“Just ignore her,” Bohannan muttered back.
“That never works,” Jace replied.
Jesse was leading us inescapably toward a corner booth covered in red vinyl with baby-blue edging that was almost a circle, and with the easy manner they all migrated to it, it was obviously their regular haunt.
I was taking it further, seeing that my seven thirty pickup time was about the fact it was now almost eight, and this meant not only would we all be hungry, the diner would be mostly cleared out. There were only a couple of patrons there.
Fewer people to see Delphine Larue out and about.
More control of the situation for Bohannan.
And then, before I could ask what Jace and Bohannan were talking about, something happened.
Jesse held back, Jace stood to the side, and in a way I wasn’t sure I experienced what I’d just experienced, Bohannan scooted us into the large booth so Celeste and I were crunched together at the back. Bohannan was practically glued to my right side, and Jesse and Jason sat sentry, nearly falling off the ends of the bench seat.
And yet more control of the situation for Bohannan.
Further, an explanation of why his grown sons were invited to dinner (maybe).
However, this seemed overkill.
So I stage-whispered to Bohannan, “Are you packing?”
Celeste giggled.
“Cade Bohannan!”
I jumped.
Okay, maybe not overkill?
“Told you it was gonna be bad,” Jason muttered.
“Kimmy! What’s shakin’?” Jesse asked as a woman wearing a Christmas cardigan (and it was October) and jingle-bell earrings (again, it was October), with a green and red foil-wrapping-bow headband in her hair stopped at the end of our table.
I tensed.
She didn’t spare me a glance.
Or Jesse, who’d spoken to her, for that matter.
She only had eyes for Bohannan.
“Are you finally interested in hearing what I have to tell you?” she asked him.
“Kimmy, we’ve had this conversation,” Bohannan replied with studied patience, which, taking that further, meant they’d had it many times.
“But you never listen.”
Then Bohannan said, “They’re all dead.”
The woman leaned forward.
I pressed into him and grabbed his thigh.
“There’s no statute of limitation for murder,” she snapped.
My fingers dug in.
“The FBI needs to know.” She was getting shrill.
“Kimmy, why don’t you tell me,” Jesse offered.
She turned to him, openly offended. “You don’t even know who John F. Kennedy was.”
“Yes, I do. He was the thirty-fifth president of these United States, assassinated on November twenty-second, 1963, in Dallas, Texas. He was a member of the Democratic Party. The Bay of Pigs was not his best call. But his handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis rocked. Oh…and his wife was hot.”
Christmas lady appeared vaguely impressed.
“Do you know who killed him?” she sniffed.
“I know you know,” Jess returned.
“I do know,” she declared.
Jesse slid out of the booth, deftly taking the vanilla malt out of the hands of the approaching waitress as he led Christmas lady to the bar, saying, “If we’re gonna do anything about it, then I need to know too.”
The platinum-haired waitress waited until they hit the bar before she told Bohannan. “She’s gonna be real pissed when Fidel Castro’s ghost doesn’t stand trial on Court TV.”
Bohannan covered my hand with his, gave it a squeeze, and I decided maybe I should let go.
I did.
And he did.
Which was disappointing.
The waitress pointed the eraser of a pencil to Jace. “You. Fried mushrooms. Reuben with waffle fries. And apple pie, two scoops of cinnamon-vanilla à la mode.”
“Nailed it,” Jason replied.
“You.” She aimed the eraser at Celeste. “I think you’re feeling northwest burger tonight.”
“You always know what I want, Heidi,” Celeste replied.
“Are we waffle fries or curly fries?” she asked Celeste.
“Curly.”
“Gotcha. You.” It was Bohannan’s turn. “Chicken fried steak, extra potatoes and gravy.”
Bohannan just grunted his affirmative.
Her attention came to me. “You’re new, and if you order salad, I’m gonna warn you, I got lettuce, but I don’t remember the last time we switched it out.”
Wasn’t it a mortal sin to go to a diner and order a salad?
“I want to start with a vanilla malt as I peruse the menu,” I told her. “But please, don’t hold everyone else’s food. I can catch up. Also, please tell me you do a patty melt.”
She did not answer me.
She gazed around the diner.
Which was her answer.
No diner worth its salt didn’t serve a patty melt.
She then turned to Bohannan. “I approve. Now, will you please tell Kimmy the mob killed Kennedy?”
Bohannan’s beard semi-smiled.
“Tra-la,” she said and moseyed away.
“I love it here,” I declared, reaching for one of the ginormous trifold laminated menus stuck between the napkin holder and the ketchup and mustard squirty things.
“Their patty melt is really good,” Celeste told me.
“What’s the northwest burger?” I asked.
“Just a regular burger with cheddar cheese that’s made at a local farm.”
“Yum.”
“I’m not a very adventurous eater,” she admitted.
“Is that a prerequisite to get into hair styling school?” I asked.
She giggled again. “I don’t think so.”
