“My daughter just died,” he reminded her.
“Our daughter was just murdered,” she corrected him. “And I’m going to need someone to help me navigate the grief, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned, that someone will never be you.”
She turned her attention to Bohannan, then to me.
“I’m sorry this is happening here, and you have to witness it. But I can’t wait. I hope you understand.”
I opened my mouth.
And Bobby blustered, “Are you serious right now?”
I could tell by his face he was going to blow.
Bohannan could tell by something else because he was looking at the back of his head.
So he ordered, “Bobby, calm down.”
He whirled on Bohannan. “Now, are you serious?”
“You’re going to stay calm, and when Lana’s friend shows, you’re going to keep calm and she’s—”
Bobby blew. “You can’t be serious right now!”
“I warned you once,” Bohannan clipped out. “This is the worst day of your life, that gets you two warnings. But I won’t warn you again. You’re in my home. I’m not putting up with any more of that shit.”
Bobby’s face started getting red, for a different reason this time, but he said nothing.
Lana turned to me in a non-verbal, See?
I gave her an understanding look.
“Now, before this person gets here,” Bohannan went on. “I had thoughts about what we spoke about earlier, and I called the FBI to put them on alert after the scene had been cleared. I just called to tell them, they’re up. They’ve already got agents heading out. I don’t know what shape the sheriff’s department is in, but these agents are trained to set up a field post anywhere, so it doesn’t matter. They’ll be in touch, and they’ll keep you both informed of what they can share.”
“That bitch is not Malorie’s mother,” Bobby bit out.
Bohannan let his gaze rest on Bobby a beat and then he turned it to Lana.
“They’ll keep you both apprised,” he told her.
“Thank you,” she said quietly.
“Fuck this shit,” Bobby decreed, and stormed to the front door.
Bohannan didn’t stop him.
He slammed the door behind him.
Bohannan sighed.
“How long will it take for Dean to get here? Are you sure you don’t want a glass of wine?” I offered Lana.
She was staring at the door, but she looked to me.
And she said, “He told me he’d hurry.”
He hadn’t lied. It wasn’t five minutes later when Bohannan’s phone chimed, and not long after that, we were waving her and her lover off.
Dean, incidentally, had burnished blond hair and a magnificent physique and was a couple inches taller than even Bohannan, and a good ten years younger than Lana.
He was also solicitous, his face haggard, angling out of his truck and jogging to where she was making her way to him, sliding an arm around her waist and holding her to his side as he escorted her to the passenger seat of his truck.
In other words, his puzzle came together quickly. Nice truck, he made money. Nice body, he took care of himself. Younger than his lover, he was confident in what he liked, who he was, and smart enough to find a woman who was also smart, but further mature enough to know the same. Ravaged expression when he’d probably never even met Malorie, but he knew Lana loved her like she was her own mother. All of that meant he was head over heels for this woman.
Which, so far, watching that was the only bright spot in my day.
We barely got back inside when Bohannan demanded, “I want to know everything she told you.”
“I think you need to talk to your daughter first.”
His eyes went to the ceiling, he nodded, then moved to the stairs.
I was making us sandwiches for lunch when he got back.
By the way, the police had left at about 10:30.
It was now 2:46.
“She heard,” Bohannan said, strolling in, face his normal neutral but this time subtly laced with equal doses of annoyed and troubled.
The annoyed part was partially explained when he slid Celeste’s phone on the counter by the bread.
“Oh boy,” I said, eyeing it.
“Her phone was blowing up. Everyone wants to know if she saw anything and what we’re doing.” He leaned the side of his hip into the counter. “She also informed me she’s going to the party tonight, which is still on. That isn’t a surprise. It’s the perfect opportunity to spread gossip and rumors. That, and teenagers are drawn to anything that tests their immortality.”
Wasn’t that the truth?
“She wasn’t thrilled when I told her she was not going. We had words. She didn’t like my words. I didn’t like hers, and I’m the boss. So now she’s grounded until Monday. Since it’s Friday, that didn’t go over too good. I’ve been briefed that’s torture, and don’t I know Will is especially going to need her now. I said if Will needs her, he can come to the house, and I’ll pour him a Coke. At that juncture, she shared Will is ‘anti-parent,’ and I have to respect that…considering. I told her I could get that, but I’m not his parent, I’m hers, and she’s not going to that party or seeing Will unless he comes to the house. She said something I didn’t like a whole lot more than all the other shit she was saying.” He tapped her phone. “And now she’s grounded from her phone too. She ‘pretty much’ hates me and ordered me from her room until she can stand to look at me again. I obliged.”
That “anti-parent” part was interesting.
“I’ll give her some time to cool down and then go talk to her,” I mumbled.
“We need to do this because you and I are doing this,” he announced.
I was kind of following, but I let him speak on before I commented.
“In this house, you don’t get off easy from a hissy fit. And don’t give me shit. When the boys had them, I called them hissy fits for them too. They hated that.”
I bet they did.
I smirked.
One side of Bohannan’s beard twitched before he kept going.
“What I’m saying is, there is no good cop, bad cop sitch when it comes to that. I’ve heard some of the greatest minds speak about a full spectrum of facets of psychology. I get hormones. I get peer pressure. I get developing psyches. I get kids are sponges soaking up everything around them, the vastness of which it’s a wonder their heads don’t explode, and they haven’t developed the mechanisms to filter out what they don’t need, especially the shit that’s harmful. I get that high school is a microcosmic cesspool of all that, and I swear to Christ, with some of the things I’ve seen and read, I sometimes wonder why we make our children endure it. But she doesn’t disrespect her dad. It’s not that I feed her, clothe her, put a roof over her head, and I’m older than her. It’s because I love her. I don’t do a fucking thing except out of love for her. And if she can’t respect that, then she’s going to learn.”
“You could have just said, ‘there is no good cop, bad cop sitch, if she’s acting up, we’re both bad cops,’ and I would have got the message,” I joked.