One Door from Disaster

Charlie · Chapter 7 of 23 · 22-minute read

“Take us to a side door,” Charlie commanded as their cab stopped at the main entrance of the castle hotel.

“You and your wife will be drenched,” the driver protested. “There’s a fecking storm going on outside if ye haven’t noticed.”

“She’s not my wife, and yes, we noticed. Pull up over there.” He leaned forward from the back seat, over the driver’s left shoulder, who sat tensely behind the right-side steering wheel. Charlie jabbed his finger in the direction of a banquet hall entrance, but the driver shook his head.

“I can’t go that way. Here, wait a minute.” He drove past the main entrance and circled back through the parking lot. Only then did Charlie remember that the Irish drove on the left side of the road, not the right; the difference had left him disoriented for a moment.

Rune cuddled up next to him, almost under his arm and against his chest. She hadn’t spoken in over thirty minutes. Just why in the hell did she have to get a room in the same hotel where he and Lilah were staying? Rune didn’t question him choosing the rainier path, though. She knew as well as he did that he didn’t want to chance Lilah spotting him in the lobby, or in any of the hallways. One door away, one hallway away from disaster.

The driver braked close to the side entrance. “I’ll get ye as close as I can,” he said. “If ye insist on going in that way, I might as well help ye out.”

Charlie checked the meter on the console beside the driver and dug into his pocket. “Thanks,” he said, shoving two bills into the driver’s palm. He unlatched the door and pushed out against the storm winds.

“Too much! Too much!” protested the driver.

“Keep it,” Charlie shouted back over the wind as he pulled Rune out behind him. She nestled down into the hood of her red jacket, blinking against the hardest rain he had seen in Ireland. He did his best to shield her from the elements as he half-dragged, half-carried her to the door, then fumbled for another few seconds with his keycard until he was able to open the side entrance and push her through.

Would the driver just forget about this night? Two more faces in the crowd that he had dropped off at the hotel in the middle of a storm. A fare who had insisted on going to a side door, even with all its extra trouble. Or would the driver, later in the week, be seated in front of some law enforcement officer trying to remember every detail he could about them?

The heavy door closed behind them, wind howling outside as Charlie made sure it was secure. When he turned around, Rune had pushed the hood from her face. He tried not to let her see his impatience. Her face was still bruised, but now her eyes were red from crying. He hadn’t been able to imagine why the destruction of the Scholar’s Library had affected her so badly until she’d explained that Marco had sent her sister-in-law into the library. Lovey was surely the person who’d died there, even if her name hadn’t been released yet.

He paused long enough to tug the hood back over her hair and hide as much of her face as possible. No one needed to see her here. If anybody was looking for her, her hair would be too easy to recognize.

Hopefully, they’d stayed clear of Marco after Charlie had picked her up outside St. Patrick’s Cathedral and spent the day trying to find out what he could about the explosion. He’d left her alone for a few hours only because, for some strange reason she couldn’t or wouldn’t verbalize, Rune had refused to accompany him on his investigation into the explosion. He’d given her all the money on him to buy both new clothes and a tote bag full of anything she might need for a few days in hiding. He’d even given the credit card to Rune so she could pay for a hotel for the next few days and buy a plane ticket back to the States, and she’d fucking rented a room at the castle hotel. It would be hell explaining to Dr. St. Augustine why he’d used the library credit card for a woman who wasn’t Lilah. Hopefully, he’d have everything worked out by the time the bill came through.

Hopefully.

“Marco said⁠—”

“Not here.”

He looked past her shoulders down the hallway. They were alone, at least as far as he could tell.

He looked back to Rune. Her face was red from sobbing; on her left cheek, the bright red faded into a deepening purple where her brother had beaten her.

“Not here,” he said more gently. “I’ll get you up to your room, and we can talk there.” Then he added quickly, “But only talk.”

