The Girl in the Mist (Misted Pines 1)

One could say Grace Bohannan had failed as a wife, a mother, and arguably (and I’d argue the pro side of this) a human being.

But the woman was talented with interior design.

I also saw a note on the nightstand closest to me. It was held down with my phone and a plain keyring with three keys on it, one with a red band around the bow, one with blue and one with white.

I picked up the note, and upon scanning the bottom and assessing the thing scrawled there might be Bohannan, I took a number of memories of him further to see if he might have exhibited signs he was a serial killer, because his writing sure made him seem like one.

Once I’d decoded enough letters to decipher the note, I read it.

Babe, (Incidentally, I’d never tell him this, but I thought that was a nice start.)

We’ve all hit it. Text me when you wake up. Your choice for dinner tonight, whatever you want, it’s yours. (What I wanted was a jack-o’-lantern carving ritual, but I’d utilize this offer to get my way if that was needed.)

FBI wants a debrief. Call them when you’re ready. Old habits, text me when you leave my house. Text me when you make it to yours. That’ll fade. It hasn’t now. But you always keep your doors locked and the security set when you’re home, forever. (Very sweet.)

Keys are blue, the big house. Red, the twins’ house. White, the barn. (I had no idea why I’d need a key to the boys’ house or the barn, but points to the man for being so thorough so shortly after officially declaring his interest in me.)

Lock up when you leave.

At the end, there was what might be an x to indicate the first kiss he’d ever given me (not including the temple one, which I’d decided officially not to count), or it might be part of the rather elaborate, but even so, mostly illegible B in Bohannan.

And that was it.

I texted him before I got out of bed.

He texted me right back, in the middle of me making said bed.

You doing okay?

My reply, I’m free. And I added an effect, that being fireworks exploding when the text opened.

I’d made the bed and was dressing when he sent, Yeah, baby.

I sent three dozen hearts-surrounding-face emojis, two dozen flamenco dancers and a hang ten.

He didn’t send emojis, but he thumbs-upped my text.

I finished dressing, texted him I was leaving, left his house, locked up, practically skipped to my house, got another thumbs-up on my text and texted him again when I got inside my place.

His reply, Good. See you tonight.

I made coffee. Took a cup upstairs. Took the longest shower in my personal history, symbolically washing Bob Welsh away. Dressed in a lounge outfit, and called my daughters, leaving messages for both to call me back when they had a minute, but telling them I had very good news.

I then called Agent Palmer who gave me some specifics about what had gone down and what was going down.

It included the fact that once they’d pinpointed him, and were pretty sure it was him, they started investigating other things, and they did this double time while strategizing a takedown to get the women free from where they were relatively sure he was holding them, as soon as safe and possible.

They had not so far, at his house, or at the other house where he was keeping the women, found much (outside the women, oh…and a great deal of evidence of the extent of his obsession with me).

However, they had visited a variety of stores and internet cafés in his area. The stores were where they had witness accounts and store receipts of purchases of bomb-making paraphernalia. The cafés were where they found cached (even though deleted, they were restored) internet search histories of unhinged web searches he’d done on computers he had logged into.

They might have a line on how he got his hands on the poison that fortunately did not take out Bookworm.

But regardless, he’d already confessed, as he would, to a number of charges around kidnapping, assault, sexual assault and other.

He had a lawyer, but right now, what they were haggling about was not how long he’d be in prison, but which prison he’d be in and how comfortable he’d be behind bars until he died.

I did not care.

I cared about the women.

“We’re giving them assistance. It’ll be a long row, but we’ll keep our eye on them,” Agent Palmer assured.

I told her if they needed anything financially, I should be her first call. Or if they needed anything at all, please contact me.

She made note of that.

And we were done.

But I wasn’t done.

I called Hawk Delgado and got Elvira, who told me they’d wrap up, send me a report, handle the devolvement of what they were doing to keep an eye on Camille and Joan, and their final invoice would come with the report.