Chapter 37
American Pie
WES
“Hello, dear.” Ruth appears next to me, her white curls tight to her head, reading glasses halfway down her nose.
She’s really playing up this whole fucking sweet grandma persona. I squeeze my hands into fists.
“Ruth.” I nod my head and cross my arms. Noah’s conspiracy theory crosses my mind. Maybe he’s fucking right about this woman being a fellow serial killer.
We’re standing with the other bakers a respectful distance from the pie contest table. There’s also a rope barrier, as if the queen’s jewels are in the center, not a bunch of apple pies. Half a dozen judges with clipboards look at each pie, whispering to each other and scribbling notes.
“It’s wonderful to see you again, Weston,” Ruth says loudly enough that a few people look over.
“It’s Wesley,” I say through gritted teeth.
Ruth ignores my correction and lowers her voice, not looking at me, but turning in my direction so her voice carries to only me. “But your top crust looks soggy. Did you carve a child’s rubber ducky into it? Wait—no. You weren’t attempting a loon, were you?”
She looks straight ahead again, and I let out a low growl.
I will not fight with a mean grandma. I will not fight with a mean grandma.
“At least I’m trying to elevate my pie game. You bring the same pie every year.” I attempt to keep a smile on my face while I deal with this monster. It won’t look good if a thirty-year-old man is being nasty to a seemingly sweet old lady. Does no one else realize she’s a cutthroat monster?
Of course they don’t. Look at her.
“And, if I’m not mistaken, I tend to win. Four years in a row now. Am I counting correctly, dear?”
I first entered the Portland Springfest pie competition five years ago, not too long after Noah and I bought our cabins in Lake Savage. Ruth immediately approached me at the festival and introduced herself, saying all the right things. I thought I’d made a friend.
Then I got first place in the competition.
The next year, she stuck a finger in my pie when no one else was looking, screwing up the top crust completely. She dared me to report her, but I didn’t because it wouldn’t be a good look for the new, younger baker to accuse sweet Grandma Ruth of cheating.
I got sixth place that year. The following three years I’ve gotten second place.
Ruth and I have been enemies ever since.
“Do you like mince pie?” I say to her, keeping my eyes glued on the pie-judging table.
“Why?” she asks sharply.
“Just wondering.”
I’m not going to poison the grandma. Definitely not.
A man steps away from the table and toward the small audience watching the judging from behind the rope divider.
“Now we will begin the taste portion of the competition. Judges will look at crust, filling, and consistency. This section of the contest is worth twenty-five points out of seventy-five points total. Another twenty-five is the overall appearance of the pie, and the last twenty-five points is our overall assessment including creativity, originality, and anything else that stands out.” He nods and turns back to the table, where a woman in an apron is about to cut into the first pie.
“I bet your pie tastes like you fucked it, like in that American Pie movie where the kid sticks his dick in,” Ruth hisses at me, then cackles quietly.
“What?” I whip my head to Ruth. She didn’t really say that, did she?
Ruth ignores me and watches with a fake-ass smile on her face as the woman in the apron slices into her pie and doles out portions onto small plates. The judges all make delighted faces as they chew, nodding and whispering and taking notes.
I shake my head at Ruth, but she pretends I don’t exist. What a crazy lady.
She looks so calm and sweet in her grandma outfit and her…
heeled boots? My eyes fix on her black boots with the pointy heel, sticking out from her long floral dress.
Isn’t she in her eighties? Shouldn’t she be wearing some very stable, flat, supportive, and incredibly ugly shoe?
And… didn’t Noah talk about the Recipe Killer lady wearing high-heeled boots?
My eyes widen, but Ruth still ignores me, that angelic smile on her face as she watches the judges.
Nah. Can’t be.
I bite back a chuckle—which earns me a quick glare from Ruth—and pull out my phone. I tap out a message to Noah about the boots and the dick-in-pie comment for a laugh.
Noah
I KNEW IT
Me
can you imagine?
Noah
yes, yes I can. I told you. She definitely looks like a killer today
Me
wait, are you here?
Noah
I’m back by the donut food stand, come find me when you’re done whispering about dicks in pies with Ruth
My head whips around, and I spot my brother. He raises his hand.
I grin and turn back to the pie contest table, where the judges have moved on from Ruth’s pie. They get through a few more, and another older lady in the crowd comes to talk to Ruth.