He cared for Rune, maybe more deeply and more quickly than he had realized. But he still wouldn’t cheat on Lilah. He honestly wanted to help Rune, not help himself to her.

Rune looked hurt. “I would never touch you unless I knew you wanted me to.” She started down the hall towards the lobby area.

He grabbed her arm and pulled her back. “Where are you going? Please, let’s take the back way. I can’t afford to be seen.”

Damn it! What was wrong with her? It was almost as if she wanted Lilah to see them together.

“You can’t afford to be seen either, Rune. We don’t know exactly who’s looking for you.”

“I have to get my room key from the front desk and check in. I’ll call you if I need you. You stay here.” She paused to direct a single word at him that sounded both sincere and sarcastic. “Hide.”

He paced as he waited, worried that Lilah could return at any moment.

“This way,” Rune said when she got back. She must have forgotten her annoyance with him because she took him by the hand and pulled him toward the stairs near the side door.

The carpet on the stairs looked the same from floor to floor as they passed each hallway lined by rooms. The pattern on the floor was a crazy mix of purples and pinks. In the States, he would’ve called it “lowest bidder” carpet. But Lilah had liked it for the color, if not for the pattern. She seemed to like anything that was purple.

What had Lilah done all day? Gone to all the tourist spots they had planned to see together? More importantly, how would she react when she saw him again? He’d told her he needed time to think, yet he’d spent the entire day with Rune, minus Rune’s occasional disappearance, and doing anything but thinking. About Lilah, that was. He still hadn’t come to any conclusions. He was still smack dab in the middle of his crossroads.

He lost track of the floors as he followed Rune. They all seemed to look alike.

“This way,” she said, walking not nearly fast enough. They stopped to let two women pass, and Charlie recognized them instantly as the two women who had passed him in the hallway two nights ago when he’d gone down to the bar to meet Rune and bring desserts back for Lilah.

He whirled around, looking at the numbers on the doors. Realization dawned on him a split second after Rune tried her keycard in one of the doors and the tiny light flashed green. He ushered her inside quickly—no, shoved her inside, harder than he meant to.

“What the hell are you doing?” he asked, in a stage whisper, closing the door behind the two of them. “Bad enough that you got a room in the same hotel, but you got a room next door to mine and Lilah’s?”

“Really?” She blinked at him. “You mean Lilah’s next door right now?”

“Probably!”

One door away from disaster! How did Rune expect him to keep her hidden when Lilah was on the other side of the wall? They’d run into each other at breakfast or a quick trip down to the lobby. Why on earth would she want to force the situation with Lilah? He’d told Rune he was still at a crossroads, just as he had told Lilah. And yet, Rune was the one who was doing her best to pull him in one direction or another. Preferably, hers.

Rune looked as if she might start crying again.

“Look, I’ve got to check on Lilah. I haven’t seen her all day. I left without talking to her this morning. I owe her that. And… and I still haven’t made up my mind.”

“You’re going to leave me?” Rune’s bottom lip quivered. “I haven’t even told you what Marco said.”

Damn. She knew every button to push. Even if she didn’t mean to.

“We’ll talk later. I promise. I’ll find a reason to leave Lilah again for a few minutes, and you and I will talk and….”

“But I need you, Charlie.”

Ugh. He felt like such a jerk. Rune never asked anything of him. Not really. Not ask, that is. She told him what would happen if she didn’t get what someone else wanted, like her brother’s demands. But she never asked for anything for herself. She was a pawn. She wasn’t as strong as he was.

Charlie bent forward and planted a kiss on her forehead. “I’ll be back. I promise. Then you can tell me everything that Marco said, and I’ll… I’ll find a way to help you.”

He took a deep breath and turned back to the closed door. He opened it only a few inches and peeked outside in both directions to see if anyone else was out there.

When he was sure that Lilah wasn’t there, he closed the door behind him quickly and stood in the hallway, as if he had just happened to wander up. He glanced around one more time and then inserted his keycard in Lilah’s door. The light flashed green. At least she hadn’t changed rooms and left him stranded.

