I’ve seen you around. You’re pretty new to Wakefield, right?”

  My ears drum with their own heartbeat. “Pretty new. But I’ve been here for over a year. I guess in a town like Wakefield, where everyone knows everyone, I’ll be pretty new for the next twenty years.”

  Gabby belts out a laugh. “Ain't that the truth, sister.” She high-fives me before looking to him. “This is my roommate, Neil. She’s the smartest person I know. I swear, if you ever get stumped, she’s the person to call. I tell her at least twice a week that she belongs on Jeopardy. Isn’t that right?”

  “It’s true.” I’m reluctant to take Gabby’s praise any day of the week, but here in front of this highly decorated and well-armed crowd, it’s more than just embarrassing. It feels downright lethal.

  Fiona smirks. “If you’re really smart, you’ll stay away from this turkey.” She ribs Theo as a titter of laughter circles our group. “I’m teasing. He’s a good one. One of the best guys I know.”

  “A totally nice guy.” I shoot a quick glance to Gabby who nods in agreement.

  Jackson’s forehead wrinkles as he looks to me. “Well, if you’re as smart as Gabby pegs you, by all means step into this investigation.” He hitches his thumb behind him at Theo and Neil. “Neither of these turkeys is making a dent in the case. This case is going cold fast.”

  “Hey”—Theo chides—“she’s already agreed to listen as I chew her ear off.”

  “Eww.” Gabby winks my way. “Keep the sexual details to yourself, will you?”

  “Shit,” Theo mutters as he glances to the ceiling. “That’s not what I meant.” He taps Neil over the arm. “I’m sharing the file with her. God knows a fresh pair of eyes won’t hurt a thing.”

  “I’m fine with it.” Neil shakes his head at me as if he isn’t. “Shoot me your email, and I’ll give you what you want. Unfortunately, Jackson is right. Things are getting arctic, and that’s not what we want.”

  “Use mine,” Gabby offers. “Charlie here is a cord cutter. No phone, no net.”

  Cord cutter. I think I like that label almost as much as waitress.

  Neil nods to me. “That’s quite a technological advantage, don’t you think?” He laughs it off, and I’m relieved by it. “So, what brings you to Wakefield?”

  “Adventure and a lack of funds to go elsewhere to find it.” I do my best to bubble unnaturally, like those coeds I inspect under a microscope of suspicion. “Why does anyone go anywhere? How about you? Are you a lifer?” There. Deflect. Hold up a mirror and deflect like a pro.

  “Texas is my home, but my wife had a job offer in Des Moines, corporate reconstruction, and this is where I landed. We’re in the middle of a divorce. I guess moving out of state wasn’t enough change for her.” He gazes past me at some unknown dismal horizon.

  Fiona clears her throat as she lifts a finger my way. “Well, if you get sick of this oaf, just hunt me down and I’ll be glad to get to know you. I know how hard it can be to make a friend or two in a town like this. Us girls have to stick together.” She slaps her gun as she says that last part.

  “Thank you. I will.” I glance to the oaf with the mesmerizing pearl blue eyes. “But I must warn you. I have a soft spot for oafs.”

  Theo grins, his dimples digging in deep enough to pierce my soul.

  How did I ever end up here I will never know, but a man by the name of Theo Stavros is making me feel mighty glad I did.

  A part of me is hungry to glean everything I can about Lizzy Hartley and solve this horrible crime. They just threw down the gauntlet. Challenge accepted. Too bad that after I end their suffering I’ll have to leave Wakefield forever. After all, I’m a piece of the puzzle myself.

  On Friday, after a weary week of grinding it out at the Hideaway, my muscles still feel sore from that hike I took last weekend with Theo and I’m ready to fall into bed with exhaustion, but I’m sure that Peavey and Devyn have left enough messages for me. They must think I’m dead. I owe it to them to respond. They’re the reason I’m still matriculating with the general population of free civilians. I owe them everything. Theo wanted to have that informative dinner about his sister’s disappearance tonight, but I let him know I was off this weekend and that tomorrow evening would be better. He suggested we make a day of it, an early dinner then maybe we could figure things out. I made the mistake of relaying this to Gabby, and now I stand at the door ready to leave, watching her mouth round out in all sorts of unflattering shapes.

