The Girl in the Mist (Misted Pines 1)

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.