But that doesn’t make any sense. When Charlie sees a movie in her mind, the second it’s over she understands it was all in her mind’s eye. That it wasn’t real, even though it felt like it. It feels like being nudged awake when you fall asleep in class. Disorienting only for the tiny sliver of time it takes to understand what happened.
She’s never, not once, thought that what she experienced was still real after the fact.
“For how long?” she says.
“Awhile, I guess.”
Charlie scans the dashboard, hoping to see a clock that might tell her what Josh can’t—or won’t. But there isn’t a clock on the dashboard. No surprise there. Maddy’s car didn’t have a clock, either. Only fancier cars do, like the tan Mercedes Nana Norma inherited from one of her elderly boyfriends who’d passed away two summers ago.
“I need you to be more specific than that,” she says.
“Why does it matter?”
It matters because she has no idea what really happened and what was just a dark, twisted fantasy occurring only in her mind. One that still might be occurring, although Charlie has her doubts. She assumes she’d have snapped out of it by now. Then there’s the fact that everything currently feels depressingly real. The movies in her mind are usually stylized. Life amplified. This has the dullness of reality.
“Just give me a time,” she says.
She finds herself hoping Josh will give her an outlandish figure. One long enough to erase every unsettling thing she’s experienced during the drive. It could easily happen. A long drive. Nothing to see out the window but night. Boredom settling in, just like it did when she was a kid. Her thoughts drifting, turning the drab reality of a car trip into something exciting, something new.
“Five minutes,” Josh says, sounding like he picked that number simply because he thinks it will please her.
“You sure?”
“Maybe six. Or longer. I honestly don’t know.”
Charlie wonders if Josh is being vague on purpose. That he knows he slipped up by mentioning the tooth and is now trying to cover it by confusing her. Then again, it’s also possible he truly doesn’t know how long she was lost in her own head and is trying to be helpful.
“You have to have some idea of how long it lasted,” she says. “I was sitting next to you the entire time.”
“I don’t get why you’re asking me all these questions,” Josh says, growing annoyed. “It’s been nonstop ever since we hit the highway. If I’d known this would become an interrogation, I wouldn’t have offered you a ride.”
This is, in its own backhanded way, helpful. Charlie hopes that through Josh’s experience of the drive she’ll get a better idea of her own.
“So I did ask you all those questions?” she says.
“Yes. About my dad and where I grew up and my damn work schedule.”
Since that part was real, so was everything that came before it. Including her seeing Josh’s driver’s license, which prompted all those questions in the first place. That particular worry hasn’t changed.
It still exists.
It’s still potentially dangerous.
As if to underscore that thought, Josh says, “Are you scared of me, Charlie? I get the feeling I make you nervous. Can’t say I blame you. Considering what happened to your friend and all. In fact, I’d be surprised if you weren’t nervous. You don’t know me. Not really. Don’t know what I’m capable of doing.”
Charlie eyes him from the other side of the car. His expression reveals nothing. It’s just a blank slate facing an open road. She hates how unreadable he is. So maddeningly opaque. Yet she’s jealous, too. She longs to know how he does it. How it seems so easy for him to hide his emotions when it feels like her every thought and feeling are visible, like an image projected onto a movie screen.
“Yes,” she says. Since he clearly suspects it, there’s no point in denying it. “You make me nervous.”
“Why?”
Because her best friend was murdered and she thinks Josh is the man who did it and if she can’t even trust her mind, then she sure as hell isn’t going to trust him. He’s lied to her, after all. This uncertainty about the movie in her mind doesn’t change that.
“Because I know you’re lying,” she blurts out. “I know your name isn’t Josh Baxter. I saw your driver’s license.”
Josh furrows his brow. “I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about, Charlie.”
“I saw it, Josh. Or should I start calling you Jake?”
The furrow across Josh’s forehead grows deeper—a ridge of confusion stretching from temple to temple. “Who’s Jake?”
“Your real name,” Charlie says. “Which I saw on your real driver’s license. When your wallet fell off the dashboard, it flopped open and there it was. Jake Collins.”
Josh laughs. A low, incredulous chuckle.
“Is that what you really think? That I’ve been lying about my name?”
“And other things,” Charlie says, finally releasing the suspicion she’d been holding back since Josh first steered them onto the highway. “You didn’t work at Olyphant. Because if you did, you’d know that there really is a Madison Hall there.”
Josh grows quiet, which Charlie takes as a sign he knows he’s been busted about at least one untruth.
“You’re right,” he finally says. “I never worked at the university. I never went there, either. I made all of that up. For the past four years I’ve been working at the Radio Shack just off campus. We passed it as we were leaving.”
Charlie nods, taking it in. Truth at last. A small, tiny, inconsequential bit of it.
“Obvious question,” she says. “Why did you lie about that?”
“Would you have agreed to get in a car with me if I told you the truth?”
“No,” Charlie says, not needing to even think about it. Of course she wouldn’t have. No student in their right mind would ride with some random stranger not associated with the university. “Another obvious question: Why did you need to lure someone into your car?”
“I didn’t lure you,” Josh says.
Charlie shoots him a look. “Well, I sure as fuck feel lured.”
“I didn’t want to be alone. Is that a good enough answer for you? My dad had a stroke, and I felt helpless and sad and didn’t want to drive to Ohio with nothing but all those bad thoughts to keep me company. So I put on this stupid sweatshirt, went to the ride board, and looked for someone to ride with me.”