20. 19
Sunbeams peep from beneath the curtains of Chester’s window. When I got home last night, Remy and Chester were waiting up for me. I was beyond exhausted, and they took me up to bed where I passed out cold. Now, after a full night’s sleep, I’m feeling antsy. My body is itching and I need to get out. It’s like I’ve got excess energy after sleeping so long and it has to get out. I have to get out.
First I pry myself out from beneath Chester’s arm, who’s sleeping on his stomach with his head underneath his pillow. He grunts when I move, but doesn’t wake up yet. Then I try to get out of the bed without waking up Remy, who’s guarding my back. When I get up, I find him staring at me though.
“What are you doing?” he whispers.
“I need to get out. Go for a run.” I’m making nervous hand gestures, trying to get this unease out of me.
He nods, not trying to hold me back. It’s one of the things that makes me love him; he never tells me not to do something or hold me back. He respects every aspect of me. I hurry to my room and throw on some running gear, put my hair up in a messy bun and go back to Chester’s room, remembering that’s where I left my phone last night.
When I enter the room, Remy is bent over Chester in running gear. I guess it’s convenient to have two men who have about the same size clothes. “We’re going for a run, love. You sleep some more.”
Chester grunts again and motions to the door with a hand, indicating that we should go. I grab my phone, bend over Chester as well and press a kiss against his shoulder blades. He doesn’t even notice, back asleep already.
We walk down, cross the hallway, and Remy holds the door open for me. “I’m not going easy today,” I tell him.
“Okay,” he says, closing the door again once we’re outside.
“And I don’t want to talk,” I add.
“That’s fine.”
“And we’re going through the woods, up the hill.”
“Hmhm.”
Guess that covers it all. I start running. My body is screaming to go full out, but for the run I have in mind, that won’t do. I need to warm my muscles up at least a little before I go full throttle, otherwise I won’t make it back. So I take a minute going at a pace that is probably still too fast, but less hard than it could be. When I run us through the gates around the property and get us on the road, I give up holding back and start running as hard as I can.
Through the trees, up a trail that is hardly being used. The pines surrounding us like neverending giants. And while I’m out of breath, I start feeling like I can breathe again. My feet pound on the ground, leaves and twigs beneath it. I’m not watching where I’m going, I just follow where my feet carry me.
I know these woods, I run here whenever I feel the need to run without it being a workout for work. It helps me ease my mind, but I haven’t been doing very much of it since this whole thing with the serial killer started.
All the time I spent on this serial killer, all the time I didn’t spend getting kids home. It’s driving me nuts. My guilt is eating me up alive. What the hell am I doing with my life? Taking time off? Prioritizing my love life over helping those children out there? They need someone to look for them, look out for them, and what am I doing? I’m busy collecting men. My mind spirals, and I can feel it going down, deeper and deeper, and I can’t put a halt to it.
My foot slides away, and before I know it, I land on the ground, roll over my shoulder and get up again, only to run further and harder than before. My feet pound quicker, harder, faster. Somewhere in the back of my mind it registers that my shoulder hurts, but I can’t find the energy to care. I can hear my heart pounding, the rushing of my blood palpable in my throat and my ears. And still my feet keep taking me further up the trail. If I can’t breathe, breathing won’t hurt so much.
I’m so fucking useless in the grand scheme of things. Just a tiny speck in the endless vastness of the universe, trying to make a difference but failing miserably.
When I reach an open spot on the trail, halfway up a mountain, I stop. Normally I would spend some time here, looking out over the forested area surrounding me, but this time, I just stand there, hurting. Every breath hurts. Not from physical exertion, but it’s a deeper ache, one that resides all the way in my soul and it’s all consuming.
I bend forward, leaning with my hands on my knees, trying to suck in the oxygen I so desperately need. But instead of catching my breath, I scream at the top of my lungs. I scream longer and harder than I should be able to, and while I’m doing it I can feel my voice going hoarse. It’s all the pent up frustration with myself. All my harshness, my criticism, everything I think I’m doing wrong coming out - as if yelling it to the fucking trees will make it better.
And just for a moment it does.
When two hands grab my shoulders I snap out of my mental state. I completely forgot that Remy was with me on my run. He pulls me against him, holding me up, tethering me to the here and now, and for just a moment I let him carry all my burdens when tears start falling from my eyes.
