Chapter Thirty-Six
When Harley came back from his honeymoon, I ignored his texts. I didn’t want to ruin his newly wedded bliss with my bullshit. It only lasted two days. He made up some stupid excuse to bring Kaylee’s Jeep in for maintenance after hours. Since it was a Jeep, that was easy. There was always something I could find that needed fixing.
It ended up with us sitting on my garage floor, drinking beer and devouring two pizzas from Yeti’s Spaghetti.
When he stood up to leave, he smoothed his hands over his pants. A pained look pinched his brows. “Can I keep your gun at my cabin for a while?”
I tilted my head in shock.
“It’ll make me feel better. Once you’ve been that close to a death, it changes you. Especially if the woman you love is involved.”
I glowered at him. “I’m not going to kill myself.”
“You don’t have to lie to me.” The muscles in his neck worked as he gulped. “Lord knows I’ve thought about it,” he murmured.
“Really?”
All he did was nod, his eyes flat. I knew he had PTSD from being a first responder as a forest ranger, but I guessed I’d never thought it had pushed him that far.
Since I was a felon, and owning a firearm wasn’t possible without jumping through some major hoops, I didn’t have one legally, but Har knew I had an old hunting rifle that had belonged to my dad. I dug it out of the back of my closet and gave it to him.
The next night, he showed up and sat with me while we watched Breaking Bad . The following, he was on call for work, and I didn’t realize how much his presence soothed me. The next night, I asked him to come over. The night after that, I showed up to the Kouris family dinner. Everyone treated me like normal, even Carson—well, his version anyways, which included acting like I didn’t exist. Rosie gave me a jar of herbs and a metal strainer to make relaxing tea. She swore it had helped her sleep in the past. Kaylee was conveniently stuck at work doing after-hours inventory. I thought that was her self-aware slant on not rubbing Maisie in my face. I loved her for it, and it was nice to be welcomed back into the fold without any questions.
I started seeing my therapist, Joyce, again to talk through my guilt, but I knew I had a long road ahead of me. Noah avoided me like the plague. He didn’t show up at Tilly’s for the pub quiz, he didn’t return any of my texts, and when I saw him at a red light, he made a right-hand turn just to get away from me.
This was some next-level shunning. I guessed all his time disappearing into the forest for work had paid off. I wondered if he’d asked Azalea about it. She knew everything. When I’d grab a coffee at Silver Springs, she’d look at me with an expression like she was about to say something but wouldn’t. It was irritating. I could always depend on her kindness. Even after we’d dated in high school, we’d remained friendly. Azalea was just that kind of girl—she didn’t have enemies or bad blood. I didn’t normally care what people thought of me, but I wanted to know her take on it.
Had I rescued a woman? Or had I killed a man?
I guessed it was both. I would have to live with both. Living with Maisie would sure as hell make it a lot easier, but that wasn’t an option. Still, I’d do it a thousand times over for any woman, but especially her.
Finally, I spotted Noah leaning against his truck, filling it up with gas. I pulled up to the pump behind him, damn near ambushing him. Noah’s face went placid as he stood up, squaring his shoulders.
“Hey, man,” I said, trying to sound neutral. “We need to talk.”
Noah let out a noncommittal sniff, looking in my general direction. “Sorry, haven’t seen you around much. Been busy with work. Summer and all.”
I looked around, grateful that out of the six pumps, we were the only ones parked. I stepped closer and whispered, “You can cut the shit. I know you saw me that night. I know you know what happened to Boyd.”
Noah messed with the gas pump, clicking it and pulling it out of his truck. “His wife thinks he went on a bender and that’s why he was acting so erratic. A fifteen-year-old girl in New Jersey just gave birth to his baby and served him paternity orders. She visited Maine last summer for a family reunion.”
“Fifteen?” I whispered in horror. “That’s a child!”
Noah nodded, looking past my face. “He was a creepy bastard. I searched the forest for him with Storm. Didn’t find anything.”
“What do you mean you didn’t find anything?” I hissed.
His chestnut-colored eyes finally set on mine, intense and unblinking. His voice, which was usually so warm and patient, was now stern. “I said I didn’t find anything and I didn’t.”
“But we both know you saw me. Why didn’t you call it in? Where you just going to let him disappear in that forest?”
His jaw muscles ticked as he gritted, “We both know no one is missing Chase Boyd. It was obvious to me as a newcomer that as a town, you let him get away with too much for too long. The world has a way of righting itself, and I’m not going to get in the way.”
He folded his arms over his chest, holding my gaze, letting the loaded silence ease my worry. He was a smart man. Leave it to Noah to side-step something like this.
