Fatal Beauty (13 page)

There’s a beat of silence and then, “Then why the hell are you
calling me?”

She goes still, startled that he called her out so quickly.

“I miss you. I didn’t want you to worry.”

There’s a moment of silence, and then. “The police want to talk to
you. About Tre. Do you know anything about that?”

“What could I possibly know?” she says. She shifts and stands,
pacing as far as the cracked cord will let her.

Travis curses on the other end of the line, a thousand miles and a
world away. This was stupid. Calling him. She can’t be that girl anymore. She
doesn’t even want to be.

“Daddy, I have to go.”

“Charlie, talk to me. Tell me where the hell you are.”

She hesitates, and the call stretches out. She hears a shuffle in
the background, and her stomach lurches.

“Why?” she asks, softly. “Who with you wants to know?”

The silence spins out, long enough for it to be an answer, and she
hangs up. Clenches her hands tight, and stares at the phone while the rage and
fear and tears build.

It doesn’t come. Just a long, lonely sense of betrayal that stings
in only the faintest of ways.

She sinks back onto the bed, and opens the nail polish remover,
and scrubs her painted nails clean. Clips the perfect ovals back until her
nails are barely there slivers above her fingers.

She files them smooth quickly, and then tosses all of it—the
polish and clippers and manicure set—in the trash.

*

Charlie has been quiet, almost reserved since they got back from
dinner. It bothers her, vaguely—she wants to ask what’s bothering her, and she
doesn’t want to know. Because today has been a good day, and those are rare,
lately. She sits on her bed, the phone next to her while Charlie flips through
the channels, and looks at the material on the thumb drive.

Part of her is amazed by the extent of Jacobs’ network. She knew
about part of it and his desire to expand the contacts. His penchant to use
blackmail to control people and situations.

But seeing it laid out so clearly—it’s overwhelming and a small
part of her that she wants very much to shut up is impressed.

She grabs the phone and stands.

“What’s up?” Charlie says, shifting.

“Nothing. I just need some air.” EJ lies with a smile. “You good?”

Charlie’s eyes narrow, but she nods, and doesn’t protest further
as EJ slips into the fading evening. She sits on the bottom stair and dials
with fingers she’s proud to see are steady, and listens to the hum of traffic
from the highway while the phone rings in her ear.

“You shot Marco.”

She hesitates. “Is he alive?”

“You shot him, Ella. Twice. That man beat up your first
boyfriend.”

“Actually, he put Tony in the hospital. Beat up implies a couple
punches—and Tony wasn’t my first boyfriend.”

“Ah, but he is the bastard who took your virginity,” Jacobs purrs.

“Whose fault is that?” she snaps, and he chuckles. She broke
first. Her nails dig into her palm and she takes a deep breath, forcing down
the irritation. “I didn’t shoot him.”

There’s a moment of hesitation from him and then he laughs, a
disbelieving noise. “The mouse? She’s got bigger balls than I gave her credit
for.”

“You always underestimate the women you fuck, Jacobs.”

She wishes, suddenly, that she had a blunt. That there was
anything to dull the sharp edges of this conversation that she doesn’t want to
be having.

“Is that what I did with you?” he asks. “Is that why you’re doing
this?”

For a heartbeat she considers lying. But. She shrugs, “Yes.”

Far away, she hears him sigh, and the soft curse. She can picture
him, head tipped back. Fingers pinching the bridge of his nose. The soft,
concerned look he wore only for her.

It’s all a lie, though. His concern for her started and ended with
what she could do for him.

“Come home, EJ. Let me fix this. If you want more, I can do that.
I can give you whatever you want,” he says, and it’s almost a plea.

It’s almost enough.

“I don’t’ want you to give me anything,” she whispers. “That’s the
thing you never seem to understand. How could you teach me to play this game,
to play people and get what I want, and have no idea of what that really
means?”

“Explain it,” he says.

“No,” she says, softly.

