Page 54 of Charlie
CHAPTER 13
Status Report
Liv
I woke up in the middle of the night with my head hammering. Drinking some water didn’t help much. Unable to fall asleep again, I checked my phone to find a number of unanswered calls on my phone—none of them from Charles.
Kit had left messages, and so had Mr. Robertson. It was three a.m. local time but only nine p.m. in Chicago.
Sitting up in my bed, I turned on some light and rubbed my eyes before I called Mr. Robertson and filled him in on everything. Even the part about Charles and me being intimate together.
“What did Conor tell him to make him pull away?”
“I don’t know, Charles wouldn’t say.”
Mr. Robertson was quiet for a moment. “I want you to know that I never expected you to have sex with Charles.”
“I know.” I sighed, “but that attraction Charles wrote about in his diary. It’s mutual.” I felt my throat swell up. “I really care about him, and everything was going so well between us. Now, I wonder if I ruined everything by allowing the physical part of our relationship to get too far too fast.”
“I doubt it. If he feels anything like I felt for Emmy when I first met her, he’ll have a hard time staying away from you. It was different times back then, but from what I recall, our relationship turned physical quickly too.”
“How did you meet your wife?” My question was a way for me to shift focus away from my own sad situation.
“Oh, it’s been so long since I spoke about it.” He coughed on his exhalation. “I was a clerk in a bank and she worked in a diner where I’d sometimes eat my lunch. Emmy was mild and shy by nature while I was full of ambition and drive. She loved me before I became a rich man and I’m grateful I got to marry the woman I loved. Our marriage wasn’t perfect, but we supported each other through hard times, and in the end that’s what I’m most grateful for; her loyalty and trust in me.”
“Yeah, it’s what we’re all searching for, isn’t it?” I yawned and looked at the clock. It was almost three thirty a.m. “Do you think Charles will reach out to me or should I reach out to him?”
“My advice is to be patient. There’s nothing as enticing for a man as to chase a woman.”
“But what if I never hear from him again?”
“Then he’s a bigger fool than I can even imagine. For now, just stay calm and play your part as a tourist. I’m working with my people to build a case against O’Brien and I think we might be onto something big.”
“What is it?”
“Kit has all the details and she can fill you in, but just know that I won’t be satisfied until I’ve closed down O’Brien’s entire cult. He went after the wrong man’s grandchild.” It sounded like a declaration of war.
“There are children there.” My words came out in a soft voice.
“Yes, the report said as much.”
I closed my eyes and exhaled. “It’s different when you meet them in person. I knew about the children from the report, but seeing them and speaking with them makes it twice as awful. I didn’t see any signs of physical violence toward the children. I mean, they had a lot of respect for O’Brien, but they weren’t cowering in a corner and they looked healthy and well fed. My biggest concern was that none of them seemed to interact with children their own age outside of the house. It was like they were experiencing the world through books only. None of them did team sports or had friends in the village. Isn’t that strange? And they’re home schooled. Did you know that?”
“No, but it doesn’t surprise me. Children are impressionable. Teenagers especially tend to question parental authority and pull toward their friends. By home schooling them, O’Brien can maintain control over them.”
“I want Charles out, but I want the children out too.”
Mr. Robertson coughed before he spoke. “You have a good heart, Liv. I sensed it the moment I met you.”
After I ended the call with Mr. Robertson, I lay with my cell phone in my hand thinking about Charles. There were so many layers to him, from the insecure man when it came to dating to the very assertive lover when it came to sex. Someone had trained him to feel confident talking dirty and taking charge. Maybe it was the female employee who had written the notes to him that he kept in his box back home in Chicago.
My mind circled everything that had happened these past days, trying to find where I’d gone wrong.
Maybe I should have tried getting inside the cult before I met up with Charles. If I’d been an insider, maybe Conor wouldn’t have turned Charles against me.
The thing that bothered me the most was the way Conor had flirted with me. It had been subtle, but I’d picked it up. Why would he do that if he was adamant that he didn’t want me around the cult?
If only Charles were more like an open book, so I didn’t have to guess at what he was thinking and feeling.
