The Girl in the Mist: A Misted Pines Novel

by Ashley, Kristen

  I had to be careful about rocking that boat.

  And second, things happened in the woods. Case in point, Alice being carried off. And pretty much every TV show or movie that had any kids in any numbers—from a few, to a few hundred—depicted all the pitfalls of partying in the woods.

  In fact, I was surprised Will wanted to go to this party.

  Apparently, however, it was an MPHS tradition. Post-Halloween, pre-Thanksgiving, after-football-season, let it all hang out before fall semester finals and Christmas break, where many kids could scatter to the winds.

  Celeste had gone to the party last year.

  The boys had gone every year for four years running when they were still in school.

  And I was assured it was high school only. Jace had told me he and Jess wouldn’t be caught dead there after they’d graduated.

  “It’s taboo. Total loser move. I don’t know anyone who showed who wasn’t in high school. Even back in Dad’s days.”

  And yes, I quizzed Bohannan on this. And yes, this party happened back in “his days.” And yes, if you showed and you weren’t in high school, not before, not after, you earned an immediate loser label.

  So, at least there was that.

  Taking everything about this into consideration:

  The good news was, Celeste did share, what I felt was rather garrulously, about her burgeoning relationship with Will. And she was blooming under his attention—dreamy and happy, not moody and secretive. In her sharing, she hadn’t again mentioned Will talking trash about his stepmother or dumping his shit on Celeste.

  The bad news was, Will did not ask her for a study date at his, or to come for a study date at hers. And at this juncture in a high school relationship—where most nights, she was driving back into town to have dinner with him or to study at Aromacobana after he was done with hockey practice, and they always did something at least one day on the weekends—this was like three months (at least) in Adult Relationship World.

  In other words, in my view, it was past the time to meet the parents.

  It seemed like he was avoiding that.

  It could be he was protecting her from whatever was going on at his house. It was clear he avoided being there as much as he could (when he wasn’t with Celeste on the weekends, it was because he was out with his bros).

  And this was a real possibility, for obvious reasons.

  Though, I had deeper insight into this.

  I’d called Megan and had coffee with her (my first book club meeting was Monday, and thankfully, we weren’t discussing a Priscilla Lange). During our coffee date (at Aromacobana, she either held no ill-will, or it was to her what it just was, the best place to get coffee in town), she’d filled me in on all the goss, which was that Dale wasn’t letting grass grow. The glue that held their marriage together had been murdered. He was now courting his first wife right under his grieving wife’s nose.

  (Which begged the question of how Bohannan thought this guy was a “decent guy,” and being me, I asked it. His reply was, “He hadn’t pulled this shit when I said that. Now that he’s pulling it, I retract it.” Further evidence that my guy was a decent guy.)

  On the other hand, it could be that we hadn’t yet met Will because he was a little pissant, he knew Bohannan would read it, and he was giving Celeste’s dad a wide birth.

  I couldn’t know unless I met the guy, face-to-face.

  And as you could see, I hadn’t.

  However, between now and when Will came around to pick Celeste up that night at seven, I had to figure out how to talk her into not drinking at all, but if she did, not accepting a drink from anyone else. Not partaking of any other substances. Sticking with the crowds. And communicating no matter how cute and earnest Will might be, everything was always her choice. And if he ever made it seem like it wasn’t, got pushy, whiny or physical, and she got uncomfortable, she was to get away from him, get with a group of girls and call her father or me immediately.

  We’d come get her, no questions asked (I’d have to alert Bohannan about that no-questions-asked part, but he’d saddled me with this, he had to give me something).

  Therefore, I was sipping my coffee and wondering when my fucking orgasms were going to begin because it was hard enough to do this stuff with my two girls, I thought it was over, and there I was again.

  This was what I was thinking when a beard found its way into my neck, a warm, long, hard body pressed to my back and an arm wrapped around my stomach.

  I would like to say I had the strength to withstand this unscathed, but we must remember, it had been thirteen (or fourteen) years.

  I was about to verbally remind someone else of this when that beard tickled my ear and a gruff, deep voice said, “Kids are all gone tonight.”

  Oh my.

  In all my mental meanderings, I hadn’t noticed that Jess and/or Jace often hung at their dad’s (I’d not been to their place yet, and Celeste never went there either, so my suspicions were that it was wall-to-wall Bro Town and likely smelled like a used sock, so, being boys, they didn’t clean it, they just escaped it) and Celeste’s curfew was ten, but she was usually home around eight thirty or nine.

  But tonight, all the kids had dates.

  Which meant tonight was the first night we’d be home alone.

  I’d been so deep in my pout about not getting laid, I hadn’t noticed.

  “First, in my bed.” Bohannan nipped my earlobe as I shivered. “After David gets done, we can start spending nights at yours.”

  “I—”

  I didn’t finish telling him I was all in with this plan.

  Something bobbing in the water down by the pier caught my eye through the weak morning pre-dawn light and the ever-present mist.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  His mouth left my ear, and I felt the whisper of his whiskers against my cheek as he looked out the window.

  And I knew it was bad even before I knew it was bad, when the reaction exploding from him buffeted my back so hard, I felt my spine bow and my hips press into the counter.

