He doesn’t have any friends, and he’s not sure how to make any. This only became clear to him once he was separated from his ambitions. Scratch that. This only became a problem once he was separated from his ambitions.

There’ve been times since he returned to Altamira when his loneliness has felt like a weight on his chest. He knows it’s too heavy to remove on his own, but on most days, he’s too proud to ask for help. So he lies to himself and says tomorrow will be the day. Tomorrow will be the day he’ll go someplace and just sit and see who talks to him first and hope that the first stirrings of chitchat with a stranger might reveal the seeds of a new life. A new life with new friends, and a new vision for his future he can be proud of.

And she could see all this, of course.

Maybe because he’d told her things about himself.

Or maybe because he wore this truth about himself like clothes.

Or maybe because she’d always been able to see these types of things about people.

Isn’t that part of why he’d been such a dick to her back in high school? Why he’d fixated on her? Because what she’d been through had taught her things about the world most teenagers didn’t know. Or if they did know them, the knowledge had put them in a mental hospital. The fact is, even at sixteen, Trina Pierce Burning Girl Charlotte Rowe had been the type of person who could see through your bullshit, your poses. And that had made her scary and threatening. And also special. Remarkable.

Back then he’d chosen fear. Fear and cruelty.

But ever since then, he’d felt himself tilting in the other direction.

Now he’s wobbling back and forth between the two like a metronome, and all he wants is his own shitty sofa in his own shitty house with a less than shitty beer.

He’s turning into his driveway when his old roommate’s warning voice speaks up again.

Uh-oh, dude. You’re totally into her, and you probably always have been.

29

After Luke leaves them in stilted silence, Marty says, “This is my fault.”

“It’s not your fault,” Charley answers.

“If I hadn’t made you go see him—”

“You didn’t make me. You wanted to check him out; that’s all. I’m the one who wanted to see him.”

Because I thought you were full of it, she thinks.

“So,” Kayla interjects, “you think he’ll really be able to keep all this a secret?”

“Will you?” Charley asks.

“Attorney-client privilege.” Her smile is strained.

“Seriously, though?” Charley asks.

Kayla clears her throat, studies the ceiling while she works her jaw. Charley’s seen her perform this trio of movements before; it’s her usual routine when she’s trying to collect thoughts she doesn’t like.

“Well, considering you haven’t made me aware of any intention to commit a crime—”

“The hacking doesn’t count?” Marty asks.

“She’s not doing any hacking,” Kayla answers. “She simply asked someone with a history of hacking to find someone for her. That’s all.”

“Not just someone.” Charlotte feels guilty Kayla’s resorting to verbal acrobatics to defend her. In fact, she’ll feel guilty if Kayla stays here much longer.

“True,” Kayla says. “So I guess what it comes down to are the specifics of what you’re going to do to this guy once you find him.”

“You heard her,” Marty says. “She’s going to stop him from killing.”

“Yeah, I heard her, and it’s vague.”

“Well,” Charley says, “maybe when it comes to you, I should keep it that way.”

“Suit yourself.” Kayla gets to her feet. She reaches into her briefcase and hands Charley a slender manila folder. “That’s everything I found on Graydon and Dylan Cody before you told me to stop. Most of it’s public. Some of it took a little digging. Do what you will with it.”

She’s pissed; Charley can tell.

“Kayla, there’s only one person in my life who’s done better by me than you, and that’s my grandmother. I can’t drag you into the middle of this. If you lost your career, I’d never forgive myself.”

She nods, studies Charley’s face for a bit, her eyes unreadable. “That’s fair, I guess.” She surprises Charlotte with a strong, quick hug. “You know where I am if you need me.”

So do they, Charlotte thinks, the pit of her stomach going cold as Kayla pulls away.

Her lawyer’s got one foot out the door when Charlotte calls to her. “Do you think I’m crazy?”

“No,” she answers. “I think this whole thing’s crazy, and you’re just adapting. ’Night, guys.”

“I’m gonna miss you, Mothra,” Marty says.

