Chapter 18 Cosi
Cosi
Pamela stood in the open doorway to my office, staring at me with eyebrows raised like I was in trouble.
“What? What did I do?”
“I’ve been standing here for a solid minute.”
I cocked my head to the side. “Really?”
“You were completely lost in your own head. Should I be worried about why you’ve been so distracted all day?”
“No. Sorry. Just a lot on my mind. Come on in.”
“Like Ilsa Poe?” She tried—and failed—to hide a sly smile as she took the chair across from my desk.
If I had to guess, she’d wanted to ask me about Ilsa all day. I was actually impressed she’d waited until the afternoon.
“You’re as bad as my mother,” I told her. “Was it your idea that she ambush us with a spaghetti dinner last night?”
Pamela feigned insult, pressing a hand to her chest, palm flat against the pearl buttons on her white blouse. “Me? I’d never suggest spaghetti. You know I get awful heartburn from tomato sauce.”
“Right.” I chuckled. “What was I thinking?”
“We’re all just wondering what’s happening there. It’s all over town that she’s staying with you and Spencer.”
Hell. I’d expected as much, just not so soon. If we were in the middle of summer, people would be occupied by vacations and outdoor activities. This would fly right under the radar. But in the winter, gossip was the preferred pastime in Dalton.
“I don’t know what’s going on,” I admitted. “She needed a place to stay.”
“You could have called me. We’ve got that little loft above the garage.”
“It was late.”
We both knew it was only an excuse. There were other places Ilsa could have stayed. Maybe not the night of the fire, but afterward, there were options. Pam’s loft. Mom’s house. Larry had a basement apartment he wasn’t using.
I just didn’t like any of those options. For her. Or for me.
And now that she’d been in my bed, I definitely wasn’t letting her go.
I’d fooled myself into thinking a few nights together, and I’d fuck her out of my system. But every kiss, every touch, only left me craving more. I had no goddamn clue what we were doing.
All I knew was that I couldn’t stop.
Spencer suspected something was going on. This morning, before school, I’d offered to give them both a ride, but they’d opted to walk. Before they’d left the house, Spencer had given me a knowing look when he’d caught me checking out Ilsa’s ass in the slacks she’d worn for work.
We’d have to talk about it soon. Not only was she his teacher, but in his entire life, he’d never seen me with a woman. I simply didn’t date.
Maybe a better father would have run this by his kid first. Maybe I was afraid he’d ask me to stop, and I’d have to disappoint my son.
Whatever was happening with Ilsa, I couldn’t stop. Not yet.
Especially after last night.
She’d passed out after that last orgasm, sleeping soundly on my chest, while I’d stared at the dark ceiling, mind whirling around everything she’d shared about Ike.
I couldn’t put my finger on what was bothering me, but there was something poking the back of my mind. Something that made my blood run cold.
“Cosi.” Pamela snapped her fingers.
I blinked, jerking myself out of my thoughts. “Yeah?”
“There you go again.”
“Sorry.” I dragged a hand over my face.
Her mouth flattened in a thin line. “What are you doing? She’s a beautiful, unmarried woman in your house. Your son is her student. The person who suffers most from this is not you.”
Fuck. “How much talk?”
“Enough. You’re not doing her any favors.”
Pamela was right—this gossip wouldn’t impact me, the man in the relationship. It wasn’t fair, but it was reality. Ilsa, on the other hand, would be labeled and judged. “We’ll figure it out.”
“Good. The loft is hers if she needs it.”
“Thanks,” I said. “Changing subjects . . . do you know anyone in town named Jerry? Someone around your age.”
Pamela was a walking Dalton directory. She’d lived here her entire life and there weren’t many she didn’t know by first, middle and last name.
“Jerry.” She hummed, thinking it over for a minute. “I went to high school with a Jerry. But he left Dalton thirty-something years ago.”
“Anyone else?”
“Not that I know of.”
“And no one named Jerry who lives on Cotters Lake?”
“No. Why?”
“Just curious.” Ilsa either got the name wrong or this Jerry hadn’t told her the truth. I was betting on the latter. “Could you do me a favor? Would you bring me Ike Poe’s file?”
She frowned. “This is the fourth time you’ve asked for that file since she stopped by the station.”
“I’m aware. Would you please just bring it in?”
“What are you thinking, Cosi?”
“I don’t know yet,” I said. “Something doesn’t feel right.”
“It was an accident. You said so yourself.”
“It was an accident.” I’d meant what I’d told Ilsa.
There was nothing that pointed to foul play.
Nothing that hinted another person had been on that boat with Ike.