  “Stay in here. Do not leave this house. Do not let Celeste leave this house,” he growled.

  “Bo—”

  He was off, but he twisted to me at the door and jabbed his finger my way, “And do not watch.”

  Do not watch?

  Oh my God.

  Him saying not to watch meant I couldn’t not watch.

  So I did.

  He had his phone to his ear as he jogged to the pier.

  “Hey, Delly?” Celeste called from behind me.

  I whirled and my coffee sloshed, but fortunately, I’d consumed more than half of it.

  “You know that cream sweater you have?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I pushed out.

  “Can I wear it?”

  “Yes,” I repeated.

  She smiled. “Is it up in your room?”

  I nodded. “Unh-hunh. Middle drawer of the dresser.”

  “Thanks, you’re the best.”

  She was still in her robe, but her hair and makeup were done.

  It was almost time to go to school.

  I started to turn again to the window.

  “And…”

  I shot back into place, faking a smile while choking back coffee hopefully appearing to do it casually as Celeste returned.

  “Do you think I can use that purse you use when you wear it? You know. The Chloe one,” she asked.

  “Of course, lovely,” I replied. “Do you know where it is?”

  “Closet.”

  “Yes.”

  “You really should just move in with Dad. He’s got tons more closet space,” she said.

  This was momentous, her saying this.

  I didn’t glory in the momentum.

  “I’ll take that up with him.”

  She gave me a saucy grin and took off.

  I waited, listened, waited more, listened more, waited.

  Then I turned back to the window.

  J
ess and Jace were now there.

  Jace was bent, hands to knees, staring in the water over the far side of the pier.

  Jess was in a squat at the pier’s edge, doing the same.

  Bohannan was also doing the same, standing with his phone to his ear.

  They weren’t close enough for me to read their expressions.

  But their body language said it all.

  I turned and raced up the stairs to help Celeste.

  And to get dressed.

  Because I had a feeling I needed to be ready.

  Thirty-One

  Black Hole Sun

  The boys and I performed a minor miracle in getting Celeste off to school without letting on Black Hole Sun was upon us again.

  After she was gone, I had just enough time to get a fresh pot of coffee brewing before the first sheriff cruiser pulled up.

  They kept coming, and I handed out coffee and made two tubes of cinnamon rolls that Celeste had thrown into the cart the last time we were at the grocery store.

  I then began a steady process of intermittently pouring mugs of coffee and scooping rolls onto paper plates, in between watching outside, noting how the game was being played, even desperately evaluating it, so I wouldn’t have to pay attention to why they were playing it.

  There was hard-faced, yet handsome, Harry Moran and his deputies, who seemed to be in a détente with officious Leland Dern and his deputies.

  They were playing nice.

  And I suspected they were, because after some people did some things at the end of the pier and a lot of pictures were taken, a body wrapped in clear tarp was fished out of the water and put on the pier.

  As it was, cold coated my skin like I, too, was wrapped in plastic tarp, just fished out of a lake.

  I felt something and shifted my gaze to see Bohannan’s head turned, his eyes on me.

  I wanted to go out and hug him.

  I wanted to scream.

  I wanted to vomit.

  There was a very big difference from seeing this kind of thing on dozens of television shows, and seeing it happen at the foot of the pier on which you’d spent a romantic night sitting beside the man you were falling in love with just a month before.

  I didn’t know who was in that tarp.

  I just knew whoever had been put in there had been put there for Bohannan.

  Things seemed to be going okay between the different sides, and I’d stepped back so Bohannan couldn’t see me watching, but I could still watch.

  Things stopped going okay when Polly Pickler showed up in a silver Toyota Camry.

  In fact, she’d barely been out of her car and talking with Bohannan and Moran for a minute, before things devolved spectacularly to the point I had to race out of the house, seeing as a brawl was forming, Moran’s men against Dern’s men.

  And if I’d read things right, Jess and Moran were the ones who started it.

  By the time I got out there, Bohannan and Dickerson, the deputy I’d met at the station (he was on Moran’s team) were holding back Moran, with some difficulty, and Jace and a couple of other deputies were holding back Jess, with even more difficulty.

  Dern was blustering while his guys formed a shield around him.

  Polly looked like I felt, except a hundred times worse. Like she didn’t know whether to cry, shout or throw up.

  Though, there was shouting going on, back and forth between the two camps.

  I didn’t get close, but I got close enough to say, “Jesse.”

  Like magic, instantly he stopped fighting to get to Dern.

  Moran wasn’t ready to let it go.

  But Bohannan pushed him off, he flew back five feet, set his body to charge again, and Bohannan barked, “This won’t help.”

  Moran wasn’t thrilled about having to pull himself together, but he started doing it.

  So at least whatever that was, was sorted.

  Except I was wrong.

  In the melee, I hadn’t noticed how pissed Bohannan was.

  And he…

  Was…

  Pissed.

  He turned, flicked two irate fingers at Dern and declared, “You’re done. Get off my land.”

  “This is a crime scene,” Dern snapped. “And I’m the sheriff.”

