Charlie said, “I didn’t know you felt so strongly about this.”
“Let’s just say my dad was a perfect example of how not to treat his wife and kids.”
Like Belinda, Ben wanted to do things differently.
Charlie gave her husband a better shot at accomplishing the goal than her friend.
She said, “I had this client today. I can’t tell you her name.”
Ben listened as he drank his beer.
“She’s a teenager, but she played me. Big time. I haven’t been fooled like that since my sister convinced me that our neighbor across the street worked for the CIA.”
“The CIA? Was there a Russia connection?”
“Focus, babe.”
He waited.
“Dealing with this girl, it made me wonder what kind of parent I would be.” Charlie thought about the small white box in her purse. She had stuck to the plan. Mostly. On the way home, she had swung by the drugstore and bought the test. She had peed on the stick in the dirty public restroom. And then she had lost her nerve and shoved the thing back in the box before the little plus or minus could show up.
She told Ben, “This client today, who is probably a straight-up psycho, I believed every word that came out of her mouth. She played me like a fucking fiddle. And it made me wonder, if a stranger can fool me like that, what happens if it’s my own kid?”
“Well, probably it’ll be worse.” Ben sat back down at the table. “Think about how many parents you and I have talked to in our jobs where they say, ‘Not my boy.’ You could show them video footage of their kid stealing a bike out of the rack, then breaking it down for parts, and they’d say, ‘Oh, he must’ve thought that was his bike,’ or ‘Somebody must have tricked him into doing that.’ Their brains automatically come up with an alternate explanation. They can’t accept that their babies can do wrong. Hell, even guys on death row still get visited by their mothers. They won’t give up on them. I guess that’s how it is. You never give up.” Ben smiled. “So, if that’s the criteria, that you never give up, then your whole life has basically prepared you for motherhood.”
Charlie reached out for his hand. An hour ago, Ken Coin had used the same type of example to tell Charlie that she was stupid, and now her wonderful husband was using it to show her that she would be a terrific parent.
She asked Ben, “What about you? Are you prepared?”
“Me?” He laughed. “I was the biggest nerd at my high school and now I’ve got a smoking-hot wife.”
“That’s your character reference for being a father?”
“Babe, if a guy like me can land you, what can’t I do?”
Charlie couldn’t tease him back. “What if I’m really bad at it?”
“You’re not bad at anything.” He squeezed her hand. “You’re perfect.”
“You didn’t feel that way Friday.”
“Okay, except for Friday when you were being annoying, you’re perfect.” He squeezed her hand again. “Why are you worrying about what kind of parents we’ll be? Because Belinda and Ryan are the worst examples in the world?”
“I guess.”
“We’ve got a lot of other friends who are good parents. Or at least trying to be.”
He wasn’t wrong. So why had Charlie spent so much time focused on their most miserable friends instead of their happiest ones?
She told Ben, “This is why I need you—to remind me that there are good things in the world.”
He reached over and stroked back her hair. “If we ever have kids, I can’t promise that I won’t make mistakes, but I’ll show up for it, which is all anybody can really do. Being there is half the battle.”
Charlie wiped her eyes.
“What’s going on, babe? You’ve been off since this morning.”
Charlie felt her bottom lip start to tremble. She had avoided saying the words all day, but now was the time to say them. Even if the test was negative, she was sure that they were as ready as they were going to ever be to bring someone else into their family. Ben was her soul mate. He was the love of her life. She wanted to watch him be a good father to their child. She wanted to be the fool who insisted that her baby would never bite another toddler, would never throw a brick through a window, would never traffic meth if it came to that, but please, God, don’t let it come to that.
“Babe,” Ben said. “You’re crying.”
Charlie wiped her eyes. She wasn’t just crying. She was about to start sobbing. She could count on one hand the number of times she had cried like that in front of her husband, and they generally involved a crushing Duke Blue Devils loss on the basketball court.
“Chuck?” He knelt beside her chair. “Are you okay?”
She wasn’t okay. She was bawling. Her eyes burned. Her nose was running.
He asked, “Do you want a tissue?”
“There’s a pack in my purse.”
