11
The next morning, Tean was at work.
Trying to work.
It wasn’t easy, with Karli calling to offer her condolences as soon as he started handling emails—she had sounded like she was crying, just a little, on the phone, and the conversation had ended after she’d said a brief prayer and then told him, God has just plucked another wild rose, sweetheart, which in Tean’s opinion sounded a little too much like what Dolly Parton might have said.
And he refused to let his brain think about alternate meanings for plucking a rose, which told him he’d been spending way too much time with Jem.
After Karli, Ed showed up in the doorway. He rapped on the frame, beamed a plastic smile, and said, “Hey, buddy.”
It was times like these that it was difficult to forget that Ed had made his fortune as a pest control salesman.
“We’re all so sorry,” Ed said. He produced a bouquet from behind his back like this was a middle school date. They were still in the plastic Smith’s bag, and they were dripping. “We’ve been thinking about you.”
“Thank you,” Tean said. “I’m fine, though. My grandfather and I weren’t close.”
“We just wanted you to know we’re thinking about you.”
“Yes, Ed. That’s very kind. Thank you.”
Ed nodded, still standing in the doorway, still dripping all over the floor. He looked around the room and fixated on one poster that showed an asteroid headed toward a dinosaur, and the words You tried. Kind of. Eventually, he dragged his gaze back to Tean. “Well, we’re thinking about you.”
He wouldn’t go away until Tean took the flowers and shut the door.
Tean had barely started to dig into a report on drought conditions affecting bighorn sheep when another knock came at the door. He hunkered down in his seat, stared grimly at the screen, and thought invisible thoughts—
We’re thinking about you, buddy!
—when the door opened, and Hannah stepped into his office.
She was carrying a steaming mug. Her chestnut hair was a little longer than usual, curling around her ears, and to judge by the lines around her eyes, she hadn’t decided yet if she was going to smile.
Tean had once heard Karli say something to her along the lines of, Even the old barn needs some paint once in a while sweetheart, but he thought Hannah actually looked better with the gray starting to show in her hair.
She’d been through a lot of hard things in her life, but it had left the strength visible in her face.
“I see the Sympathy Squad has visited,” she said, with a glance at the flowers that Tean had put in an empty thermos.
He groaned.
“Did you know that’s officially the name? It was Karli’s idea. We’ve all got to take care of each other, she said.”
“She probably thinks we’ve all got to pluck each other’s roses, too,” Tean said under his breath, and that definitely meant he was spending too much time with Jem.
Hannah only laughed, though. She set the mug on the desk in front of him. “I wasn’t sure if you were drinking your sadness tea—”
“It’s not sadness tea. It’s nettle— Oh, is that chamomile?”
It was chamomile. And it was strong, the way Hannah knew he liked it.
“I’m fine,” Tean said after his first sip. “It’s very kind of you to bring me tea, but I basically had no relationship with my grandfather. I’m not sad. I don’t miss him. I’d like everyone to let me get back to work.”
Hannah raised her eyebrows.
He felt obligated to mutter, “Present company excepted.”
“Just because you’re not sad doesn’t mean you’re not grieving,” Hannah said.
“In this case, it does mean that, because I’m not grieving.”
Hannah only nodded.
“He was a homophobic, racist, bitter old man. Even when he was younger, he had zero patience for children. And he was a bully. Do you know how many times he took me hunting with him? He knew I didn’t want to hunt.
He knew I didn’t want to kill anything. It didn’t matter.
He dragged me out there and put a gun in my hands, and when I wouldn’t shoot, he called me every name you can think of and then came back and told my dad.
And my dad—” He stopped himself from saying, And my dad only ever wanted to make my grandfather happy, which is why he turned out to be such an asshole as well.
Instead, though, he said, “And my dad is a mess for some reason.”
“I’m sorry, Tean.” Before Tean could explain—again—that he wasn’t grieving, Hannah added, “I mean that you have to deal with all of this. It sounds complicated and exhausting, and the family stuff must be super stressful. When my dad’s parents died, he and his siblings had a huge fight over the estate.
Some of them still aren’t talking to each other. ”
“That won’t be the case here. My grandfather didn’t have anything to fight over, and I don’t think my dad’s brother is going to be involved—although, to be fair, I’m a bit out of the loop.”
