The Girl in the Mist (Misted Pines 1)

Huh.

“What’s the matter?” he repeated. “What’s happened?”

“I lied about being that person for Celeste. Not a lie lie, but a lie. I’m going to have to go, and after he’s caught, come back.”

“From now on, Jace, Jess or me are sleeping on your couch.”

“No!” I cried.

He didn’t speak.

“That leaves her even less protected.”

“No one is going to harm my daughter.”

At this new tone—flinty and terrifying—about one hundred and fifty pieces flew together and landed in his puzzle.

I shouldn’t have turned on the lights. I did it to read him.

But I knew he was reading me when he ordered, “Come here.”

“He’s hurting them,” I whispered.

“Larue, come here.”

“You saw the pictures. Agent Palmer told me you’d looked at my file.”

“I’m going to touch you in a second.”

I didn’t move.

He came to me and wrapped his arms around me.

His body was like his thigh, warm and hard.

I dissolved.

He held me up.

“They need to find him,” I sobbed into his chest.

“They’ll find him,” he murmured, one of his hands gliding up, going under my hair, curling around the back of my neck, his other arm sliding further along my back, pulling me deeper into him.

“I have nightmares.”

“Okay.”

“If it wasn’t for me—”

“He’d fixate on someone else. C’mon, Larue. You know this. It’s his damage. If it wasn’t those women, it’d be other ones for some other reason he became obsessed. He was cracked, set to break. He broke, and it had nothing to do with you.”

I took a ragged breath.

“Is Celeste by herself right now?”

“Jess and Jace were gearing up in front of the Xbox when I was walking out the door.”

I relaxed.

“You profiled him?”

His fingers and arm squeezed. “We’re not talkin’ about that.”

I closed my mouth.

I opened it to say, “But you did?”

“Yeah.”

“Is he going to kill them?”

“Larue.”

“Tell me.”

A sigh so deep, my body moved several inches as he did it.

And then, “With you inaccessible, the others disappeared, his frustration will be mounting, and if they don’t find him in say, the next week…yes.”

I shoved my face in his chest.

“And he’ll get new ones,” I mumbled.

“Yes.”

I tipped my head back, his beard came down, and I got that clear gray.

“Are they gonna find him?”

His gaze didn’t leave mine.

And he said, “Yes.”

Seventeen

Dark

“I never thought in my entire life I would say this, but I want one of these.”

Jesse and I were standing in my glorious, brand-spanking-new closet.

David was in my office, painting.

My new desk would arrive in two days.

Which was good, because if I could sort my head out, it was time to get to work.

“I don’t know. I’m thinking maybe I should have torn down a wall,” I replied.

“The only wall you could tear down leads to a bedroom.”

I looked at him. “Yes.”

Jesse was very sharp, like his father, like his brother, but it took him a second to process the fact I was lamenting that I didn’t make my closet, which was already the size of a room, into a closet that was bigger than the master bedroom.

But when he processed it, he started to laugh.

It was time.

“It takes the sneak out of the attack to warn you, but I’m about to perpetuate a sneak attack.”

He stopped laughing.

I put it out there.

“It takes one to know one, and you’re an excellent actor.”

“Delphine,” he muttered.

Right there.

Sharp.

“Your sister is worried, and your father needs you. You can’t be messing around with this, Jesse. People are depending on you now, and more will in the future. You have to take care of yourself.”

He looked angry, very, and like his father (and I suspected his brother), he was not the guy to let that loose on me.

Therefore, he turned to leave.

“Don’t walk away from me,” I commanded in Mom Voice.

He got the voice and pivoted to me.

“You aren’t my mother, and newsflash, you aren’t Celeste’s either. I don’t give a fuck how many dinners you make us. We barely know you.”

Okay, maybe I was wrong about him not letting loose on me.

But I could take it.

“No, I’m not. I’m your neighbor. I’m your friend. I’ve grown to care about all of you. A good deal. And I can tell you, living in the purgatory I’m currently occupying, and that purgatory revolves around two females I’ve never met and likely, for their mental health, never will, I get something you don’t. So I can say with some authority, considering it was their daughter, regardless of the outcome, it is so much better for the Pulaskis to know where Alice is than if she was never found. For you, the job is undone. Them as well. They want justice even more than you do. But for them, you’ve given something precious. It is not a treasured gift, but it’s a gift nonetheless. Now, you have to keep yourself together to finish the job.”

Jesse nor Jason had beards, just the scruff of two men who weren’t fond of shaving.