I cleared my throat. “Well, if you say you didn’t find anything.”
“I didn’t.” He wrapped me in a quick hug, slapping my chest afterwards. “I’ll call you when things slow down at work. Take care of yourself.”
And with that, he rounded his truck, hopped in, and let the engine roar.
Summer inched on with lots of loaded looks from others and a hush sweeping over a room when I entered it. Some people were bold enough to ask me what happened, others, mostly women, just nodded with an expression I could only guess was a mixture of gratitude and unease. I felt like I was walking on eggshells. I didn’t think people saw me as a threat, but regardless, it was a well-known fact I’d killed the town cop.
I finally got a letter indicating the investigation was closed. A couple days later, I bumped into Carson at Pine Mart. He had a couple boxes of different pregnancy tests along with a Gatorade and some saltines in the crook of his arm, unable to conceal them quickly.
“I guess congratulations might be in order.” I gestured to the loot, knowing it was about to get really awkward.
He curled them further under his arm with a nod. “Hopefully.”
It was always weird being around Carson. He looked like my best friend but meaner. We’d never gotten along, even as kids. With our shared history, I decided to cut right to the chase.
“So, do you know?”
“What happened with Maisie?” His mouth went in a firm line. “Yeah.”
A tingle ran from my chest all the way down my arms. "What do I do? I spread rumors about you killing people, now I actually have."
He sighed, his eyes bouncing around us. “Boyd was a fucking creep. You did the right thing. Any woman within a hundred-mile radius would agree.” He poked at my chest with the box of crackers. “Listen, fuck this town. I know now why I stayed in Pine Bluff. Rosie was going to come here, and that’s how I was going to find her. Maybe that's not the case for you. Maybe you need to leave, you know, for a fresh start. I remember craving that for the better part of a decade. Maybe the best way to honor your dad is to leave, even if it’s just for yourself."
His phone buzzed. “Sorry, it’s Rosie. I gotta get this.” Without so much as a glance back at me, he turned to answer the call. “Hey, love, what’s up?” He continued booking it down the aisle. “Yeah, I can look for Jolly Ranchers.”
I dropped my basket to leave. Hearing it from another man who was carrying out his dad’s legacy hit differently. In such a simple statement, Carson had helped me see that by staying in Pine Bluff, I wasn’t preserving my dad’s memory. I was hurting it. And if anything, my parents would want me out living my life, not trying to force it to work here. Before the murder, I could justify staying, now I couldn’t.
I needed to talk to someone who’d known my parents before I had even been a glimmer in the cosmos. I waited until ten minutes before All Booked Up closed, just like I always did. It was the best time to catch Viviane and bum a smoke off her when I really needed it. She knew all about my arrest. Hell, she was part of the circuit.
“Dane!” Her little voice shook as I walked up to her counter. “I’ve been waiting for you to come see me!” She held out her arms for me. We didn’t hug much, we just didn’t have that kind of relationship, but she must’ve known I needed it because when I all but squatted to embrace her, the second her frail arms encircled me, my eyes got misty.
She patted my back, not breaking away until I did. Her cold, little, arthritic hands held my face. “You did the right thing,” she said with vehemence.
I nodded. “I tried.”
She all but smashed my cheeks. “No, you didn’t try. You did the right thing. Do you hear me, son?”
“Then why does it feel like I’ve ruined everything?” I blinked back tears. I was secure with my manhood, but crying in front of a geriatric town treasure was not something I wanted to do after almost losing it in front of Carson.
“You didn’t ruin anything!” She freed my face, swatting the air. “Well, hell, I’m going to have to break out the big guns for this one.”
She shuffled to an old filing cabinet to the side of her front desk. It was the wooden kind they’d use at the library to keep track of the catalog cards that told you were books were located with the Dewey Decimal System. She pulled out a drawer, then opened a little tin to present a strip of paper she placed in my hand.
I held it up, recalling it was a fortune I’d gotten from a fortune cookie once. I’d used it as a bookmark but had lost it somewhere in the shuffle of exchanging books.
Be bold and totally worth the chaos.
Maisie, my favorite little tornado, spun around in my head. Memories of her dancing with me at the wedding, chasing me around our hotel room with a bleached mohawk, smashing glass bottles in the rage room, making love as waves thundered against the shore.
My eyes lifted to Viviane’s that were electric blue, just like the letters on the fortune. Her face crinkled with a knowing smile. “I think you’ve read enough Western novels. Maybe it’s time to go west to find your own story.”
“Just run away?”
“Sometimes, to follow your path, you need a little chaos to clear it first.”
“Be bold and totally worth the chaos?”
She nodded, closing my hand around the fortune.