  “Oh my God! I will so make sure Jackson is out of the house all night. In fact, I’ll have him here. Ha!” She claps just once. “Looks like we’re about to do the roommate shuffle.”

  “We’re not, so you can settle down and eat your quinoa kale salad in peace. I won’t be home late. I’m just headed to the library.”

  “Jackson will be here, but don’t worry. We’ll be in my room rehearsing for tomorrow night. Hey, maybe while you’re in the library, you can pick up a few books yourself. Kama Sutra? Maybe hit the erotica section for a few pointers?” she teases with her lids lowered, head tilted to the side like a seasoned seductress. I’ll have to remember that pose if I’m ever in the mood to seduce a victim. Theo will do nicely. “You know his ex works there, right?” She sucks in a quick breath. “Has he mentioned Ashley?”

  “Ashley?” My feet absentmindedly take a few steps deeper into the room.

  “Yeah”—Gabby’s entire demeanor shifts on a dime as if she’s suddenly sorry for me—“Ashley Engle. She and Theo dated for years. God, everyone thought they were going to get married.”

  “Oh?” My mind tries to fill in all the blanks about Ashley Engle, and here I’ve practically donned her like a lead coat. I don’t like surprises. I don’t quite know what to think of Theo’s ex that everyone assumed he should have married. Suddenly, I feel protective of him—a bizarre sense of ownership, and I have never liked to share my toys. “Did they break up because of what happened? I mean, I know something like that can trigger an undue amount of stress on everything. It only makes sense.”

  “No, actually, it was weird. It happened about a month or two before. I can’t really remember, because once Lizzy disappeared, everything went haywire. Anyway, I guess that’s not my story to tell. But she works at the library now. She’s been there for a while. I ran into her a few months ago. She mentioned something about being the casualty of a string of layoffs.” She slumps in her seat, her coffee still held high in the air as if she were about to make a toast. “She was Lizzy’s best friend. They did everything together.”

  “Her best friend?” The plot thickens. “I bet Lizzy was devastated to see them break up. I mean, her best friend and her brother. Ashley was practically family, right?”

  “Totally. And I wish I could say she still is, but like I said, Lizzy has been the focal point from the day she disappeared. I’m sure it would have been different if she were still here. Knowing Lizzy, she would have moved the world to get them back together.” Suddenly, I don’t care too much for Lizzy. I’m pretty sure harboring petty hatred toward someone who’s suffered so much misfortune makes me a terrible person. So does premeditated murder, so there’s that. “But I’m not concerned about what Lizzy would have wanted in that respect. You are a far better person than Ashley in my book.”

  Red flag number one for Ashley. “Right. Why is that?” I roll my eyes, playing the part of the self-deprecating BFF secretly fishing for a compliment.
No, really, I think I am fishing. I’m only human. Mostly.

  “Because you’re better. Don’t get me wrong. Ashley is nice and all around easy to get along with, but she and I just never clicked. She was completely possessive about Lizzy. She and I butted heads a lot. She wanted that whole family. Lucky for her, she didn’t have a stronghold over Jackson or I’d be incarcerated by now.” She hikes up her mug before taking a sip. “Have fun at the library. Don’t get too wild.”

  “I won’t.” I head to the Wakefield Public library on foot, a distance of point three of a mile, and I wonder about possessive Ashley all the way there.

