For Jesse.
About me.
“I’ll talk to somebody,” he said quietly.
I released a breath.
“I don’t know…” he began but didn’t finish.
“Yes?”
“I don’t know…”
I waited patiently.
Shame filtered through as he admitted, “I don’t know if I can finish this job.”
“Your father will understand.”
“We find him, I’ll kill him.”
“Your father will understand.”
“The things he did to her.”
My stomach hurt.
“Your father, Jesse, honey, will understand.”
“He shouldn’t have to do this alone.”
“He knows how to deal.”
“Does he, Delphine?”
I nearly gagged, my mouth filled with saliva so fast at the same time my throat closed.
“He’s got years of seeing shit like that and hunting the monsters who do it,” Jesse continued.
“Do you sense that he—?”
“What is dark on dark?”
“Dark.”
“How much dark can someone absorb before they’re consumed by it?”
“Jesse, do you sense your father is having issues dealing with this case or his work?” I demanded.
“He’s human.”
“And I offer this with great care, but you might be projecting.”
“You didn’t see her, Delphine. He did.”
I didn’t say anything or move.
Jesse didn’t say anything or move.
That bad?
Worse.
He turned to gaze out the window.
I did the same.
That window was a bonus to the closet. It even had a window seat. David knew a talented seamstress in town, I’d ordered some material online, and she was making a fitted pad and some toss pillows for it.
Considering the age of the house, I couldn’t imagine this closet was fit for purpose. That room was meant to be a nursery, a studio, a reading nook.
Why the old guy who lived there before me, considering a wife or partner was never mentioned, made it into a closet, I didn’t know.
I didn’t care.
It had room for an island, which David had also crafted. He’d found a beautiful antique bureau, gleamed it up, and in a clever way that made it seem like that was how it had always been, he’d added onto it at the sides and back. Now it had boxes for shoes or scarves, and shelves at the back for sweaters and folded jeans. He’d also located an offcut of marble to put on the top.
It was divine.
When I’d first seen the island, which had come only after David had looked at my closet design and said, “Trust me,” and then I found out he had a hobby/side business of repurposing old furniture, I marveled at all the varied signs that pointed me to Misted Pines.
I knew without a doubt that piece would be worth thousands of dollars in LA.
And yet there it was, crafted in David’s garage in his free evening hours, just for me, and it wasn’t cheap, but it wasn’t what he’d get in the big city.
“Celeste is worried about him too, you know,” Jesse informed me.
That cinched it.
“I’ll talk to him,” I said.
I then jumped.
Because Jesse moved, coming to me, giving me a brief, tight hug, letting me go, and then he walked away.
Eighteen
A Fan
My conversation with Jesse was two days after my conversations with Agent Palmer and Bohannan.
And now, it was two days after that.
I was on edge, because this meant the week that Bohannan had given it before my stalker killed his hostages was coming to an end.
I was on edge because I figured this two-day thing was a good pattern, and it was now a good time to assess where Bohannan was at mentally in dealing with the murder of Alice Pulaski.
As yet, I’d heard no word that Jesse had extricated himself from the investigation, which, considering the boys never shared anything about the investigation with me, wasn’t a surprise.
I had also not heard if Jesse had sought someone to talk to, but as he’d told me he’d do this, I had every faith he had, and from now on, that was none of my business.
I was also on edge because Bohannan was over to my place for dinner, and although he had brooked no further argument, and either Jason or Jesse slept on my couch since he said they were going to (and I had a feeling he stayed home so I wouldn’t freak about Celeste not being under his personal watch), now was the first time he was over for dinner alone.
And last, I was on edge because Bohannan played his cards close to his chest. I was getting a better bead on him, but I wasn’t even close to focused, and still…he wasn’t hiding that he was on edge.
So, of course, I stood across from him where he was seated at my bar, in each of my hands I held a plate covered in salmon and lemon couscous, and I threatened, “I’m throwing these in your face if you don’t tell me what’s going on.”
“Celeste is out on a date.”
Instantly distraught, I let both hands drop so the backs of them were lying on the counter, the plates on top.
Bohannan reached out, took one and put it on the placemat beside him, then the other, and put it before him.
“Bohannan,” I warned.
“Don’t worry, Jess is trailing her.”
I glared.
“And Jace is trailing him.”
I relaxed.
Then I tensed again.
“Is it Will?”
He nodded.
Now, I was hurt.
“When did this happen?” I asked, wounded that Celeste hadn’t told me.
She was a communicator of the Cade Bohannan variety, not like Jace and Jess, who both knew how to express themselves somewhat openly.
But she still shared, mostly through texts, things like, Do we really need algebra in real life? (to which, obviously, I replied, No), and Do you think I’d look good in red lipstick? (to which, obviously, I replied, Everyone looks good in red lipstick), and When are we starting dinner tonight? (which, obviously, meant she’d started cooking with me).
News of this import, I thought she’d give to me.
