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“Does she know who we are?” he asked after a moment.
“I don’t think so,” I answered despite the shrug I’d given him. “But then again, it’s hard to say. Before she left, she told me she was excited to meet up with us outside of the sanctum, but that she had to tell me something.” I paused, looking up and locking eyes with him. “I never found out because I told her we’d talk about everything on our date. I wonder if that was it—if she was going to tell me Eve wasn’t her real name.”
“It wouldn’t have changed anything, Spike. The truth is, well, the truth.”
“How do you want to play this?” I asked, feeling just as worried as he looked. “She comes back to work tomorrow. I know we haven’t been working with her long, but the timing with all of this just seems…I don’t know…not very coincidental.”
“What do you mean? Are you changing your mind and saying you suspect she does know who we are?”
I bit my lip, stammering at getting the right words out. “It could be possible, but fuck, I don’t know, man, I’m buzzing here. We’ve asked about hooking up outside of the sanctum before, and she gave us the cold shoulder. Then she starts working with us, and then all of a sudden, she comes to the club and changes her mind? I don’t know, it just feels weird.”
“Look at what she has stacked on her shoulders. I know you heard everything she said in court. When Eve—” he froze, wincing, “I mean, Charlotte, first started coming to the club, she made it clear to us she wasn’t looking for a relationship. And the only reason we’ve been so butt-hurt since she shot us down is because we didn’t understand why. Well, now we do. We were trying to pursue something she clearly wasn’t ready for. Maybe now with Karl on suspension and his every waking moment temporarily being tracked, she’s trying to relax and actually live a little.”
I finished off my beer then, considering everything as I have for the last two fucking days while I watched Phoenix toss the cards down on the center table and then get up to fetch us more beer from the fridge. Since I was a child, I always had this horrid habit of insinuating the worst out of literally every fucking great thing to ever come into my life. I didn’t want to do this with Eve, but that was before I knew Eve wasn’t really Eve and was in fact Charlotte fucking Greene.
“We need to come clean,” I said when Phoenix returned and handed over my ice-cold beer.
“What?” he said with a soft scoff, gawking at me with a huge knot sticking out between his pinched brows. “You can’t be serious.”
“It’s not like we can just keep this shit to ourselves, Phoenix, not whenever she’s still working this case with us. On the job she knows us as Rhodes and Hutch, but at the club she only knows us by our first names.”
His eyes went wide once he realized what I was saying without having to fully explain.
“I completely forgot about that.”
“This case is growing cold, Phoenix, and fast. We’re right back to square one and the only thing all three of us internally and externally have in common with this case is The Flirty Sanctum.”
“I know that,” he answered, and I could tell from the way his face slowly fell as he leaned against the cushion that he didn’t want to do this. “But don’t you think it would be better if maybe we waited—”
“I know what you’re going to say, bud, and I get it, I’m worried too. I don’t want to lose whatever this thing is we have with her either. But it doesn’t change the fact that we have an eighteen-year-old rape victim whose rapist is still out there roaming the streets and could strike again at any moment.”
He swallowed hard, sighing as his eyes drifted back over to the index cards on the center table.
He knew I was right.
As much as I, too, wanted to keep all of this hush and pray everything would work for our benefit, it was realistically impossible. We couldn’t be selfish about this and play games with Charlotte’s head and heart like a bunch of punk-ass teenagers. We were in our fucking thirties for crying out loud. It had to be done and whatever happens, happens, and I said as much to Phoenix.
The worry on his face only worsened because he knew me better than the back of his own hand and knew I’d already devised a plan. He took a few chugs from his fresh beer but said nothing aside from giving me a miserable nod.
fourteen
Charlotte
My little three-day vay-cay was finally over, and as pumped as I was to go back to work today, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little bummed out. I’d taken Peter’s advice and shut off my phone and had come to learn something crucial about myself recently.
All I did was work.
My off days were never really considered as my off days because I still worked from home even after spending twelve hours at the firm, or wherever else the day’s required tasks had directed me to meet with clients. I spent more time outside of my home than getting to relax and actually enjoy being at home, which I found to be quite depressing the more the reality of it settled in. I had a lot of vacation time over the years built up that I hadn’t actually used yet, so I suppose that was something I’d have to look into soon.
And speaking of my phone, the damn thing hadn’t stopped dinging since I powered it on first thing this morning. I was currently in my bathroom finishing up with my makeup and still, the fucking thing kept vibrating against the counter with God knows how many texts, personal and work emails, and possibly some voicemails too.
Someone was calling me now, so after glancing down at the screen and seeing it was Harley, I quickly answered the line and put her on speakerphone so I could finish applying the final touches to my hair. I was wearing it down today and almost had it ironed to perfection.
“Good morning, Harley,” was my chipper greeting.
“Ah, Charlotte,” she replied. “Are you coming into the office today?”
“I sure am. I’m finishing up now and will be walking out the door soon.”
