Kelly had been promoted to three names now. Charlie supposed some producer in New York had decided that it sounded more menacing.
The scroll stopped. The anchor disappeared. Both were replaced by an illustration of a locker-lined hallway. The drawing was three-dimensional, but had an odd flatness, Charlie supposed to make it very clear that this was not real. A lawyer had apparently not been satisfied by the crudeness. The word “RE-ENACTMENT” flashed red in the upper-right corner of the screen.
The drawing became animated. A figure entered the hallway, moving stiffly, drawn in a blocky style. The figure’s long hair and dark clothing all pointed to Kelly Wilson.
Charlie unmuted the sound.
“… approximately six fifty-five, the alleged shooter, Kelly Rene Wilson, walked into the hallway.” The animated Kelly stopped in the middle of the screen. There was a gun in her hand, more like a nine-millimeter than a revolver. “Wilson was said to be standing in this location when Judith Pinkman opened the door to her classroom.”
Charlie moved to the edge of the couch.
A squared-off Mrs. Pinkman opened her door. For some reason, the animator had made her white-ish blonde hair silvery gray, styled it in a bun instead of down around her shoulders.
“Wilson saw Pinkman and fired two shots,” the anchor continued. The gun in Kelly’s hands showed two puffs of smoke. The bullets were indicated by straight lines, more like arrows. “Both shots missed, but principal Douglas Pinkman, Judith Pinkman’s husband of twenty-five years, ran from his office when he heard the gunfire.”
The virtual Mr. Pinkman floated out of his office, his legs not moving at the same pace as his forward movement.
“Wilson saw her former principal and fired two more shots.” The gun puffed again. The arrow-bullets traced to Mr. Pinkman’s chest. “Douglas Pinkman was instantly killed.”
Charlie watched the virtual Mr. Pinkman fall flat to his side, his hand to his chest. Two squid-like red blotches appeared in the middle of his blue, short-sleeved shirt.
Which was wrong, too, because Mr. Pinkman’s shirt had been long-sleeved and white. And he hadn’t worn his hair in a buzz cut.
It was as if the animator had decided that a middle-school principal looked like a 1970s G-man and an English teacher was an old biddy with a bun on her head.
“Next,” the anchor narrated, “Lucy Alexander entered the hallway.”
Charlie squeezed her eyes shut.
The anchor said, “Lucy had forgotten to get lunch money from her mother, a biology teacher who was at a department meeting across the street when the shootings occurred.” There was a moment of silence, and Charlie saw an image in her head of Lucy Alexander—not the squared-off drawing that the animators would have gotten wrong, but the actual little girl—swinging her arms, smiling as she rounded the corner. “Two more shots were fired at the eight-year-old girl. The first one went into her upper torso. The second bullet went through the office window behind her.”
There were three loud knocks.
Charlie opened her eyes. She muted the TV.
Another two knocks.
Panic shot through her heart. She always felt a flicker of fear every time an unknown person knocked at her door.
Charlie stood from the couch. She thought about the gun in her bedside table as she looked out the front window.
She smiled as she went to open the door.
All day, Charlie had been so busy wondering how things could get worse that she had never thought how things could get better.
“Hey.” Ben stood on the porch, hands in his pockets. “Sorry I’m bothering you so late. I need to get a file out of the closet.”
“Oh,” was all that she could say, because the rush of wanting him was too overwhelming to say more. Not that he’d made an effort. Ben had changed into sweatpants and a T-shirt she didn’t recognize, which made her wonder if Kaylee Collins, the twenty-six-year-old at his office, had bought him the shirt. What else had the girl changed? Charlie wanted to smell his hair to see if he was using their shampoo. To check his underwear to see if it was the same brand.
Ben asked, “May I come in?”
“It’s still your house.” Charlie realized she would have to actually move so he could come in. She stepped back, holding open the door.
