A Love So Deadly (8 page)

By Tuesday night, the news that Mr. Pitt committed suicide by setting himself on fire is all over the news. Sherry, Danny, and I watch the coverage on the tiny television in the kitchen, while the little kids are finishing their ice cream in the fort. I wash dishes, Danny dries, and Sherry stacks everything back onto the shelves. Sherry almost drops a plate when she hears Pitt left a suicide note confessing he murdered his mother—she had him for seventh grade, too, and has no trouble believing he was a psychopath. She makes it clear she isn’t sorry to hear Pitt has checked himself out, but Danny doesn’t say a word.

Our eyes meet as I pass him a salad bowl, he lifts one eyebrow, and I look away. And that’s the end of it. We move on without another word about Pitt, the memories of that horrible night eclipsed by the greater grief of losing Gabe.

We wake up Wednesday morning to a gray day with rain pouring down, turning the front yard into a mud pit, and decide to call in sick again. We make cookies and run the air conditioner and play the longest game of Go Fish ever. We eat the pizzas Isaac brings over—all four of them—and make alligator puppets out of the boxes.

Isaac doesn’t come in, but he gives me a hug that feels like one of his old hugs, and when he says he’s sorry for my loss, I believe him. He tells me he talked to my dad again, and gives me a note from Chuck, written on one of the napkins from the restaurant.

I take it reluctantly, but when I start to read, Dad’s message isn’t what I expected.

Isaac told me about your boyfriend. I’m sorry, Kit Cat. I really am. It was obvious the boy cared about you, and no one should have to lose the person they love so young.

I’ve been thinking about you a lot these past weeks, wishing things could have been different. But I can’t go back. None of us can.

I’m not going to fight you for the kids. You can have everything you asked for, just please let me see them. When I’m sober, and proven I deserve it.

I love you, and I’m sorry for all the times I’ve let you down.

Chuck

“I think he means it,” I mumble before stuffing the napkin in the pocket of my brown pajama pants.

“I know you weren’t talking to me,” Isaac says, looking up at me from the bottom of the concrete steps outside the front door. “But I think he does, too. I think you finally got through to him.”

I shrug, looking up at the gray sky and a darker gray cloud rolling in from the west, promising more rain. “For a little while, maybe. He’s had good times before, but the bad times always come back around.”

“Well, at least you’ll have custody of the kids when they do.”

I nod. “Tell Chuck thanks for the note, and that I’ll call him next week and we can go file the paperwork together. No need to keep the lawyers involved if he wants to do this the easy way.”

“Will do,” Isaac says, looking relieved.

I can tell he thinks the old Caitlin is back, ready to do the right thing, but I’m simply cutting my losses. I doubt Mr. Alexander is going to continue to represent me now that Gabe’s dead and Deborah hates me, and I don’t want to waste any of the stash Gabe and I put away on lawyers. He wouldn’t want that.

“Should I bring more pizza by tomorrow?” Isaac asks. “I can bring veggie with no cheese and extra side salads, keep it healthy.”

“Thanks,” I say. “That would be really nice.”

“See you at six tomorrow,” he says with a smile before lifting one big hand in the air and starting back across the muddy yard to his truck.

I slip back inside and crawl back into the fort, cuddling under a blanket with Emmie while we watch the end of
Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
.

We stay in our pajamas for over forty-eight hours before dragging ourselves upstairs to take a shower and change into fresh pajamas. Wednesday night, we go to bed in a giant puppy pile of pillows and sleeping bags inside the blanket fort. We tell ghost stories and jokes and we talk more about Gabe. I cry and so do Ray and Sean—and Emmie, because we’re crying. I don’t think she understands that Gabe’s never coming back—but we laugh, too.

It feels good to remember Gabe, and to hear what the kids remember. He touched their lives this summer. Danny, Ray, Sean, and Emmie all cared about him, because
he
cared, and made them feel special, valuable.

