Page 23 of The Family Plot
The girls, who’d slumped a little at Charlie’s refusal, perk back up.
“Really?” two of them say in unison.
“Can we… can we see it?” the other one asks—and though I’ve never interacted with Blackburn’s tourists before, it’s clear these girls feel they have as much a right to our lives as the residents do. My skin crawls with their audacity, their fervor.
“Absolutely!” Charlie says, closing the door just a little, concealing Tate as she tiptoes back up the stairs. “My sister will be debuting it in four days, at three o’clock, at an event we’re calling the Lighthouse Memorial Museum. LMM, for those acronym lovers among us.” He points to one of the girls’ sweatshirts, where URI is stitched across the chest. The tourists giggle again.
“We’ll see you there?” Charlie asks.
They nod, seemingly starstruck at the thought.
“Great,” Charlie says. “See you soon. Tell your friends!”
The second he shuts the door, his grin goes slack. Without his theatrical brightness, he’s visibly tired. His sweater hangs off his shoulders, too big on his lanky frame.
“Well,” he says, looking with heavy eyelids toward the boxes he’s piled in the living room, “back to work.”
“Charlie, why are you doing this?”
“I told you,” he says, weary and annoyed. “We’re setting the record straight, proving to the islanders that we’re not the monsters they think we are. We’re just…”—the last word comes out on a sigh—“people.”
“But those weren’t islanders. They were tourists.”
He pinches the bridge of his nose like he, too, is battling a headache. “Things have changed since we lived here, Dolls. The tourists basicallyarethe islanders. They come for the stories of the Blackburn Killer, and by the time they leave, they’ve heard all those rumors about us; they’re tweeting about Murder Mansion before the ferry’s even docked.” He looks at me, the whites of his eyes zigzagged with red. “That’s not the legacy Andy would have wanted for us.” He clears his throat, gaze sinking toward his feet. “Neither would Dad.”
I stand up straighter, surprised to hear him mention Dad. I know he’s why we came here to begin with, but when there’s a hole blown open inside you, bubbling with acid at the edges, burning through you more and more each moment, it’s hard to notice the pain of a paper cut. And honestly, I have no idea what Dad would have wanted for us. By his own admission, he didn’tknow what to do with girls; Tate and I weren’t invited to be part of his legacy.
“Sorry,” I say, “I know you—”
I’m cut off by a noise at the door—a knock this time instead of the bell—and it’s as if someone’s pulled a string at Charlie’s back; he lights up and breaks into motion.
“Well, hello!” he says, tearing open the door.
“Hi,” a voice says, husky and unsure.
“Can I help you?” Charlie prompts.
I crane my neck over his shoulder to find Ruby Decker standing on the porch. The moment she sees me, a wrinkle in her forehead relaxes. “Hi,” she says again.
Charlie looks back and forth between the two of us. “This a friend of yours, Dolls?”
He doesn’t recognize her. Which makes sense. She would have been only seven when he left at eighteen, and I don’t remember her being the Watcher until Andy and I were ten.
“This is Ruby,” I tell him, “Lyle Decker’s granddaughter.”
“Hello, Lyle Decker’s granddaughter. How can we help you?”
Ruby ignores Charlie, gaze pointed at me. “I remembered something.”
“You remembered something,” Charlie repeats. “How satisfyingly specific. Would you care to—”
“Come in,” I say, and Ruby slips through the door, not even glancing at Charlie.
“Sure, yeah, come inside,” he says. “Oh, and you’ve tracked some dirt in on the floor, that’s good. I wanted the house to be clean for the LMM, but this is better.”
He crosses his arms, leering at Ruby, who peers up at him with wide, unblinking eyes. “What?” she asks.
“Nothing,” I say. “We can talk upstairs.”
