A wave rocked through her empty eyes, revealing the tiniest flicker of my Charlotte hiding within. Relief blasted through me.
“You want to stop?” I asked. “Pretend this isn’t happening right now?”
Her chin quivered as she nodded, her eyes filling with tears.
Using her neck, I guided her against my front, her body plastering to mine. Coffee sloshed to the floor as she looped her arms around my hips. Not even then did she cry, but she held me so tight that I thought she was trying to meld our bodies into one. Which, I had to admit, I wouldn’t have minded.
“Then we’ll stop,” I whispered before kissing the top of her head.
Her mom rushed over, taking both of our mugs. Tears streamed from her chin as she watched her daughter tightening her hold on me and her fists clutching the back of my shirt. She kissed the back of Charlotte’s head, and then looked up at me.
“I’m going to stay, but I’ll keep out of your way.”
I nodded.
Tom walked over and rubbed Charlotte’s back before giving her shoulder a squeeze. “I need to get back to work, babe. I’ll check in later.”
When Charlotte didn’t reply or acknowledge him, he dipped his chin at me, pressed a kiss to Charlotte’s mom’s temple, and headed for the door.
And then we were alone.
Well, almost. Charlotte’s mom, whose name I would later learn was Susan, got busy cleaning the already spotless apartment. Charlotte was a minimalist. There were only so many times you could rearrange the two knickknacks on the bar or dust the four framed pictures on the wall. But, true to her word, Susan stayed out of our way.
And, true to my word, I pretended that nothing had happened that morning.
Seriously, for the way my chest ached and my mind swirled, it was an Oscar-worthy performance.
Charlotte and I sat on the couch, my feet propped on her coffee table, her legs angled over mine. She didn’t own a TV, but I grabbed her laptop and put on some mind-numbing comedy I’d found on Netflix. Neither of us watched it.
Her dark browns stared off into the distance, lost in thoughts, and my blues stared at her, lost in worry.
She absently played with my fingers, weaving them together before letting go, only to start the process over again, while I lazily drew circles on her legs.
We talked occasionally, but about nothing.
She even half laughed once when I made a joke about the train wreck that was Rita and Tanner.
As the minutes turned into hours, Susan offered to make breakfast. Charlotte declined, but she accepted coffee, which she held against her chest, untouched, until it got cold. Then she discarded it.
Lunch went much the same way, only this time, she balanced a plate with a sandwich in her lap until I finally took it from her and set it on the table.
Together, we sat on that couch all day, curled up, holding each other, lost somewhere on the infinite horizon between darkness and light, delaying the inevitable.
Shortly after five in the afternoon, Charlotte drifted off to sleep and I snuck out from under her long enough to call my mom to check in on the kids and let her know I was going to be late—really late. She readily offered to stay another night, but I knew she needed to get home. She and my dad were heading out of town for their annual two-week-long anniversary trip to Maine in the morning. I’d felt guilty as hell when I’d asked her to stay the first night with the kids, but with the prospect of having no babysitter for a full fourteen days, my desperate need for time with Charlotte won out. And because my mom was, well…a saint, she’d agree before I’d fully finished asking the question. But I couldn’t ask her to make that sacrifice again.
As I watched Charlotte sleeping peacefully on the couch, knowing that a superstorm was brewing inside her but also knowing that my kids needed me at home, I once again found myself trapped between the two facets of my life.
And, suddenly, I was in that sinking car all over again, being forced to choose between two people I loved and knowing I was going to fail one of them.
Closing my eyes, I sucked in a sharp breath and tucked my phone into my back pocket.
The truth was, Charlotte wasn’t the only one on that couch pretending. I’d been doing it for years. Hell, I even pretended not to pretend when I knew I was pretending.
If I expected her to face reality, I had to do the same.
It was going to hurt. No. It was going to kill.
But maybe opening myself up, feeling it, and embracing the pain was the only way to truly let it go.
Numb wasn’t working anymore. Not for me. And definitely not for Charlotte.
It was time for it to end.
After walking over to the couch, I settled on the edge, a newfound resolve flooding my veins while dread pooled in my gut. “Wake up, sweetheart,” I whispered, brushing her hair out of her face.
Her sleepy lids flipped open, and for the briefest of seconds, they held actual warmth, her lips curling up at the sides as she unfurled from her ball and wrapped herself around me. And then, with one single blink, her face went blank. “Are you leaving?”
I smiled weakly. “I need you to go somewhere with me.”
Her eyebrows pinched together, wrinkling her forehead. “Where?”
I bent low and touched my lips to hers. “Somewhere. You up for it?”
She searched my face as she sat up, concern etched in her features. “If you need me to go with you, then, yeah, Porter, I’m up for it.”
I kissed her again, deeper and filled with apology.
“It’s gonna suck,” I mumbled against her lips.
She didn’t miss a beat before murmuring, “Hanging out with you usually does.”
Heartbroken. Grieving. Shattered. And still making jokes at my expense.
Charlotte.
My Charlotte.
I laughed. Loudly. Far more loudly than anyone should have laughed on that day. But that was exactly how I knew we were both going to be okay.
After whispered goodbyes and brief hugs, we left Susan at Charlotte’s apartment.
It was obvious she wasn’t thrilled that we were leaving, but it was also clear she liked the way Charlotte tucked herself under my arms and nuzzled in close when she was ready to go.
“We’ll be back in a little while,” I assured.
Susan nodded and took Charlotte’s face in her hands. “You need anything, you call me, okay? I’m going to be right here waiting for you.”
“Thanks, Mom,” Charlotte whispered.
“Of course, baby.” Susan stepped away, her face blazing with a myriad of emotion, making it clear that her daughter did not get her ability to hide in plain sight from her mother.
Then, with my arm draped around her shoulders, her arm hooked around my hips, and her other hand resting on my stomach, we left her apartment as two shattered people for what I hoped would be the very last time.
* * *
Tom Stafford’s gut was sour as he sat behind his desk at the police station. That was the one notification he’d never wanted to make. Those were his girls. Well, Susan was more than that—she was the one woman he had every intention of keeping until he was six feet deep. That relationship had been a slow burn, grown over time. He’d been in love with that woman long before he’d even asked her on their first date.
But Charlotte was different. She was part of him. The daughter he’d never gotten to watch grow up. He hated the hand life had dealt her, but no matter what, Charlotte would always be his girl. They had a rock-solid bond forged through heartache and memories. Nothing could break that.
The case of Lucas’s disappearance had been cold since day one, but that didn’t mean Tom had stopped trying to locate that little boy. Dead end after dead end, he forged ahead, refusing to stop until he’d found him. There hadn’t been a day in the almost ten years when he hadn’t cracked that tattered case file open and tried desperately to read between the lines for any clue to the whereabouts of Lucas Boyd.
But each day reaped the same bounty: None.
The construction site where Lucas’s body had been found was only two miles from the park where he’d gone missing. The police, the FBI, and hundreds of volunteers had scoured every inch of those woods at least a dozen times over the first few days after he’d been taken. Hell, Tom had personally combed that grid at least five of those times. But, judging by the coroner’s initial assessment and the estimated age of the remains, Lucas Boyd had been in that shallow grave since day one.