“Then don’t worry about it.”
“I bet you’ve eaten in a lot of fancy places.”
“I once spent four thousand dollars to sit for four hours and watch a chef cook all thirty-three teeny-tiny courses I ate, ending in him fanning a river of chocolate over dry ice in front of us and carving each of us a personalized, very pretty chocolate bar.”
“Wow.”
“And I think the best thing I’ve ever eaten is a fried pork tenderloin sandwich I got in a greasy spoon in Dubuque.”
“Really?” she asked.
“I’m not lying,” I answered.
“That must have been a great sandwich.”
“If I try real hard, I can still taste it.”
She rested some of her weight against me before she pulled away.
Bohannan lifted his arm over my head and draped it on the back of the booth.
Jesse returned.
After resuming his sentry position, he declared, “I think I have to take a break from hunting this psycho to go down to Cuba.”
“I’ll be waiting for your call, Jesse Bohannan!” Kimmy yelled across the diner from her place at the door.
“I’m on it, Kimmy!” Jesse lied.
She glared at him then pushed out using more strength on the door than she needed.
The bell over it rang, and I could swear I heard the tinkle of her jingle bell earrings too.
It was official.
I was never leaving Misted Pines.
Sixteen
Elephant
I woke, petrified.
The dark pressed on me.
Celeste’s weight was a ghost resting against my side.
He was out there.
He was out there.
Not here, but out there.
I turned, reached for my phone, lifted it from its charger and engaged it.
I ignored the light from the screen assaulting my eyes and found the number.
She was in my time zone.
A glance at my clock said it was 2:37 in the morning.
I did not care.
She was trained. Her phone rang only twice before she answered, sounding fu
lly alert.
“Ms. Larue.”
“I need to be moved,” I announced.
Agent Palmer said nothing.
“The town knows about me,” I noted.
“Yes, they do. And your team has assessed this, and we feel, as that has stayed under wraps, that you continue to be safe right now.”
“Those women,” I whispered.
“Ms. Larue.”
“What’s being done?” I demanded.
“You’ve done so well so far,” she muttered.
“What is being done, Agent Palmer?”
“What he’s doing is not your responsibility,” she said firmly.
“You do get you can say that. Freud could come alive, knock on my door, lay me on my couch and say that. Birds can start speaking English and say that. And I will still feel responsibility for what he’s doing to those women.”
“Your service reported those letters by the time you received your third one. We were aware of his tenacity. He gave no indication this would escalate as it did. And you’ll remember, Ms. Larue, that one day, it was your usual marriage proposal, same stationary, same exact words, almost like it was a tick, a habit he’d gotten into that was something he compulsively needed to do to live out his week, and then he was sending bombs and poisoning dogs and kidnapping women. We were all caught unaware.”
“You haven’t answered about what’s being done.”
“She shouldn’t have come visit you,” she mumbled.
I knew exactly what she meant by that.
“This isn’t on Celeste,” I snapped.
“She’s safer than you are, and you’re extremely safe.”
I felt my heart settle because that was the truth.
But it didn’t settle enough.
“Listen, it’s not protocol to share this,” Agent Palmer continued. “But when Bohannan was brought on board, he looked at your case, he did it thoroughly and he worked up a profile. This opened new avenues to the investigation, and we are…we feel we’re…” A long pause during which the specter of Celeste’s weight leaning against my side began to feel as heavy as an elephant. “We feel we might be close.”
“I think I need to leave the country.”
“Please, try to get some sleep, Ms. Larue. And if you’re still feeling that way tomorrow, the next day, we’ll talk again.”
I said nothing.
“This isn’t protocol to say either, but you have the best in the business at your back, Ms. Larue. And I’m not blowing sunshine.”
I sensed that.
It didn’t help.
“I’m sorry I woke you,” I said shortly.
“Try to get some rest,” she replied.
We hung up.
I put the phone back on the charge and stared into the dark.
My phone rang.
The screen told me Agent Palmer had a big mouth.
I picked it up and engaged it.
“I’m fine.”
“I’m coming over,” Bohannan growled.
I opened my mouth to speak but there was no one there to listen.
He’d hung up.
I turned on the bedside light, got up, slipped on my slippers, went to the armchair, pulled on my cardigan and left the room.
I went downstairs, turned on the little lamp on the kitchen bar, both ones on the table behind the couch, and went to hit the outside lights at the back.
I then stood by the security panel, and when I saw him coming, I disarmed it, walked to the door and opened it so he didn’t have to break stride as he stalked across the deck and into my house.
This I accomplished.
I closed the door and turned to him to see he was turned on me.
“What’s the matter?” he demanded.
“She shouldn’t have called you,” I replied.
“I’m the lead on your local detail. You’re making noises about switching your location. This means you’re getting agitated. Agitated is not a good state for anybody, and not something any security detail will take lightly. She’d be reprimanded if she didn’t call me.”
Huh.
“What’s the matter?” he repeated. “What’s happened?”