“Lilah?” he called, pushing inside.

Everything was dark. He planted his keycard in a slot on the wall and the lights came on. He was alone. The beds had been made, fresh towels left in the bathroom, and the mess they’d left behind had been straightened.

Where was she? Her backpack was still there, the larger one. Some of her clothes had been left on the table beside the bed, neatly folded. Her smaller backpack was gone, as well as her jacket and boots.

On the nightstand was a Castle Hotel notepad with something scribbled on it. He plopped down on their bed to read. When he’d left at daylight, he’d written on it:

Lilah, I need time to myself.

Enjoy your sightseeing today, and I’ll talk to you later.

As much as he’d hated missing out on his plans with Lilah, Rune had needed him more. She’d fled from her brother and had had nowhere to go and no one to call but him. Charlie had kicked himself about not being able to tell Lilah where he was or why, but he was positive she wouldn’t understand.

Sometime before the maid service had straightened the room, Lilah had answered him with a note and walked out.

Charlie,

I’m sorry we argued. I shouldn’t have abandoned you at the pub. I can’t blame you for walking out on me this morning. You need time to think, and I understand that because I’m trying to be a good girlfriend. I’m not the easiest person to love. I wish I could be a better person. I’m trying. I am, really. Furious with you one minute and furious with myself the next. We’re good when it’s just you and me, but obviously I keep doing stuff wrong or else you wouldn’t be having so many doubts right now.

I’m going to Tara as planned, but I decided to rent a car at the last minute. We can still meet up and go there together. Call me. I’m going to spend my day immersing myself in history and try to get a little perspective. Anyway, take all the time you need.

I love you, Charlie Peterson.

Hope to see you at Tara if not before.

Call me.

—L

Charlie sighed and just sat on the bed, trying not to think about anything—Lilah, Rune, The Lost Teachings of Dead Monks, the explosion at the library. Lilah’s plea to call her and join her on her sightseeing. The undertones of anger that he could decipher in the words she chose. He had no idea when Lilah had left or when she was coming back, but Rune was alone in the room next door. She was hurting, a blubbering mess whose only ally was the woman who had died in the rubble of the Scholar’s Library. Rune and Lovey, according to Rune, had been close and helped one another through the family’s dysfunction. Now, it was just Rune and her abusive brother.

Charlie had to find a way to help her get out from under Marco’s thumb. Rune hadn’t done anything illegal, except maybe as an accessory to two thefts that Charlie himself had committed. He could still save her.

Charlie reached under the mattress, feeling for the box with the diamond inside. His fingers scraped the edges, and he buried his shoulder between the mattresses until he had the box in his grasp. He pulled it out and opened the box, staring at the diamond engagement ring. He’d been so in love with Lilah that he’d bought it two months after he’d met her, almost a year ago. He could’ve used the one that his ex had given back to him, but it didn’t seem right, so he’d overspent yet again. He’d dreamed all that time, even when Lilah had lost her mind over Jakin, that she would come back to him, and she had. She’d given her whole heart, what was left of it, to Charlie. Given all of herself over to him. He’d won.

Only a month of staring into each other’s eyes had gone by before that first strange message from Rune had shown up in his Fourth World inbox, asking if he knew he was guilty of identity theft by using both her likeness and her name for the simulated librarian of the Fourth World incarnation of the St. Augustine Special Collections Library. Such an innocent question to draw him into such a whirlpool of drama.

Here was Lilah in her scribbled note, once again thinking that whatever was wrong was her fault and having no idea what was going on inside his head. He was good at hiding things, good at masks. If he took off all of his masks, he had no idea who he was underneath. He wanted to be the man that Lilah wanted him to be. He also wanted to be who Rune thought he was—a hero, a protector. Deep down, Lilah knew that he was none of those things. Sure, she thought of him as a “good man,” but she also knew that she was the stronger of the two of them, by far. Maybe she even convinced herself that he was her protector and not the other way around. He was what she thought she needed, and he wore that mask for her, but some spark deep in his soul told him he was a fraud.