When the judges get to my pie, I can’t read their expressions. But it’s absolutely my best work. After so many attempts, I think I finally got the iconic Maine loon design right. It definitely looks like a loon, not a duck. Fuck Ruth.
One judge—mayor of another lake town near Lake Savage—steps forward and clears his throat. He announces the third-place winner, who is a pretty middle-aged mom with a group of teens and tweens cheering for her.
There were two dozen entries, but I’d be shocked if Ruth and I aren’t in the top two. What I would do to beat Ruth this year! She’s paused her conversation with the other lady and is waiting with a big smile on her face.
“Second place goes to… Wesley Winters. Judges’ comments included the impressive loon top crust design and the perfect consistency of the apples. Congrats, Mr. Winters.”
The group claps quietly, and Noah whoops from behind me. I toss a look over my shoulder and grin. It’s not first place, but at least I’m holding my position from last year.
“First place, Mrs. Ruth Roy! The perfect streusel topping and flawless filling earn her the record-setting five-year repeat title of best apple pie in Portland. Congratulations!”
Yep. Sounds about right.
Ruth Roy tosses me a sweet smile and touches me on the arm in a grandmotherly way—all for fucking show—on the way up to receive her blue ribbon, but I know her secret.
She’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
As I accept the red ribbon, I scan the crowd again and find Noah. I’m glad my brother is here, but I was really hoping I’d see Callie.
I know I’m supposed to have let her go.
As of a few hours ago, she was still at her apartment. So she hasn’t left Maine yet, but I’m sure it’s coming soon. The pie competition was a good distraction, but now my fingers are itching to click on the tracking app.
I miss her.
I love her.
“I didn’t beat Ruth,” I say when I get to Noah.
“Maybe next year, and if you reconsider feeding her your mince pie, you’ll definitely win” He hands me a ridiculously ornate donut. Thick chocolate icing and bits of bacon.
“Murder an old lady? Nah.” But I crack up anyway. Noah’s my original ride or die, the only family I have left. “That would be a step too far.”
“Just one, though.”
We wander through the festival, held inside a high school gymnasium, as end-of-March weather is never predictable in Maine.
“Have you heard from Callie?” Noah asks.
I jolt to a stop and turn to him. “Why?”
“I dunno, just asking.” He shrugs and points to a drinks table. “Let’s get hot chocolate.”
I nod and take another huge bite of donut to experience the taste explosion in my mouth.
“I was perfectly happy before I met her,” I say, my mouth still half full. “And I’ll be perfectly happy now.”
“No, you weren’t, and no, you won’t.” Noah hands money to the girl at the table. She pours steaming hot chocolate into two paper cups. “You think you were happy, but really all you did was follow me around and bake sad pies in your sad cabin all alone.”
I’m speechless for a minute. “My pies aren’t sad,” is all I can think of to respond.
“Listen.” Noah takes a hot chocolate from the girl and hands it to me, then accepts the other one. He puts a five-dollar bill into the tip jar before nodding toward the doors that lead to the parking lot, where there are a few food trucks, tables, and a bonfire with hay bales as seating.
It’s freaking freezing outside. I shove the rest of my donut into my mouth and hand Noah my hot chocolate so I can slip my jacket on. My brother’s been trying to talk to me about this. He’s probably not going to let it go, so I might as well hear what he has to say.
“Go on.” I take my drink back and follow him toward the fire. The first sip overwhelms me. I’ve been drinking hot chocolate all my life, but right now, just the smell of it reminds me of Callie on my couch the first night we met.
“You might be thinking about the Callie thing all wrong.” Noah gestures toward the hay bales in front of the fire. I follow him and sit on the makeshift seating.
“It’s over between us. There’s nothing to think about.”
“I think you’re underestimating her.” Noah sips his drink. “She knows the truth and isn’t afraid of you. Isn’t afraid of us. Do you realize how crazy that is?”
I stare into the fire, the heat warming the front of my body.
Thoughts of Sia, my twin, flow in. A few years after she realized what we’d done and fled, she came back to Maine.
I think she had it in her head that she would reconcile with her brothers.
But when she found out that we were still killing, she got this horrified look on her face.
She cut us out of her life again. Permanently, she said.
The way she looked at us was heartbreaking, like she could forgive us killing our family’s killer, but after that there was no leeway.
