It wasn’t only entirely natural to seek things to enhance that connection with your partner, it was also that I should be proud. I was a vital, fifty-three-year-old woman with a very healthy sex life. My partner and I had experience and enjoyed each other and exploring and had no hang ups. And I was a romance novelist (not that anyone knew that). I should be the poster adult for doing what you liked and not apologizing to anyone for it.
I struggled with this so much, I was parked in front of the shop, which was a nice-looking wood building with a blue corrugated roof that was fitting of a rural Washington state town. It sat alone in the side of a hill without any other businesses or houses around it. It had a clean parking lot and was carefully lacking in anything crude. The windows to it were big but smoked. There was a neon sign above the door that was lit, declaring it open. It had a tasteful sign on the road proclaiming it The Joy of Joy. It had another sign affixed to the door that stated you had to be eighteen to enter.
And as I took all of this in, it occurred to me that people who worked in or ran sex shops understood privacy and they might not own that shop very long if they went around blabbing about their customers.
On that thought, I grabbed my purse and got out of the car.
I had my keys in hand and was walking to the front door, considering tucking them in my purse, when I saw, poking out from the corner of the building, the prow of a small fishing boat that was parked there on its trailer.
It was white with a thick blue stripe.
A slither slid down my spine as I stepped up on the wooden walk in front, moving toward the door, when it opened.
Ray came out and stopped dead.
I stopped too.
I looked into his sea blue eyes.
In that instant, all the puzzle pieces fell into place.
And showed me the picture.
Fifty-Seven
The Story
He was attractive.
He was confident.
He was good at what he did.
He worked with kids, so he knew how kids’ minds worked.
He couldn’t not know Bobby was a cheater, because he’d been in that town for four or more years. Even the high school kids knew most of the story. Not to mention, his girlfriend was a hair stylist, which was the gossip mill of anywhere, and everyone knew about Bobby, and Dwayne, and Jay, Dale and Audrey.
And I’d bet dollars to donuts that Shelly did Betty’s hair. So Shelly might be the one person outside Tony in Misted Pines who knew that Ed had cheated on Betty. And Tony knew because Shelly told Ray.
He ran like the wind, and yet could not catch Tony.
His girlfriend wore a T-shirt that encouraged Make Love Then Make More Love, along with the bent of his job, a subtle hint to anyone who knew them that they were kind and gentle people. But in actuality, it was an overt attempt to throw people off the scent.
He’d been staring at me in Aromacobana.
He was an exceptional actor.
He’d insinuated himself as an important, but secondary part of the story.
And he was smart.
Very smart.
A mastermind.
A god.
I knew this because I also knew he knew that I’d figured it out.
He was blocking my way into the shop, and there was nowhere else to run.
So I turned and ran the short distance back to my car.
I did this screaming repeatedly and as loud as I could, “HELP! HELP! HELP ME!”
Ray slammed me up against my car so hard I dropped my keys.
I felt him take hold of me, and I knew I had one second to do something.
So in the dust on the door of my car, I started writing.
I got one letter written.
R.
Then he whirled me, his fist hit my face…
And I was out cold.
He dropped me to the pine needles, my back to a tree.
It came as no surprise Ray was very good at tying people up.
Face to face, hip to hip, he dropped down to sit beside me.
My temple throbbed, my skin was swelling, pressing inwards from the side of my left eye.
Bohannan hadn’t given me any impression he still had doubts there was more to the story.
But I knew Ray was not unknown in that sex shop, considering whoever owned it let him use their boat.
And if Bohannan went there, he’d take one look at that boat and know what I knew.
There was more to the story.
I had a feeling I came to shortly after I blacked out, and when I did, I was tied up in the back of his truck, which was moving, so he couldn’t have had time to move my car.
But he did bring my purse, having no clue I still carried my GPS fob.
Though, no one was actively tracking it.
Even so, this was good.
Because all they had to do was start tracking it.
Except once he’d parked on what I would find when he pulled me out was a one-lane, dirt road in the middle of nowhere, he’d hiked into the woods a good forty-five minutes (yes, with me on his shoulder, yes, he was that fit, yes, he was that comfortable hiking through the woods, yes, he fit the profile).
And, due to this, I figured by the time anyone figured out he had me, by the time they tracked us into that forest (because he was not making any effort to cover his tracks), I would probably be dead, and he would have more time to get away.
I figured this because he hadn’t only brought me along.
He’d brought a shotgun.
“I was gonna let it lie,” he said. “I’d won.”
I sat there staring at him, wondering if Camille and Fenn would stay in touch with Bohannan and the kids.
Camille, probably.
In her pain, Fenn would likely lay some mistaken blame on Bohannan before she got over it.
But they’d never have Christmas together.
Our families would never spend summers in our respective houses on the lake.
I hoped he gave Celeste my bracelet, and added a D.
Even though her mother didn’t love her, her brother and father did—I did—and she needed to know she belonged.
I also hoped Bohannan found another woman to love, where the sex was not quite as great as it was with me.
And she made him just a smidge less happy.
But she made him happy.
“I’m kinda pissed I can’t. Now Shelly and me are gonna have to find somewhere else to be. She probably won’t mind. She hates her family, and they still drag on her all the time, even though I tell her to tell them to piss off. Though, she loves Misted Pines.”
I just stared at him.
He cocked his head.
“He didn’t figure it out,” he noted. “I thought for sure when that video came out, he’d figure it out. He’d figure out that it’s all about dick.”
I said nothing.
“The first girl I fucked, man, I did not know what I was doing. We were both sophomores in high school. But that bitch still keeps in touch with me. Followed me around like a puppy. That’s when I knew, you get good at using your dick, you can make anybody do anything for you.”
Was he…?
Was he really going to James-Bond-villain-monologue tell me all his motivations?
I did not mind this.
Not that I was interested.
Just that it might be a long story.
And that would give Bohannan time.
I jumped as he lifted a long-fingered hand and tapped the side of his head.
“You were right. Small minds. That was Tony’s headfuck. He’s bi, like me, and swings two ways another way too, and you can’t be an ace army sniper and one of the guys if you like a big dick moving up your ass. You can’t be a real man and like to be tied up and have your cock whipped. For a long time, he made do with getting the other side of that, lots of pussy who’d beg him to fuck them harder and make it hurt. But a man needs what a man needs. All he needs.”