He did not look at Gary.
He spoke to the crowd.
“I’m working with the FBI to find out who’s hurting our girls. This is their case, and Dern has no authority over their investigation. The two agents assigned are good men who give a shit. Harry is helping too. He hasn’t abandoned you. I haven’t either. I can’t make any promises except to say Malorie and Alice are in good hands, the hands of investigators who want to find who hurt them and will do everything they can to make sure no one else gets hurt.”
He shifted his attention to the front of the room.
“Meg, take your petitions to Olympia. If you need a ride, Jace’ll take you.”
Only then did he look at Gary.
“You’ll be dead, so it won’t matter to you that in your footnote in history, your tenure will be recorded at best, corrupt, and at worst, disastrous and life threatening.”
With that, he tugged my hand and we all walked out.
Forty
Romance Novelist’s Heart
A mixed bag of what it meant to be living with Cade Bohannan in Misted Pines during a crisis that involved the FBI, was that a good place for the FBI to set up their field office when they encountered a hostile local law enforcement agency was the house up the way that Bohannan kept as a rental but was empty.
Until now.
It was a good thing that more trained professionals were close, and anyone in their right minds would have added reason to steer clear.
The thing was, the person they were hunting was not in his right mind.
Nevertheless, it meant, when Bohannan was done for the night, he didn’t have far to drive to get home.
I was in his bed with Elizabeth Little’s Pretty as a Picture, hoping with my romance novelist’s heart that Marissa would get together with Isaiah, but with my thriller writer’s mind knowing that was unlikely, when Bohannan strolled in.
One look at him and I understood Dale Pulaski’s response to getting what you needed in troubled times (or any time).
If Bohannan tossed out dollar bills and ordered me to crawl to him on my hands and knees picking them up along the way à la Mickey Rourke and Kim Basinger in 9½ Weeks, I wouldn’t have hesitated.
I didn’t hide this thought, which was probably why Bohannan’s gaze darkened, he changed course and entered the bed beside me, stretching out at a diagonal, up on an elbow at my hip, and his hand came out so he could trail his fingers up the back of my calf starting at my ankle.
It was the most sensual touch I’d ever sustained.
“Fallin’ down,” he murmured. “Made a promise, fucked you twice, three orgasms when you were owed six.”
“You’re forgiven that debt,” I told him. “Seeing as it’s about quality, not quantity.”
His beard grinned.
I put the book aside.
He wrapped his arm around my hips and pulled me under him.
I yanked the tail out of his hair, and it fell forward.
I ran my fingers through it, pulling it back.
“Is sucking cock like riding a bicycle?” he asked.
I trembled.
“I don’t know.”
His gaze dropped to my mouth. “If not, I’ll be there to coach you.”
Yes, he would.
But in the end, to my delight (and something else for him), he didn’t need to.
Forty-One
Hubris
Outside her shop on Main Street, I sat sandwiched between Kimmy and a life-size stuffed Santa, on a green painted bench abounding with gold fretwork and upholstered in bright red velvet button back.
She was in a voluminous Christmas sweater, I was in a thin wool heathered-gray crewneck with a slimline, dusky lilac puffy vest over it, and we both had fresh Aromacobana brews in our hands (mine decaffeinated, Kimmy’s with a triple shot) and our eyes to the passersby.
“What’re we lookin’ for?” she asked, then took a sip.
“I don’t know,” I answered.
“What’re you freakin’ out about?” she asked.
“My daughters arrive tomorrow, one with her girlfriend who’s like another daughter to me, one with an unknown fighter pilot who’s stealing her jaded heart,” I answered, then took a sip.
“Not good timing,” she muttered, then took a sip.
“I had to call them both yesterday and share that there’s a good possibility there’s a serial killer hunting my new boyfriend’s patch, I’m not actually living in the house they’re going to stay in because he didn’t think it was safe for me to be there alone, and our neighbors are FBI agents running a command post out of a rental. Fenn called from the airport having just landed for the layover, one-night mini-vacation she and her fighter jock are taking in Hawaii, and thus getting the message I ill-advisedly left on her voicemail. She was so loud, I feared TSA would take her down. Camille started and stopped fifteen sentences before she gave up, hung up on me and Joan called back sharing that ‘she’s just worried.’”
“Got three, two girls and a boy. Got no clue when I stopped bein’ the mom and they thought of me as their kid. But it happened. According to them, I can barely brush my own teeth in the morning.” She took a sip. “It’d crawl right up my ass if it wasn’t about love.”
Damn it.
I hated it when people had good responses to stuff that was annoying me.
“Want some good news?” she asked.
“Yes,” I stated the obvious.
“Full Metal Meg marched her uptight ass right to the governor’s office yesterday. Heard tell the man wasn’t ignorant of our situation. Not sure how they do all that with their red tape muckin’ things up. But I suspect Harry’s going to be acting sheriff pretty soon, and we’re gonna have a full ballot come election time. Because rumor is, Megan has very recently decided to aim for Gary’s seat.”
I turned to her. “That is good news.”
She turned to me. “You do know that whackjobs don’t have, ‘I murder girls’, tattooed on their foreheads, Manson notwithstanding.”
“I can read people.”
“So can I. So can Bohannan. If he thought this nutcase would stroll down the avenue, he’d be sitting where we are.”
I turned to our quiet compatriot then back to her. “Santa settles the soul.”
She looked to the street, brought up her paper cup, and muttered to it, “Ain’t that the truth.”
And she took a sip.
It was on the ride home from hanging with Kimmy that my car rang.
I accidentally hit the wrong button on my steering wheel, and instead of declining the call, I got Angelo’s voice filling the cab.
“What the fuck, Delphine?” he blistered.
It was Monday. I’d sat too long with Kimmy, assessing the citizenry of MP in hopes I’d zero in on a killer, therefore Celeste would be home before me.
There’d been a drama in the kitchen yesterday that resulted in her weekend grounding extending for a week.
I needed to be home for moral support for Celeste and to make sure Celeste came home.
Megan had canceled book club that night, which was a bummer. I could have used talking about a happily ever after, if just for the distraction of it.