“I’m sorry,” I tell him. “I’m so sorry,” I repeat over and over again.
He just shushes me, tells me there’s nothing to be sorry for. Stroking my back, breathing for me. We stand there for what feels like forever. I’m surprised he kept up with me all this way up. He’s right that everyone underestimates a dancer. And when my tears finally start to dry, he inspects my shoulder and asks me if that’s feeling alright.
I shrug, panting out my next words. “Why wouldn’t it feel okay?”
“Because you ninja rolled mid-run. Don’t get me wrong, I’m extremely impressed, but it’s not entirely normal behavior during a run.”
The fall, I forgot about the fall, being so deep inside my own mind that it didn’t even register. “My training kicked in,” is all I answer.
“Feeling better now?” he asks, worry in his eyes, obviously talking about my breakdown.
I breathe in for four, hold for four, breathe out for four and hold for four. The antsy feeling in my body is gone, the clouds in my head have disappeared. And the pitchblack dark that surrounded me just moments ago seems to have faded with the primal scream that I let go over the forest.
“Yes,” I answer while my cheeks heat when I realize Remy was there to witness it all.
He pulls me to his side, hugging me close and kissing my hair. Then he holds me at arm’s length to make sure I hear what he’s saying.
“Sometimes you need to reach rock bottom, just so you can give yourself a push to go up again.”
The next breath I take feels life altering. I nod and turn back to the trail, slowly walking back down again. I’m a mess and this situation is going to blow up soon. Fuck, everything is a mess. I just wish it’ll all change for the better soon.
That afternoon Chester and I walk through the precinct to the two interrogation rooms. Beckett asked us to come over, to see if we could figure anything out. See if Winny or Beckett missed something. They only have a certain amount of time to figure this out before they have to let Alson and Wayne go.
Chester is holding my hand, stroking the back of it with his thumb. I have a suspicion Remy told him about my little screaming match that morning. He’s been surprisingly tender all day and I can’t say I mind it one bit. My jaw hurts from clenching my teeth and I’m certain I’m getting an ulcer any day now from all the stress.
Chester knocks on the door to the room next to the interrogation room. An unknown agent opens the door. He’s young and looks energetic, and I envy him for it.
“Who are you?” he asks.
“Chester Von Liechsenfield and Abby Wilder. Special Agent Sanders invited us to come observe the questioning.”
“Ah, yes, he said you’d be coming. Please come in.”
He’s so friendly I don’t trust him. In my opinion most feds are grumpy and unfriendly. Winny is the odd one out in that theory. So to run into another agent that’s friendly is kind of unnerving. Or perhaps I’m so nervous I’m seeing trouble where there isn’t any.
Inside, we can see the insides of two interrogation rooms through a two-way mirror. In the first room, Winny is talking to Wayne. In the second room, Beckett is questioning Alson. Both rooms show a very similar scene. Beckett sits on one side of the table, Alson and his lawyer on the other side. Winny’s room is the same. In the room between the interrogation rooms two agents are sitting down with headphones, watching what happens inside on a little screen.
The agent who let us in holds up headphones for us, so I grab one. I guess we’re listening in. When I put the headphones on, Beckett’s voice reaches me.
“Tell me where you were on the night of the third of this month again,” he demands from Alson.
“Don’t tell him anything,” the lawyer says.
“Why don’t we just tell them what they want to know? That way this madness can stop,” Alson says, pinching the bridge of his nose.
“I strongly advise you not to speak, Alson,” the lawyer repeats. “They’ll have to come with evidence before they can arrest you and if you don’t talk, they’ll have to let you go.”
“Unless we have evidence,” Beckett says. He’s bluffing. He knows that, I know that, hell, both Alson and his lawyer probably know that. But at least they don’t know for certain. Beckett’s poker face is creepy good though.
Alson sighs. “I want to go home.”
Chester stands behind me, a hand reaching around me and resting on my stomach, while he leans with his chin on my head. It’s comforting to know he’s there. A little voice in the back of my mind says it’s useless for me to be here because I won’t be any help in figuring out who the real killer is. If Beckett and Winny can’t crack this puzzle, how would I be able to? Then again, Chester is smarter than all of us combined, so maybe he can figure it out.
“How about you tell me something else? Tell me about Mila Figera.”
The girl that got murdered on campus, the one they thought was Alson’s girlfriend.
