Chapter Sixteen

Wade eyed Celeste as though she were a threat, and there was a glint in his eye that legitimately scared her. She hadn’t thought of him as threatening before, for he was just some boy. And she realized that maybe showing up at his house and confronting him about assaulting her boss maybe hadn’t been the best idea. She intended him no harm. In fact, she felt guilty about him. Still, Celeste considered him a boy. She forgot that boys could be dangerous. Even seeing Dr. Emmett on the ground, bleeding from the head, she didn’t think that the boy who probably did that to the man was a threat. Looking him in the eye, though, for the first time in months, Celeste realized that he could hurt her. If she played this wrong, if they were alone, if he felt threatened, he could attack her and crush her. Wade was not to be underestimated.

He didn’t know that she meant him no harm. He only knew that she held information about him that he wanted no one at all to know.

She couldn’t really even tell him that she meant no harm. Meaning harm and doing harm were two different consequences. And she had caused harm to him all these months without meaning to do any. If he did the math in his head, he could maybe figure out how she played a role in his current predicament. But, then, she figured no kid would want to do math for no reason.

Wade wouldn’t hurt her on his front lawn, not with the neighbor being so much of a busybody. And there was probably no way that she would follow him into the house. He couldn’t get the upper hand on her. So, instead of taking her on, the two of them were stuck there, and they had to continue talking it out.

Apparently, Wade’s front lawn was ground zero for confrontations today, he thought. Lanky boy fights angry neighbor. Lanky boy fights girl in towel. Lanky boy versus lady in scrubs.

Because of every step that had led them there, neither of them wanted to do that. They’d both seen enough movies and read enough detective stories to know to avoid long, drawn-out speeches explaining the plot, so they spoke in staccato.

“Look,” he said.

“What?”

“I can explain.”

“I don’t doubt you can.”

“Why are you here?” he asked her.

“To see you.”

“Why?”

“To talk. Just talk.”

“About what?”

She replied with a raised eyebrow. There was no reason to recap the story for either of them, they both knew it.

“Are you armed?” she asked him.

“Why would I tell you that? Are you?”

“Good point.”

They paused. Wade spoke first. “Dr. Emmett and I were—”

“I know who I work for,” she said. “You weren’t the first.”

This legitimately surprised Wade. His mouth twitched from nerves.

“Oh, baby, did you think you were special?” she asked him.

He couldn’t tell if she was sympathetic or mocking him. All those months ago, when she had driven him home from his surgery, during that whole weird exchange, Celeste had mocked him. He didn’t trust her.

Celeste was in a predicament. When everything she said sounded sarcastic, when people had treated her like she was “sassy” since she was a girl because she was black and round, there was no tool in her arsenal of defenses that allowed her to be completely sincere.

“I’m serious, baby. Did you think you were his first?”

“Stop calling me that,” Wade said. “Stop calling me baby.”

“I mean nothing by it,” Celeste said. “It’s just how I talk.”

Wade took a breath.

“He’s not a nice man, Wade,” she said to him. “Especially to boys like you.”

Wade trembled, exposed.

“I have to go to the hospital,” he said to her. “My baby daughter is there.”

“You have a daughter?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he told her.

“How does that work?”

“Not so well,” Wade admitted to Celeste.

He indicated her Oldsmobile.

“Can you move your car?”

“I’ll drive you to the hospital,” she said. “After all, I should go check on my boss there. If you killed him, I’m out of a job.”

“I didn’t kill him.”

“Oh really? You going to tell me that the guy from IKEA or whatever did it?”

“Dr. Emmett isn’t dead,” Wade said. “I didn’t kill him.”

“Not for lack of trying. Boy, I ain’t stupid. You know what I meant. You got into it with him last night, and you banged him up.”

“How do you know that?” Wade scoffed, even though he didn’t have a leg to stand on.

Wade knew he’d been clumsy. He wanted to know which mistakes she’d caught.

“You signed the damn furniture delivery slip with your own first name, jackass,” Celeste said. “It wouldn’t take Miss Marple to solve this one.”

“You shouldn’t have come here,” Wade asserted to her.

“And you shouldn’t be messing around with old men. We all make mistakes.”

Wade’s phone began to buzz, interrupting the standoff.

“Wade, let me drive you to the hospital, and we can figure out what we’re going to do next,” Celeste said.

“Are you going to turn me in?”

Celeste hesitated before speaking, which made Wade exceedingly nervous.

“The truth is complicated in this case,” she said to him. “All I know now is that you’re expected at that hospital, and I want to see Dr. Emmett with my own eyes.”

She walked to the passenger side of her Oldsmobile, opening the door for him.

“I can drive my own car, Celeste.”

“Nope,” Celeste said. “Boy, do you think I’m a fucking idiot? We go together. I don’t need you running off, getting yourself into more trouble. I want to keep an eye on you.”

Wade walked over to the passenger side of the Olds, but he still felt like it was valuable to stand his ground with Celeste.

“But I can get away from you any time, lady. I have a smartphone and a rideshare app.”

He waved the phone at her. This boy is dumb as hell, she thought. He was no threat. She almost felt idiotic for even worrying. Her own son never would’ve shown his cards so easily.

Celeste snatched the phone and put it in her pocket.

“What the fuck?” Wade asked her. “Give me that back.”

“I will after you get in the damn car,” she said.

Wade thought back to when they first met. “I remember you filming me when I was drugged as hell.”

She bristled.

“I remember you laughing at me,” he said to her.

He was doing the math, she thought.

“And it wasn’t a week later, Dr. Emmett started shopping at the grocery store. All. The. Time.”

“Just get in the damn car,” Celeste said.

Wade stared at her, gape-mouthed like a fish, but he did as she said. She circled around the front of the Olds and then hopped into the driver’s seat.

“You knew what he was, didn’t you?” he asked her.

She couldn’t look him in the eye.

“You’re going to pay for that,” he vowed. “And my phone.”

She wasn’t sure if he was more bothered about the phone or if he was sore that she intentionally let a child predator know Wade was interested. Either way, she didn’t have time for it.

“If you’re just going to whine like this,” she said to him, “maybe we could just go to the police.”

“You think I’m just whining?” Wade shouted. “I was 16 years old!”

She wouldn’t look at him, but she spat back at him, “You think they’ll try you as an adult now?”

He smirked at her. She thought she was in control. But Wade knew that control is fleeting. It shifts and changes.

She revved the Olds, its sputtering engine bleating out a stench of smoke, and she backed out of the driveway. Though he had plenty to worry about and he should’ve been in a panic, though he didn’t know what to expect, at that moment Wade felt safe with Celeste in the driver’s seat. The pair of them held each other’s secrets, which made them momentary, uncomfortable allies.