Hearing the kids talk about their summer memories makes me even more certain that Gabe’s mother is crazy. Gabe wasn’t damaged by his disease; he was freed by it. He was freed to be the person he wanted to be, and I, for one, think that person was pretty fucking amazing.

He changed my life, and I will never be the same. I am stronger than I have ever been, and I have Gabe to thank for it. I won’t let him down by falling apart or giving up on the dreams he helped me dream. I will hide until I’m healed enough to face the world, and then I’ll start making the kind of decisions the man I loved would have been proud of.

By the time Sherry wakes me up on Thursday morning with a gentle shake to the shoulder, I’m feeling better, strong enough to nod yes when she asks if we can leave the fort and have a talk.

I follow her into the backyard, clutching the coffee mug she hands me to my chest. We walk bare foot across the still rain-soaked grass to the picnic table, where we both climb on top to sit with our grass-covered feet propped on the seat below.

“What’s up?” I ask, shoving my wild hair from my face, deciding I’m ready to do something to it today besides wash it and let it dry in a tangle. I’m still not up for going to work, but I’m ready to get cleaned up, leave the fort, maybe take the kids to the playground later after things have dried off.

“I did a little calling around this morning,” Sherry says. Her curly red hair is pulled into two cute braids and her pajamas are bright pink with green flowers. She looks like she’s getting ready to host a kid’s birthday party, but her expression is anything but cheerful, making me wonder what shit has hit the fan now.

“What’s up?” I ask. “What kind of calling?”

“Well, it’s been two days so I thought…” She takes a breath. “I figured it was time to call around to the funeral homes, and try to figure out when Gabe was going to be buried. I figured you’d want to know, so you could make plans.”

I nod, handling the news much better than I would have two days ago. The flash of pain in my chest is terrible, but duller around the edges, and when I speak my voice is rough, but steady. “Did you find out when it will be?”

Sherry shakes her head. “No. None of the funeral directors in town had a funeral scheduled, or had even heard from Gabe’s parents.”

I frown. “What does that mean? They can’t be burying him somewhere else. His entire family back to the Civil War is buried in Giffney.”

“Right,” Sherry agrees, that odd, serious-nervous expression still on her face. “I thought that was weird, too, but thought maybe they were planning to hold the funeral in Charleston just to be assholes, and try to keep you from coming. So I called the local hospitals to see if they might be able to tell me where they released the body, but…”

She breaks off with sigh.

“What?” I ask, stomach churning. “What’s up? Just tell me.”

Sherry takes my coffee and sets it on the table before grabbing both my hands and holding tight. “Listen, I don’t want you to freak out, okay? And I don’t want you to get your hopes up, because this probably doesn’t mean anything, but—”

“But what?” I ask, pulse speeding. “What’s wrong? Did they lose the body or something?”

Sherry shakes her head. “No, Caitlin. Gabe was never at the ER at Presbyterian.”

My brow furrows, the sentence not computing. “What?”

“He was never there,” she repeats. “So I called the Carolina Medical Center, even though it’s further from Gabe’s house, but he was never checked in there, either.”

I stare at Sherry, watching the same impossible hope blooming in my chest flicker in her eyes. “You don’t think…” I dampen my lips, afraid to say the words out loud. “We should check the Charleston hospitals first, before we start jumping to conclusions.”

“I already did,” Sherry says. “In the past four days, no Gabriel Alexander was checked in to
any
Emergency Room within two hours of Giffney.”

I shake my head slowly back and forth, a million thoughts rushing through my mind at once. “You think he’s… Do you think he…” I still can’t say it, can’t name my hope for fear it will disappear. “But why would his mom lie?”

“Why wouldn’t she?” Sherry says. “You said she thought you weren’t helping Gabe. Maybe she decided he was better off without you.”

“But she was devastated,” I say. “She was crying her eyes out.”

“Maybe she’s a really good liar. And I mean, her son
was
still dying, even if he wasn’t dead yet. That’s something to fucking cry about.” Sherry shrugs. “I don’t know. It’s all just too fishy, and didn’t you say that Gabe said his parents had plane flights booked for him? To some hospice or something?”

