And then Charlie was going down the stairs. Her head swam again on the way down, but she made it. She turned the brass latch and pushed. The door opened and then slammed behind her.
Loud enough that it wasn’t possible for it to go unnoticed.
Charlie started to run.
There were only woods surrounding the estate, so she plunged into them, not caring about the branches pulling at her clothing. Not caring that her head pounded and nausea turned her stomach.
She raced into the night, crashing through buckthorn bushes that tore at her skin, tripping over ferns. Behind her, she heard shouting, but it was far behind. Flashlights cut through the night. Charlie kept going, her head swimming.
On and on through the dark, the moon and stars spinning above her, until she came to a clearing. A middle-aged Black man in a cap and heavy coat looked startled to see her burst from the brush.
“You’re going to scare off the owls,” he told her sternly. Then his eyes widened as he took in her appearance.
She had twigs in her hair, scratches on her skin, and dried beet juice all over her mouth.
“Run. You have to run,” she told him, breathing hard. “The people from the palace are hunting me.”
He shook his head as he pulled a phone from his pocket. “Oh no, young lady, you are not the trouble I want today.”
“The people from the palace. They’re coming,” she said again, before collapsing in the dirt at his feet.
* * *
Three days later, Rand’s car was discovered. His corpse was inside, and he appeared to have committed suicide by cutting his wrists, although forensics couldn’t account for how little blood was present. Police discovered the decomposed body of a teenage girl in his trunk. The girl had been missing for the better part of three years.
A week after that Benny called her up at home. Did she get the book? Because the buyer was still interested.
“Like a shark,” he told her admiringly when she said that she did. “Teeth first.”
Knight Singh met her in the parking lot behind a Dunkin’。 He had a sleek silver car, wore a stylish wool jacket with a standing band collar, and paid her two grand for the book. “I have more work if you want it,” he said, eyeing her over the top of his sunglasses.
Charlie swore that one day she was going to go back to Salt’s mansion and get revenge on those fuckers. But she only swore it to herself, so there would be no one else to let down when she didn’t.
13
IMPOSSIBLE ANGELS
Charlie blinked in confusion at the late-morning light streaming into the room. Her cuts still stung, her hip was bruised from where she fell, and her hair was a Medusa-like tangle from being half frozen and then slept on wet.
She got up from the mattress. Against the wall, she saw her own shadow, exactly as it had ever been.
Pretend tonight never happened, Charlie.
Dark gold hair dusted Vince’s arms, shone on the lashes of his closed eyes. She watched the rise and fall of his chest, the curl of his blunt fingers, as though she were under a spell.
He turned in his sleep.
“Adeline,” he mumbled into the pillow. “Adeline, don’t.”
Charlie stepped back, stung. Was that the girl whose photograph was in his wallet? And what was he trying to prevent?
Pretend tonight never happened. Charlie had been pretending since the beginning of their relationship, pretending that her past was in her past and that she didn’t care about the future. And he’d let her, because he’d been pretending too.
She knelt by his side of the mattress and whispered, “Voulez-vous plus de café?” The same phrase she’d looked up on her phone two mornings ago.
Vince buried his face deeper in the pillow, as though her breath tickled his skin. Charlie felt foolish. She was almost to the door when he mumbled softly, still half in dreams, “Je voudrais un café noir, merci.”
She thought that probably meant he did want a coffee, thanks. And also it meant that she was screwed.
There are lots of different kinds of lies. Fibs to lubricate society. Deceptions, to avoid consequences. Misrepresentations to hide behind, because you’re worried another person won’t understand, or won’t like you, or because what you’ve done is bad and you’re ashamed of it. And then there are the lies you tell because everything about you is a lie.
Posey’s accusation that he understood French had been funny, because not telling someone a thing wasn’t the same as hiding it. Maybe he’d spent a year abroad, or had a French side to his family, or had downloaded Duolingo and really applied himself.