Page 18

I texted everyone to let them know Keme was okay. Fox arrived not long after. They got out of the van as Keme and I exited the Cold Stone, and then they stood there, wringing their hands as Keme and I approached. When we reached the van, Fox darted forward to grab Keme in a hug. Almost as quickly as it began, Fox released the boy, and words spilled out of them.

“You won’t believe the merry chase I’ve had. An aspiring bicycle thief! And me, the town darling, a pillar of civic-mindedness, practically a hero. Here we go, everyone in the van. Lovely to see you again, my boy. You look as handsome as a young James Dean. And you, Dashiell—”

“No,” I said.

“—look like a young Demi Moore.”

I sighed.

“In that movie,” Fox clarified, “when she does all the push-ups. Although perhaps not that young.”

“Please get in the van,” I told Keme, “so we can get this over with.”

I thought maybe he’d be too tired to smile, or too numb. But it was there. A weary shadow curving his lips, although it didn’t quite reach his eyes. He didn’t even snap at me, shove me, or pull my hair when I helped him into the back of the van.

Then Fox and I stood there. Fox was trembling: top hat quivering, monocle about to tumble, Victorian-waif-style fingerless gloves thrumming against their thighs.

“He’s okay,” I said. “He’ll be okay.”

Fox gave a jerky nod. For a moment, I was sure they were going to cry, but they pulled themselves together, patted me on the shoulder, and, with false cheer and a terrible English accent, called out, “Tally-ho!”

They did it about three more times on the drive home. And then, when we stopped at a red light, they yanked a sequined handkerchief out of one pocket, impresario-style, and wiped their eyes and shook with a single, violent, silent sob. I rubbed their back and glanced to see if Keme had noticed. I was pretty sure he hadn’t, mostly because the only part of him I could see were his legs; the rest of him was hidden by the tennis-skirt mobile.

My first sight of Hemlock House was of it at the top of the hill, every window lit up with a warm, yellow glow that defied the night. The nerd in me (which is pretty much all of me) thought of Tolkien, and the last homely house. Fox parked at the front door, and we went inside. I practically glued myself to Keme—in case he tried to run, sure, but also because I knew what it was like to come back, the mixture of embarrassment and relief, and the uncertainty of not knowing how to act.

Indira must have heard us, because she stepped into the hall at the same time we did. Her eyes went immediately to Keme. The boy stiffened. Then he took an awkward step toward her (being a teenager, I was starting to remember, was absolutely excruciating). Indira broke the tension of the moment by running to him. I’d never seen Indira run, but she did it the way she did everything—gracefully. She wrapped Keme in a hug, and after several long seconds, he put his arms around her, and his body softened. I had to look away, and instead, I traded an awkward glance with Fox; it wasn’t our moment, and we both knew instinctively that we had no right to it.

The sound of a footfall drew me back.

Millie stood at the end of the hall. Her eyes were red. She was clutching a tissue in one hand. Her flyaways had multiplied into the millions, and she was staring at Keme. Keme stared back. He had stepped away from Indira and was caught in a high-schooler’s pose, one thumb under the strap of his backpack, as though frozen mid-hoist. The rise and fall of his thin chest gave him away, though. It was like the flutter of a bird’s wing. A strand of hair that had fallen loose from his beanie drifted on the restless movement of his body.

“Keme?” Millie whispered.

And it was, in all the time I’d known her, the first real whisper.

Another second passed, and I seemed to realize at the same time as everyone else that Keme wasn’t going to move. I stepped over to him and whispered, “Do you want me to talk to her? You can do this later.”

He didn’t answer except to blink frantically as his eyes welled. And then he looked at me. And it was a question.

“It’s going to be okay,” I said. “Whatever happens, it’s going to be okay.”

In slow motion, he re-settled the backpack’s strap across his shoulder. And then he nodded.

