He tapped the envelope.
And that was it.
“All that went down, and you didn’t tell me?” I queried.
“It isn’t all that,” he refuted. “She doesn’t matter. It was just a thing I wanted to do so if some reporter got interested in you again, they couldn’t talk trash about it.”
I said nothing, even though I felt a lot.
He did say something.
“You should know, I don’t wanna get married. Not that the last one wasn’t easy to get out of so I want it easy for me to get free if this doesn’t work. This works. It’s always gonna work. I just love who we are and how we are and how huge it is and how we don’t need that. It’s huge just us. And I’m seriously fuckin’ down with that.”
“I am too,” I whispered.
“And I can keep calling you Larue. It’d get confusing if we both called each other Bohannan.”
He was so my B.
I grinned up at him. “Yeah.”
He bent to touch his mouth to mine.
And that was just who we were and how we were and how huge it was.
Because once he did that, with no further ado, he grabbed the envelope and walked out.
But there was further ado.
Because I knew, it was just me for him and him for me.
Always.
So I was thinking about that, and it was part of the “a lot.”
But another part was Bohannan mentioning reporters, so I harked back to the fallout of Tony Romano and Betty Keller.
Swarthy, handsome, ex-army sniper run amuck and his sexual manipulation of a wronged housewife on the heels of a massive small-town sex scandal that involved more vengeful housewives, cheating husbands, murdered girls, a devoted father-to-be clinging to his life, a famous profiler and his more famous girlfriend, the town had been overrun with media.
And it didn’t die down in a week.
I mean, the guy burned himself alive after a shootout and standoff in the woods with the FBI and local law enforcement.
It had all the hallmarks for enduring public fascination.
And all the consequences.
Kimmy was beside herself. The media and all their crew, not to mention the murder and scandal enthusiasts hitting town meant more foot traffic in her shop.
It also meant some of them were conspiracy theorists, so she had plenty of people to talk to about her thoughts on Castro.
Megan was incensed. “Misted Pines is so much more than Tony Romano and Betty Keller. He isn’t even from here! He’s from Maryland!”
(Megan, by the way, was the front runner to win against Kenneth Warner. She was so far ahead in the polls, rumor had it, Kenneth was going to save face by retiring. I hoped he did. She had a lot of ideas that were really good, and it’d be nice for her to hit the ground running).
It was refreshing not to be the focus of the story.
But Bohannan had had seven approaches from writers who wanted to write books about the story where he was the focus.
Unsurprisingly, he’d declined.
Things had just begun to settle down.
Audrey now lived in Spokane.
Since Will and Celeste were still together, and Dale continued to reach out to (unsuccessfully) make amends to his son, I knew Dale was down in Bend, Oregon.
Sarah remained in town, also unsuccessfully attempting to make amends with her son.
Bobby never returned.
Ed filed for divorce from Betty.
Betty was in jail. Having confessed to being accessory to two counts of murder, she was awaiting sentencing, but she probably wouldn’t be home in a while.
Lana and Dean bought a bigger house and moved into it with her sons.
Ray apparently took my advice, and although he remained an ancillary character in this drama, his role had shifted because the town rallied around him, defending his right to his privacy and his sexuality. Now he was just the hot guy who picked the wrong playmate. So he was riding it out, and could, because his job was secure and the kids were coming back to the center.
Indeed, I’d run into Shelly a couple weeks before at the grocery store, and she was beaming because she got an engagement ring for Christmas.
But it had been a wild ride.
And it was unsettling because I understood where Bohannan was coming from.
There was a high to it, no matter how terrifying and appalling and sad it was.
The days weren’t routine.
Anything could happen.
And without knowing, you could get addicted to that.
And miss it when it was gone.
But that wasn’t all the “a lot” I had on my mind.
The final part of that “a lot” was, instead of working on my book (I really had to get that done…eventually), I was driving to the place on the outskirts of Ash Peak that I’d looked up, because I thought the finalization of Bohannan’s divorce needed celebrating.
And Celeste was sleeping over at Phoebe’s that night.
And Bohannan’s bed was most assuredly a playground.
It was time.
We needed toys.
Considering this was a spur-of-the-moment decision, I couldn’t online shop.