He stood up to retrieve her purse by the door.
Charlie’s heart flipped.
The small white box.
The plan already out the window.
This wasn’t how she had planned to tell him, but this was how it was going to happen. She was going to be crying and he was going to open her purse and see the pregnancy test and then he would look back at her and—
The phone rang.
Charlie nearly leapt from her chair.
Ben handed her the purse as he walked to the phone. “Hello?”
Charlie closed her eyes. She listened to his end of the call.
“When?” Ben asked, then, “How many?” then, “Okay.”
He ended the call.
Charlie opened her eyes.
Ben had put the receiver down on the counter. He’d kept his hand on it like he needed to hold onto something.
Charlie gathered from his serious expression that he had caught a murder case.
Which meant that now was the worst possible time to tell him her news.
She asked, “Do you need to go?”
“I have to wait for the fire department to secure the structure. They don’t have all the details yet.” Ben sat back down at the table. He held onto her hand again. “The cinder-block apartments.”
Charlie felt her heart stop mid-beat.
“They’re only cinder-blocks on the outside. The rest is wood.”
“What are you saying?”
“There was a fire,” Ben said. “The whole place burned down. Six people are dead.”
Charlie put her hand to her mouth. Flora. Maude. Leroy.
Ben said, “A kid named Oliver Reynolds was caught leaving the scene. He was driving the meth van they’ve been looking for. The cops found a bottle in back matching the same bottle that was thrown through the window.”
Charlie felt every muscle in her body tense. “Bottle?”
“Yeah, there was a witness. She was out by the picnic tables smoking when she saw Oliver pull up. She watched him light up a rag on a bottle of gasoline and throw it into one of the first-floor units. That’s called a—”
“Molotov cocktail.” Charlie had told Flora about the incendiary device less than three hours ago. “What’s the name of the witness?”
“Like I said, the details are still coming in. I didn’t get a name, but she’s the girlfriend, or ex-girlfriend, of the kid who did it. They think it was some kind of lovers’ spat. She kept talking about that movie—”
“Endless Love.”
“Yeah,” Ben said, but he didn’t ask the obvious follow-up question, which was How did she know?
“Jesus.” Charlie covered her mouth with her hands. She was too afraid to speak. Flora had to be the witness. Flora had probably told Oliver to throw the bottle through the window. Hell, Flora had probably called the police so that Oliver would be caught red-handed.
And then she had told the cops the same thing that she had said to Charlie about the Quinn house being burned down: it was just like Endless Love.
She asked Ben, “Who was in the apartment that the fire b
omb was thrown into?”
“The witness’s grandparents. They died almost instantly. I don’t have their names.”
Charlie had their names, but she couldn’t tell Ben because she had taken an oath to protect her client.
Her client who was now free to become emancipated.
Whose grandparents had burned alive in their own home.
Whose boyfriend was going to die in prison for arson and murder.
Whose best friend’s parents were going to lose their home.
Who had figured out how to neutralize a police investigation.
Who was going to make millions off a future land deal.
Who had reached into Charlie’s heart when she talked about that safe feeling you got when you put your head in your mother’s lap.
Charlie closed her eyes.
She thought about her mother’s gentle touch as she stroked back Charlie’s hair. Her soothing voice. Her gentle assurances. Her logical reasoning that no matter how bad things got, they would always, always get better. The sharp, hot slap of blood from when the trigger was pulled on the shotgun.
Charlie opened her eyes.
Good thing she hadn’t told Flora that part of the story.
Don’t worry about me, Miss Quinn. I’ll figure something out.
“Chuck?” Ben was staring at her, concerned. “Does the fire have something to do with what happened to you today?”
Charlie nodded. She was crying again, though not from hope this time, but from despair.
How complicit was she in the deaths of Maude and Leroy Faulkner? Oliver already had a record. He would go to prison for the rest of his life. Flora had not only managed to free herself, she had wrapped up the meth-trafficking case in a pretty bow. Any lawyer worth his salt could persuade a jury that the poor girl was a victim of her meth-dealing grandparents and her arsonist boyfriend.
And Charlie had practically written the girl a guide on how to do it.