Fenn hadn’t missed it either.
That bitch never came back.
I could do my daughterly duty.
But I was not again going to force that on my girls.
I explain all of this, because it happened that day after Malorie Graham’s body was found.
I’ve no idea what triggered it.
It could be any of a number of things.
The fact that, after Bohannan had his fit of anger, Jace and Jess walked out of the house without a word but clearly on a mission, knowing their role and setting about doing it.
Or the fact that Bohannan came to me, hooked me under the chin with the side of his crooked finger, touched his mouth to mine, and said, “I gotta dive into this, baby, you gonna be all right?” and I’d nodded mutely before he disappeared in his office with the file, his door closed.
Or the fact that the killer was sending letters to the sheriff, addressed to Bohannan, which was scary in itself, but it led to a new body that was floating at the end of Bohannan’s pier.
Or the fact that it came to me, where I’d heard the name Malorie, and that was when Celeste mentioned her as the senior who’d started the shipping materials recycling locker in town. A senior last year, so if it was her, that put her dead at nineteen.
More than likely, it was the fact that I had no role to play in this, a feeling I had felt often growing up, that I had no place in the life I was living with my mother.
And more, the fact I was a mother. I’d lived through my two beautiful girls making it beyond age nineteen, and I had in my life another who I got to love and guide and share time with. But this one, this unknown girl, I could not help in any way. She was beyond help. And she’d more than likely died, alone, scared and wanting her mother.
But all of this was exacerbated by the fact that right then, I was living a life. A beautiful one. But a life where, one second that morning, the man I cared about was holding me and whispering promises in my ear, and the next we’d learned a girl would not live to stand in the arms of someone who loved her, listening to them whispering promises in her ear.
For whatever reason it was, it happened.
I had absolutely no idea what I did in the few hours after it went quiet that morning.
I just knew I shut down.
And I was glad I could do it when no one was watching.
Because it would come to pass that I had no choice but to start up again.
Thirty-Three
Bedlam
It started with a door slam and Celeste crying, “Delly!”
I was sitting in one of the high-backed, leather armchairs that were pointed toward the kitchen.
The pistachio couch had a view to the lake.
I remembered I’d selected that seat because I didn’t want to look at the lake.
Then I didn’t remember anything else.
Until then.
I came to, my body jolting, my head turning to her.
“I’ve been calling and calling,” she said, racing to me.
I stood just in time for her to hit me.
I held her in my arms, and she squeezed tight with her own, exclaiming, “Oh my God! Everyone is freaking.”
I looked over her shoulder to the kitchen, trying to read the time on the microwave, but it was too far.
Celeste answered my unasked question by pulling away, now holding on to my wrists, and saying, “No one could concentrate. They let us leave school early.”
“Celeste—”
“Oh right, maybe you don’t know. They found another girl dead, Delly. Malorie.”
Well…
Hell.
She’d heard the news.
She just hadn’t heard where they’d found Malorie.
And she’d been in such a state, she hadn’t seen the crime scene tape that now cordoned off the pier.
I really liked the guy, and he had it rough right now, and I’d take the hit of talking to her about boys.
But this was all Bohannan’s.
It was like I’d conjured him, because the second I had that thought, he prowled down the hall into the great room, gaze moving between Celeste and me, face set to neutral with a smidge of pissed (maybe) or impatient (better possibility).
He said, “Hey, honey,” to Celeste, then instantly turned to walk under the exposed landing of the upper floor, which meant walking to the front door.
He opened it but it didn’t seem like he opened it. It seemed like it exploded.
It seemed this way because he was forced back when a balding, burly man of somewhat below average height surged in, shouting, “I’m gonna fucking kill him! I’m gonna fucking rip his fucking head off and shove it up his fucking ass! I’m gonna fucking piss on his dead body and take a shit every day on his FUCKING GRAVE!”
As the man had made it to the great room, Bohannan had moved in, and with him came a tall, attractive woman who had at one point that day been exceptionally well put together.
Now she was not.
“Bobby,” Bohannan murmured.
Bobby’s arm raised, his hand slanting to jab with his finger downward, probably because Bohannan was taller than him, and like an angry bear, he was making himself be as big as he could get.
“This is on fucking HIM! Before I shove his fucking head up there, I’m gonna bend him over his fucking sheriff desk and RAPE HIS FUCKING ASS!”
“I appreciate you’re feeling a lot right now, Bobby, but my women are here and so is yours. That means you either get a goddamned lock on it or I’m tossing you out of my house.”
Bobby swung around to look at me and Celeste.
Mostly Celeste.
And when he did, it was all over.
“Cade,” I said swiftly.
But it was too late.
Bobby’s face went red in an instant. It crumpled, and he did too.
Right to his ass on the floor.
He curled, chest into his thighs, covered his head with both arms, started rocking and moaning, “My girl. My girl. My girl.”
The woman who came with him whimpered, but she did not go to him.
Bohannan did.
He approached, crouched and patted him on the back, muttering, “Let that shit out. We got work to do, man. You gotta let that shit out.”
Bobby made a very loud snuffling noise that ended with him releasing a breath that sounded like it came from a mouth that was closed, so it made shee, shee, shee, shee noises as it broke four times.
He was crying, and it wasn’t that he didn’t want to cry and was fighting it, it was just the power of it was overwhelming to the point he could barely breathe.
Unmistakably, Malorie’s dad.
“Honey, why don’t you go upstairs,” Bohannan said to Celeste.
“Okay, Dad,” she replied.
She gave a careful, tender look to the woman, whose lips curled up in a tremulous smile before she turned away.
I took her hand, squeezed it, Celeste glanced at me while I did, then I let her go—and alive and full of youth and grace—she dashed out.
I watched her do it.
And I memorized every step.
The woman watched her do it too and didn’t quit watching even after Celeste disappeared from sight.
“Would you like to come in and sit down?” I invited, bringing her attention to me. “I can make some coffee.” I had no idea what time it was, but still, I offered, “Or open a bottle of wine.”