Even when we explained what we were doing, who we were protecting, all of that.
It didn’t change anything. She was terrified, and she fled. I track her occasionally, but even though I can figure out where she is, she’s gone from our lives.
“That is crazy. But the last time I talked to her—” I shut my eyes at the final conversation where she implied Noah and I were the scary people in New York City. “I don’t think she gets it. I think she’s scared of us.”
“Tell me, have either of us had any luck dating? Ever?” Noah stares at the side of my face.
“No.” I shake my head. To say Noah keeps women at arm’s length would be a massive understatement. “Last time I tried, I got accused of stalking.”
“How dare she,” Noah deadpans.
“Exactly. I was just—” I narrow my eyes at Noah. It was a trap.
“But Callie is different. So different. Wes, she saw us take care of business in Boston.”
“I know.” I duck my head and bury my hand in my hair. “It took her a minute to understand.”
Because she did seem to understand at the time. And it didn’t take her long.
“She barely batted an eye, which is pretty fucked up, don’t you think?”
“But at the end…” I say, then see what he’s getting at. “On Friday she acted differently. About what we do.”
“And why do you think she acted different?”
I let silence sit between us for a moment, really thinking about his question.
“So she could break it off with me?”
“Yes. She probably wanted you to think she isn’t the right person for you. Otherwise, you’d never let her go.”
“She wants to go.” It comes out as almost a question.
“I’d be willing to bet she’s just as obsessed with you as you are with her.”
I snort, then stare into the fire. Could Noah be right? Did Callie say those things to force me to let her leave? I can’t be with someone like you.
“I love her,” I say. I look at Noah. His shoulders lift and fall as he absorbs the words. Then he nods.
“I thought so.”
“But it’s because I love her that I need to let her go.
” The flames of the fire hypnotize me. “Callie wants to start over and live a different life. She was miserable being her father’s daughter, and she was miserable being married to a criminal.
And like it or not, I am a criminal,” I whisper the last word.
“Can I tell you what I think, Wes?”
A sliver of hope cuts through the darkness of my heart. Fuck, I want Noah to convince me there’s a chance. I want that more than anything.
“You’re going to anyway.” I attempt to sound gruff.
“I think Callie had a rough childhood and a terrible marriage,” Noah says carefully. “None of the men in her life look out for her. Not like they should.”
“Yeah.” I clench my fists thinking of all of them. How dare her father let her suffer with Shane? Her brother not do anything he could to help his sister? Her husband pass up a life with someone as incredible as she is?
“But then you came along, the psycho stalker serial killer that you are.” Noah elbows me in the side, and I stare down at my hands. “And she’s accepted every part of you from the start.”
I swallow and try to breathe past my tightened chest. Yeah, it was wild she didn’t react differently to my stalking and drugging and zip-tying, but—
“She liked that I was looking out for her. Protecting. That I obsessively cared about her.”
“Exactly. She should’ve run screaming, like every other woman you’ve tried to date.” Noah chuckles.
“But she tried to stalk me back.” I can’t help but smile as I think of Callie trying to break into my cabin, as if she could pull that off without me noticing.
How she brought me one of her book page art hedgehogs, which sits on my mantle.
Then how we stayed up the rest of the night talking and drinking tea and getting to know each other.
“Who fucking does that?” Noah shakes his head and tips the rest of his hot chocolate in his mouth.
“Calliope.” Her name is precious on my lips.
Could Noah be right? Am I letting her go too easily? Maybe she does want to be with me, but she’s so stuck with her previous plan she can’t see that we are meant to be.
Maybe I just need to convince her to change her plan.
Because Callie Callahan is mine.
I thought that from the start. I never wanted to let her go, but I knew that I loved her too much to force her to be with me. I wanted to respect her wishes.
But maybe I really need to fight for her. Not just a battle. A full-on war.
“Wes?”
“Fuck.” I jolt up and stand. “I gotta go.”
“Thank fuck.”
“Thank fuck what?” I turn to Noah, but my mind is already racing.
Relief is written all over Noah’s face. “I kept warning you to be careful around her, and I was afraid I was the one responsible for you letting her go. And I don’t think you should.”
“Good thing I ignore what you say half the time.”
“Good thing. What are you going to do about it now?”
“I gotta find Callie before she leaves town.”
I just hope I’m not too late. I pull out my phone to figure out where she is.