“I lied about being that person for Celeste. Not a lie lie, but a lie. I’m going to have to go, and after he’s caught, come back.”
“From now on, Jace, Jess or me are sleeping on your couch.”
“No!” I cried.
He didn’t speak.
“That leaves her even less protected.”
“No one is going to harm my daughter.”
At this new tone—flinty and terrifying—about one hundred and fifty pieces flew together and landed in his puzzle.
I shouldn’t have turned on the lights. I did it to read him.
But I knew he was reading me when he ordered, “Come here.”
“He’s hurting them,” I whispered.
“Larue, come here.”
“You saw the pictures. Agent Palmer told me you’d looked at my file.”
“I’m going to touch you in a second.”
I didn’t move.
He came to me and wrapped his arms around me.
His body was like his thigh, warm and hard.
I dissolved.
He held me up.
“They need to find him,” I sobbed into his chest.
“They’ll find him,” he murmured, one of his hands gliding up, going under my hair, curling around the back of my neck, his other arm sliding further along my back, pulling me deeper into him.
“I have nightmares.”
“Okay.”
“If it wasn’t for me—”
“He’d fixate on someone else. C’mon, Larue. You know this. It’s his damage. If it wasn’t those women, it’d be other ones for some other reason he became obsessed. He was cracked, set to break. He broke, and it had nothing to do with you.”
I took a ragged breath.
“Is Celeste by herself right now?”
“Jess and Jace were gearing up in front of the Xbox when I was walking out the door.”
I relaxed.
“You profiled him?”
His fingers and arm squeezed. “We’re not talkin’ about that.”
I closed my mouth.
I opened it to say, “But you did?”
“Yeah.”
“Is he going to kill them?”
“Larue.”
“Tell me.”
A sigh so deep, my body moved several inches as he did it.
And then, “With you inaccessible, the others disappeared, his frustration will be mounting, and if they don’t find him in say, the next week…yes.”
I shoved my face in his chest.
“And he’ll get new ones,” I mumbled.
“Yes.”
I tipped my head back, his beard came down, and I got that clear gray.
“Are they gonna find him?”
His gaze didn’t leave mine.
And he said, “Yes.”
Seventeen
Dark
“I never thought in my entire life I would say this, but I want one of these.”
Jesse and I were standing in my glorious, brand-spanking-new closet.
David was in my office, painting.
My new desk would arrive in two days.
Which was good, because if I could sort my head out, it was time to get to work.
“I don’t know. I’m thinking maybe I should have torn down a wall,” I replied.
“The only wall you could tear down leads to a bedroom.”
I looked at him. “Yes.”
Jesse was very sharp, like his father, like his brother, but it took him a second to process the fact I was lamenting that I didn’t make my closet, which was already the size of a room, into a closet that was bigger than the master bedroom.
But when he processed it, he started to laugh.
It was time.
“It takes the sneak out of the attack to warn you, but I’m about to perpet
uate a sneak attack.”
He stopped laughing.
I put it out there.
“It takes one to know one, and you’re an excellent actor.”
“Delphine,” he muttered.
Right there.
Sharp.
“Your sister is worried, and your father needs you. You can’t be messing around with this, Jesse. People are depending on you now, and more will in the future. You have to take care of yourself.”
He looked angry, very, and like his father (and I suspected his brother), he was not the guy to let that loose on me.
Therefore, he turned to leave.
“Don’t walk away from me,” I commanded in Mom Voice.
He got the voice and pivoted to me.
“You aren’t my mother, and newsflash, you aren’t Celeste’s either. I don’t give a fuck how many dinners you make us. We barely know you.”
Okay, maybe I was wrong about him not letting loose on me.
But I could take it.
“No, I’m not. I’m your neighbor. I’m your friend. I’ve grown to care about all of you. A good deal. And I can tell you, living in the purgatory I’m currently occupying, and that purgatory revolves around two females I’ve never met and likely, for their mental health, never will, I get something you don’t. So I can say with some authority, considering it was their daughter, regardless of the outcome, it is so much better for the Pulaskis to know where Alice is than if she was never found. For you, the job is undone. Them as well. They want justice even more than you do. But for them, you’ve given something precious. It is not a treasured gift, but it’s a gift nonetheless. Now, you have to keep yourself together to finish the job.”
Jesse nor Jason had beards, just the scruff of two men who weren’t fond of shaving.
So the muscle racing up his cheek was unhidden.
“You do know how much it says about you that what you found has affected you so,” I said in a gentler tone.
“You’d have to be that fuckin’ guy for that shit not to twist you up,” he bit off.
“Do you want to tell me about it?”
He looked appalled. “And give it to you?”
“Yes.”
His body listed.
It started with a dip of the shoulder and ended with his chin lazily drifting to the side.
Through this, he stared at me.
Because through this, puzzle pieces were landing.
The Girl in the Mist: A Misted Pines Novel Page 9