  “If you don’t go back to your office and resign, I’m making a phone call. In an hour, there’ll be an emergency session of the county commissioners, and you’ll be facing recall, but in the meantime, they’ll suspend you from duty.”

  Dern assumed an arrogant expression. “The commission would never do that.”

  He had friends there.

  Bohannan’s other arm came out, and he pointed at the pier.

  “You don’t think so?”

  Dern tried to stare him down, but there was a flicker of uncertainty.

  “She’s on you,” Bohannan said low.

  “Fuck you, Cade,” Dern bit.

  Bohannan gave up on him and addressed the crowd. “We need everything we can get from this. Every…fucking…thing. Or one of your daughters might wash up next. Get your fucking shit tight. This isn’t about politics. This is about girls.”

  This was about girls.

  Oh God.

  Some on Dern’s side looked chastened, others continued to look combative.

  But Bohannan was done with them.

  He walked to Polly.

  “You give him that, you’re not only fired, I’ll bring you up on charges for theft and obstruction,” Dern threatened.

  “Arrest me,” she snapped. “See how that’ll play at the polls.”

  And she handed a brown folder to Bohannan.

  “We got a girl lying on that goddamned dock whose parents don’t know where she is and don’t know yet she’s not coming home,” Moran declared in an imposing, but pleasantly deep voice. “Let’s get this shit done and her out of here.”

  Men moved.

  Bohannan flicked his eyes at me, to Polly and back to me.

  I went to Polly.

  “Come up for a cup of coffee and a cinnamon roll,” I urged.

  She was staring at the pier.

  “That’s Malorie,” she whispered.

  I turned to the pier to see the tarp had been pulled away from her face.

  She’d had blonde hair.

  My jaw set with a tingling ache, a precursor to getting sick.

  Except in a casket, I’d never seen a dead body before.

  I looked away, casting my mind anywhere other than to what I just saw, and it set to thinking, Where had I heard the name Malorie?

  “Get up to the house, baby,” Bohannan ordered, it was brusque and still pissed, but edged with gentle.

  All that was going on, and he was worried about me.

  I took Polly’s hand. “Let’s go.”

  I got her up to the house. I got her a cup of coffee and a cinnamon roll.

  She ignored both, sat at the bar and stared at the counter.

  I busied myself with coffee mugs and making another pot just in case, wiping down counters and cleaning out a tin I’d made the rolls in that had been emptied.

  I did not look outside.

  It took time, the deputies and other folks who had come weren’t done, and an ambulance had arrived, when Bohannan, Jace and Jess came in.

  Bohannan immediately put the folder down on the bar, opened it and started sifting through it.

  But with great care.

  His tone was soft when he asked Polly, “This chronological?”

  “I don’t know. He hid it from me,” she said, sounding almost robotic.

  “There aren’t any envelopes in here, Polly.”

  She lifted her gaze from the counter to him.

  “I looked everywhere. The first one came in, I open his mail, I saw it. It was addressed to the station, but attention to you. I’d opened it and read it before I saw that on the outside. I took it to him, asked him if he wanted me to call you. He said no. He said it was some crackpot, giving us the run around. But that was when he
demanded the mail be brought directly to him. I should have known then, Cade.”

  He absolved her. “A lot’s been going on, Polly.”

  She rejected his absolution. “Still should have told you. I know better. And I got a real bad feeling when I saw that folder.” She indicated it with her head. “He was looking at it when I came in one day. When he saw me coming, he shoved it in the drawer he always keeps locked so I can’t see what’s in it. I know it sounds like I’m defending myself, but the truth is, he’s always hiding stuff from me. I learned a long time ago to focus on the boys, not his dysfunction. The boys want to do good, he’s got his own agenda. If I focus on the boys, they can do a little good.”

  “I understand,” Bohannan said.

  She nodded, but she didn’t look convinced of the movement.

  “After we got the call today, I went in and jimmied that drawer. That’s what I found. Went through everything in his office so I could be sure to get it to you if it was pertinent. But that’s all I found.”

  “That’s okay, Polly. We’ve got this and this is good. But you saw that first envelope?”

  “Yes.”

  “Attention me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Postmark?”

  “Misted Pines, Cade. I checked that after I saw what was inside.”

  Bohannan nodded.

  “I read them. He’s messed up in the head, Cade, real bad.”

  “Yeah, he is, sweetheart.”

  “And he’s out there…”

  “Where’s Pete?”

  “He’s at the diner.”

  “We’ll call him, and he can come get you.”

  “I’m okay, hon.”

  “We’ll call him.”

  Bohannan jerked his chin to Jace.

  Jace peeled off, pulling out his phone.

  Bohannan closed the folder.

  And for now, that was that.

  It took more time for everything to be wrapped up outside. Pete, who was obviously Polly’s husband, came to get her (yes, Pete and Polly Pickler, he was maybe two inches taller than her, and when he arrived, he only had eyes for her—they were adorable, I already knew I loved them).

  And when it was just the four of us, that being approximately point-oh-two seconds after Pete’s car started pulling away, Bohannan again opened that file.

  He scanned the first piece of paper, set it aside.