It takes Charlotte a second to remember Marty’s comment from the night before, the one comparing him and Kayla to Godzilla and Mothra.

“Huh?” Kayla asks.

“Ignore him,” Charlotte says.

Kayla takes her advice.

A minute or two later, they’re listening to her car leave the driveway as Charlotte rifles through the contents of the file.

Her attention catches on a color printout of some magazine profile of Graydon’s CEO, probably because it has the most photos. The man in question is seated on the edge of a sofa in a sprawling office that’s all glass, steel, sunlight, and cream-colored upholstery. His blazing-blue eyes practically bore a hole in the paper. The rest of his face is a collection of bones so sharp it looks like a peck on the cheek from him could draw blood. No suit and tie for this billionaire. But he doesn’t look like a scooter-riding tech mogul, either. Rather, his powder-blue dress shirt, the top three buttons undone over a hairless chest, along with his black designer jeans, make him look like a dad just home from the law firm on a network television show.

Cole Graydon’s his name, and the first few paragraphs of the article make it clear he inherited the company from his late father. No mention of the fact that he looks so tightly wound his head might pop off at any second and go spinning across the floor. Maybe it’s just the picture. Or maybe not. Charlotte recognizes the look; it’s been hers for years.

“Luke won’t blab about any of this.” Marty’s started reading over her shoulder. “Not with his brother in the middle of it now.”

“Here’s hoping.”

He uses his fingertips to slide the papers she’s not reading out from under the magazine article.

“And what about you?” she asks.

“What about me, darlin’?”

“Do you want out of this?”

“So your grandmother can rise up out of the grave and wring my neck? No, thanks.”

“She was cremated.”

“Fine. Tear me apart on the wind, then.”

“Seriously, Marty.”

“When’d you get this idea in your head that you’re some kind of burden to me? Never mind. Don’t answer that, ’cause I don’t care. Let’s just get it out. Let’s just reach in there with whatever it takes and get that thought off your mind for good.”

She studies his face, looking for signs of doubt. Instead she finds a warm, sincere smile that softens her chest. He opens his arms; she steps into them. And for a while she just leans into the embrace.

“Marty, do you think I was too hard on him?”

“He was out of line. He doesn’t know you well enough to say all that shit. And when he called you Burning Girl, I almost knocked his teeth out.”

“Still.”

He kisses her on the forehead, takes a step back, but doesn’t release her shoulders. “You got enough on your plate right now without having to worry about Luke Prescott.”

“Right,” she answers, but she’s not sure she’s convinced.

“Speaking of which . . . What do we do now, just wait for Bailey to get back to us?”

“Pretty much. And pray that Dylan and his friends let us.”

He nods, turns to the fridge. “Got you a sandwich from the Copper Pot. You hungry?”

“I’ll eat it later.”

“OK. Try to get some rest, Charley. I know Marcia didn’t find anything wrong with you, but I don’t figure wearing yourself out while you’re taking this stuff is gonna be a good idea.”

She nods.

But she doesn’t rest.

Nightmares aren’t her problem. They never have been. She suffers from a different kind of nocturnal affliction.

Sometimes, like tonight, right when she’s about to nod off, some horrifying image blazes big as a drive-in movie screen in her mind, and the end result leaves her feeling like she’s been snatched back from the edge of sleep by a giant claw. Sometimes it’s a detail from one of Abigail’s murders, committed just a few yards from where she was probably filling in a coloring book with crayons at the time. And sometimes it’s Abigail, clawing her way through a window, gripping the blade of her bowie knife in her teeth, her thick golden hair fanned out around her head like a lion’s mane. Other times her kidnapper waits patiently on the living room sofa, or hides behind the shower curtain, or tucks herself into the kitchen’s deepest pool of shadow.

They’re brief, these images, but when they come, they’re powerful enough to leave her awake and pacing the house for the next few hours. What saves her from them now is Marty’s trailer; it’s new and unfamiliar. Nothing inside this tiny guest bedroom—a glorified train compartment, really—reminds her of old abductors or old night terrors.