“Don’t be a fucking child, Ellie,” he snaps. “This isn’t a game.
People are dying.”

“Don’t be a fucking douche, Anthony,” she shoots back. “Call off
your dogs and maybe no one else will.”

“You know I can’t do that.”

“You can’t find us,” she says, softly.

“Do you really believe that? I found you in Charleston. I found
you in college, and when you ran before graduation and in Baton Rouge and
Memphis, and I’ll find you now.”

It’s a simple promise, and the part of her that has always—will
always—love him, smiles. Wants him to find her.

“Leave me alone.” She whispers instead, “Let me go.”

“Ellie. Sweetheart. Even if you hadn’t stolen from me, you know that’s
never been an option for us.” There’s a moment of silence, and then, “Does your
girl know who I am? What I am?”

“I don’t keep shit from her.” EJ says, defensive.

“Stupid girl,” Jacobs says, softly, a twisted endearment that
makes her shift on the stair.

How many times had he called her that, whispered it while she
fought him and he made her come. Control was his favorite aphrodisiac, and even
when she wanted him—always—fighting him was foreplay.

Hearing it now, even murmured in annoyance, pulls hot desire
across her skin.

“Good night, Jacobs,” she whispers.

“Sleep well, Ellie.”

The phone sits still and silent in her hands after she hangs up,
and she blinks, her head tilted back.

“Come back,” Charlie says quietly.

For a second, she wants to ask how long the other girl has been
standing at the top of the stairs. But she doesn’t. Charlie following her out
of the hotel room, listening to the conversation with Jacobs—that was as much a
foregone conclusion as the phone call to her father had been earlier today. She
stands and climbs the stairs to follow Charlie back into the hotel room. It’s
still disgusting and she killed a spider the size of Ping-Pong ball earlier,
but it’s also cozy. It’s their disgusting, bug-infested hovel.

She crawls into bed next to Charlie and tries to focus on the
TruCrime
that’s come on. Both girls stare at it, a kind of
sick fascination as the investigators talk and the victims cry.

“Is he mad?” Charlie asks, at last.

“He’s—I don’t think he knows what he is. He wants to be angry. I
think part of him is, because I’ve never disobeyed him like this. But, he also
thinks I’ll come back. Jacobs doesn’t understand a world where I would
willfully disobey him.”

“You and him are all kinds of fucked up,” Charlie says, shaking
her head. EJ twists to look at the other girl, a tiny smile curving her lips.

“And we aren’t?”

“You aren’t fucking me,” Charlie points out.

The words are spoken evenly, but EJ is watching her. Watching the
way her eyes look away nervously, and the quick dart of her tongue to lick her
lips. It’s a statement.

But it’s also a dare.

EJ sits up and crawls closer to Charlie, until there is no space
between them and they are still not touching. “Do you wish I were?” she murmurs
and Charlie shudders.

Dark eyes meet hers, and simply, “Yes.”

EJ smiles, and rolls away from her. “Lay down,” she murmurs.
Something flashes in Charlie’s eyes, but she does as she’s told, sliding down
the bed. Her red hair is splayed around her head like a scarlet halo, and EJ
allows herself one second to appreciate it as she crawls over Charlie. One leg
on either side of her hips, pressing down just enough that Charlie can feel
her. Big, wary eyes, curious, stare back at her and EJ smiles.

She’s kissed Charlie before. On the dance floor in New Orleans,
and once to piss Tre off at Charlie’s family beach house. But it’s never been
like this. Not when Charlie knew it was a real kiss, and both of them were
honest about everything that’s between them.

She’s thought about it—of course, she’s thought about it. She’s
lost sleep thinking about it. But it wasn’t possible for her fantasies to match
the reality of Charlie, spread out and waiting for her touch, or for the first
brush of her lips and hesitant touch of her tongue.

