The Girl in the Mist: A Misted Pines Novel

by Ashley, Kristen

  I burst out laughing.

  “I’m not being funny,” she said through my laughter, my serious, caring, I’ll-find-a-problem-to-fix-even-if-there-isn’t-one girl. “How many properties do you own?”

  “Honey, I’m rich,” I reminded her. “And I don’t remember you complaining the five times you hung out in Paris for the whole summer. Or that winter you used the Cornwall cottage to write your dissertation.”

  “Well, the Paris place doesn’t count. That’s like a family retreat. And, I mean, the Cornwall place is the same, obviously.”

  Of course both didn’t count.

  I was still laughing, just not as loudly, when I reminded her, “Outside the house in the Hollywood Hills, that’s all the property I own.”

  “Except some random place about five miles south of the Canadian border.”

  “It’s beautiful here.”

  “I know, you sent pictures. It’s still totally rando.”

  “Camille, I’ve met somebody.”

  Utter silence.

  “It’s very young, but he’s very…him.”

  That got her talking.

  “What’s him mean?”

  “He’s intelligent and he’s a loving and involved father, and he’s not conventionally handsome, but he’s exceptionally attractive.”

  She broke in.

  “Please tell me he’s tall. I know. I know. It’s stupid. I can’t even mention it to Joan. It ticks her off. But it’s an aesthetics thing. And we can just say I’m super glad she’s model-tall-taller than me.” Another pause, then, “And obviously, I’m super glad she’s model-model gorgeous. But don’t tell Joan I said that either. She threatened to burn herself with acid once to break me from my societal brainwashing of beauty norms. She wouldn’t do it but…yikes.”

  I was again laughing when I told her, “He’s tall.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “I’m not telling you.”

  “Why not?”

  “You’ll Google him.”

  “I won’t Google him.”

  “I know you’re lying.”

  “Okay, I won’t deep-dive Google him,” she allowed. “I’ll make you a deal, I get to check his Facebook page, Twitter and Insta feeds and, say, click on the top five search backs that pertain to him, if he has them.”

  The concept of Bohannan having any social media was so hilarious, my laughter was so deep, it was silent.

  “Mom!” she snapped.

  “Honey, he’s an ex-FBI profiler. He doesn’t have social media.” That was a guess, but probably a good one. “And no, let me have this. Let me have him for a while. If it looks like it is what it feels like it is, something, then I’ll tell you all about it.”

  “Oh my God. You’re so annoying and manipulative. Because, how can I say no to that?”

  “Please, have children so I can teach you my ways.”

  “Yeah, right. Joan is all up in my shit about societal brainwashing, and she refuses to carry our baby, and I know it’s so she won’t put on weight, because her mom is constantly in her head.”

  It must be said, Joan’s mom was a bit of a pill.

  “And why do you refuse to do it?” I asked.

  “I’m not going to be pregnant and earning a doctorate.”

  This was news.

  “You’re going for your doctorate?”

  She answered.

  I didn’t hear her.

  Because I pulled a real-life Hollywood.

  I bolted upright in my chair.

  This was due to the fact I was gazing out the window, concentrating on my conversation with my daughter, but I didn’t miss the movement.

  And when I focused…

  The man.

  Behind my boathouse, walking through the fog, into the pines toward the Bohannan house.

  A pulse exploded at the base of my spine, radiating needles digging all over the skin of my back, shoulders, up over my scalp.

  I stood, voice shaking, and said, “I have to go, honey.”

  She was immediately alert. “Is everything okay?”

  “David needs me for something. I’ll call back a bit later. Love you.”

  “Mo—”

  I hung up, and since the man had disappeared into the pines, I bent my head to my phone and pulled up a group text: Jason, Jesse and Bohannan.

  Are any of you home? I asked.

  I stared back at the place he disappeared.

  Come to my door.

  Come up to my door.

  He was dark-headed.

  It was far away.

  Murky.

  He could be one of them, noticing something through the rain as they came over to see me, and checking on it.

  It was not that far away.

  It was not one of them.

  I knew it.

  No, Jesse.

  Nope, Jason.

  My phone rang.

  Bohannan.

  “Hey,” I greeted, staring at the pines, seeing if any of them moved, like someone was jostling them as they walked through them.

  They were too sturdy, too tall, that was impossible, unless he was Bigfoot.

  He was not Bigfoot.

  I still checked.

  “Why did you text that?” Bohannan demanded.

  “I saw a man—”

  “Do not leave the house. Make sure all the doors and windows are secured. Make sure the alarm is set. Get close to David.”

  My skin crawled.

  “Bo—”

  He was gone.

  Twenty-Four

  As I Think We’ll Be

  I was loitering at the back door.

  David was loitering with me.

  So we both caught it when Jess and Jace came into view, approaching then hopping up on my pier down below, just as Bohannan showed on my deck up above.

  David didn’t leave my side (he’d gotten a text from Jess) even as I moved to the back door to unlock it.

