Chapter 12

Deputy Bobby helped me back up to the road. He sat me in his Pilot, told me not to get out of the car, and then jogged off—to get service, of course.

By the time he came back, I was only shaking a little. I slid out of the Pilot to meet Deputy Bobby. He cocked me a look like he didn’t exactly approve of this display of initiative, but all he said was, “Some deputies are on their way. Get back in the car, please; I think you’re in shock.”

“I’m fine.” I managed to smile as I added, “Thanks.”

And honestly, I was fine. More or less. Like I said, the shaking had all but stopped. The cool air felt good—the earthiness of the moss hanging from the branches overhead, the dustiness of the broken stone underfoot, the sweet, dark pitchiness of the trees. My eyes were still playing tricks—adrenaline, and the deep shadows of the forest—and I tried adjusting my glasses. Deputy Bobby must have taken pity on me because after a few rounds of me taking off my glasses and squinting and putting them on again and squinting some more, he took the glasses from me and settled them on my face.

“Thanks,” I said again, and that was when my voice decided to get wobbly. “God, thank you, Bobby. How did you—I mean, you saved my life.”

“Luck. Good timing.” He tucked some of my hair behind one arm of my glasses, and then he seemed to realize what he’d done and dropped his hand to his side. “You sounded serious when you said you needed to talk, and when I called you back, you didn’t answer. I thought I should get back to the house.”

The way he said the house sent something thrumming through me. I wasn’t eager to look too closely at that particular feeling, so I said, “Dead zone.”

He gave me a lopsided smile.

“Right,” I said, and for some reason, I had to struggle not to cry. Somehow I managed to say, “You knew that.”

“Dash, why don’t you sit down?”

“No, I’m fine. I’m fine. I promise, I’m fine.” A breeze lifted, branches stirred, and the trees groaned like old men. I thought I could feel a touch of the ocean on my hot cheeks. “I know I shouldn’t have gone alone; please don’t be mad.”

And then I told him everything.

To his credit, Deputy Bobby didn’t get mad. At least, he didn’t shout. He didn’t kick anything. He didn’t get into the Pilot and drive away. Instead, he nodded. He breathed slowly and deeply. His hands opened and closed against his thighs.

It was so much worse.

“What were you thinking?”

“I don’t know. I thought I’d just look around.”

“Bull pucky.”

Okay, that wasn’t quite what he said.

Since I didn’t want to spend too much time on that particular topic, I said, “But he’s right, don’t you think? I mean, Nate’s a creep and a thief, and I’m still totally willing to believe he killed Gerry. But it was so easy to get into that safe. Whoever killed him had almost a full day when they could have gotten into his house and removed their blackmail file. And what Gerry said about Ali—”

“Ali’s gone.”

“What? What do you mean she’s gone?”

“She disappeared, Dash. She ran away. She’s been couch-surfing with friends—I guess I don’t know if they were friends, but they were all part of that reclamation movement. And now she’s gone.”

“That’s suspicious, right? That’s got to mean something.”

Deputy Bobby made a noise that could have meant anything.

“The sheriff has to admit it was murder now, doesn’t she? I mean, the footsteps that were erased at the cliff, those blackmail files, the fact that Ali disappeared?”

“Dash—”

“I know the medical examiner has to determine the manner of death, but there’s no way the sheriff is going to let this be written off as an accident, right?”

“I don’t know. It’s none of my business. And it’s not any of yours, either.”

He said it roughly—almost harshly. And the words were so unlike the Deputy Bobby I knew that it took me a minute to make sense of them, to step back and look at him, to see him, then, more closely. The red eyes. The way he folded his arms. The challenge in his face.

“Where were you?” I asked.

He shifted his weight, and the broken asphalt on the shoulder crunched under his feet.

“You said you were driving back to Hemlock House because I called. Where’d you go?”

Deputy Bobby looked past me, and when he spoke, his voice was thin and brittle, like ice about to break. “West and I talked this morning.”

Even though I’d suspected it from the way he was acting, it still, somehow, felt like a surprise. “Oh God. Is that good? What happened? Are you okay?”

“Everything’s fine.”

“You’re—” I didn’t know how to phrase what I wanted to say, so I asked, “Want to talk about it?”

“There’s nothing to talk about. I apologized. West accepted my apology.” He adjusted his arms across his chest. He was still looking out into the trees, the moss, the ferns shaped like swords. “We’re good now.”

“You’re good now.”

“That’s what I said.”

But this time, I recognized the unfamiliar hostility for what it was: defensiveness. It was easy to recognize; I was feeling some of it myself. “What did you talk about?”

Something flickered in Deputy Bobby’s eyes, but he said, “I told you. I apologized.”

I made a noise of understanding.

His gaze flicked to me for less than a heartbeat, and then he wrenched it back to the trees again.

“Did you write down what you wanted to say to him?” I asked.

Deputy Bobby didn’t answer.

“Did you?” I asked again.

“I appreciate you—”

“You didn’t, did you?” The question dropped open like a trap door between us. After a moment, I said, “Of course you didn’t.”

Now he looked at me. A dusky flush rose under his golden-olive skin. Even in the canopy’s deep shadows, his pupils looked hard and small. “I didn’t need to write anything down. I just needed to apologize. We both overreacted, and now it’s all over.”

“You overreacted? Really? Do you remember last night?”

“I remember that this is my relationship. Mine. And I don’t need your opinion or your commentary.” He struggled to add, in an approximation of his normal voice, “Thank you for being worried, but I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

The old Dash would have let it drop there. Heck, the old Dash never would have gotten this far in the first place. But apparently, having your entire life turned upside down and shaken like a dollhouse goes a long way toward helping you deal with your conflict avoidance patterns. Also, confronting murderers didn’t hurt. So even though I tried to do what he asked, I felt myself already starting to speak.

“Big surprise,” I said, “you don’t want to talk about it. Well, too bad. God, why are you being such a—such a dude about this? You’re so smart. Most of the time. You’re so funny and kind and generous and good. And you deserve to be happy. Instead, you give me this nonsense about how everything’s fine and it all blew over. Stuff like this doesn’t blow over. That’s why you’re so unhappy!”

My shout echoed out into the trees. The branches above us shifted in the breeze, and shadows rose and fell on Deputy Bobby’s face. He stared at me. The hurt in his face was already closing, hardening, turning into a wall I didn’t know how to get past.

“I am happy,” Deputy Bobby said.

“No, you’re not. You don’t want to move to Portland. You don’t want to give up working in law enforcement. You don’t want to be a doctor, or whatever you think you’re supposed to do. You don’t want to do any of that. And I don’t know why you can’t just tell him.”

“I’m fine, for your information. West and I are fine.”

I shook my head, and now I was the one to look away.

“You know something, Dash?” He laughed—part scoff, part scorn, and it was the first time, I realized distantly, I’d ever heard Deputy Bobby try to hurt somebody. “For someone who whines and moans about how bad he is at relationships, you’re sure quick to talk about stuff you don’t know anything about.”

Deeper among the trees, a bird broke into flight—a flurried flap of wings that shattered the stillness. The sound of tires on pavement came next, and a sheriff’s office cruiser came over the hill.

The weight of Deputy Bobby’s gaze rested on me for another long moment. And then, without another word, he got in his car and left.