Alson and his lawyer exchange a look. They know more about this. They’ve talked about Mila Figera. I’m not sure if it”s because he was investigated last time, or because they already tried to figure out a good defense.
“What do you want to know of my client?”
“What does he know about Mila Figera?”
The lawyer sighs. “This never stops. Go ahead Alson, tell them.”
Alson crosses his arms, sticking his hands under his armpits. You don’t have to be trained to see he’s closing off. He stares at his shoes, squinting his eyes before he speaks. He takes a moment to even out his breathing, the muscle in his jaw relaxing.
“Mila was a college student at the college I attended. She was murdered on campus.”
“Did you do it?” Beckett asks.
His eyes zap up, and the Alson that looks back right now has a darkness over him. “As I said last time I was questioned, no, I did not do it.”
“Why were you questioned?” Beckett asks. Smart, because asking Alson gives us insight in what he thinks is going on instead of what we know is going on.
“People thought we were dating.”
The lawyer starts to nervously shift in his chair. What are they saying that’s making him nervous?
“Were you?”
“No.”
He gets more agitated by the second. Maybe it’s not what Alson says that’s making the lawyer nervous, maybe it’s the way he’s acting. And it looks like Beckett is pushing a button that might lead to interesting knowledge. Maybe we should see if we can find evidence that they were dating. If we can prove he lied about that, then we have reason to suspect he lies about killing her as well. Why else would he hide that they were dating?
“Did you like choking her? Did it awaken something in you?”
Alson stands up out of his chair, plants his hands on the table and leans forward to get closer to Beckett. He is tense, and looks as if he wants to hurt Beckett. But he’s not impressed. He leans back in his chair as if he’s bored by Alson’s performance. And if anything, that seems to piss him off even more.
“Don’t answer that,” the lawyer says, laying a hand on Alson’s arm. Alson takes a second to make eye contact with the lawyer, his body relaxing some. But the darkness doesn’t go away.
He sits back down, glares at Beckett, and shuts his mouth. But the Alson who sits in the chair now is a different Alson than the one I saw when I entered the room.
“I’ll find out, you know?” Beckett says. “Whether you took one life or almost a hundred, I’ll find out, and I’ll make sure you pay for it.” He pushes his chair back, gets up and walks to the door.
“Are we free to go?” the lawyer asks.
“You are, Alson isn’t. I’ve got more questions and my time isn’t up yet.” He leaves the room and Alson immediately turns to his lawyer and starts whispering stuff to him. It’s too soft to hear what he says. The door to the observation room opens and Beckett stalks in. There’s a line between his eyebrows, and he looks as if he’s sulking.
Before I get time to process what’s going on, he steps towards me, bends down and presses his lips against mine in a soft kiss. It’s over as soon as it started, but suddenly I can feel my heart pound in my throat. Chester’s hand on my stomach tenses and he pulls me closer to him.
“Hey,” Beckett says, walking over to the table and grabbing another set of headphones.
“What was that?” I ask a little confused.
“Yeah, well, I’m not wasting any more time.” He looks up at me with those emerald eyes and I feel fuzzy on the inside. I swallow hard. And then he smiles, the little dimple appearing and all, causing me to inhale sharply.
“We’re here for business,” Chester reminds us. He sounds grumpy, a little jealous even. And I’m not sure I dislike it. At least he’s not verbally assaulting Beckett. Is he listening to Remy and letting Beckett in? He’s right though, we are here on business.
“What’s the plan with Alson?”
He shrugs. “Let him stew a little. I poked him in the right place. Did you see the change in his demeanor? If that lawyer hadn’t been there I would’ve had a confession now.”
“But would it be a confession to the murder on Mila or is he the serial killer?” Chester asks right before he presses a soft kiss to my hair. I like this jealous possessive side of him.
“I’m not sure yet. Mila? Yes. Definitely. But I’ve got to find a way to prove that first. The other women? I’m not sure yet. I haven’t gotten anything out of him yet that leads me to believe he is the man we’re looking for. He hasn’t said anything that makes me sure he didn’t do it either. My main concern with Alson is actually his father. Our killer would do what he does solitary. Living with your father? Even if the house is huge, it makes things a little complicated. Maybe the father is in on it. I’m not sure yet. Something tells me that it isn’t a good fit.”