  Bohannan gave David a nod, and I looked to the brawny, ginger-haired man who was about two inches shorter than me who stood at my side. He nodded back to Bohannan, to me, then walked to the kitchen.

  Yes.

  I really liked David.

  Bohannan took my hand and led me to the reading room.

  He closed the door.

  Well, hell.

  “You’re scaring me,” I told him.

  He led with, “Hawk didn’t come and get his equipment yet.”

  This wasn’t scaring me any less.

  “We agreed, just for a while, he keeps you on their radar,” he continued. “Not constant surveillance, but they’ve got cameras and they’re taping. I called. They pulled it up and did a rollback. He was in the frame of a camera they have down at the boathouse. They didn’t get a clear shot of him, and he moved out of frame quickly.”

  “Who is he?”

  “I don’t know. But I do know there isn’t anyone local who steps foot on this property. Not after my dad shot at trespassers for sixty years. My granddad did it before him. My great granddad did the same. And my great-great granddad just shot them. Also, we got sensors, a lot of them. I guess you can imagine how I’m not a fan of surprises.”

  I could imagine that.

  But I deflated.

  “Shit, so this is about me?”

  “You need ongoing surveillance, baby. The boys and me, we just don’t have time right now to set that up for you and monitor it.”

  I never wanted them to do that.

  I was Delphine to them. Delly.

  Larue.

  I wasn’t a client.

  (At least, anymore.)

  I grimaced at him then stormed away three dramatic steps in order that I could glare sullenly out the window.

  “The boys are checking things,” he continued.

  “I just don’t get this preoccupation with famous people,” I grumbled. “Okay, fine. Come to my table while I’m eating dinner at a restaurant. I’m out and about, and it’s not like I don’t live a really gre
at life because you watched my TV show or read my books. So I can say hello and dash my name on a piece of paper for you. I’m happy to do that. But lurking on my property?”

  “Hang on,” he said.

  I turned and watched him take a call.

  “Yeah, I wanted to talk to you. Pains were taken, Leland. Now, Delphine has some asshole wandering around her place. You’d have to have forensic skills and about three months to uncover she owns this property. What the fuck?”

  Pause and…

  “Why am I asking you? Because you and your deputies are the only people in town who know where she lives.”

  Another pause and…

  “Do not go there. It wasn’t one of my kids and it wasn’t David.”

  Pause and, beginning to get irate (or more irate)…

  “How do I know? Are you fucking with me?”

  Another pause and…

  “Yeah, my full weight, asshole. And you dick with him until that time, you’ll regret it.”

  He then rang off.

  “You think Sheriff Dern told someone where I live?” I asked.

  His answer was wry.

  “How’d you guess?”

  There were situations where wry was a good call.

  I didn’t feel this was one of them.

  I shot him a look that communicated that.

  “You know I kind of like you,” he bit off.

  I thought so.

  However, the absence of a kiss was another story.

  I didn’t share that in his current mood.

  “And I kinda want you to be happy, and settled, and enjoying the great northwest, getting to know my daughter, shoveling shit at my sons when I have certain things off my mind and the time I need to dedicate myself to all the things I’m gonna do to you.”

  Oh.

  Well then.

  I silently lauded the invention of padded bras as I carefully watched him.

  “So, fans crawling all over your place, flipping your shit, taking me and my boys off target is not conducive to any of that,” he concluded.

  “I see.”

  “And it’s pissing me off.”

  “I understand that now.”

  “I shouldn’t take that out on you, I know. But Dern’s behind this and that pisses me off even more.”

  “I understand that too.”

  He jerked up his chin.

  “What are you throwing your full weight behind?” I asked.

  “Harry Moran is running for sheriff against Dern next year. He’s already filed and got more than enough signatures. His campaign officially kicked off about two weeks before you moved here.”

  I felt my eyes grow big. “Um…”

  “Yeah,” he grunted.

  “Were you public with your support for him?”

  “Everyone’s public with their support for him. But yeah, I don’t have a sign out by the gate, but if asked, I don’t hold back.”

  “Prior to Alice.”

  Not even a beat passed before he confirmed, “Prior to Alice.”

  I was horrified.

  And furious.

  “Dern wanted to bag that,” I whispered, the words trembling with negative emotion.

  “He had Harry checking parking meters. We have five parking meters in this entire county. And Harry’s the best investigator they got.”

  “Oh my God!”

  Yes, I shouted it.

  “He didn’t want Harry, or me, shining even a little when it came to Alice.”

  “She was a little girl,” I hissed, my torso spiking toward him like a snake striking.

  “And now you get why I was an ass to you, because Leland is pissing me off.”

  “Is he interfering with your investigation now?”

  “He isn’t helping it, but he also isn’t outright hindering it. He’s too busy with damage control.”

  “But, say, I sit with you and your kids at the Double D. I’m grocery shopping with Celeste. Maybe he lets slip where I live, which lets slip your focus on Alice’s killer, because he knows where we are with each other.”

  “You’re taking things further, baby,” he said low, with hints of pride.