Charlie snapped the box shut and sank it into his pocket. He stood over the note on the nightstand, then picked up the pen on top of it.

Dear Lilah,

I wanted to talk, but you weren’t here when I came back. Probably just as well.

I’m sorry, but I’m still thinking.

—C

He made an intentional decision not to mention his failure to meet her at Tara after such a long note from her. Or even to call her. He started to walk away, then turned back to pen one more line.

P.S. I love you always. I hope you know that. I’d take a bullet for you.

Charlie showered, shaved the scruffiness off his face, and changed into a clean pair of jeans and a long-sleeved red shirt. He’d brought only clothes that Lilah had deemed her favorites so that, when he went down on bended knee on the Cliffs of Moher and presented her with that diamond, she would always remember him in something that she loved.

After making certain Lilah wasn’t waiting in the narrow corridor, Charlie counted to ten before knocking on Rune’s door. She opened the door wide. He took one last glance up and down the hallway and then stepped over the threshold.

Rune had freshened up, too. Her hair, newly brushed and loose at her shoulders, hung past the crevice between her breasts. She wore a long, white negligee that skimmed her knees. The shape of her nipples was visible through the fabric. Not exactly the most practical clothes to buy with the money he’d given her, but she’d clearly had this moment in mind.

“My lips are up here,” she whispered. She cupped his chin and covered his lips with hers.

He almost kissed her back but pulled away. “I, um, I’m sorry.” He tried to sound stern but couldn’t. “I shouldn’t have done that. I wasn’t expecting to see you in, um, that.” He glanced down at her hardening nipples again. “You’re cold. I’ll get you a jacket or a, um, quilt.”

She laughed and walked across the room ahead of him. “No need. I’m not cold. I’m made this way.”

Charlie wanted to sink through the floor. “I’m not here for, um, for that. You needed to talk and you, um, you were going to tell me what⁠—”

“What Marco said, yes. Come sit with me.”

She perched on the corner of the king-sized bed, her negligee parting to show the underside of one thigh and the length of the other as she crossed her legs. He noticed, for the first time, that she wore an ankle bracelet around the one that she swung. On the table beside her were two glasses of red wine, one full and one minus a few sips. He wondered whether it tasted like Rune’s lips.

“I hope you don’t mind that I ordered room service for you. It’s been a long day.”

Charlie stood awkwardly in the middle of the room. Too much could go wrong here. He was still a man, after all, with a man’s needs. Rune was a beautiful woman, offering herself up to him. Were it not for Lilah, he would not have hesitated. He scooped up the full glass in one hand but sat in a straight chair on the opposite side of the room.

“Anything I can do for you, Charlie? You’ve been so wonderful to me. I don’t know how I would make it through this without you.” She had reapplied her eye makeup, this time with long cat’s-eye eyeliner, but there was still a smear of tearstained mascara under her unblemished eye. Even with a black eye, a bruised cheek, and smudged makeup, Rune was beautiful, sweet.

“I would do the same for anybody, Rune.”

That was who he was. He was a good guy to everyone. Helpful, nice. He’d always known exactly who he was, unlike Lilah, who had finally found her purpose and figured out what she wanted out of life. Suddenly he wasn’t so sure of what he wanted.

He needed time to think, not to be in the middle, with one woman pushing him in one direction and another pulling him in yet another direction. He’d been concerned about Rune, but now he was invested. He had to figure out how to help her, and how to keep Lilah content. Walking the line between them was like walking a tightrope. Lilah wasn’t just the woman he planned to marry: she was his best friend. If he didn’t have her to talk to, he was walking that wire without a net.