I sigh. That sounds reasonable. But that would leave us with one suspect. Wayne. I’ve not written off Alson just yet, but if Beckett doesn’t think he’s done it I’ll respect his judgment.
“The lawyer got nervous when you talked about Alson dating Mila,” I say, remembering the thought I had just yet. “You should look into finding evidence of them dating, so you can prove he’s lying. That’ll give you an in.”
“That’s a really good plan,” Chester mumbles. “Should’ve thought of that.”
Beckett obviously hears, huffing and nodding before he does something on a laptop, and suddenly I can hear Winny talking. Both Chester and I spin around so that we’re facing the other interrogation room, where Wayne and his lawyer face Winny who sits on the other side of the table.
“Tell me again,” Winny says calmly. She sounds pleasant and chipper, even if they’ve been asking questions on and off again for almost twenty-four hours.
“I was at home.” Apparently Wayne’s lawyer does let him talk. When I hear his voice in my headphones I shudder. Everything about this man sets me off. But that won’t hold up in court. The FBI has to find evidence that can prove he did it and put him away for a long, long time. Perhaps even get the death penalty. It’s the first time I have to deal with it. Oregon only warrants the death penalty in cases of aggravated murder, which is what the killer will get charged with for certain. We safe kids from kidnapping and child abuse but never deal with murder, so there’s no chance of them getting the death penalty.
Do I want the person who killed all those women to be put to death? Maybe. If we’re a hundred percent certain we’ve got the right person. But dying does feel like the easy way out. I want him to pay. Does losing his life count as paying?
“Can anyone verify you were at home?” Winny continues.
Wayne smirks at her. “No.”
“Tell me about the phone again.”
He perks up, sits up, and leans his crossed arms on the table while he smiles. “I don’t have a phone.”
“Why doesn’t someone who studied computer sciences have a phone?” Winny doesn’t respond to his nonverbal communication. She sits back in her chair as if she doesn’t have a care in the world, and jots things down on a notepad.
“Because, studying computer sciences, I’ve learned that having a phone is an excellent way for the government to follow me.”
Winny stays quiet.
“I’d like to point out that my client is in no way obligated to provide you with an alibi,” Wayne’s lawyer says. He looks like a stiff man, sitting straight up, talking with the air of someone who feels better than everyone else.
“Did you have many friends as a child?” Winny asks, not explaining why she suddenly asks different questions. Wayne sits back, cocks his head and seems to genuinely think before he answers.
“I’d say enough. I’ve always believed that having a few good friends is preferable over having a lot of mediocre friends.”
“Were the friends you had as a child your peers, or did you have different friends?” Winny continues.
“They were mostly older. I found that my peers usually lacked the intellect to really understand me. Why?”
“She’s got him now,” Beckett says. I raise an eyebrow, because I don’t follow what’s going on.
“She fed him a little kernel of information about himself, and he can’t help but bite. He wants to know. It’s the same reason he took psychology and criminology courses. He’s curious, he wants to know.”
“How does that help with figuring out whether he’s the killer?” Chester asks.
“Give him a false sense of safety, make him talk. Tie him to the profile. See if it fits. If there’s information that doesn’t add up, it’d rule him out. We’d still need more information or a confession. But if we’re certain it’s Wayne, or Alson for that matter, we can get a warrant to search their houses. Then we’d possibly find physical evidence to tie them to the killings.”
I ball my hand and let it go again. While I was focused on what Beckett was telling, Winny continued questioning Wayne.
“So, tell me about your eyes,” she suddenly says, and I have no clue where the hell she’s going with that. Wayne seems to be on my page.
“My eyes?”
“Yes. They’re very blue. I went through old records, and both your father and your mother had brown eyes.”
“So?” Wayne says, biting the nail of his thumb. I’m wondering if he’s just acting bored or if he really is bored.
“Brown is the dominant gene. The chance of you having blue eyes with your parents being your parents is slim.”
Wayne laughs. “Slim, but not non-existing. What are you implying?”
“You know perfectly well what I’m implying, Wayne. You’re a smart man. All those classes you took. Although you didn’t finish them, right? Does that make you less smart because you couldn’t finish them, or does it make you smarter, because you figured it’s less probable for us to figure out you took all the courses if you didn’t finish them?”