He walked down the hall toward Millie, and Millie started to cry again, pressing the wadded-up tissues against her eyes. He said something to her, and she shook her head, and they stepped into the billiard room, and Keme slid the doors shut behind them.

I let out my breath slowly and turned to see Indira and Fox not looking much better. They were, to my surprise, holding hands. Fox was a mess, weeping openly now. Indira still held her usual composure, except for a shimmer in her eyes. She surprised me again when she released Fox’s hand so that she could take me into a hug. Her arms were light, barely settling on my shoulders, and the night was full of surprises, because then she kissed my cheek and said, “Thank you.”

Before I could say anything—like explain that I’d pioneered being-beaten-up-by-a-teenager as a parenting style—the front door opened. Bobby entered the hall a moment later. He was still in uniform, and he glanced up and down the hall before his gaze settled on me.

“With Millie,” I said, jerking a thumb at the billiard room.

Bobby nodded, and then his expression morphed into concern when he said, “What happened to you?”

“Nothing—”

“You’ve got blood on your shirt.”

“Oh, that. It’s nothing.”

“Uh huh,” Bobby said, and he put his hand on my back and steered me toward the stairs.

In our bathroom, Bobby sat me on the toilet while he inspected my scalp. When you knew someone really well, you could tell a lot about them by the way they breathed. For example, as Bobby cleaned the laceration, I could tell he was upset. If upset meant: filled with boiling rage. I could also tell because he was very, um, aggressive in applying some sort of stinging gel to the wound.

“I don’t think you need stitches,” he said as he crouched in front of me. “Do you feel dizzy?”

“No.”

“Tired?”

“Pretty much constantly.”

“Headache?”

“Uh, minor. Also, what did you put on that cut, because it feels like someone slapped jellied gasoline around and then set it on fire?”

Bobby caught my hand as I reached up to check if this was, in fact, the case.

“Any problems focusing?” he asked. “Do you feel like you’re thinking clearly?”

“Bobby, I’m fine.”

“Fantastic. Then you know what’s going to happen if I catch you messing around with that laceration.”

“Uh—yes.”

“And you can explain what exactly happened tonight.”

“Well, I found Keme—”

“In detail.”

At the look on his face, I swallowed. And then I squared my shoulders (as best I could while perched on a Victorian-ish commode), and said, “I tripped when I stepped off the curb.”

Bobby said some words that deputies are not allowed to say on duty.

“I did,” I said. “I’m notoriously clumsy. I fell off the sofa the other day.”

“Because you were asleep.” Bobby straightened. “I don’t care if he’s having a hard week. I’m going to talk to him.”

“Bobby, I tripped.” I grabbed his hand. As carefully as I could, I said, “It was an accident, and it’s not going to happen again.” His face was still stone, so I added, “Please?”

Unhappiness settled across Bobby’s features, but after another moment, he relaxed. He pulled me against him, ran his fingers carefully through my hair, and said in a gravelly voice, “I hate seeing you get hurt.”

“I know.”

“I should have been there.”

I shook my head, which was no mean feat with my face tucked into him. He smelled nice—like something delicious. It took me a moment to pinpoint it as fried chicken (it was strangely homey). After a few more moments of letting myself relax against him, I drew back and said, “I do think you need to talk to him, though. He needs to know you guys are—how do surfers say ‘we’re still cool’?”

“I’ll talk to him.”

“We’re totally going to chillax, bro.”

Bobby brushed my hair back from my forehead.

“Everything’s gnarly, buddy. Ten-four.”

“Ten-four?”

“I meant hang ten.”

Bobby sighed.

“Surf’s up. Cowabunga. Tubular.”

He slapped my thigh, and I yelped.

“Oops,” Bobby murmured. “Come on. You need to get out of that bloody shirt. And then a bath—no showers until that’s had a day or two to heal.”

It’s surprisingly hard to resist an armed deputy, who also happens to be your incredibly handsome boyfriend, when he decides to take your clothes off (in case you ever find yourself in a similar situation).

