He stared down at me.
“But you even manage to turn bitching about your daughter being mean to you into something badass,” I concluded.
“All her life, from when she was a little girl, but especially recently, when I was alone with it and she needed her mother most of all, I had no one to unload this shit on or talk it through with.”
That sure shut me up.
He slid a hand around the back of my neck and pulled me closer to him as he dipped his head down to mine.
“I’m not saying don’t tease me,” he continued. “What I’m saying is, it sure as fuck felt good to come and unload that on you.”
Well…
Just fuck it.
I pressed into him, wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him.
His tongue slid between my lips, and I truly tasted him for the first time.
Part of me felt, with all the buildup, this might be a letdown.
It wasn’t.
He tasted better than I expected, and he used his tongue like he used his brain, his body—assured and talented, creative and unexpected.
He’d been right, we shouldn’t do this until we could do it.
I liked it so much, I automatically arched into him, holding on, letting him explore, feeling—
“Oh, I see. Come up and be a jerk to me, come down like that was nothing and make out with Delly,” Celeste snapped.
We stopped kissing, but Bohannan didn’t let me go, which was good, because my knees were weak, and I needed a second (or thirty of them) to catch my breath.
He just turned his head to his daughter.
“You know, it’s stupid, you two in different rooms,” she went on. “It’s like, I mean, what do you think I am? Wait, it’s not stupid. It’s insulting.”
“Good you think that, because Delphine is moving to my room tonight.”
That was news.
Excellent news.
I fought smiling.
“Good,” she sniped. “Fine,” she kept at it when he made no reply. “I mean, somebody I know was floating dead out by our pier this morning, off I went to school, and nobody told me.”
“Yes, sweetheart, and that’s upsetting for all of us, but you don’t see me, Larue, Jace or Jess throwing tantrums and acting like a five-year-old.”
I sucked my lips between my teeth because that was so not the thing to say.
Celeste confirmed my thought by skewering her father with a look, shouting, “I guess I’ll just starve!” and running from the room.
“Please tell me that’s normal,” Bohannan said to the place she’d just been.
“It’s totally normal.” He looked down at me. “In fact, it was beginning to seem a little weird, how sweet and cute and wonderful she was. I feel a whole lot better now.”
He smiled at me.
The smile faded when he said, “Now, tell me everything Lana said.”
“Maybe after you eat,” I suggested.
“Why?”
“Because I write romance novels and I have a vivid imagination and a firm philosophy that you should do whatever makes you feel good, so I don’t hold judgment. But you might have a different take.”
His gaze drifted to the sandwiches, and since he’d just used a bevy of them, apparently, he’d run out of words for the time being, because he made no reply.
I let him go and urged, “C’mon. Let’s eat. Then let’s get your Lana brief over with.”
Bohannan turned fully to the sandwiches.
Which meant he agreed.
Thirty-Six
Pleasantville
After turkey and Swiss, and cheddar and sour cream Ruffles, we went to Bohannan’s office, where I sat in a club chair by the window and he rolled his desk chair to it, up close, so one of his knees was touching one of mine.
And if that wasn’t enough, even as I sat back, comfortable in the chair, he leaned into his elbows on his knees to listen to me.
There, I laid out the tale of Bobby, Lana, Jay, Annie, Wendy, Dwayne, Sarah, Dale and Audrey.
I was pleased he didn’t sneer or make some comment or do anything but watch me and listen attentively.
Then again, he’d probably seen it all, and his G-man, “Just the facts, ma’am,” persona was always in place when he listened to stuff like that in order that he didn’t give anything away.
And even if I was no-judge about most everything, including people’s sexual appetites, still, there had been hurt and harm, and I might have only had one side of the story, which my own history meant I’d be sensitive to and prone to support.
However.
“This place is like a warped Pleasantville,” I decreed. “It’s all hunky dory in black and white when everyone’s playing their roles and no one’s asking too many questions, but inject a little real life in there, and the colorful characters stand out, but instead of bright and beautiful, they’re squalid and tawdry.”
“Yeah,” he muttered, like he wasn’t really listening to me.
“What?” I asked.
He focused on me.
“I don’t get how Lana moves from what happened to Alice to what happened to Malorie, and she made mention she’s not surprised by it.”
I thought maybe he took that part the wrong way.
“I don’t think that’s a thing, Bohannan. I think she was just letting off steam. I think she’s devastated about Malorie, but she isn’t behaving how people expect women to behave in a time like this. She’s cynical and bitter and there are reasons why she’s those things. I didn’t get a bead on her that she was faking any of that, especially when she was crying. Seeing how he was with her, I also think her boyfriend cares a lot about her, and he’s been waiting for her to make this move. But she’s not making it because she’s seizing an opportunity, she’s making it because she genuinely needs to be with someone who gives a shit about her because she’s wrecked at the loss of Malorie.”
His reply was, “There is no time in my life when I’ve ever been able to say Bobby Graham was a decent guy.”
There you go.
“He’s an unqualified ass,” he went on.
“Right,” I murmured.
“What I meant was, there are people who do things to kids. There are people who do things to teenagers. There are people who do things to women. There are people who do things to boys or men. Although not unheard of, a suspect jumping from an eight-year-old to a nineteen-year-old doesn’t fit neatly into a profile. Dahmer was convicted of killing seventeen men and boys. Of them, ten were in their twenties, three were nineteen, two were in their thirties, and two were fourteen. The ages ranged from fourteen to thirty-six, which is a large gap. But even though you and I think of fourteen-year-olds as boys, they weren’t eight.”
“I see what you’re saying.”
“He’s earned that blame, but she blames Bobby for a lot. And if she formed this club you explained with the other women whose men Audrey targeted, she and they have been feeding their resentment for a long time. Not only not letting it die but nourishing it so it grows.”
It really couldn’t be argued they’d done that.
Bohannan kept speaking.
“Jace, Jess, Harry and me have turned over every stone. Including all the shit that swirled around Audrey. Lana and Bobby stayed together, until now. Wendy and Dwayne too. Annie and Jay broke up. Word is, Wendy busts Dwayne’s balls, and Dwayne kisses Wendy’s ass, and I’m not talking in a way that Dwayne evidently has a proclivity for that to be. That wasn’t the way they were before Audrey. She’s making him pay for the long haul. What Lana said to you, she’s been waiting to get her ducks in a row. When Bobby was having an affair with Audrey, Lana was a stay-at-home mom. She didn’t have any power, in terms of the fact she didn’t have an easy way to strike out on her own. I’m pretty stunned about Sarah. Revenge fucking doesn’t seem like her thing. But if she’s egged on by her posse, that’s a different story.”