The Girl in the Mist (Misted Pines 1)

Jace?

She waved a hand far up over her head like she intended to pat her crown but missed. “Now it’s no never mind. You’re here and you’re as safe as you could be, right here where—”

“Woman!” a male’s voice boomed from behind me. “This better be damned good to call me—”

I turned.

Sheriff Dern was blustering in, shaking his oilskin coat at his shoulders like he was voiding it of drops of rain, though it wasn’t raining.

He was wearing a brown sheriff’s campaign hat with a star on the front and gold cord wrapped around, the tassels resting jauntily on the front of the brim.

He caught sight of me.

Shut up.

Stood still.

And stared.

I did too, my heart sinking, my stomach twisting.

Because upon sight of him, as I suspected, all his puzzle pieces fell right into place.

And I hoped Bohannan was as good as everyone thought.

Because her fate in this man’s hands, Alice Pulaski was doomed.

Eight

The Toy Aisles at Target

The first thing I noticed in Sheriff Dern’s office was the large, gleaming, intricate and impressive, custom glass-fronted gun cabinet.

It’s interior, however, did not boast a collection of antique firearms, such as pearl-handled pistols or Revolutionary War muskets.

It displayed a frightening set of automatic weaponry, the scope of which even Rambo would turn his head to the sheriff and grumble disapprovingly, “Dude.”

“Impressive, don’t you think?” the sheriff asked.

I did not.

There were pieces of the puzzle when it came to the male gender that I tried very hard never to read. But in the face of this cabinet, I had no choice but to understand this lawman had a very small penis.

“Take a seat, take a seat,” Mr. Magnanimous said, not noticing I did not reply, nor, I knew, caring that I didn’t.

He was sweeping off his hat and putting it on a very populated coat tree that clearly had been where he deposited things for a very long time and forgot most of them. Shunting his oilskin came next, and it was hooked on the tree. Both of these were accomplished with natural movements that were nevertheless exaggerated.

The man was in the room, you mustn’t miss it, he’s here, he’s in charge, pay attention.

Onward to the desk with his shoulders swaying like they were broader than they actually were, and he needed to use them to conduct his weight forward.

He rounded the desk, not looking at me.

Though, when he did, and he noticed I’d come to stand in between the chairs at the front of his desk, he threw his arm out at the same time he aimed his “keister” to the old-fashioned, wooden rolling chair that he’d stolen from the set of the Andy Griffith Show, indicating I should claim a seat.

However, this action threw off his coordination, or perhaps even his office furniture knew he needed to be expelled from it, and it did the best it could, being inanimate, because that keister glanced off the edge of the chair and he nearly landed on the floor.

He grabbed the desk and caught himself in a squat, shifting back, his cheekbones sharpening as a flush of anger at his embarrassment rushed across them.

I looked away and took my time arranging myself in a seat opposite him, tucking my purse in my lap.

When I looked back, he declared, “Polly will never let me hear the end of this, making you come—”

He didn’t finish that, appeared alarmingly befuddled for a moment, his gaze drifting to the door.

It snapped back to me. “Where’s Jace?”

Who was this Jace?

“I’m sorry. Jace?”

“You came here without Jace?”

“As I don’t know who Jace is, I did indeed.”

“You don’t know who Jace is?”

I decided to stop talking.

“One of the twins,” Dern told me.

This seemed important to him, it made no sense to me.

“Jace, Jason. Of Jason and Jesse,” he continued. Then he shared that he’d buried the lead. “Bohannan. Cade’s boys.”

I’d forgotten.

Celeste had mentioned them, Jace and Jesse, though I didn’t know they were twins, even if I assumed they were related to her.

Considering Celeste was sixteen, I also didn’t know they were old enough to provide physical protection to a millionaire who was paying a great deal of money for said protection.

In fact, I was so wound up in Celeste, I didn’t think of Jesse or Jace at all.

“I haven’t yet met…the twins,” I told him.

“What are you doing, wandering around town without a bodyguard?” he demanded.

I opened my mouth to reply.

Whereas Polly, in her excitement at meeting me, and just because she was nice, I had no issue being interrupted or not allowed to speak.

My reaction was instant when Dern did it.

I found it infuriating.

“It’s my understanding you have some sicko sending you pictures of women he’s torturing, making them play out episodes of your TV show in between raping them.”

I flinched.

He again didn’t notice that, or care.

“And you’re wandering around on your own?” he asked incredulously, like you’d scold a child for leaving your cart and zooming to the toy aisles in Target.