The welcoming part welcomed.
She got closer on a hop slide: one foot the hop, the other foot she left behind then dragged over, toes never leaving the floor, this reminiscent of the dance stylings of Gene Kelly, and her face was set to GRIN!
“Ohmigod. We were all like…waiting for you to…show…and here you…are.”
If the Gene Kelly move didn’t herald it, added with the balayage and makeup chops, the way she spoke did.
This was a former cheerleader.
And there was something so charming about her, even in my current troubled mood, I felt a little cheered.
“Yes,” I agreed, because there I was.
She leaned slightly closer to me setting her face to SAD! like it was necessary for an entirety of crowded bleachers to read it.
I didn’t know what she did for a living, but her emotive projection was spot on. She’d excel onstage.
“It was so, so nice that you tried to help with Alice.”
“I’m sure the town would have pulled together a collection eventually,” I remarked.
She swayed back and her face said SURPRISED!
“I didn’t even think about that!”
“’Scuse, please,” someone said, and Ms. Kelly was swept aside. “You. Yeah you.” Kimmy of the Christmas attire was standing there, confirming she was talking to me when she was staring down at me, I was staring up at her, and so she couldn’t be talking to anyone else.
Incidentally, she was again in Christmas attire, a T-shirt that was Santa’s coat with black belt and gold buckle and some thick white fuzz around the neck, down the front and ringing the hem. This was under a cardigan that had a line of tree ornaments stitched into the pattern of the knit across the chest, upper sleeves, and although I couldn’t see it, I was assuming all the way around the back.
Oh, and a reindeer antler headband.
I had to admit, that tee kind of rocked.
Nevertheless, I instantly went into damage control mode.
“I’m so sorry. The boys have been really busy. They haven’t had time to gather any evidence about Castro.”
“Of course they haven’t,” she returned. “They’re hunting that nutjob who killed that little girl.”
Well, one could say she was direct.
I nodded soberly. “They are, indeed.”
“What I wanna know is…”
Oh boy.
“When are you gonna write another book?”
That was what I feared was coming, because it often came after, “What I wanna know is…?”
“’Cause, you see,” she carried on, “I liked that other one. That girl had gumption. She was like…” She turned to have a fake conversation with the air at her side. “‘You know what? I’m just gonna be me. And you know what else? I got a vulva, and you might not think I can be me, but guess what?” She leaned in to drive her point home to her imaginary audience. “I can be.” Back to me. “I think every girl on the planet should be required to read that book.”
“That’s a very kind compliment.”
“I mean the boys?” she continued. “They think they got Holden Caulfield. But what’s that boy teaching them? I do not know. But we girls? We girls got Delilah Spinnaker. And I’ll take me some Delilah over Holden a million times.”
I wasn’t sure that was the compare/contrast to go for, but the reason I wrote the book was to let a reader do their own thinking.
So all I had was, “Thank you.”
“So, when are you gonna write another?” she pushed.
And then what I expected to come next, came.
Even so, what came wasn’t what I would have expected.
“Because I think in the next one, she should become a commando, and her boyfriend can be her sidekick.”
I’d had a lot of people share what they thought my heroine in We Pluck the Cord should do next.
Commando, though, was a first.
I tried to let her down easy by saying what I’d said around fifty thousand times.
“I really feel like her story has been told.”
Kimmy settled her weight in like a coach did in the locker room prior to giving a pep talk to the team.
“I was afraid you’d say that. ’Cause, see…it hasn’t.”
“Ohmigod! Hi, Shelly!” Celeste exclaimed, rushing in front of Kimmy to give Ms. Kelly, or apparently Shelly, a big hug.
Shelly hugged her back and Celeste turned on Kimmy.
“Hey there, Kimmy. I need those antlers.”
“They’re at my shop, gurl.”
“I’m gonna stop by.” She looked down at me. “You wanna stop by Kimmy’s shop after coffees, Delly?”
I loved the “Delly” thing was catching on.
“Let me guess, it’s a Christmas shop,” I drawled.
Celeste and Shelly burst into giggles, but Kimmy stared at me like I had a screw loose.
“Yeah, I got Christmas all year ’round, ’cause, duh…Christmas,” she explained. “But obviously, right now it’s Halloween.”
“Wait!” Celeste grabbed her arm. “Do you a have those vampire teeth that are actually wax that you can chew? Like, the anti-gum, gum…but in vampire teeth.”
Did they still make those?
“Yep.” Kimmy popped the “p” of her yep.
They still made them.
“Okay, we’re gonna get those too,” Celeste declared, and I had to say, I liked how she seemed to be…carefree.
This was not the girl I first met.
This was something else.
In other words, I made a decision the likes I’d made a lot over the years.
A mom decision.
And this one was not to let Celeste know my fans (or paparazzi or whatever he was) were causing problems.
She looked again at me, precisely, my drink.
“You’ve got yours. Do you want a cookie? Or a brownie? They make great brownies. I’m gonna go grab a drink,” she said.