  The Wakefield Public Library holds the thick scent of coffee and perfectly aged paperbacks that instantly have the power to inebriate me. The walls are each painted a loud citrus color, lime green, tangerine, ruby red grapefruit, and lemon yellow. The space itself is expansive and impressive in both girth and width. This is by far my favorite library out of all that I have visited, and I will admit it’s the very reason I stayed in Wakefield. A string of children’s art is the first to greet the patrons. Winners from the summer art contest revealed! The sign boastfully reads. First place is a picture of a girl curled up on her bed reading a book titled Novel Living. Her cartoon hair is long and wild like squiggly snakes, and it takes up most of the page. Each strand morphs into a novel of its own. But my favorite picture is by Kaitlin Romalati, age 10, Wakefield Elementary 3rd grade. A depiction of a night scene, a little girl is tucked in her bed, a book titled Some Day My Prince Will Come lies over her comforter, a picture of a rose on the cover, and the bubble above her head reveals she is dreaming of a castle, a white knight offering her a single ruby rose. I think that’s the real reason people who are obsessed with reading do it. They long for a better life, and they want to believe the best for their future. There is so much hope locked between the pages of a book. Life doesn’t always offer you that. People who read voraciously have a mental edge above the rest of society. As cliché as it sounds, they are truly living a thousand lives. With movies, you don’t get to cast the characters, fill in the visual gaps with your own imagination. You don’t really feel what they feel because you’re not them. But in a book, you wear the white dress, breathe the castle air, and you look right into the prince’s eyes. Theo’s bold blue orbs flash before me. You live the dream each time you turn the page. And oddly enough, at this juncture of my life, I seem to be living the dream in and out of my books. Sometimes real life can outshine fiction.

  Three women sit at the counter, each busy in her own world, one checking books back in, one assisting a customer, the third on her phone. I scan the gold nameplates they wear like badges of honor. I might be living in this place part-time, but I don’t really know the librarians all that well. They ask if I need help, and I’m quick to wave them away with a polite excuse. I check out most of my books online and read them on Gabby’s Kindle. The books my soul is truly hungry for I do so while I’m in here. I’ve read just about every crime novel in this place.

  Ashley Engle flashes the badge on the end. Her bone straight hair knifes into her nameplate like a blonde spear between her first name and last. She’s the one on the phone. Figures. Probably keeping tabs on her latest obsession. She flicks a glance my way.

  “Can I help you?” It comes out curt, caustic, and instead of answering, I head straight for the computers without hesitating.

  There are no rules that say you need to respond to everyone. Hell, there are, and I screwed up, but that’s not going to stop me from doing what I came to do, talk to Peavey and Devyn. I log on to the fibro related symptoms chat symposium. It was Devyn’s idea actually. We came up with it three days before. The plan was that I would run, and the two of them would end up somewhere together. It turns out, foster care doesn’t make promises. They’re both in Midland, though, at the same high school no less, so things worked out in that respect. Peavey is staying with the Earl family. They have two boys, so he has brothers. It’s probably a nice change-up for him. Endless video games versus swapping the latest Kardashian news. I bet he’s relieved. Mr. Earl is a professional photographer, mostly weddings and school yearbook stuff. His wife is the lunch lady at a local elementary school who sometimes brings home leftovers but cooks a mean pizza nonetheless according my brother. They foster to help make ends meet. Devyn is staying with Kira Rodgers, a heavyset woman with severe diabetes. She used to specialize in fostering toddlers, but they were too much for her. Her daughter and infant granddaughter live with them. The house is small with paper-thin walls, and the baby cries all night, so Devyn is a zombie, stealing sleep in bathroom stalls in between classes. I hate that for her. I’ve thought about trumping up a false charge against the woman just to get my sister out of it. But I can’t risk separating her and Peavey. Murder has its consequences. I guess this is mine.

  I log in as Annie-get-your-gun. Ironic and poetic in and of itself. Devyn’s brainchild was born through the fact her friend’s mother had fibromyalgia and would visit ubiquitous message boards where there were thousands of members. Peavey noticed some of the threads were dead, and that if we chose one and stuck to it, we could bury messages in them. But we never stay on the same thread. There are enough of them here. A-Z is in the table above. Each week of the year takes on the next letter in the alphabet. The letter A being the first week of January. Each week of the year we move up a letter. The twenty-seventh week of the year, second week of July, we start over with the letter A. It’s served us well so far. In the beginning, there was some confusion over weeks that were split in the middle by the end of one month and the beginning of the next, but we’ve ironed out all the kinks by now. Second week of November, letter Q. I click over and scan down to the bottom. Sure enough, Its_me_arnold has left a message. The first part of the message looks like spam. I’ve lost weight with this new diet pill, and now I make a million dollars by sealing envelopes at home. It goes on a few more lines until the text gets cut off and you need to click into it to read more. That was Peavey’s idea. He didn’t like the thought of our personal business being front and center. And good thing, because it could have been a problem. There’s no internal link embedded, so our content doesn’t get flagged as spam and deleted. So far, the mods haven’t said anything. And since there are other lively threads for them to manage, they most likely never will. Once we finish posting, we head straight to another post to bury the thread.