Wayne’s eye twitches. He opens his mouth to answer, but his lawyer physically holds him back. “Don’t.”
He grinds his teeth, but he doesn’t answer. Was it his intellect being challenged that set him off? Or was Winny getting too close to the truth?
I stare at the man behind the mirror. His dark hair, his strong jaw and his blue eyes - the way he holds himself with an air of arrogance while his muscles strain his clothes as he holds himself back from commenting on Winny. There’s something wrong with him. So incredibly wrong. The fact that he saw me at the shooting range, he talked to me and he seemed to get excited because of my ability to shoot. It’s all adding up in my conclusion. My conclusion being that Wayne Daniel Ridgefield is our killer. This is The Time. He took my Elaine. He took the lives of at least eighty-seven women. Maybe even more.
Goddammit.
I’m certain, but I don’t have any kind of way to prove it.
“It’s him,” I whisper while the hairs on the backs of my arms stand up. It’s so soft that I wonder if Beckett and Chester can even hear me with their headphones on, but since they both respond to me I guess they can.
Chester pulls me closer against him, still standing behind me and hugging my back. Beckett nods.
“I agree.”
“Now what?”
Beckett turns around, puts his headphones down and stays standing with his hands on the table, his head down and his shoulders slumped. “Now we keep asking him questions so he slips up or gives us something. This isn’t enough to go on.”
“Fuck,” Chester says.
“Yeah, what he said,” I concur.
“Want me to run an extra check on him? Now that I have one name I can dig a little deeper, maybe?”
Beckett sighs. “You could. But I don’t think you’ll get something. You heard him. He doesn’t have a phone. He’s either paranoid because he thinks the government is watching him or he’s carefully been avoiding all police involvement for more than a decade. Whatever we say about him, he is smart.”
Chester grunts. No matter how badly we want to think Beckett is wrong and Chester will find something, he’s probably right.
“Go home,” Beckett says. “Eat something, get a decent night’s sleep. If you really want to help, maybe you can come back tomorrow and come into interrogation with me. Shock him. See how he reacts. Maybe he’ll mess up when you’re near him.”
Chester makes a sound that reminds me of a growl. I lay my hand over his on my stomach, weave my fingers through his and squeeze.
“I don’t want her anywhere near him,” he tells Beckett.
Beckett looks up, making eye contact with Chester. “I’d rather not have her anywhere near him as well. But she’s a tool that we can use to our advantage. Even if I’d get no bigger joy than to make sure he never sees her again.”
“Well, at least that’s something we can agree upon.”
“Uh, she’s right here. Rein in the testosterone filled possessiveness. Both of you know me well enough I’ll do what I damn well want. And I want to go in there tomorrow.” I’m not telling them that it freaks me out too, but more than all the fear, I need this to be over.
“You’ll go in?” Beckett asks, sadness in his eyes.
“Sure.”
Chester takes the headphones off my head along with his one, and he hands them to Beckett. He steers me towards the door without saying anything. I hold myself back, because I want to hug Beckett. But something tells me that’ll tip Chester over the edge. The grasp he has on his emotions right now is very thin, and I don’t want to shatter it and set him off.
“See you tomorrow,” I tell Beckett before I follow Chester into the hallway. Once I’m there he weaves his fingers through mine and he holds on tight. Then he takes me to my favorite place in the whole wide world: Home.
“Who’s that?” I ask while putting the finishing touches on the dinner I’m making. The doorbell has rung, but I’m busy draining my freshly made pasta after it’s cooked. I’d have a look on the app on my phone, but my hands are full.
“I’ll get it,” Chester says when he slides off the kitchen counter. He and Remy are watching me cook. They’re great company and they do an awesome job distracting me.
“Shall I set the table?” Remy asks.
“Fuck setting the table. We’re eating pasta carbonara. We’ll eat it in a bowl in front of the TV, like proper fucked up adults”
Remy laughs. “Fine, TV it is.”
When I’m spooning pasta water in the pan I hear footsteps coming to the kitchen.
“What was it?” I ask, expecting Chester to have received a package or something like that.
“One grumpy Special Agent Pain In My Ass,” Chester answers when he steps into the kitchen, followed by Beckett. My head snaps up and I stare at the gorgeous man I didn’t expect to be seeing anymore that evening.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, almost letting my spatula fall out of my hand.