  I definitely felt the pride, my shoulders going back with it, and I decided to focus on that, rather than Dern, because there was nothing I could do about Dern.

  But Bohannan could, and I knew he would.

  “Maybe you can hire me,” I suggested.

  “Not gonna happen.”

  My eyes squinted.

  “We need to discuss societal stamps and how pigeon-holing genders, races and cultures has likely led to us not having a cure for cancer yet,” I informed him.

  “I’m not pigeon-holing you. If you worked for me, when would you have time to write Priscilla Lange romance novels and Jack Mullally thrillers?”

  I stood very, very still.

  “I’m a big Mullally fan, Larue.”

  My lips didn’t move even as the words came out.

  “How did you know?”

  “It’d be cool I could tell you I noticed patterns and cadence between your pen name work and We Pluck the Cord. But that isn’t my expertise. It’s because you have every single one of their books on your bookshelves in your living room, Lange then Mullally, chronological, before you get into the other books you keep, which are kept alphabetically by author. And those are mostly literary, with a good deal of mystery and very little romance or thrillers, because, I figure, you keep those in your office. And, the obvious clue, they’re both very successful and very famous for the fact the true name of their author remains entirely anonymous.”

  He was right.

  I kept those genres of books in my office.

  And he was right.

  No one knew who Priscilla and Jack were.

  Because they were me.

  “But I wasn’t sure,” he kept going, “until you just said, ‘read my books,’ plural.”

  Damn.

  I’d slipped.

  “It’s been fifteen years and not a single person has figured that out,” I informed him.

  “My guess is, not many people who don’t know have been in your living room.”

  His guess was correct.

  All of his guesses were.

  I turned my head to the wall that led to the living room as my mind changed my afternoon’s course to rearranging my bookshelves.

  “I haven’t told the kids. I won’t.” I looked back at him as he spoke. “That’s yours. And I’m down with giving you a second job if you want one. But how ’bout I get in your pants first? If we can survive stalkers, murderers, teenagers, bro boys, and we’re as great together in bed as I think we’ll be, we can add working together to that catalog and see if it’s a fit.”

  Okay, now that I had him…

  “Can I ask why you won’t even kiss me?” I whispered.

  “Think about it,” he whispered back.

  If…we’re as great together in bed as I think we’ll be.

  Cade Bohannan was full of surprises.

  I smiled.

  His gaze homed in on my smile and darkened.

  Yes.

  He definitely should not kiss me.

  “Heads up,” he said to my mouth. “I’m a good kisser and I bet you taste great.”

  “You’re also cocky.”

  He tore his attention from my lips and looked into my eyes. “No, I’m not. I know because I was voted best kisser in high school.”

  I clicked my tongue and studied the ceiling, but I was still smiling.

  When I looked back to him, I saw his beard was too.

  A knock came at the door.

  “Yo,” Bohannan called.

  Jace swung in, just his upper body, hand on the knob, eyes glued to his father.

  Studiously.

  That needle bomb exploded at my back again.

  Because he looked spooked.

  “Dad, can we talk?” he asked.

  Jace still didn’t look at me as his father walked to him
and they disappeared from the door.

  Twenty-Five

  Somethin’ for Nothin’

  On the brick wall at the side of Aromacobana, there was an extraordinary mural painted around the words Northern Exposure, which included the image of a bear with a rifle shooting a hunter, a plethora of distinctively green straws floating down an otherwise crystal-clear river, the sun obliterated by the smoke of a logging mill smokestack. This was all complemented with a dozen tie-dyed peace signs scattered about just in case anyone missed the overall bent behind the message.

  The inside of the café was a carefully curated cornucopia of antique, vintage and repurposed furniture, including the pastry case, espresso bar, cash counter and everything behind it that contained the guts of the business: shelves, industrial mixers, ovens and espresso machine.

  I was waiting for Celeste. We were having an after-school coffee before we went home to start dinner for ourselves and men who would, sometime along the line, and that time would be when I was in my own bed, be eating leftovers.

  I was also distracting myself from the fact that, when Bohannan and Jace disappeared, so did Jess, and they disappeared.

  Including the fact that for the first time, Bohannan didn’t reply to my text within fifteen minutes.

  He didn’t reply at all.

  And the text read, Is everything okay?

  So the fact he didn’t reply to that made it even worse.

  I was sucking an iced latte out of a paper cup that had a straw made from avocado pits, sitting in a thick-armed, low-backed, wine-colored upholstered chair that had to have been built in the fifties, watching the door for Celeste and trying to pretend I wasn’t famous.

  This didn’t work, as it never did.

  People were staring at me, and eventually, as it goes, one got up the gumption to approach.

  She was very pretty. She was also young, perhaps three or four years older than Celeste. She had an exceptionally well-crafted balayage. Her anti-contouring contouring was inspired. Both of which seemed somewhat at odds, and somewhat not, with her T-shirt that proclaimed Make Love Then Make More Love.

  “Heya!” she greeted.

  “Hi there,” I replied on my patented Delphine Larue Welcoming but Not Too Welcoming Smile.