The Girl in the Mist (Misted Pines 1)

That room was filled with people who wanted him out, and they were all wrong.

He was right.

A man with black hair cut and carefully arranged into a style that should have died in the eighties, sitting next to the octogenarian, shoved forward with torso and hand, moving the microphone his way.

“Order! Order!” he yelled, commandeering the gavel after a brief tussle the older gent had no hope of winning since his bone density left the building at least a decade ago. “Order!” he bellowed.

Deputies moved forward, for what reason I didn’t know, and of course jostling began.

I reached for Celeste’s hand to be prepared to make a break for it if needed, my gaze darting to Bohannan.

It did this just in time to catch him thunder, “Cut it!”

There were still titters and a few hints of elbowing, but the majority calmed down.

Yes, he was a force in this town.

“He can be a jerk, but mostly, Dad’s super cool,” Celeste muttered under her breath proudly, yet sulkily.

Even though the woods party ended in pandemonium, she wasn’t over it.

I beat back a smile.

“Thank you, Cade,” Mr. Greed Is Good said into the microphone. “Now, we know you have a lot to say. But I’ll start with the preamble that it’s our job to weigh the welfare of our citizens and make difficult decisions—”

There were groans and a loud, “You have got to be kidding!”

Another gavel strike and, “I said I’ll have order! We called this meeting. We can just as easily adjourn it!”

Shuffling, muttering and unease as he waited for everyone to bow to his power trip, and I watched this with a sinking heart.

It sunk further when he stated, “This is a precarious time. In a time such as this, regardless of what you might think, because riot thought isn’t rational…”

“Way to escalate proceedings, bozo,” I mumbled, because so far, there’d been no riots. Just some unruly kids, terrified parents and trigger-happy cops.

The woman sitting in front of me turned around and grinned.

I returned it.

“…an abundance of caution and a steady leadership is the only way forward,” the gent up front carried on. “Now—”

His attention was taken.

Which meant everyone’s attention was taken.

And what it was taken by was Megan making a show of making her way to the front.

The line to speak had to be at least twenty-five people deep.

But the guy up front didn’t hesitate to step aside, and the room could hear her demure, “Thank you, Tony,” before she took her position at the lectern and squared her shoulders.

I was impressed.

I was also settled in for her to make mincemeat out of him.

And this she did.

She just didn’t start it the way I might have expected.

She did it by ordering, “Gary, stop being a horse’s ass.”

The crowd erupted in cheers.

But Megan was opening her handbag.

She whipped out a slew of papers and brandished it in the air.

Once she thumped it on the lectern she announced, “That is two thousand, one hundred and twenty-seven names on a petition to relieve Sheriff Dern of his duties awaiting his recall.”

And that was a lot of signatures in a very short period of time.

Though I suspected she’d been on this case for a lot longer, however, she hadn’t mentioned it to me.

So, the people of Misted Pines couldn’t come together about a mural.

But when the safety and welfare of their children were threatened, they were a tribe.

Yes.

Murders aside, I’d picked the right place.

“Megan, honestly,” Gary said, his tone somewhat diffident at the same time attempting to retain control, and I sensed she was one of his campaign donors.

But Megan wasn’t listening to him.

She was reaching into her handbag and pulling out another slew of papers.

She thumped it on top of the others and said into the microphone, “And that is a petition with one thousand, three hundred and fifty-four signatures to have you recalled. Both of these I’m hand delivering to the governor’s office tomorrow, Gary, if you do not relieve Dern and reinstate Moran this evening.”

Another roar from the crowd.

Well then, that was definitely a lot of signatures in a short period of time, because that was a power play that could only have been conceived of yesterday.

“It is not the Commission’s position to bow to public pressure—” Gary shouted over the cheer.

“It isn’t?” she asked. “If you don’t listen to the public you serve, then what’s your purpose?”

That had him stumped.

“Megan, and all of you,” he addressed the crowd. “Please know, we appreciate your concern. But mob rule never—”

He stopped talking and looked to his right.

Which meant I looked to my left.

Bohannan was walking down the side aisle, Jace and Jess following him.

He stopped at the row Celeste and I were in and held out his arm.

We got up and “excuse me’ed” our way past the people in front of us.

Celeste got to him first, and he took her hand and gently moved her to his back, between him and her brothers.