EJ wants to go slow. Ease Charlie into this. But Charlie’s hands
come up, latching into EJ’s hair and tugging her closer, and the kiss turns
from gentle to demanding in the space of a breath. And she’s everywhere. The
taste of her, the scent of her, the press of her body, arching off the bed to
meet EJ’s, tiny, pleased gasp she makes when EJ finally relents and stretches
out over her.

She’s moving against EJ like a wave, all soft curves and it’s too
much. Her hands are brushing against EJ’s hips, curving and gripping her.

EJ nips her lip, hard enough that Charlie jerks back and she sits
up. “Patience, sweetheart,” she murmurs.

Hunger and anger flash in Charlie’s eyes, and EJ smirks, a quick
little thing, before she slips her hands under the thin sleep shirt Charlie’s
wearing. The other girl inhales sharply at the brush of EJ’s hands over her
belly, skating upward until she cups a small tit, her thumb brushing lazily
over the pale nipple.

“Patience,” EJ murmurs again, and dips her head down, kissing a
path over Charlie’s neck. “I’ve wanted this for too long to rush it.”

Charlie whimpers, from her words or the slow kisses and gentle
press of teeth, she’ll never know. She doesn’t care. She only cares that for
now, Charlie is here, and panting under her. Her panties are wet, and she’s
rubbing against EJ, almost helplessly, as EJ continues to kiss her and pluck
her nipple, slowly.

It’s torture. A slow assault that is everywhere and nowhere at the
same time, and when Charlie groans and whispers her name—Ella—it’s desperate
and demanding. She jerks Charlie’s shirt up, covering her nipple with her lips
almost before Charlie realizes it, sucking hard as she brushes against her
clit, the softest brush. Once. Twice. The third time, she presses hard and rubs
and Charlie screams. Her body arches off the bed, scrambling to get closer and
farther away, legs shaking spastically as the orgasm tears through her.

She’s so wet, EJ can feel it, and the urge to slide between her
legs and tongue fuck her into another orgasm is so strong, so overwhelming she
sits up and rolls away before the tremors shaking Charlie have completely
ceased. They sit that way, in the semi-darkness, the scent of sex and Charlie’s
erratic breathing the only thing filling the air, for a long time. Until EJ
finally relaxes a little, and lays down. Charlie is stiff and quiet on her side
of the bed, the silence almost oppressive as it bears down on the room.

“I stopped.”

“No one asked you to.”

“I didn’t want to.” She confesses.

There’s a beat of silence and then, “Why?”

“Because when I finish what we started here—and I will—it won’t be
in this hellhole murder hotel. We’re both better than that.”

Charlie inhales sharply, but EJ is already rolling to her side.
She takes the hint.

Neither of them say anything else. But it is a long time before
either sleep.

*

They leave in the morning. When the sun is still rising behind
them, with Charlie sleeping against the center console, her hair soft against EJ's
arm. She tosses her purse and that damn cell phone into the backseat, and tucks
the gun into a cup holder, and points the car to the west, and drives.

It's soothing, watching the miles roll past and the world come
alive. They hit Little Rock at rush hour, and Charlie wakes up. They stop for
coffee and gas an hour after that and Charlie slides behind the wheel. She's
been quiet since they fooled around the night before. It's vaguely worrisome,
and annoying because of it.

Of all the things they need right now, Charlie confused because of
sex was the very last of those things.

"You
wanna
talk about it?" EJ
asks.

Charlie gives her a startled look, one she meets with a bland
stare. "You're thinking so loudly I'm pretty sure they can hear you the
next state over."

"I'm not used to that," Charlie says, shifting in her
seat. A tiny blush is climbing her cheeks which is both adorable and
ridiculous. Charlie hasn't blushed in earnest in years.

"You're used to throwaway sex," EJ says. "And if
that's what you want it to be, then fine. That's what it is, and we move on.
Last night doesn't have to change anything."

Charlie studies the road, long enough that EJ is convinced she'll
ignore the statement altogether, that she'll ignore all of it. And it might be
for the best, even if it's not exactly what she wants.