We had a witness statement that Ike had been fishing alone.
The examiner had confirmed that gash to his head would have knocked him out before he’d fallen in the lake. Ike had drowned.
It was an accident.
But everything that had happened since? Intentional. And whoever was tormenting Ilsa was going to pay.
“Would you bring me a fingerprint kit too?” I asked. “Please?”
“Of course.” She smacked her knees, then stood, leaving the office. Minutes later, she returned with both Ike’s file and the kit.
“Thanks, Pam.”
“Welcome.” She closed the door as she left me alone to open the file.
Like I had before, I reviewed every note, every photo. I had all but memorized them, but I forced myself to read the words aloud in case my ears picked up on anything I might have missed. By the time I reached the end, I was as annoyed as I was sick of my own voice.
Every detail pointed to this as an accident.
Besides that, I couldn’t name a soul in this town who’d want to hurt Ike.
Maybe I was looking in the wrong place for more clues.
I opened my desk drawer, taking out the journal Ilsa had lent me this morning. And for the next hour, I studied every page.
She’d warned me the letters to Donnie were tough to read. She hadn’t been wrong. The lists were odd, the blurry lines and numbers strange, some completely unreadable. And then there was the page with Box 286 in the spine. Whatever the hell that meant.
By the time I closed the journal, I was ready to get the hell out of my chair and this office. So I pulled on my coat, tucked the journal in the zippered pocket beside my ribs, snagged the fingerprint kit and headed to find Pamela.
“I’m taking off,” I told her. “I’ve got a couple errands to run.”
“All right. Are you coming back?”
“No, I don’t think so. I’ll probably head home. Call me if anything comes up.”
“Will do.”
With a wave, I pushed out the door and walked to the Bronco. Then I drove to the school, parking in a visitor’s space before going inside.
The final bell would ring in five minutes, but for now, the halls were quiet. Most classroom doors were closed, and through their small windows, I saw students squirming in their chairs, antsy to be set free from desks and teachers writing on chalkboards.
When I reached Ilsa’s classroom, I lingered in the hallway, not wanting to bother her until school was out. Through the door’s window, I watched her teach.
She was standing beside an overhead projector, writing out an equation in blue marker. Her hair was twisted into a sleek chignon. She’d pushed the sleeves of her navy cardigan up her forearms, revealing the delicate gold bracelet I’d helped clasp on her wrist this morning.
She looked up, toward the door, and her eyes lit up the moment she spotted me. A smile stretched her lips, and the colors around us faded to gray.
Beautiful. So beautiful. I couldn’t look away.
My world seemed to change in an instant. It toppled end over end, and when the spinning stopped, the pieces of my universe had been rearranged. All from a single smile.
For so long, it had only been Spencer, Mom and me. My life was full. Complete. Except what if it wasn’t? What if there’d always been a vacant hole?
It was like pushing all of the hangers in my closet to one side and realizing that, all along, I’d had space for more.
For fancy clothes hung beside mine. For makeup and hairbrushes on my bathroom counter. For a woman who’d sit with my son and do homework every night. Who’d sleep on my chest at night and kiss the corner of my mouth each morning.
It had only been days. But Ilsa was so deep under my skin she was sinking to the bone.
The bell rang, and I jolted, torn from the moment as doors flew open and students hurried into the hall.
“Quiz tomorrow,” Ilsa called after them. “Please spend five minutes studying.”
A couple kids gave me a nod as I shuffled past them and into her classroom.
When the last kid was gone, she flipped off the projector’s light. “Hey.”
“Hi.” I took a seat on the corner of her desk. “How’s it going?”
She shrugged, rounding the projector to perch beside me. “What’s that?”
I lifted up the fingerprint kit. “I hate to ask. But we need to rule out your fingerprints from the cabin. Can I take your prints?”
Her lip curled. “Fine.”
It didn’t take long to collect them all, and while she went to wash the ink from her fingertips, I packed up the kit to drop at the station.
Larry and Chuck would go through everything they’d collected yesterday and compare prints to hers. We had Ike’s fingerprints on file from his autopsy, so we could sort those from the mix too.
“This is very surreal,” Ilsa said when she came back to the room, drying her hands on a brown paper towel. “I didn’t think I’d ever get fingerprinted. But at least it was you.”
“Sorry.”
“It is what it is.” She shrugged. “What will you do next?”
“We’ll see if whoever trashed the cabin wasn’t smart enough to wear gloves. I’ll warn you it’s not a fast process. In the meantime, I’ll be asking questions around the school. Talking to the kids you told me about.”