  Peavey chose the name Its_me_arnold as a play on my last name, Benedict. Peavey and Devyn share the surname of Hunter, but it’s safer not to go there. Life is safer without mention or remembrance of it. Devyn chose dessertprincess because she likens the rural area she’s living in to a desert, but she spelled it the wrong way. It’s fine, though. It’s far more accurate this way. Peavey let me know privately she’s eating her emotions. I don’t care. I’m just glad she’s eating. Devyn and Peavey post together but alternate in logging in to their alter egos.

  Its_me_arnold—gibberish, gibberish—missing you. D says a cheerleader broke her ankle and as an alternate she’s in. She’s ridiculously happy about it too. I’ve won two tickets to see Jeremy Newton at the Rock House in December. It’s his only show in the area and we are psyched. I’m taking D of course. Mr. E says he’s happy for me and he will play Uber. D says she wants to hear more funny stories from the frontlines. It makes us happy to know you’re doing well. Please don’t ever stop writing because sometimes we’re afraid you will. We’re afraid you’ll want to disappear forever and we won’t see you again. Just between you and me, it’s not getting easier. You’re a part of us. The Three Musketeers, remember? Just a few more years and we can put this all behind us. Lots of love.

  A lone tear rolls down my cheek as I read the words over and over like a mantra. Devyn must be a beautiful cheerleader. My God, what I wouldn’t do to see it. It pains me that I won’t. The stories from the frontlines are the little life struggles I share about working at the Hideaway. They know I’m a waitress but not where. I thought it would be
dangerous to arm them with too much information. I’m probably right. I’m hoping Peavey is right, too. A few more years and we can put this nightmare behind us. But I want them to go to college. Full scholarship I’m hoping. And then, first chance we get, we’ll move close to one another. They can keep their identities. I’ll have a different one. I can never be me again. I’m not so sure that’s such a bad thing.

  I write back and tell them about the all-you-can-eat pancakes I ate with a friend. I don’t dare make it sound like a date. And I would never alarm them by filling them in on his occupation. They’d think I’d lost my mind, if they don’t already. I tell Devyn that I know she will be the best cheerleader on that field. She will. I tell Peavey that on the night of the concert I’ll be listening to Jeremy Newton’s music and that I’ll be there in spirit. I can’t wait. In large, bold-capped and underlined letters, I say love you. And send.

  “Can I help you find something?” a female voice chirps from behind and I jump in my seat. My eyes twitch as the page refreshes and I’m quick to exit before turning around.

  It’s her. She’s so close I can count her teeth. Spying little bitch.

  “Um”—my throat closes off for a moment—“actually yes.” A breath escapes me as I press on a smile. “Do you have an erotica section?”

  “Excuse me?” Her hand clutches her neck, looking for those invisible pearls no doubt. I gather my things and rise.

  Oh, how fast I’ve gone from pissed to giddy.

  “I’m dating again.” I cinch Gabby’s discarded backpack over my shoulder. As silly as it sounds, I feel more studious with it. “It’s been so long, I’d do anything for a few pointers, you know?”

  She tips her head back. Her blonde hair is straight as toothpicks, but she’s pretty. Not stunning. No, she’s actually rather plain. Good skin, broad nose, her eyes are little too close together—a pretty shade of navy blue. She has the personality of a wet paper plate. I don’t need to spend six years with her to know this. She and Theo would have had cute kids, though. But Theo and just about anyone would have cute kids. I try to imagine it for a moment—Theo and me and our hauntingly beautiful children. We both have finger-deep dimples, but I’m not sure you can pass those down. But those eyes of his… I’d much rather our kids look like him.