“You know what the worst part is?” I asked as Bobby started the hot water. “I thought if I could talk to Keme, if I could get him to open up to me, I’d finally be able to figure out what was going on. I thought he’d have some key piece of information, some tiny detail that didn’t seem meaningful to him, but that could unlock the whole investigation?”

“That’s not always how real investigations work,” Bobby said. “Sometimes, there are no witnesses. Sometimes, there aren’t any clues. Sometimes, bad people get away with doing bad things.”

“I hate that. That’s terrible. Real-life mysteries should always follow the three-act structure. They should have a femme fatale who complicates everything with a web of relationships, including a big one that surprises you at the end. They should have an intrepid detective who sees through her, um, malarkey.”

“That sounds kind of sexist.”

“It could be an homme fatal. Or a them fatal! What if Fox is the killer?”

“How hard did you hit your head?” Bobby asked as he checked the water. Then he pointed to the tub. “In.”

This was where we got back to the I’m-basically-a-straight-guy-so-casual-nudity-doesn’t-faze-me thing. I stripped out of my joggers and trunks, and I slipped into water hot enough to sting at first, and then I melted. My eyes closed. I sank down until my chin touched the water. I swear to God I could feel every aching muscle loosening up all at once.

The jingle of a belt made me open my eyes.

Bobby was taking his belt off.

“What is happening right now?” I asked.

“I’m taking a bath with you.”

“Why?”

And because he was Bobby, and because this was the kind of thing he could say, he said, “Because I miss you, and I want to be with you.” He made a face as he unbuttoned his shirt. “And because I smell like a McDonald’s kitchen.”

“More like a KFC,” I said. He looked at me, and I mumbled, “Uh, just guessing.” In an attempt at a recovery, I said, “Somebody needs to tell Tripple he has to clean out those cars. It doesn’t matter if he’s retiring; it’s not fair to the rest of you.”

“ I told him,” Bobby said as his trousers came off. He was wearing gray boxers. Gray. That was it. They didn’t even have cute pink stitching or a llama or one single video game reference on them. Admittedly, my outrage was low because I was focused on, um, other things. “I think pretty much everybody has told him. He’d stay late to do a deep clean, he said. I guess we’ll see if it makes a difference.”

“Maybe he’ll buy a Taco Bell air freshener.”

Bobby did not look amused, but I wasn’t too bothered, because that was the exact moment he was letting his shirt slide off him. I mean, my God. It was like the man had never even heard of cake. I hadn’t realized somebody could be cute when they took off their socks, but Bobby was so focused, so intent, that my heart exploded inside my chest. The boxers went next. And yes, since I know you’re all wondering, he folded his clothes. I didn’t pay too much attention to that, either. I had my eyes on other things.

When he straightened up, he caught the look on my face and grinned. He flicked water at me as he climbed into the tub, and my cries of outrage didn’t seem to bother him as he settled at the other end. It was a strange sensation, our legs slotting together under the water. The texture of his skin felt different—not that I’m complaining.

Then the grin dropped off his face, and he leaned forward, and in a voice that could only politely be described as curt said, “What’s that?”

(Let me tell you: my mind didn’t go to a very mature place.)

But then I processed his tone, and I said, “What’s what?”

“That bruise on your chest that looks like someone stepped on you.” He started to rise, water streaming off him. “You said you stepped off a curb—”

“Bobby, wait!” I grabbed his hand. Water rolled down my wrist, cooling as it went, and I tugged. “Sit down. It wasn’t Keme. Come on, sit down.”

He sank into the water again, but if anything, his expression got even more grim. “What happened?”

I realized that, in the chaos of the day, I hadn’t told him about Woody Vance. So, I told him now—the strangeness of Vance hiding out in Mrs. Knight’s dad’s place, and his barely veiled anger at Channelle, even though she was already dead. The story about how they’d met, and how she’d lied to him—and, in his opinion at least, how she’d used him. And the sudden burst of violence at the end.

