He said it roughly—almost harshly. And the words were so unlike the Deputy Bobby I knew that it took me a minute to make sense of them, to step back and look at him, to see him, then, more closely. The red eyes. The way he folded his arms. The challenge in his face.
“Where were you?” I asked.
He shifted his weight, and the broken asphalt on the shoulder crunched under his feet.
“You said you were driving back to Hemlock House because I called. Where’d you go?”
Deputy Bobby looked past me, and when he spoke, his voice was thin and brittle, like ice about to break. “West and I talked this morning.”
Even though I’d suspected it from the way he was acting, it still, somehow, felt like a surprise. “Oh God. Is that good? What happened? Are you okay?”
“Everything’s fine.”
“You’re—” I didn’t know how to phrase what I wanted to say, so I asked, “Want to talk about it?”
“There’s nothing to talk about. I apologized. West accepted my apology.” He adjusted his arms across his chest. He was still looking out into the trees, the moss, the ferns shaped like swords. “We’re good now.”
“You’re good now.”
“That’s what I said.”
But this time, I recognized the unfamiliar hostility for what it was: defensiveness. It was easy to recognize; I was feeling some of it myself. “What did you talk about?”
Something flickered in Deputy Bobby’s eyes, but he said, “I told you. I apologized.”
I made a noise of understanding.
His gaze flicked to me for less than a heartbeat, and then he wrenched it back to the trees again.
“Did you write down what you wanted to say to him?” I asked.
Deputy Bobby didn’t answer.
“Did you?” I asked again.
“I appreciate you—”
“You didn’t, did you?” The question dropped open like a trap door between us. After a moment, I said, “Of course you didn’t.”
Now he looked at me. A dusky flush rose under his golden-olive skin. Even in the canopy’s deep shadows, his pupils looked hard and small. “I didn’t need to write anything down. I just needed to apologize. We both overreacted, and now it’s all over.”
“You overreacted? Really? Do you remember last night?”
“I remember that this is my relationship. Mine. And I don’t need your opinion or your commentary.” He struggled to add, in an approximation of his normal voice, “Thank you for being worried, but I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”
The old Dash would have let it drop there. Heck, the old Dash never would have gotten this far in the first place. But apparently, having your entire life turned upside down and shaken like a dollhouse goes a long way toward helping you deal with your conflict avoidance patterns. Also, confronting murderers didn’t hurt. So even though I tried to do what he asked, I felt myself already starting to speak.
“Big surprise,” I said, “you don’t want to talk about it. Well, too bad. God, why are you being such a—such a dude about this? You’re so smart. Most of the time. You’re so funny and kind and generous and good. And you deserve to be happy. Instead, you give me this nonsense about how everything’s fine and it all blew over. Stuff like this doesn’t blow over. That’s why you’re so unhappy!”
My shout echoed out into the trees. The branches above us shifted in the breeze, and shadows rose and fell on Deputy Bobby’s face. He stared at me. The hurt in his face was already closing, hardening, turning into a wall I didn’t know how to get past.
“I am happy,” Deputy Bobby said.
“No, you’re not. You don’t want to move to Portland. You don’t want to give up working in law enforcement. You don’t want to be a doctor, or whatever you think you’re supposed to do. You don’t want to do any of that. And I don’t know why you can’t just tell him.”
“I’m fine, for your information. West and I are fine.”
I shook my head, and now I was the one to look away.
“You know something, Dash?” He laughed—part scoff, part scorn, and it was the first time, I realized distantly, I’d ever heard Deputy Bobby try to hurt somebody. “For someone who whines and moans about how bad he is at relationships, you’re sure quick to talk about stuff you don’t know anything about.”
Deeper among the trees, a bird broke into flight—a flurried flap of wings that shattered the stillness. The sound of tires on pavement came next, and a sheriff’s office cruiser came over the hill.
The weight of Deputy Bobby’s gaze rested on me for another long moment. And then, without another word, he got in his car and left.
Chapter 13
I told Salk what had happened. At least, I think I told him. My body seemed to be on autopilot while my brain played back snatches of that horrible argument with Deputy Bobby. Salk looked around. He couldn’t find a shell casing. He couldn’t find a bullet. I think he believed me, but all my higher-level functions had come unplugged, and none of it seemed to matter. He called a tow truck. He waited with me.
Mr. Del Real, who owned Swift Lift Towing, told me someone had tampered with the alternator. I thought about how I’d parked right next to the service garage. About how Nate had disappeared in that direction after I’d tried to talk to him the first time. But it wasn’t just Nate who could have done it. Ali Rivas basically had a part-time job disabling machinery. And against my will, I remembered that Jen had told me Damian was good with cars.
As Mr. Del Real was hooking up the Jeep, Salk said, “I think you’re in shock. Let me take you to the medical center.”
I shook my head. “I just want to go home.”
Which was how, about an hour later, I ended up in bed.
