Read When You Believe for Free Online

Charlie had said Friday night and she couldn’t stop hearing him, “and the only thing I can see
     is your face.”
    Lydia reversed the boat and opened the throttle wide.
    The old motor rooster-tailed to life.
    And she leaned forward, unable to breathe again, catching the first open waves. She headed back toward the cedar marina built
     by a man that everybody in Shadrach wondered if they knew.

CHAPTER THREE

    Someone had left the sprinkler in the schoolyard running all night. On Wednesday morning, a skin of ice coated the grass
     like shards of glass. Hugging another stack of college-admittance exam booklets to her chest, Lydia walked a broad circle
     around the ticking, frozen sprinkler and used her derriere to push open the double glass doors to Shadrach High School.
    She’d gotten here early enough, she hoped, to avoid staff that might strike up a conversation or ask questions about her long
     office hours yesterday. Her slip-ons made little rubbery squeaks on the machine-polished floor.
    “Whatever you do, don’t look up,” came a man’s voice high overhead that made adrenaline surge through her.
    She looked up, her heart in her throat. “Charlie?”
    “Hi there.”
    When the architect had designed renovations to the school building, the old-timers in town had thought it awful. Now the school
     had newfangled beams inside, heavy cement blocks, open iron trusses. There sat Charlie and several students on a truss, hanging
     over her head with three different tool belts wrapped over beams.
    “What are you doing?”
    “Homecoming decorations,” he informed her. “Nibarger decided we were the only ones who knew how to handle a nail gun.”
    A huge piece of plywood swayed to and fro. Lydia had to step back to see the rounded corners, the silhouette of a monstrous
     school mascot. In a white dialogue balloon the snake incited GO FIRE-RATTLERS! BURN THE BLAZERS! HOMECOMING 2003. I ts fangs jutted at fierce angles from its open serpent jaws.
    Lydia watched Charlie for… what? Some clue? A tip-off that he might not be what he seemed to be? But there he sat, just
     the Charlie she loved. Just the Charlie she would spend her life with here in Shadrach. Or so they had both planned, before
     Shelby Tatum had revealed her terrible story.
    Lydia broke off the stare they shared. “I’d better go.”
    “Yeah,” Charlie said to the kids, “I’ve got a class to get ready for, too. You guys, we have to make sure this thing is secure.
     Check that end, would you?” They took turns tightening the hooks, crimping the chain. “Who can help again fourth period? Jason,
     stop waving your hand. You’ve got a calculus test.”
    Lydia started toward her office. Behind her, she heard the clatter of ladder rungs sliding, a paintbrush falling to the ground.
    “You guys clean up here, okay?”
    She heard the thud as his shoes hit the floor.
    “Hey. Hey,
Lyddie.
” He grabbed her elbow and she spun around. Despite his jovial tone, his eyes hinted of worry. “What did you do all day yesterday?
     I thought you were going to come by my classroom after sixth period.”
    “I… I had a meeting with a student. It lasted awhile.”
    The ordinariness of Charlie’s greeting, the openness of his smile, made Shelby’s claim seem all the more ugly. Uglier than
     death.
A single man around high school girls.
Air forced itself into her lungs against her will. She toyed with the absurd, impossible thing.
He’s been alone for a long time. And if he wanted me . . .
    “I even phoned your uncle’s place last night. He said he hadn’t seen you.”
    “He told me.”
    “Well, then. I wish you had called.”
    Other schoolteachers began to arrive, the muffled monotones of the inner sanctum coming to life. Every conversation was about
     someone, undertones, words drifting mysteriously in and out of rooms.
    “Is something wrong?” he asked. “Are you having second thoughts? Is that it?”
    “
No,”
she said, the one word so vehement that