He stared at me a moment then offered up the pack. I met his eyes, trying to figure out if this was some sort of test. Did he do this with every kid who came over here just to see if they were underage smokers?
Then I remembered I was eighteen.
I still hesitated before taking one, trying to at least keep the shaking to a minimum, then allowed him to hold a second match up for me. I inhaled the smoke and let it burn my lungs as Rumple’s father began to speak.
“I was supposed to have quit years ago,” he told me. “I don't do it often, but every once in a while, it's good for calming the nerves.”
“Yeah,” I agreed with a nod. “I don't…um…smoke much, either.”
“Wouldn't be good for your running times, would it?”
“Ah…no, it wouldn't.” I wondered how he knew about my running times but didn't get the chance to ask.
“We need to set some ground rules here, Thomas,” he said. “I know this is all supposed to be some kind of elaborate ruse, and maybe it is…”
He looked at me out of the corner of his eye as he took a deep drag before continuing.
“But I kind of doubt it.”
Somehow, he knew I was more interested in her than I had let on. He was also asking me to keep his secret, but did that mean he would keep my secret, too, or was he going to tell her what he suspected?
“How much did Nicole tell you about why she left Minneapolis?”
“Enough,” I replied.
He nodded.
“I realize you don’t know what it’s like to be a father,” Sheriff Skye said, “but the hardest thing I ever did was not to jump on a plane and commit murder after I got that phone call. The second hardest thing I ever had to do was respect Nicole’s wishes not to press charges and see those two hung. Well…at least in juvie for a few years.”
“She didn’t want to do anything about it?”
“Nope,” he replied. He looked out across the back yard and into the darkening trees of the forest beyond. “She was too embarrassed, for starters. She was also doing something illegal at the time and could have been prosecuted as well. She wanted it all behind her, not dredged up over and over again.”
I hadn’t really thought about her reasons, but from what I knew of her, it all fit. She didn’t want people in her business, and having something like that all over the media would kill her.
“I realize you haven’t known Nicole very long, but I want to tell you a little about my daughter,” the sheriff said. I nodded and tried to make myself look busy with my smoke. “She was always an independent thing, even when she was little. She would get her mind set on something, and it damn well better work that way, or there was going to be hell to pay. That girl has a temper.”
“Heh!” I snorted. Yeah, I was aware of the kitten’s claws, no doubt. Sheriff Skye chuckled, too.
“You’ve seen that side of her more than once, huh?”
“Yeah,” I replied, and I could have sworn I heard him say “good” before he went on.
“When I went to Minnesota after that…‘incident’,” he continued, “the girl I found there wasn’t my daughter, or at least not the one I knew. She was timid and scared, and she always waited for someone else to tell her what to do. She never took any initiative. As if there were any way I could have been angrier over everything…”
He paused and shook his head before he continued.
“Seeing her act like that…It just wasn’t my girl.”
He shoved the butt of his cigarette into the dirt beside him and pulled out another one. I still had half of mine left since I hadn’t really been actively smoking it. All I could do was listen to him and try to picture my Rumple that way.
“Then I found out something else from her mother,” Sheriff Skye said, “and I was almost as pissed off at my ex-wife as I had been at the two who did that to her.”
“What?” I asked when he didn’t continue right away. “What did she say?”
“She told me Nicole wasn’t like that from the…from what had happened to her. She said Nicole had been acting like that for months—ever since she started dating that schmuck.”
I stood up and took a few steps onto the patio. I stared at the bright spot at the end of the cigarette as I inhaled. The sheriff looked off into the woods again while I thought about what he said. I tried to picture Rumple all quiet and waiting for someone to tell her what to do, and I just couldn’t see it. Why would she act tha