Swishing the wine in its goblet, Charlie tried his best not to look at Rune in her sexy sheath. He wanted too badly to be wanted. He wasn’t exactly innocent in whatever tension stood between them. He took a sip and swished some more. Nor was he innocent of theft. He wasn’t innocent at all.

“Sorry, I couldn’t talk earlier. About your sister-in-law. I know you were close.”

He caught her nod from the side of his eye. “We couldn’t talk there. You were right. You’re always right, Charlie.”

“When you disappeared today….” The first time of three she’d disappeared, not including when he’d sent her off to buy clothes while he tracked down information on the explosion.

He’d practically raced to her when she’d messaged him at daybreak, begging for him to stick around in case she didn’t survive the day. Afraid her brother was dead and afraid he was alive, Charlie had stood inside St. Patrick’s Cathedral and watched Rune walk out. He couldn’t go with her. She and her family had had an agreement that if they lost contact for any reason during their stay in Dublin, she’d meet them at noon in the garden next to the cathedral—alone, to know none of them had been compromised. Eventually, he’d gone outside to wait for her. She’d not been there, either alone or with her brother. He didn’t even know what direction she’d gone in or if she was still alive. He’d been in a raw panic.

“You were gone for hours. I thought….” That she was dead? That Marco had finished the beating he’d started?

“Thank you.”

Charlie looked up. “For what?”

“For waiting. For still being there when I came back to St. Patrick’s. I was so scared, after I had my brother drop me off, but I saw you there walking in circles, and I knew I would be okay.” She tilted her head and smiled. “As long as I’m with you, I’ll be safe. Always.”

His heart melted. Her confession was about as far as he could imagine from anything Lilah might ever say to him. He had no doubts that Lilah loved him, but Rune? Rune needed him. Lilah was strong and fearless. Although she was full of darkness sometimes, she could make it in the world alone. Hell, she liked being alone. Lilah was a survivor.

Rune was different. Sweet. Compliant. Never scolding him. Never so independent that he felt emasculated when he was with her. She had a way of making him feel powerful. Like he was the only person in the world who could save her.

If Lilah could make me feel that way just once.

“What are you thinking, my sweetheart? You look so serious.”

He swigged his wine and smiled back at her. “About you. What a good person you are to be caught up in such drama.”

“A good person wouldn’t have reached out to you just because her brother threatened to hurt her if she didn’t. If I were a good person, I would have stood up to him.” She hung her head.

“If you’re at fault, then I’m more at fault. No one forced me to steal from my employer. I knew better. I could’ve found some other way.”

Though he still didn’t know what other way. Every time Rune showed up with a bruise, he knew it was because he hadn’t found some other way. He’d felt useless, like he couldn’t protect her when she’d turned to him and him alone.

Charlie started to stand, then hesitated. Did he dare? He crossed the room and sat beside her on the bed. With only a moment’s reluctance, he slid his left arm around her waist and hugged her.

“I can’t believe Lovey is gone.” Rune’s eyes brimmed with tears. One solitary drop slipped over the edge and trailed down her bruised cheek.

Charlie hugged her closer. “I know. I’m sorry. But why was she there instead of your brother? And why blow the⁠—”

Wrenching out of Charlie’s embrace, Rune pushed away and glared at him. “You think we—I mean, Lovey—planted that bomb? Is that what you think?”

He didn’t know what to think. He repeated in his head the words he’d spoken but wasn’t sure what he’d said wrong. He tried to put his arm around her and draw her back, but she swatted him away, spilling red wine down the front of her new negligee. The white fabric soaked up the wine, showcasing one nipple. He couldn’t stop staring.

Rune knew it, too. She pulled her vivid red hair over the wetness on her dress to hide herself. She lowered her cheek against her shoulder and looked up at him. “Lovey didn’t blow up that library. She didn’t have a bomb. My brother sent her in there to get that book that you could’ve given me two days ago. If you had, no one would’ve been hurt. That’s all my brother wanted. Just a stupid old book that he knew was going to become available this week. He didn’t have a bomb. He didn’t do that kind of thing.” Flustered, she shook her head. “I mean, he doesn’t play around with explosives.”