“It’s okay, baby,” Bohannan said gently. “It came as a surprise to her too. I guess he upped and asked her in chemistry today. She said yes, obviously. They got a malt after school at the Double D, went to a movie, and they’re having dinner after.”
Well then.
That meant she might not have had time to tell me.
“That’s a marathon date.”
“Figure the kid needs not to be home.”
I’d lay money on that being right.
But…
I studied him.
Wait.
Oh boy.
“What?” I asked.
“Are you gonna sit down beside me so we can eat?”
I rounded the counter and sat down beside him.
I even picked up my fork.
Then I turned to him and repeated, “What?”
His eyes moved over my face.
I waited impatiently.
As such, I lost my patience.
“Bohannan, what?”
“Kid’s solid. Dale’s a decent guy. The wife though,” he murmured.
I twisted to him. “Alice’s mother?”
“Dale cheated.”
The plot thickens.
“Go on.”
“They worked together. Audrey got pregnant. Dale divorced Will’s mom, married Audrey. Didn’t hide it so much that he did it because he thought it was the right thing for his unborn daughter. They had Alice.”
This put into question the Tri-Lake Chronicle’s depiction of them being as a church-going, close-knit family.
They could go to church and probably did.
The close-knit part though?
“Well…shit,” I whispered.
“Uh-huh,” he agreed.
“Does he love her?”
Bohannan shoved salmon in his mouth and gave me a side eye.
He didn’t love her.
Close-knit was out the window.
“Where’s the first wife?”
“In town.”
“Bitter? Vengeful?”
“Hurt. Reclusive. Wondering what she did wrong.”
“Still? After eight years?”
“Still,” Bohannan confirmed. “After eight years.”
That was losing-the-love-of-your-life kind of grieving.
I sat up. “Right. Now I’m getting pissed.”
“Sarah wouldn’t harm a fly. Literally. I’ve seen her shoo them out of the house.”
“Not about that.”
Bohannan turned to me. “I’m not gonna defend a guy who stepped out on his wife. I will say, he got his punishment.”
“Audrey isn’t cool?”
“Audrey’s known wide as a woman who gets what she wants.”
“Pregnancy a trap?”
“Generally accepted it was.”
“Was he unaware he wasn’t shooting blanks?” I asked sarcastically.
“I’m not exonerating him, Larue. He loved his first wife. He told me that a couple of nights ago, drunk and fucked up pretty much beyond recognition, and the fucked-up part wasn’t about the drink. Why he dipped his wick elsewhere, I don’t know. He says he doesn’t know. Though, that’s now, after nine years with his current wife and without the one he loved in his life. Bet if I asked nine years ago, he’d have a reason. And it wouldn’t be about Sarah, even though he’d tell himself it was. It’d be about him being weak.”
Considering my own history, and the fact that Bohannan had a dick (I assumed—alas, I hadn’t seen it), I asked a question I’d been longing to ask a man for thirty years.
“Why do you guys do that?”
I nearly reared back at the look on his face.
“What guys?”
“Okay, I’ll rephrase. Why do some guys do that?”
He turned to his plate, muttered, “Better,” and shoved salmon in his mouth.
Damn it all to hell.
I could fall in love with this man.
Crap.
“So?” I pushed.
He chewed, swallowed and turned back to me. “How do I know? I loved my wife. I fucked my wife. Didn’t stop attractive women being in my life, but I didn’t fuck them. Didn’t occur to me. So I can’t begin to answer that.”
Seriously?
“Are you for real?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, take a stab,” I pressed.
“I already did.”
“What?”
“Weak.”
“Oh. Yeah. You did say that,” I mumbled, finally turning to my food.
“Commit is the root of the word commitment,” he stated as I shoved in some salmon and couscous. “Some people find that hard. Just the word seems like it’s supposed to be work. You commit to a workout regime. You commit to a diet. You commit to earning a degree. You commit to a career. The way I see it, when you’re talking about a relationship, you don’t do it unless you feel it. If that means half the population of the planet didn’t commit to a partner, world would be better for it. Hearts gone unbroken.”
More pieces falling: Bohannan was a sage.
He kept giving me that.
“I hate the word commitment used about a relationship. It’s inaccurate. You’re with someone because you want to be with someone. A relationship is not a diet or a contract with an employer or a goal to be attained. It’s based, or it should be based, solely on feeling, intuition, attraction. It might be my inability to identify with someone who doesn’t think the same way I do, but unless you feel it, really feel it, you’ve got no business making a promise to another human being. The ‘work’ it’s supposed to be to keep a relationship strong will fail if you don’t have the foundation to be in that relationship in the first place, be it the strength of your feeling for them, or the strength of character to do right by them.”
I sat silent and enthralled.
“I spent twenty-five years of my life with Grace. She wasn’t perfect. I’m not perfect. Our issues were severe as we closed in on the end, and I not once thought we couldn’t clear them. When she left and refused to come home, a piece of me went with her that I’ll never get back.”