“Let me—” I made a move to get up, and, let’s face it, escape Kimmy and Shelly (no matter how cheerful or entertaining they were—from experience I knew these things were apt to turn, and I’d learned it was best for all concerned to make your exit before that happened).
Celeste thwarted this endeavor.
“No, I have money.” She turned to Shelly. “You good?”
“For sure,” Shelly replied.
She turned to Kimmy. “Good?”
Kimmy didn’t answer except to lift her paper cup and avocado straw an inch away from Celeste’s face.
Not that she could, but still, Celeste didn’t miss the communication.
“I’ll be right back.” She began to take off.
“Wait! I’ll come with. I need a brownie for Ray,” Shelly called after her, then whirled on me. “So nice to meet you, Ms. Larue.”
“Delphine,” I corrected.
She hopped, clapped, and instead of shouting, “Rah, rah, sis kum bah!” she cried, “Ohmigod! I…love you.”
Then she took off.
I winced, because Kimmy had latched onto a heavy wrought iron, French bistro-inspired chair with a wooden seat and was scraping it across the cement floor.
Everybody else in the shop winced too.
She set it beside my chair and plopped down in it, before sucking back some coffee, pounding her chest, and focusing on me.
“So, what the boys got on this psycho?” she asked.
“I don’t really…they don’t talk about the case.”
She bent forward, elbow to knee, in order to commit fully to conspiracy mode.
“I reckon you heard your fill about Audrey,” she said low.
“Ummmmm…”
“Yeah, well, I mean, even karma isn’t that big of a bitch.”
I could agree with that.
So I hummed, “Mm.”
“Now, guess who stumbled out of Sarah Pulaski’s back door in the wee hours of the morning yesterday.”
I tried to stop her. “Kimmy—”
“You guessed it. Dale.”
“I really don’t—”
“Now, obviously, this isn’t the best timing. And as a modern woman, I would not advocate Sarah taking him back. But, I mean, if you’re gonna stick it to the woman who destroyed your life…”
She let that hang, and she was right to do so, because indeed, that was some intense vengeance.
“I feel like we should—”
“And you know who’s, like, cackling over her brew?”
Something about that question made me pause and listen.
“Lana,” she said, like gotcha.
“I haven’t been in town that long, I don’t know—”
“Right.” She scooched her chair closer, it made another, thankfully much shorter shriek, then she launched in. “Lana of Lana and Bobby. Audrey’s first target, ’cause, see, Bobby’s got more money than God, which is what Audrey was after, and why Lana didn’t kick him to the curb when he stepped out on her.”
This must be other couple that Celeste was talking about at the grocery store.
“She had to go way down the line, you get me, ’cause then there was Annie and Jay, and after that Wendy and Dwayne. And she ended with Dale, who does all right, but he’s no Bobby, Jay or Dwayne. To be honest, I think the only one she didn’t put the screws to, and that pun was intended, or tried to and got shot down, was your Cade when he was with Grace.”
Okay, maybe the high school kids weren’t very well informed, because that was a much longer pattern.
Kimmy patted my hand.
I didn’t take my eyes off her.
“He’s a good one, that one. Be a waste of her time. Cade Bohannan is a one-woman man, like his daddy was, and his and so on.”
I was beginning not to regret this gossip sesh.
She wagged a finger at me. “So you best let it be known that’s your property, gurl.”
“I don’t mean to cause offense, but humans can’t be property, Kimmy.”
“I was younger, prettier and less weird, I’d stamp that boy all over.”
I couldn’t stop my giggle.
She turned her head slightly, keeping her gaze on me, and slowly nodded.
Even though I didn’t offer my one-cent piece, in for a penny…
“Do you have an idea of who might have hurt Alice?”
Kimmy sat back, sipped her drink, and considered this somberly.
Her straw left her lip, and she told some point in the air above us. “Well, there’s that old whackjob, Paddy Tremayne. But I reckon everyone thought of him first, except Leland, who probably had a brain freeze for the first seventy-two hours she was missing, thinkin’ only about how he’d stop himself from shittin’ his pants.”
She looked to me.
And declared, “He failed at that. Figuratively.”
I sucked in my lips.
She sucked back more of her drink.
And concluded, “But other than that, I can’t say. Been thinkin’ on it. But nothin’s comin’ to me.”
“That’s a shame,” I murmured.
“If I get any bright ideas, I’ll look for you or one of your boys.”
One of your boys.
This time, I couldn’t stop my smile.
She studied me.
Then she said, “You know, didn’t think there was a woman alive who was good enough for that man. Guess I was wrong. Wasn’t thinkin’ big enough. Still, you do him wrong, you best leave MP behind. Because not a soul in this town will be okay with that, I don’t care how great that book is you wrote. And I’ll tell you somethin’ for nothin’, I don’t know what went down with them, but the minute she left, you better believe Grace Bohannan knew that too. And I’d bet you a thousand dollars, that’s why that woman never came back.”
She glanced toward the counter, saw Celeste still was waiting for her drink, and out of earshot, which was a little too late, but thankfully Celeste wasn’t close, then she came back to me.