Ben stopped in front of the television. The animation had come to an end. The anchor was back on screen. Ben said, “Someone’s leaking details, but they don’t have the right details.”
“I know,” Charlie said. They weren’t just wrong about what had happened when, they were wrong about how the people looked, where they stood, how they moved. Whoever was leaking information to the media was likely not on the inside, but they were close enough to get a payday for whatever specious information they could provide.
“So.” Ben scratched his arm. He looked down at the floor. He looked back up at Charlie. “Terri called me.”
She nodded, because of course his sister had called him. What was the point of saying something awful to Charlie if Ben didn’t know about it?
Ben said, “I’m sorry she brought it up.”
She lifted up one shoulder. “Doesn’t matter.”
Nine months ago, he would’ve said it mattered, but now, he simply shrugged back. “So, I’ll go upstairs, if that’s okay?”
Charlie gestured toward the stairs like a maître d’.
She listened to his light footsteps as he sprinted up the stairs, wondering how she had forgotten what that sounded like. His hand squeaked on the banister as he rounded the landing. The polish was worn from the wood where he did this every time.
How was that detail not in her wallowing book?
Charlie stood where he had left her. She stared blankly at the flat-screen TV. It was massive, bigger than anything in the Holler. Ben had worked all day to get the components tied in. Around midnight, he’d asked, “Wanna watch the news?”
When Charlie had agreed, he’d pressed some keys on his computer and suddenly, Charlie was watching a video of a bunch of gnus.
Upstairs, she heard a door open. Charlie crossed her arms low over her stomach. What was the proper thing for a wife to do when her estranged husband, who hadn’t been inside their house in nine months, was inside the house?
She found Ben in the guest room, which was more of a catch-all for extra books, some filing cabinets and the custom shelves that used to hold Ben’s Star Trek collectibles.
It was when Charlie had realized the Star Trek stuff was gone that she had known Ben was serious.
“Hey,” she said.
He was inside the walk-in closet, rummaging through file boxes.
“Need help?” she asked.
“No.”
Charlie bumped her leg against the bed. Should she leave? She should leave.
“My plea bargain from today,” Ben said, so she guessed he was looking for old notes relating to the case. “Guy lied about his accomplice.”
“I’m sorry.” Charlie sat on the bed. “You should take Barkzilla’s squeaky. I found it by the—”
“I got him a new one.”
Charlie looked down at the floor. She tried not to think about Ben at the pet store looking for a toy for their dog without her. Or with someone else. “I wonder if the person who leaked the bad timeline to the news did it for the attention or did it to throw off the press.”
“Dickerson County is looking at the security footage from the hospital.”
Charlie couldn’t see the connection. “Great.”
“Whoever slashed your dad’s tires was probably some idiot acting out, but they’re taking it seriously.”
“Asshole,” Charlie muttered, because Rusty had lied about why he needed a lift.
Ben poked his head out of the closet. “What?”
“Nothing,” she said. “Someone spray-painted his house, too. They wrote ‘goat fucker.’ Or just ‘fucker’ because the goat was already there.”
“I saw the ‘goat’ last weekend.”
“What were you doing at the HP last weekend?”
He stepped out of the closet with a file box in his hands. “I see your dad the last Sunday of every month. You know that.”
Rusty and Ben had always had a weird kind of friendship. They treated each other like contemporaries despite the age difference. “I didn’t realize you were still doing that.”
“Yeah, well.” He put the box on the bed. The mattress sagged from the weight. “I’ll update Keith about the ‘fucker.’” He meant Keith Coin, the chief of police and Ken Coin’s older brother. “He said he’d send someone around about the goat, but with what happened today …” His voice trailed off as he took the top off the box.
“Ben.” Charlie watched him search the files. “Do you feel like I never let you answer questions?”
“Aren’t you letting me answer one right now?”
She smiled. “I mean, because Dad did this convoluted thing with the car window, and—that part doesn’t matter. He basically said that you have to choose between being right and being happy. He said that was something Gamma told him she needed to decide before she died, whether she wanted to be right or happy.”
