“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.