And David was delightful. I was not only glad I was getting this house as I wanted it, I was glad I was giving him some peace of mind.
On this thought, my phone rang.
I looked to it, hoping for one name, dreading the idea that it might be two others (I had eventually touched base with Warren and Angelo just to let them know I was okay, but was now avoiding them because this event had disastrously triggered some base protective instinct in both and they were driving me batty), and getting the name I expected.
Camille.
She’d called every day since Welsh was caught.
I knew her ploy.
Before he was caught, she’d mostly left me alone, a subtle communication that all was well, I was safe and alive and should live my life with normal sporadic, but relatively frequent, communication with my grown daughter.
Now that the situation was resolved, the threat behind bars, but the women entering a new period of hell—that being the journey they’d be taking to find themselves, whoever that self ended up being after he’d shifted their life’s trajectory so drastically—Camille knew I’d obsess about that and was all over me like a rash.
I should have worn sunglasses a lot more with her too, that’s all I’m saying.
“Hello, lovely,” I greeted.
“Hey, what’s happening?” she replied.
“It’s raining. And…surprise! There’s fog on the lake. Last, my kitchen tile is being chipped away.”
“Okay, this is good, right here, an immediate segue because I’ve been wanting to talk to you about that.”
“About my kitchen tile?”
“About the fact that Fenn and Joan and I all think it’s weird you didn’t do what Alicia and Russ did. Get out of town, rent someplace safe and far away, so after this was done, you could come home. Instead, you dug through all that stuff you kept in storage from the Montana house, stuff you should have sold, so we kinda already knew, and bought and furnished an all-new house.” Pause, then loaded and heavy she went on, “Mom, we all feel you should understand that you have a real estate addiction.”
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.