He looked up from the box. “I don’t understand why you can’t be both.”
“I guess if you’re right too many times, like you know too much, or you’re too smart and you let people know it …” She wasn’t sure how to explain. “Gamma knew the answer to a lot of things. To everything, actually.”
“So your dad said she would’ve been happier if she pretended she wasn’t as smart as she was?”
Charlie instinctively defended her father. “Gamma said it, not Dad.”
“That sounds like a problem with their marriage, not ours.” He rested his hand on the box. “Charlie, if you’re worried that you’re like your mom, that’s not a bad thing. From everything I’ve heard, she was an amazing person.”
He was so fucking decent it took her breath away. “You’re an amazing person.”
He gave a sharp, sarcastic laugh. She had tried this before, over-correcting her bitchiness, treating him like a toddler in need of a participation trophy.
She said, “I’m serious, Ben. You’re smart and funny and—” His surprised look cut off her praise. “What?”
“Are you crying?”
“Shit.” Charlie tried not to cry in front of anybody but Lenore. “I’m sorry. I’ve been doing this since I woke up.”
He was utterly still. “You mean since the school?”
Charlie smoothed together her lips. “Before that.”
“Do you even know who that guy is?”
She was sick of the question. “The whole point of being with a stranger is that they’re a stranger, and in a perfect world, you never have to see them again.”
“Good to know.” He pulled out a file and paged through it.
Charlie pushed herself up on her knees so she could look him in the eye. “It’s never happened before. Not once. Not even close.”
Ben shook his head.
“I never looked at another man when I was with you.”
He put the file back into the box and pulled out another one. “Did you come with him?”
“No,” she said, but that was a lie. “Yes, but I had to use my hand, and it was nothing. Like a sneeze.”
“A sneeze,” he repeated. “Great, now every time I sneeze, I’m going to think of you coming with fucking Batman.”
“I was lonely.”
“Lonely,” he echoed.
“What do you want me to say, Ben? I want you to make me come. I want to be with you.” She tried to touch his hand but he moved it away. “I’ll do whatever it takes to make this better. Just tell me.”
“You know what I want.”
The marriage counselor again. “We don’t need some frumpy licensed social worker with a bad haircut to tell me I’m the problem. I know I’m the problem. I’m trying to fix it.”
“You asked what I wanted and I told you.”
“What’s the point of picking apart something that happened thirty years ago?” Charlie sighed, exasperated. “I know I’m angry about it, Ben. I’m fucking furious. I don’t try to hide it. I don’t pretend it didn’t happen. If I was obsessed with it and wouldn’t shut up about it, she would say something was wrong with that, too.”
“You know that’s not what she said.”
“God, Ben, what’s the point of this? Do you still even want me?”
“Of course I do.” He looked anxious, like he wanted to take back his answer. “Why can’t you understand that part doesn’t matter?”
“It matters.” She moved closer to him. “I miss you, babe. Don’t you miss me?”
He shook his head again. “Charlie, that’s not going to fix things.”
“It might fix them a little.” She stroked back his hair. “I want you, Ben.”
He kept shaking his head, but he didn’t push her away.
“I’ll do whatever you want.” Charlie moved closer. Throwing herself at him was the only thing she hadn’t tried. “Tell me and I’ll do it.”
“Stop,” he said, but didn’t stop her.
“I want you.” She kissed his neck. The way his skin reacted to her mouth made Charlie want to cry. She kissed along his jaw, up to his ear. “I want to feel you inside of me.”
Ben let out a low groan as her hands moved down his chest.
She kept kissing him, licking him. “Let me go down on you.”
He inhaled a shaky breath.
“You can have whatever you want, babe. My mouth. My hands. My ass.”
