My toes ball in my shoes, the grooves that separate his muscles coming back to me like a landscape I want to get lost in. I slide a finger between the buttons of his shirt and look up into his eyes, like the feathers of a great gray owl. “I liked it very much.”
His hands slide up and down the tops of my arms. “I likeyouvery much.” He bends slowly, letting his lips glance over mine before closing the space between us, folding over me as our mouths greet each other again.
I put a hand on his chest and push him away, breathless. “Not here.”
I don’t want Myrtle to see. It’s not just the venery, the risk. There’s something possessive in me, a need for custody over my own heart and body. I want him to belong to me in a way he cannot belong to anyone else. I want what we do to exist in an autonomous sphere, like a snow globe, a world under glass, perfect and separate, outside of time. A place only we can enter. When he is with me, he’s not the sheriff, and I’m not the bane witch. We are private entities, reborn in each other’s arms, regenerated everywhere our bodies touch. Every meeting an introduction, an act of creation.
The door chimes and we leap apart, my fingers easily finding the spoon, stirring the oatmeal as if it is my whole purpose in life.
“Sheriff Brooks,” I hear Myrtle croon. “What lucky turn of events has brought you to our door again?”
He clears his throat and my mind flashes to the pattern of stubble where his beard meets his neck, the trace of my lips acrossit like a surveyor drawing a boundary, careful not to miss a step. I take a steady breath and relegate the image of him naked and trembling beneath me to a dusty corner of my mind. That I can fool Myrtle, keep what is between us to myself, is lunacy. But I have to try. Because I cannot tell her, and I cannot refuse him.
“Learn anything else about what happened to Beth Ann?” she asks.
He eyes her warily. “I can’t discuss the details of an active case. You know that.”
“Well, we all know who did it,” Myrtle carries on unhindered. “That Saranac Strangler’s getting a little too close for comfort.”
I pour a cup of coffee and hand it to him. “You don’t have any idea who he is? These are small towns. Surely someone’s seen a strange face around.”
“Tourists pass through here all year,” Myrtle tells me before Regis can answer. “Most of the houses in the area are empty, but they’re not for sale. City dwellers like to buy up the real estate and save it for vacation or rent it out to travelers for passive income.”
“Unfortunately, she’s right,” he agrees. “Whoever this guy is, I don’t think he’s local, but he’s got a home base, somewhere he’s lying low between murders. A place he’s renting seasonally or even squatting in. Some of these homeowners don’t come up here for years. They’d never know if a person was living on their property temporarily.” He sets his cup down without taking a sip. “Ladies, I better get going.”
I open my mouth to say something, but the words glob inside, and he stalks out as I stare after him.
“Damn shame we don’t have anyone here who could help that man by shedding some light on this mysterious killer,” Myrtle says flatly.
I look at her. “Do you meanIshould help him?”
She eyes me sidelong. “I mean that he should help you. The more you get out of him, the greater your advantage over this monster. And you need every advantage. But you gotta scratch a back around here to get yours scratched in return.”
“Who says he’ll believe me?”
She shrugs. “Don’t overthink it, dear. Chalk it up to women’s intuition. Besides, something tells me he’d believe just about anything that comes out of your mouth. Better hurry,” she adds dryly. “He’s leaving.”
I drop the dish towel I’m holding and rush out the door, throwing myself at his patrol car before he can back away.
Regis rolls his window down.
“Let me help you,” I tell him, panting.
He looks bewildered.
“You said the other day… I mean, I didfeelsomething when we were at Beth Ann’s place.” I take a deep breath. “Take me to the other crime scenes. Maybe I’ll get something else—a sense or a premonition. You don’t have to tell anyone. We can keep it unofficial, off-the-record. But it might be useful.”
He looks pale, jaw flickering with tension. “You’re some kind of psychic after all, aren’t you?”
“In a way.”
He sighs.
“Icanhelp,” I insist as he quietly deliberates. “Let me prove it to you.”
“Acacia, it’s not that I don’t believe you…” he starts.
I squeeze my eyes shut and burrow deep within, feeling for the pulse that isn’t mine, the flicker of another presence, dull but persistent, like a clock ticking through a very thick wall. I put myself back at Beth Ann’s place, the way I found it that morning, littered with the invisible debris of what occurred there. The first flash is dim, muddled in a way I don’t understand, but I can see her tromping down her porch stairs through the branches, unaware she is being watched. Suddenly, the shift in his MO makes sense to me. I open my eyes. “It was an accident,” I blurt.