“Honey,” I whispered.
It was like I said nothing.
He kept going.
“Went to a seminar given by a psychiatrist. He said as animals, monogamy is not in our genes. He said in the beginning, when that concept was formed, you were lucky to live to the age of forty, so it wasn’t as hard as it is now. But mostly, he said, the idea was created so men would know the children they sired on a woman were theirs. Also, so men could use the idea of exclusivity against women for a variety of reasons, when for the most part they ignored the concept was supposed to adhere to them as well.”
Bohannan took a break from bestowing his wisdom on me to down some of his drink, and then he carried on.
“From the things this doc said, it’s easy to follow the path of centuries of men getting away with it, and society condoning that in deed if not word, but something more was expected from women, as in they were not allowed to get away with it. A ‘good woman’ was expected to be pure and chaste and faithful. Relics of all of this still exist in the societal ideologies today. This being the answer to your question.”
I decided not to say anything and simply let my eyes scream, See!
Bohannan read my eyes, his beard twitched, then he used the lips buried in it to go on and declare, “But bottom line, this doc said monogamy isn’t natural in our species. And to that, I call bullshit. I don’t give a fuck about history or philosophy or the male of a species needing to know about his offspring. If you love somebody, if you pledged your life to them, you don’t fuck around on them. The end.”
My eyes were no longer screaming, but my heart felt loud due to the fact it was beating incredibly hard.
“I don’t think you’re normal, Bohannan.”
He turned fully to me. “I’m a fan, you know.”
I was confused. “Sorry?”
“Watched your show. All ten years. You have great hair. A better ass. And a cute smile. Grace liked the show too. She watched for you. She liked your clothes and thought you were funny. I watched for you too.”
I didn’t know what to say, but if I did, my heart still pounding in my chest taking all my attention, I wouldn’t have been able to say it.
“She got your book because she was a fan. But she wasn’t a reader. I don’t think she read it. I did. It changed my life.”
Wow.
“Bohannan,” I breathed.
“I should have known you’d be this person. Only someone who understands the human condition as the prism it is could write that book. It made me go to my bureau chief. It made me ask to be transferred. It eventually made me a profiler. I wanted to understand the human condition like you do.”
A tear slid down my cheek.
His arm came out, he cupped that cheek in his palm, his thumb sliding the wet away.
“It made me move back here, home, to Misted Pines, after I left the Bureau. It led me on an exhaustive search to find the right corner of this country, until I learned that returning to my hometown would be where my daughter’s first date with her big crush is started with a malt at the local diner and a movie. In part, you gave me my career, and until Alice, you guided my way to giving sanctuary to my family.”
Another tear fell.
His thumb swept it away.
And his voice was low when he perpetrated his own sneak attack.
But he was far better at it.
“Right now, a team is going in to capture a man named Bob Welsh and to rescue his two hostages. I’m how I am right now because my daughter is on a date with a boy whose sister was murdered, and I’m waiting for a call from the FBI to t
ell me your situation is over.”
Now, I was panting.
He slid the pad of his thumb under my eye again and leaned slightly toward me.
“Now, Larue, I need you to eat your dinner and drink your wine and keep your shit. Celeste will come home messed up, because she likes this boy and she’s too good of a person, she takes on hurt and it doesn’t do her favors. So she’s gonna need us. And you being free is going to tweak her, because she’s terrified you’re gonna leave.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“I know.”
“They’re sure it’s the guy?”
“Yes.”
“Your profile,” I deduced.
“Partly.”
“Don’t be modest.”
“Shit like this is always a team. That’s why Dern is such a fuckup. Or one of the reasons.”
“Right.”
“Your husbands?”
I just stared at him.
He gave it to me.
“They were weak. They were stupid. And I can guarantee they’ve spent the years in between putting a lot of effort into ignoring that voice in their heads that’s telling them the truth. They made the biggest mistake in their lives, losing you.”
“What’s happening here?” I whispered.
“You’re feelin’ me out because you don’t wanna get hurt again. I’m feeling you out because I don’t wanna get hurt again, and I can’t have my kids dragged through shit like that.”
“You’re into me?”
His heavy brows knitted.
“You’re into me,” I mumbled.
“There’s also the sitch that I’m getting paid to look out for you, which is why my sons are taking turns on your couch, because if I had a turn, I wouldn’t be on your couch. Distractions like that lead to mistakes that I’d never be okay making. With you, absolutely not gonna happen.”
Oh my.
“This guy is getting caught tonight, Larue.”
He said that like a warning, his hand sliding away from my face.
I took it another way entirely.
That was the reason why I smiled.
Nineteen
Nervous
Later that night, we were on Bohannan’s pier for two reasons.
One, his daughter’s curfew was soon.
Two, he had a loveseat Adirondack chair on his deck.
The Girl in the Mist: A Misted Pines Novel Page 10