I nod, still feeling dazed, blinded by the ray of light in the darkness.

“What if they kidnapped him?” Sherry continues. “Like, took advantage of the fact that he was sick, and put his ass on a plane as far from Giffney, and you, as they could get him?”

“No,” I say, spirits crashing back to earth. “He would have found a phone and called me. Even if he was too sick to fight back, he wouldn’t have let his parents take him away and not found a way to let me know about it.”

“Unless he couldn’t get to a phone for some reason,” Sherry says, squeezing my hands tighter. “Listen, I don’t want to put you through any fresh hell, or give you false hope, but there is something strange going on, and I’m going to help you figure out what it is. I already called Carla, and she told me to take the rest of the week off. She lost her husband last year. She told me to stay and be here for you, and that’s what I’m going to do. So…where do we start digging for more clues?”

I take a shaky breath, hope and fear mixing inside of me to form a cocktail far more eye-opening than any cup of coffee. “There’s only one place I can think of. I have to go back to Darby Hill. There might be something there that will let us know what Gabe’s parents are hiding.”

“Okay, but how?” Sherry asks, leaning in as she catches my excitement. “They’re not going to throw open the door when you knock, and welcome you in for a chat.”

“I’m not going to knock,” I say. “I’ll break in after they’re asleep. I know the security code, so I can turn it off as soon as I pick the lock.”

Sherry tilts her head, shooting me a confused look out of the corner of my eye. “Okay, but…when exactly did you become an expert at picking locks?”

“Gabe taught me,” I say, shrugging like it’s no big deal. “It was a hobby of his. He liked the…puzzle solving aspect of it.”

“Really,” she says, frowning. “That’s…kind of a weird habit for a guy who’s stinking rich. Was he planning a secret life of crime, or something?”

For the first time in days I actually have to fight a smile. On impulse I lean in, hugging Sherry tight. “Thank you. Thank you so much for this.”

Sherry hugs me back, smoothing a hand over my tangled hair. “Just don’t hate me if it turns out to be nothing, okay?”

“I could never hate you,” I say, pulling away, sniffing away the tears trying to escape the corners of my eyes. I’m not going to cry again, not until I know what’s happened to Gabe, until I know if, by some miracle, he’s still alive.

Gabe. Alive. The thought is a hand pulling me up from the bottom of the ocean. Even if he only has a little time left, I’ll fight for every minute with him. I need to see him again, I need to know if—in two short weeks—my period comes, or if I find out there is a part of Gabe alive inside of me, a son or daughter with my green eyes and his devilish smile.

I take a moment, closing my eyes and praying for that potential life, praying for the life of the man I love, praying that I’ll find him and be able to tell him I love him one more time. I love him, and I will never forget him. No matter what the future holds, a piece of Gabe will always be with me, burning hot and bright, lighting me up from the inside. He set fire to my heart, and there is no putting it out.

And if his parents have lied to take him away from me, there will be no stopping me until I have my revenge.

“You okay, Cait?” Sherry asks.

I open my eyes. “Not yet, but I will be.”

I hop off the picnic table, leading the way back into the house, ready to set a few fires of my own.

CHAPTER NINE
Caitlin
“Parting is all we know of heaven
and all we need of hell.”
-Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Gabe is alive. Gabe is alive. Gabe…

I know I may be fooling myself. There is probably a logical explanation as to why none of the funeral homes in town have received Gabe’s body, and none of the hospitals near Giffney, South Carolina have treated a Gabe Alexander in the past few days. My head tells me the chances that the man I love is still alive are slim, at best, but my heart…

My heart is
on fire
.

I go through the motions of the day with hope burning a hole in my chest. I help my best friend, Sherry, make my little brothers and niece breakfast with flames whispering against my ribs, making my blood burn and the mounting heat of the mid-summer day even harder to handle. I can’t wait to go to Darby Hill tonight, to slip my lock pick into the servants’ entrance door, and to tease the pins the way Gabe taught me, until the knob gives under my hand.