“Come on by to the shop. I don’t give discounts to rich people, but I’ll give you an early look at the Thanksgiving stuff.”
She slapped my knee so hard, it didn’t hurt badly, but it hurt.
She then got up and walked away.
Twenty-Six
Just Starting Out
I finally got my return text.
At 11:47 at night.
It read, You up?
Yes, I replied.
On my way over.
You will note that wasn’t a question of whether I wanted company at nearly ten to midnight.
I wasn’t in a good mood, and not because it took so long for Bohannan to reply to my text.
It was because I felt obliged to pull the curtain on my wall of windows, which normally gave an incredible view of a tranquil, mist-shrouded, moonlight-gilded lake, which was one of the reasons why I bought this place.
It also meant that I didn’t see Bohannan coming up.
But I heard his knock.
I headed to the security panel and disarmed it before I went to the door, pulled back the curtains and let him in.
He gazed approvingly at the curtains.
I shut the door.
“Beer or an Aromacobana brownie?” I offered.
“Just ate,” he replied.
“At nearly midnight?” Those three words were filled with wifely disapproval that wasn’t mine to have because he was a grown man, he could eat when he wanted, but also, I wasn’t his wife.
He made no reply, but he was watching me closely.
In other words, this time with his quiet, he read my mood and was proceeding with caution.
I moved to the couch. “Do you want to sit?”
I felt him behind me.
I also was in a titch less of a bad mood when I sat down, turning his way and lifting my bent leg to the seat, and he sat close, so his thigh was against my shin, and then he one-upped that by curling his long fingers around the back of my knee.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“Why you up?” he asked.
“Because I consumed a massive latte at around three o’clock, and I really can’t have caffeine after, maybe, ten, or it keeps me up late at night.”
“Right,” he muttered.
“I answered yours…” I prompted.
He didn’t cushion it.
“Hawk is sending a guy. His name is Billy. He’s gonna be living at the rental property up your lane. Hawk will also be monitoring the feeds from your cameras again, twenty-four, seven.”
Now it was me with no reply.
“Jess and Jace, they caught a trail. They followed it,” he said.
“Okay,” I whispered.
“We got sensors, even a few cameras. They send alerts to our phones, me and the boys. We have a lot of them. We move them around from time to time. But it isn’t like every inch of the woods is lousy with them.”
“Okay,” I repeated.
“Though, it’s just the woods we keep track of. I own the land. No one owns the lake.”
“Right.”
“Trail they tracked says whoever it was, they knew to avoid the wood. They came lakeside. On foot. Practically in the water. But not in the water, like they wanted the trail found. And not through the woods.”
Suddenly, I felt very cold.
“Beyond your boathouse, maybe six, ten feet, that trail disappears. Just stops.”
I started trembling.
Because I’d heard that before.
When they followed the trail of who took Alice.
It led into the woods.
And then it just stopped.
Bohannan pulled my knee fully up on his thigh, which scooted me across the seat closer to him.
“Hawk checked that footage again and again. But did you see the guy walk back the way he came?”
I shook my head.
“He did not retrace his steps?”
I kept shaking my head.
“You see a boat at all?”
“Did you keep watching?”
I nodded, but said, “It wasn’t like I watched for hours. I texted you and talked to you and then started checking windows. But except for the texting, and until after we spoke, I didn’t take my eyes from the windows.”
Bohannan nodded.
Once.
“There are blind spots to Hawk’s coverage, but on one feed or another, he’d see that guy. He didn’t see the guy. Even if he came around the front of your house. And when I say retrace his steps, what I mean is, to make no trail, he’d have to be walking backwards, placing his feet exactly where his feet were on the way in and retracing his steps. And I figure anyone would notice that.”
“So, um…what does that mean?”
“It means I know we’re just starting out…”
Oh boy.
“But I want you to move in with me.”
Well.
Damn.
Twenty-Seven
They Got More Signatures
The next afternoon, I was standing outside Aromacobana, studying the mural, impressed by the tie-dye effects in the peace signs, and the choice to make the bear and hunter look like a real bear and hunter, not cartoons, when I felt someone come up to my side.
“It’s obscene.”
I turned my head to see a blonde woman of around my age wearing a lovely sweater, well-cut trousers and stylish, low-heeled booties.
She was glaring at the mural.
“I started a petition,” she told the mural. “Gathered quite a number of signatures. Took it to the town council.” She turned to me. “But the hippies had their own petition, and they had more signatures than me. And by that, I mean they had only seven more signatures than me. So that monstrosity remains.”
She tossed a manicured hand toward Aromacobana.
I allowed myself a moment to ponder this small-town reflection of the state of our country.
Since she seemed to require a response from me, I noted, “It’s a little on the nose.”
“It’s inDEcent.”
I felt it made a strong statement, but I didn’t feel it was obscene or indecent.
Therefore, I chose not to reply.
“I’ve not read your book,” she announced.
I could have guessed.
The Girl in the Mist: A Misted Pines Novel Page 15