Chapter 11

Forrest stared down at the grass circlet. He was lightheaded and needed to sit down. His heart crashed against his ribs—or maybe it was trying to claw its way out through his esophagus—but Nero was watching him closely, so he tried to school his expression.

"Where did you get this?" he repeated, sitting back down on the bed next to Nero. His voice shook no matter how hard he tried to stop it.

"Are you alright?" Nero asked. "I found it on my steps just before you showed up tonight. Do you know what it is?"

Forrest looked up from the bits of dried grass shaped into a crude circle that he held in his hand. Another wave of dizziness washed over him. Déjà vu.

What the fuck was this? How come Nero Vik had this in his cabin?

"Cooper?" Nero said his name quietly as if he was afraid of startling him.

"You found this? Just now?" He did his best to sound perfectly normal and figured he'd failed.

Vik nodded. "I was working and heard a noise—well, I thought someone knocked—but when I opened the door, there was no one there. Just that bracelet thingy. Are you sure you're alright? You look pale."

Forrest shook off the uncomfortable feeling that he'd somehow traveled back in time. "I'm fine. Low blood sugar. Just hungry," he replied. "It looks like something a kid would make, doesn't it?" Looking over at Nero again, he added, "Call me Forrest, alright? You say Cooper and I keep waiting to hear Springs afterward."

"Sure, okay. Forrest. Call me Nero."

From the skeptical tone and matching expression on Nero's face, Forrest hadn't been very convincing with his excuse.

"So," he said, wanting to get as far away from the artifact as possible. If the cabin had had a fireplace, he would have burned the thing. "How should we get started on our investigation?" He nonchalantly set the band of weeds back where he'd found it. As if it wasn't the most terrifying thing he'd laid eyes on in decades.

Since coming down from The Deep.

He earned himself another look from Nero, who was obviously aware that Forrest didn't want to talk about the bracelet.

"There are rules." Nero tapped the tip of one index finger with the other. "First of all, we are not the Hardy Boys. Or Starsky and Hutch. Or Cagney and Lacey. Or any other buddy detective pairing that I can think of." He tapped his middle finger this time. "Second, I'm in charge. Think Magnum or Sherlock. And, third, that makes you the sidekick. Understood?"

Forrest opened his mouth to protest but Nero held up his hand, stopping what Forrest had been about to say, which was, In your fucking dreams. Something else occurred to him, something that wasn't pertinent, but that he was now insanely curious about.

"I need to learn everything there is to know about Ned Barker," Nero continued. "Since he was friends with your family, you get to tell me everything you can think of."

"Wait a sec."

"Wait a sec, why?"

"My grandpa loved dime-store detective novels. He collected them. Wanda used to set aside any that came into the shop."

Forrest pictured the bookshelves Ernst had built into the living room walls. They were still packed with old-school paperbacks that his grandfather had loved. Their covers mostly depicted scantily clad women and fierce-looking manly men with guns, and one series had featured an extremely rotund man who was almost as smart as Sherlock Holmes.

Forrest had devoured them all in just a few months when he'd first come to live with Ernst because there'd been nothing else to read in the house.

Nero's expression was resigned, like he knew where the conversation was going. "Why is this important, Forrest?"

"Just wondering. Are you by chance named after the great Nero Wolfe?"

Nero visibly deflated. "Do you know how many people have ever asked me that? Maybe three." Now he was scowling at Forrest. It was very sexy.

"Well?" Forrest prodded, trying not to grin.

"Fine. Yes. Are you happy now? I was named for a fictional character who had a sidekick named Archie. Shall I call you Archie?" He raised his eyebrows.

"Hell, no. And hey, at least you're not named after a stand of trees."

Nero perked up. "'True. What about your sister? Where did her name come from?"

"No idea. Our mother's twisted imagination?" He did not want to talk about his mother. "Maybe she let Witt name her."

"And Witt was your father?"

Forrest was pretty sure Nero knew the answer to that, but he'd play along, sort of. He wanted to trust Nero Vik now, but years of ingrained suspicion of humanity at large was hard to fight.

"Yes, but remember the deal. You help get to the bottom of Ned's murder first."

Forrest could tell Nero wanted to ask more questions, but if they went down this road, it might be hard to get back to their true purpose.

Nero rolled his eyes and sighed. "So, Archie, what's the plan?"

Forrest tried not to grin. "You're the hotshot investigator."

"Then sorry, but we start with you. Tell me about that bracelet. Why would someone leave it on my doorstep? Also, I need to get dressed. It's hard for me to take myself seriously while naked."

Nero rolled off the bed and beelined for a three-drawer dresser against the wall. Forrest did not avert his eyes. Nero Vik was incredibly sexy. While the other man dug out fresh clothing, Forrest snatched his jeans up off the floor and forced his legs back into the damp denim, then pulled his long-sleeved t-shirt back over his head.

"Ready?" Nero asked. "Sorry, I don't have a clothes dryer here."

"Meh, they'll warm up in a minute." He sat back down on the messy covers and leaned back on his hands.

"Spit it out, Cooper. What's with the bracelet?"

Nero came over to stand next to the bed. The expression on his face told Forrest he wasn't letting him bluff his way out of answering.

He tried anyway. "Why start with that?"

Nero already thought Forrest was weird; if he shared his suspicions, Nero was going to think he'd been watching too many reruns of X-Files or Twilight Zone. Forrest didn't watch TV though. He could just replay the crazy shit in his head.

"Because if we're doing this, I need to know everything. That"—Nero pointed at the seemingly innocuous hoop—"freaked you out. Investigative reporter, remember? So what is it?"

Forrest glanced at the grass circlet again, hating its existence. "It can't be important." He didn't want it to be important. He needed it to be a fluke.

"You don't get to decide what is important and what isn't," Nero said with more than a tinge of exasperation. "If you want to try and bring Ned Barker justice, we need to look at everything. Every angle. All the facts. No stone unturned."

"I get the point, no need to pummel me with it."

Nero ignored his attempt at humor. "Who were Ned's other friends? What were his hobbies? In my opinion, it's unlikely that some random stranger attacked him."

Forrest let out a groan and flopped all the way down onto the mattress.

"Start by explaining that bracelet."

"Ugh, fine. It's something Dina used to do. She'd make grass things like that and leave them for us to find. She said they were secret messages. Dina was odd, to put it lightly, and not in an endearing way. But honestly, Vi—Nero, it's something a kid would make."

Nero narrowed his eyes, clearly mulling over what Forrest had shared. "If that's the case, why does it scare you?"

Sitting up again, Forrest raked one hand through his hair and tried not to shout in the confines of the tiny cabin. "Because I have a ridiculous fear that my crazy-ass mother is still alive and living in the woods, okay? And I'm not okay with that."

Forrest tried to take a deep breath but failed. Instead, he was covered with sweat and it felt like his heart was trying to fight its way out of his chest.

"I have recurring nightmares that she's still out there. My dreams are memories, I think, things that I can't remember when I'm awake. They scare the crap out of me. I have to keep telling myself that she can't be out there any longer. It's been decades, for godsakes."

Fuck. His hand was shaking slightly, so he clenched it into a fist.

Nero grabbed it, holding the fist in a tight grip. "Sorry for pushing—it's a bad habit. We'll set the whatever it is aside for now."

The vise around Forrest's lungs loosened ever so slightly.