The Girl in the Mist (Misted Pines 1)

“Seems so.”

“It’s shit. It’s childish. And it’s piss poor timing,” he bitched.

“You’re right about all that,” I replied.

He drew breath into his nose, re-engaged his phone, and didn’t let me go as he made a call.

He put it to his ear.

“Yeah, Sarah, lis—” Pause then, “What did you think was gonna happen?” Pause then, “Yeah, I’d hope you didn’t want your son to see it.” Another pause and, “Are you telling me I gotta explain the concept of copy and paste to you?”

There was a longer pause, but it wasn’t that long before Bohannan spoke again.

“I gotta interrupt you, ’cause I need you to listen to me. Will’s here. We got him. We’re taking care of him tonight. But he’s not staying here because he’s my daughter’s boyfriend and I’m not okay with that. You need to find somewhere safe for him to be with someone who has a mind to him and doesn’t have their heads up their ass.”

That was saying it straight.

“No, see, because I got a visual on one of my cameras of your boy shouting at my girl, lookin’ like he’s gonna beat the shit outta her, so I had to haul ass from what I was doing, which, Sarah, you know is kinda fuckin’ important, to shut that shit down. I show, and he’s got his face in my woman’s, and I mean that literally. He’s messed up.”

He took a big breath.

And kept at her.

“Now I know Dale done you wrong. And I know Bobby, Dwayne and Jay are assholes. And I know you women got a beef. And I’m a guy, so you gotta know I don’t take it lightly when I say there are some men who deserve to feel emasculated. Where I draw the line with that is not when there’s someone killing girls in our town. But I’ll take this opportunity to remind you that Alice Pulaski might not have been your daughter, but she was his sister.”

I bit back cheering him on.

“Where I draw the line with it is parents causing damage to kids they might never recover from. You fucked your boy up today, and I know how a lot of messed-up minds work, and the vast majority of that happens when parents don’t think about what their actions might do to their kids. You didn’t think about what you’d do to your son, and I got no idea how you’re gonna fix that. And that is not on Dale. That is on you.”

And that was straighter.

“Now figure it out and text me where your kid is gonna go tomorrow after school, and pack him a couple good bags. Because he’s blocked you and Dale, and you got no choice but to give him some time. Time I suggest you take to remember what’s important in this world. So you text me because I’m not gonna talk to you until I’ve lost the shit taste in my mouth I got from having to deal with you.”

And with that, he was finished.

“Christ,” he muttered, shoving his phone in his back pocket.

“Well said,” I praised.

“I got into this business because bad shit happens to good people, and I wanted to play a part in making it stop or making it right, or just doing something. But I’m running out of good people.”

I turned and pressed into him.

“I’m not.”

He looked down at me and his expression gentled.

“I think Will really likes her and he’s just caught in a shitty situation he doesn’t know what to do with,” I deduced.

“Yeah.”

“I still think Celeste and I need to have a conversation, and today I added a few things.”

“I would be grateful, baby, but today she also got something else.”

“I know.” I wrinkled my nose. “We’ll talk about exploring sexually and how it isn’t wrong, even if today it wasn’t right.”

“That’s not what she got.”

“What did she get?”

“She thinks you’re the shit because you’re pretty and you’re famous and you’re rich, and you got great clothes she can borrow, and you put on mascara every day and shovel shit back at Jess and Jace and you make me happy.”

I made him happy.

I was holding my breath.

“But today, she got a woman who’d stand between her and an angry young man who’s six-one and two hundred pounds and can check the fuck outta someone against the boards. He’s up in that woman’s shit, and for Celeste, she doesn’t stand down. You could leave me tomorrow, and I’d hate it like fuck, but you’d leave having given her a taste of that, so I’d be able to live with it.”

“I might cry,” I whispered.

“There’s a reason your girls are perfect.”

I shoved my face in his chest.

He wrapped a hand around the back of my head.

And into the hair on top of it, he said, “I got sordid and tawdry all around me, but these days, all I gotta do is think of you and know a cycle can be broken and light can shine out of dark.”