“You’re lying.” He snarled and pushed past me and rushed into the bathroom.
After several minutes, he still hadn’t come out, so I went in quietly behind him.
He was standing in the center, staring at an open window on the far side of the room. He didn’t say anything, not a word, when I stopped beside him.
There was something about his silence that was tangible. It wrapped around us both, pressing in until I couldn’t be silent anymore.
“What’s going on?”
“It’s him,” he said, almost like he was talking to himself. “He’s messing with me.”
Who was he talking about? The Grim Reaper?
“Charming, who was that?” I asked. I didn’t actually think he would tell me.
He turned abruptly and stared down into my face. Stark. That’s the only word that came to mind when I looked at him just then. There was no mask of perfection, no look of arrogance, no hint of a lie.
“My sister.” It was a whisper, a barely there confession.
Shock rippled through me. Charming had a sister? A real one?
Before I could say or do anything, he left, making excuses to Rosalyn about something that just couldn’t wait and promising to call her later.
After he had gone, I realized my opportunity to warn her away had presented itself. His odd behavior just now would help back up whatever I said.
I opened my mouth to tell her, to ruin everything for Charming.
Only the words that came out had nothing to do with Charming at all.
The more I talked, the more I realized I wasn’t going to be confessing anything today.
I couldn’t do it.
Chapter Nineteen
“Exhume - to revive or restore after neglect or a period of forgetting; bring to light.”
Charming
I drove straight to his house. That bastard had gone too far this time. I knew he was doing this. He had to be. There was no other explanation.
He opened the front door before I even knocked. He was wearing a long, black trench coat and his hand was clutched around something I couldn’t see.
I didn’t care what it was anyway.
I wasn’t leaving here until I got some answers.
“Charming. How nice of you to come unannounced, but I am on my way out.” He flipped up the collar of his coat and I saw that his hand was full of stones.
“Your killing spree is going to wait. We need to talk.”
“I suppose I have a few minutes.” He dropped the stones back into the bowl sitting on the table near the door.
I had a notion to reach out and shove them all to the ground, just to see his face when I did.
“Come along, then,” he called like I was some sort of dog.
In his office, he took a seat in the black chair he likely thought of as his throne and looked at me expectantly.