Hannah frowned.
“Jem and I might be…helping someone.”
“Again?”
“Yes, again. I mean, it’s kind of something we were already involved in, actually.
” And then he had to explain all of it, how Amy had approached them, and their investigation so far.
“Not that we’re making any progress,” he said when he finished.
“We’re not any closer to finding them than we were before. ”
“It sounds like you’ve made some progress,” Hannah said thoughtfully. “God, Tean, I’m sorry you got caught up in this. Can I help?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so. Not right now, anyway, but thank you for offering.” He surprised himself a moment later by saying, “Do you know what I can’t stop thinking about?”
Hannah shook her head.
“I can’t stop thinking about what someone wrote on the back of that poster. ‘You’re still my favorite cowboy.’ And then they wrote ‘love you’ three times.”
“He’s a serial killer,” Hannah said, “so nobody should love him?”
“Well, it’s not that simple, but…yeah, I guess.”
“What if his mom gave him that? Or his grandma?”
Tean shook his head. “It didn’t feel like that. Someone his grandmother’s age would have had a different type of handwriting, I suspect. Written in cursive, at least. His mom—I don’t know, it just didn’t feel like that kind of love.”
“It felt romantic.”
Tean’s face was heating. “I know it’s silly.”
“It’s not silly. You’re trusting your instincts; that’s a good thing. This is why Jem is good for you.”
“Jem isn’t good for me, actually. Jem is bad for me. Jem made me buy a swimming suit that’s so small it’s basically underwear.”
Hannah burst out laughing, and for a moment, the years washed away. But when the laughter faded, all she said was “Is it hard to believe this person, Kai, might have been different when he was younger?”
“But that’s not what his teacher said. His teacher told us he was strange and isolated.”
“Yes, but you should know better than anyone that people act differently in different situations. Alone, with someone he was attracted to, someone he felt safe with, he might have been a completely different person. Think about how people change when they go away to college and get away from family and friends.”
For a moment, Tean wondered if that had happened for Kai—if there’d ever been a time and a place for him to get away from the Uinta Basin and be someone else. But he said, “People don’t change that much.”
“You know what I mean.”
Tean wasn’t sure that he did. What he wanted to say—what he almost said—was But he’s a monster.
Instead, though, he only said, “Something about it doesn’t feel right.”
“Whoever gave him that poster,” Hannah said, “maybe they know something that could help you. Maybe they could help you find him.”
“Well, all I have is the initial S, so I’m not sure how much that helps.”
Hannah opened her mouth to respond, but Tean’s phone buzzed, and he saw a message from Amos.
Where are you?
Dad’s been waiting for half an hour
Tean placed a call to his brother, but of course, it went to voicemail.
Instead, another text came through: We’re cleaning out Grandpa’s place this morning.
Tean responded, Why are we cleaning it out today? Can’t that wait?
Amos wrote back, It’s for the funeral.
And then another text, It’s fine. Don’t come.
And then: I’m sure you’re busy.
Tean recognized the voice inside his head, the one that sounded like Jem, when he thought, That little bitch.
“Everything okay?” Hannah asked.
“No.” Tean got to his feet. He reached for the mug of tea. Stopped. Looked around, because what was he supposed to do with it?
“Leave it,” Hannah said. “I’ll take care of it. What’s wrong?”
“Apparently, we’re cleaning out my grandfather’s apartment. Not that anyone bothered to tell me. I’ll wash the mug when I get back.”
“Tean, it’s fine. Do you need to go?”
“I shouldn’t go.” But he said this as he was pulling on his coat. “I should tell them I’ve got work. I actually have things to do. I can’t sit around and pretend to be sad while my dad relives the good old days that, for the record, never happened.”
“You can tell them you’ll go over there after you’re done here,” Hannah said. “This is good practice. You’ve been working on setting boundaries.”
“Yeah, well, I set a boundary the night he died, and it didn’t go great.” He grabbed his bag and gave the mug another look.
“Of course they’re going to get upset. This is new. You’re teaching them to respect you.”
“Just leave the tea,” he said. “It’ll be fine until I get back.”
Hannah waved him toward the door, but she called after him, “Boundaries are healthy!”