This meant my only choice was hitting up the only sex shop in the county.
However, I was Delphine Larue.
It could be some young person was working there. One who’d never seen Those Years and never heard of or didn’t know what the author of We Pluck the Cord looked like. So I could get away with hitting a sex shop and finding something fun without that news spreading near, or even far.
Or it could be I could not.
I was struggling with this, and the fact that I should not be discomfited with going to a sex shop.
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.”
Those sea blue eyes held mine.
“I gave him what he needed. He’d do anything for me.”
Pause.
“Anything.”
I had a feeling Tony proved that in spades.
He shook his head, looked off into the distance, then back to me.
“I didn’t like him fucking Betty, you know. That messed with my head. He was mine. But no one gave that first shit about her. She was just some guy’s wife. I’m not sure anybody even knew her name until they found out she got herself addicted to Tony. She was perfect. The cops didn’t pay her a lick of attention, even when she was being interviewed. She didn’t matter. She was just another mom. She was nobody.”
She had been treated that way.
Like nobody.
And as the ladies had a habit of doing in Misted Pines, Betty sure proved that was a mistake.
“He obviously wasn’t supposed to get caught,” he bit out. “Eventually, once I had her primed, I was gonna introduce him to Shelly, and it would be my boy, my baby and me. But for some fucked-up reason, Bohannan took you and his daughter up to where the FBI was hanging. He wasn’t supposed to be there. You weren’t supposed to be there. Tony saw Bohannan’s SUV, but we had a plan, and Tony’s good with carrying out orders and thinking on the fly if there’s adjustments that need to be made. He even thought you all being there would be a bonus. He called me, told me what was up, and we agreed. He took his shots, and those three tore off out of there. He didn’t expect Bohannan to come out the back, though. Tony had to veer the wrong way. His escape route impeded, he couldn’t adjust quick enough and get away without being seen.”
“You-you had him…do all the killing?”
He shook his head. “Not Alice. He was up in Canada. I snatched her. Funny thing, the government trains these guys to be killers. Straight-up, dead-set killers. Trains ’em, and then sends them out and orders them to kill. Put their eye to the sight, get a bead, pull the trigger. Dead. Then they come home and what? What are they good for? You kill somebody, it doesn’t matter who, you could hate ’em, it’ll still fuck you up.”
He blew out a sigh, upset about this, though he was right in what he said, and it was upsetting.
“It fucked him up. I told him what we
needed to do with Alice, he told me he couldn’t do it. First time he refused me anything. Only time. But I got it. You had to draw the line somewhere. That was his line. And I gave that to him.”
Which meant he killed Alice.
Inept, Bohannan had said.
And gruesome.
He scooched closer to me.
I fought vomiting.
“It was genius, the setup he had. Like I said, he liked it a lot of ways. So he starts that business in Wyoming, all guys all the time. These big corporate players who walk around thinking they’re swinging their big dicks, snap your fingers, they’ll drop to their hands and knees. He was free, making up for lost time. He was fucking so much ass and sucking so much cock, he was up to his neck in that shit. Obviously, I heard of this guy who takes you out and shows you a good time, Brokeback Mountain with guns and good hunting, I had to see it for myself. And he was perfect.”
His voice dropped, a new expression hit his face.
“Fucking perfect.”
Good God.
He loved him.
He’d loved Tony.
And if I was reading it right, he also loved Shelly.
“He was so lost,” Ray told me. “She was so lost. In me, they were found.”
Yes, he loved Tony and Shelly.
And yes, he thought he was god.
Because when he said that last, I could swear, he felt like light was shining from him as the savior of the fucked-up-by-life souls.
“Was gonna find a new one,” he shared. “Marry Shelly and tie her to me forever, and we’d find a new one we both liked. But I need time. It’s gonna take time to get over Tony.”
“So, he, um…killed Malorie?”
He brightened.
I fought grimacing.
“Yeah, he liked doing that for me. Shelly, she tries to like everybody. That’s the way she is. She’s just a good girl.” The next came through a leer. “A good girl who likes it rough, but that makes it hotter, when she’s a good girl.”
With ease that was chilling, he transitioned back to conversational and continued to tell his story.
The Girl in the Mist: A Misted Pines Novel Page 33