“We’re going to the station,” Bobby said. “You’re going to press charges.”

“Um, well, maybe—”

A glacial calculation happened on Bobby’s face. And then, coolly, he said, “Fine.”

“Oh no. No way. You’re not going over there and beating him up.”

“I wasn’t planning on beating him up.”

“Bobby, you’re missing the point.”

“I’m missing the point? That’s battery, Dash.” His voice tightened in a way I wasn’t familiar with. “He put his hands on you.”

“I know, I know. I’m okay, though. And if you want me to press charges, I will.”

“I do.”

“Okay. We can do that.” The rare burst of anger from Bobby—even as controlled as it was—made me scramble for a way to redirect the conversation. “Doesn’t it seem strange, though? I mean, think about it. He tracks his ex-wife down across state lines. And he’s in such a hurry, he drives up here in his take-home car, even though I’m sure that’s against regulations. He’s not in Hastings Rock for more than a day before JT dies. And then Channelle dies. And we know this guy is angry and violent. In my mind, he’s a way better candidate for a killer than Foster.”

Bobby was silent for several long seconds. When he spoke, his voice still held some of that tension, and I had the sense he was fighting to relax it. “A psychological profile is kind of like motive, Dash. It might help. But it might not. In the end, it comes down to putting someone in the room, so to speak. Opportunity is a much bigger deal. And we know Foster and Channelle were having an affair. We can place him in her motel room. He stole her necklace. That’s a lot going against him.”

“I know. And I know it’s just more lazy armchair psychology, but I don’t think Foster’s a killer. He’s a waste of space, sure. He’s a loser. There’s definitely some meanness to him—he’s definitely a bully, and he’ll pick on people he thinks he can push around.”

“I would have loved to see his face when Keme knocked him into next year,” Bobby said, and the edge in his voice was blunted by what sounded like amusement.

“Wait, you knew?”

Bobby’s look told me: yes, he’d known. There was also a hint of: it was incredibly obvious.

I laughed in spite of myself. “Yeah, well, Channelle picked the wrong guy this time. Foster definitely wasn’t going to be able to take care of her—if anything, I think Foster was hoping she’d be an upgrade, and he could leech off her money for a while.”

“Maybe that’s why they argued,” Bobby said. “Maybe that’s why the argument escalated.”

“And he killed her,” I said sourly. “I know. I still think it was Woody, though.”

Bobby made a face. And then he splashed me again.

Laughing—and, yes, shrieking a little—I tried to shield myself with my hands.

“Bobby, stop! Stop! Stop it! You’re getting me all wet!”

“You’re in the bath,” he said as he kept splashing me.

“My wound!”

He instantly stopped, of course; he’s a softie. And his expression was so contrite that I almost felt bad when I smirked at him.

Contrition gave way to a smile that spread slow and hot across his face. “You jerk,” he said, and some of that same heat scorched the bottom of his voice. He got up on his knees and splashed his way toward me.

“What are you doing?”

“What do you think I’m doing?” he asked in that same hot-enough-to-smoke voice. He straddled me. And then he kissed me.

Listen: we were in a bath, and we were warm, and I love him. I’m not responsible for my body having ideas.

He chuckled, and it had that same black-bottomed heat to it as he kissed a line down my neck.

I made a little sound. I shifted around, sending the water in the tub sloshing, to try to get more of him—touch more of him, press harder against him. He had one hand on my chest, and I knew without looking that he was touching the bruise Woody had left. His mouth was soft on sensitive skin, and the faintest hint of his stubble—because he never had much—still made me squirm.

And then my brain started to race, of course. Because of what had happened last time. And how stupid I’d been. And the possibility that it would all happen again—him saying things, and me being, well, me.

Bobby was working on what I suspected was going to be a truly admirable hickey on my collarbone when he must have sensed the change. He stopped, sat back, and looked me in the eye.