Not that kind of thing, Charlie thought, but plenty of other kinds of things, including beating his sister and sending his wife to commit a crime that had cost her life.

“I can’t seem to say the right thing, Rune. I’m sorry. You were trying at the cathedral to tell me what happened, and I dragged you away because I was worried you were in trouble and might be detained if we hung around. That’s one reason getting new clothes for you was smart. I didn’t want you to be recognized.”

Although hair that unnatural color, even in the land of redheads, was like a spotlight over her.

Rune’s face softened. “I apologize, too, my sweet Charlie. You were only trying to help. I don’t mean to take it out on you.” She inched back to his side, then flipped her hair off her shoulder, exposing the wine stain and more of herself as she did.

Charlie looked away. “But who blew it up? And why? I don’t understand.”

“It was rigged! It could’ve been anybody breaking in there for any reason—maybe a homeless person needing shelter—but it was my….” She sighed, real pain in her face. “It was my family. Stealing a book was a victimless crime and now look who’s the victim!”

Charlie wasn’t so sure. He felt awful for Rune, but a victimless crime was still a crime, even if he himself had committed one. At least he hadn’t died sneaking a book out of Dr. St. Augustine’s library. Not yet. When Dr. St. A. found out though, he’d be toast.

Shifting in the uncomfortable silence, Charlie tried to think of what to say. Rune had lost someone she loved last night, and she had every right to be irrational. “You never told me the rest of what happened with Marco.”

“He was furious. He’d just lost his wife. He blamed me. He said if I’d been smarter—” She lifted the hem on the side without the slit, dragging it slowly over her calf, her knee, up to her thigh where a red circle was already turning purple.

Charlie gasped. “He did that today?”

“He said if I’d been smarter, I would have found a way to get you to do what I wanted. He said he’s lost the book now that would have made all the difference in our lives, and I’m to blame. I was able to stop him before he could hurt me again, but Charlie, if I can’t give him what he wants, I think he means to kill me.”

Charlie rubbed his forehead. He was tired. He’d had none of the dinner Rune had mentioned, and the alcohol was already fogging his brain.

Maybe it was time to go to the police. Or to Dr. St. Augustine. But how could he do that without implicating himself? How would he explain his role in finding a book few people knew existed? He wasn’t even allowed to talk about the book with anyone other than Lilah, Emry, Dr. St. Augustine, and the employees of the now defunct Scholars’ Library. How could he explain the explosion that had left the early eighteenth-century building in rubble and the city in a panic? God, he was in the middle of an international incident! No, Rune was in the middle, and he was by her side.

How had everything in his life turned to shit so quickly?

“He said if I didn’t marry you and pass along information to him on the work you do, that I don’t have a use to him and might as well be dead.”

“Stop worrying. I’m getting you out of Ireland and far away from him. That’s why I told you to book yourself a flight to the States.”

Tears spilled down her face again. “You don’t know my brother. He’s relentless. He’s killed before. If you can’t find a way to placate him, he’ll kill me, and you can’t stop him.”

Raking one hand through his hair, he put the wine glass to his lips. There had to be a way. He took a gulp of the wine. It burned his throat.

“Maybe,” he said, “your brother would be satisfied with a different book.”

Which book, he didn’t know. Charlie had access to other valuable books. Ones that weren’t such a curse as The Lost Teachings was becoming to him. It meant he’d have to steal again. How long could this last before Dr. St. Augustine caught and castrated him? He took another sip.

Rune’s eyes widened. Her voice lightened with excitement. “There is one other book that might be an acceptable substitute. In fact, I’m positive Marco will leave us be if you can deliver the book called The Key of Hell and Death.”

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