“Got enough food for one more?” he asks with a half smile that makes the dimple on his cheek appear. It doesn’t elude me that he didn’t technically answer my question.
“She always makes enough to feed an army,” Remy answers for me. He gets up, slaps Beckett on the shoulder and walks to the china cabinet to get us some bowls. I stare at the FBI agent standing in my kitchen. He watches me patiently.
“Why are you really here?” I ask. Remy grabs the spatula out of my hand and takes over the cooking. It’s almost done anyway and he knows what he’s doing, so I let him. Taking a step towards Beckett, I see something change in his eyes. Like he’s shedding a layer of himself, opening up to me.
“I just wanted to spend some more time with you. If this is it, if we’re going to find something to arrest Wayne soon, I’ll be well on my way to the next case before I’m ready.”
I close my eyes. My throat feels as if someone is squeezing it. He can’t leave, not now that we’ve finally found each other. I’m not ready for that. So I breathe in for four, hold for four, breathe out of four and hold for four again.
“I guess Beckett is staying,” Chester says, breaking the silence.
“Go on you three, go wait in the living room. This’ll be done in a second,” Remy says, pointing his spatula in the direction of the living room.
“Don’t forget the…” I start.
“Seasoning. I know, I know. Now go away and leave me be,” Remy says, knowing me too well. He smirks at me when I roll my eyes and follow Beckett through the hallway.
Chester is already sitting in his regular spot on the couch, wide-legged and occupying most of the seats. Beckett is hovering, looking unsure on where to sit down. I refuse to make this any more complicated than it is, so I slide down into my regular spot on the ground in front of the couch. Chester dangles one of his legs over my shoulder and I let my head fall against the inside of his knee. Beckett finally seems to make up his mind, and slides down on the floor right beside me. Our sides touch and our pinky fingers intertwine when our hands that are both flat on the ground connect. It’s that little gesture that makes me feel like I’m free falling.
Remy walks in with bowls of food and hands me and Beckett the first ones. The agent smiles and thanks the dancer, and it’s like I’m seeing a whole new side of him. I’ve seen him for the kind and warm man he can be, but I haven’t seen him acting like that around anyone else. I like it.
Remy makes another trip to the kitchen to grab his and Chester’s bowls before he falls down on the couch right next to Chester, sitting behind Beckett. I almost laugh when I realize we have this huge couch, but we’re all piled up into one little corner of it.
“Bon appetit,” he says before we all dig in.
We eat food, watch Gold Rush without really watching it and just sit there. It’s nice, and for a moment things don’t even feel complicated. Nobody tries to move once everyone is finished eating. The empty bowls are spread out over the floor and the coffee table and I’m trying to make the moment last. I let my head fall against Beckett’s shoulder and I can feel three pairs of eyes shift onto me.
Chester scrapes his throat.
“What?” I ask, without bothering to look at him.
“Should we talk about this?” he says.
“Didn’t I tell you not to say anything if you weren’t going to be nice?” Remy says.
“Yeah, that’s why I’m talking about it now. I think I can manage to be nice. Can you say the same?”
Now I do look back. Chester and Remy have gone into a stare off, a fire burning in Chester’s eyes that I didn’t expect to be there. The silence that hangs between them is loaded and heavy. They stare at each other until something changes.
“I can manage that,” Remy eventually gives in after he swallows hard.
“Good,” Chester says when he leans forward and kisses Remy on the top of his nose.
“What are we talking about?” Beckett asks.
“Your intentions,” Chester says with a huge smirk.
“Oh my God, you are not going to defend my honor,” I shriek.
Remy and Chester start laughing, but I catch Beckett staring at my mouth. “What do you want to know about my intentions?” he asks, not once lifting his eyes off my mouth. And I can feel that look through my whole body.
“Are you planning on breaking her heart?”
“Of course not,” he replies without thinking about it.
“Then you’re in it for the long haul?”
“As long as I’m allowed to.”
I wonder if he means allowed by me, or as long as he’ll be able to stay close before he moves on to the next case. I don’t have the balls to ask what he means.
“You do understand that both Remy and I aren’t going anywhere, right?” The tone of the conversation becomes more serious.
“I know.”
“Good.”
“Good? That’s all you’ve got to say after months of giving me a hard time?” Beckett says.
“Yes. That. And you’ve got my blessing.”
I snort.
Guess that settles it.