I broke first. “I’m sorry about last time. What I said. I feel like I messed things up.”

“You didn’t mess anything up. I’m sorry I made you uncomfortable.”

“You didn’t. I mean, you didn’t. I know you’re trying to express yourself, and I know you’re trying to tell me how you feel about me, and Bobby, I love that so much. It means so much to me. I’m so happy that you want to do that for me. I just—” I hesitated, trying to think of the clearest way to say it. What came out was “I’m just so freaking weird.”

The corner of his mouth tilted, but it wasn’t exactly a smile. “You’re not weird. And I’m glad you told me.” He hesitated, and I recognized—with surprise—the sudden vulnerability behind his silence. “I, um, did some reading.”

I sat up a little straighter. “Oh.”

“Because I don’t ever want you to feel uncomfortable or unhappy or—” He took a breath. “I guess I want you to know I really do think those things about you. I wasn’t just saying them. But I also want to recognize that you might not see yourself the same way, or you might feel uncomfortable hearing those things, or feel some kind of pressure.”

“That’s what I was saying. I’m a weirdo, so I’m going to work on this. I told Keme it’s important to listen to what your partner wants to tell you, because that’s a way of making yourself vulnerable, and I want you to know that I do want to make myself vulnerable with you, and I want to be here for you, and emotionally available, and—”

“Dash.” He waited, and since I was smart enough to let him speak, he continued, “I do want to express myself with you. That’s a me thing, and I’m working on it. And I’m going to keep doing better. But I also think there’s something else we could try, you know. When we’re together. To communicate.”

My eyes stung. I reached up to touch the part in his hair, and my smile felt so soft it was almost a noodle. “Bobby, you don’t have to fix everything.”

“This isn’t a fix,” he said, and to my surprise—and relief—I got the goofy grin. “This is a pivot.”

We dried off, and he led me to bed, one hand holding mine. There was something so sweet about it, so gentlemanly, that I wanted to cry all over again, and maybe some of that emotion showed in my face as we lay down because he touched my cheek, a question in his eyes. I nodded, which was as close as I could come to telling him I was okay. When he kissed me, it was barely more than a brush of his lips. Another question. I slid my fingers into his hair and kissed him back.

He was always so attentive. Always so careful and thorough, leaving kisses across my shoulder, down my chest. The press of his mouth made me shiver, and I wasn’t ready when he looked up at me, those earthy bronze eyes hooded and dark, and whispered, “Your skin is so soft.”

And weirdly enough, somehow, that was different—sweet, but not too personal. Not too much.

He scooted back up to straddle me again. He found my hands and brought them to his chest. His gaze was so earnest that I couldn’t look away. He said, “Do you feel how warm your hands are on mine?”

And I could. I could feel their heat, trapped between Bobby’s hands and his chest. And it may sound silly, but there was something so intimate about that recognition, about the fact that we both felt it, and that he had put it into words.

“I like how the hair on your legs scratches against mine,” Bobby said, and he gave a little wiggle so we could both feel it again. An unexpectedly wicked smile touched his mouth. “And I like the way your breath catches when I do something you like.”

The tears fell before I could stop them. Because he had done this for me. He had cared enough to learn how to do this for me. And because he was Bobby, and because I got to share these things with him. All these things that brought us together.

Bobby, of course, saw the tears and said, “Oh. Hey. I’m sorry—”

“No,” I said. “It’s good. It’s perfect. You’re perfect.”

He might not have believed me because he bent to check on me, brushing the back of his hand across my cheek. “Dash,” he said, and there was so much worry in my name.

So, I did the only thing I could think of: I tried to meet him halfway.

“Your breath feels like sunlight on my neck.” I curled my hand around his nape. “Like in winter, when it comes out from behind the clouds.”

For a precarious moment, Bobby’s eyes filled with tears. He smiled. And his voice was thick as he said, “That’s not fair. You’re a writer.”