“Chuck.” His voice was hoarse. “We can’t—”
She kissed him on the lips, and kept kissing him until he finally kissed her back. His mouth was like silk. The feel of his tongue sent a rush between her legs. Every nerve in her body was on fire. His hand went to her breast. He was getting hard, but Charlie reached down to make him harder.
Ben covered his hand over hers. At first, she thought he was helping her but then she realized he was stopping her.
“Oh, God.” She backed away quickly, jumping off the bed, standing with her back to the wall, embarrassed, humiliated, frantic. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“Charlie—”
“No!” She held up her hands like a traffic cop. “If you say something now, then it’ll be the end, and it can’t be the end of things, Ben. That can’t happen. It’s too much after—”
Charlie cut herself off, but her own words rang in her ears like a warning.
Ben stared at her. His throat moved as he swallowed. “After what?”
Charlie listened to the blood pounding in her ears. She felt jittery, like her toes were dangling over the edge of a bottomless chasm.
Ben’s phone played the opening bars of the COPS theme, the ringtone he’d set for the Pikeville Police Department.
Bad boys, bad boys, whatchu gonna do …
She said, “It’s work. You have to answer.”
“No, I don’t.” He tilted up his chin, waiting.
Bad boys, bad boys …
He said, “Tell me what happened today.”
“You were there when I gave my statement.”
“You ran toward the gunshots. Why? What were you thinking?”
“I didn’t run toward gunshots. I ran toward Mrs. Pinkman screaming for help.”
“You mean Heller?”
“That’s exactly the kind of Oprah bullshit a therapist would say.” She had to yell to be heard over his stupid phone. “That I put myself in danger because thirty years ago, when someone really needed me, I ran away.”
“And look what happened!” Ben’s sudden flash of anger reverberated through the quiet.
The ringtone had stopped.
The silence rumbled like thunder.
She said, “What the fuck does that mean?”
Ben’s jaw was clenched so tight she could practically hear his teeth grinding. He grabbed the box off the bed and threw it back into the closet.
/>
“What are you talking about, Ben?” Charlie felt shaky, like something irreparable had torn apart. “Do you mean, look at what happened then, or look at what happened today?”
He shoved boxes around on the shelves.
She stood in the closet doorway, trapping him. “You don’t get to throw shit around and then turn your back on me.”
He said nothing.
Charlie heard the distant ring of her cell phone buried deep in her purse downstairs. She counted out five long rings, holding her breath through the pauses until voicemail picked up.
Ben kept moving boxes around.
The silence began to fester. She was going to start crying again because crying was all that she could do today.
“Ben?” She finally broke, begging, “Please tell me what you meant.”
He took the lid off one of the boxes. He traced his finger along the labeled files. She thought he was going to keep ignoring her, but he said, “Today is the third.”
Charlie looked away. That’s why Ben had called her this morning. It’s why Rusty had hummed “Happy Birthday” while she had stood by like an imbecile asking him again and again to tell her what he knew.
She said, “I saw last week on the calendar, what day it was, but—”
Ben’s phone started ringing again. Not the police this time, but a normal ring. Once. Twice. He answered on the third ring. She heard his curt responses, “When?” then, “How bad is it?” then, his tone deeper, “Did the doctor say …”
Charlie leaned her shoulder against the doorjamb. She had heard variations on this call multiple times before. Someone in the Holler had punched his wife too hard or grabbed a knife to end a fight and someone else had grabbed a gun, and now the assistant district attorney had to go to the station and offer a deal to the first person who talked.
“Will he make it?” Ben asked. He started nodding again. “Yeah. I’ll handle it. Thanks.”
Charlie watched him end the call, slip his phone back into his pocket. She said, “Let me guess, a Culpepper got arrested?”
He didn’t turn around. He gripped the edges of the shelf like he needed something to hold onto.
“Ben?” she asked. “What is it?”
Ben sniffed. He wasn’t a complete stoic, but Charlie could count on one hand the times she had seen her husband cry. Except he wasn’t just crying now. His shoulders were shaking. He seemed racked by grief.