That was not a good sign.
Bohannan glanced at Megan and dipped his chin to Dan.
Then he looked at Celeste and me.
She’d sat up and was now plastered to my side.
And we were both looking at her father.
He switched his focus to me.
“Your guy is our guy. Robertson saw him.”
Celeste took my hand.
I held tight.
“He got away, but we know who we’re looking for and we know he’s an excellent shot. We also know he’s got resources. He got David with a long-range tactical rifle. They don’t come cheap.”
I refused to shift my attention to the closed drapes.
“We ran out of daylight and we’re runnin’ out of steam. Both lead to mistakes. We caught his trail. We followed it. But if we all keep stumbling around in the dark, we might fuck it up. What he did today, he didn’t have time to cover his tracks. A fresh team has been dispatched, and they’re still on it. And no, he did not vanish into thin air when he took Alice. Leland missed it, but once he got his ass out there, Harry didn’t. What he had was time to plot his escape. Having that time, that was what he did. In part, literally covering his tracks. He diffused the dogs because he spent time in those woods. His scent was everywhere, except on the path to Alice. That was a straight line. One path out, then, when they picked up his scattered scent, they didn’t know which path to follow. At this time, Alice had sustained a serious concussion because he’d dealt a blow to her head. He was carrying her, and my guess, she was unconscious, and he’d wrapped her in a blanket that was scented with him. She wasn’t leaving a trace.”
He held my gaze.
And said, “Today, he left a trace.”
He seemed to want something from me, so I nodded and asked, “Is there reason people don’t know this and instead think he has preternatural powers?”
“Specifics of a case are rarely released. But in this instance, that was held back for him. Yes, it scares people. No, I don’t like that. And yes, that gives him what he needs. But it also can build complacency. If he thinks he’s got the upper hand, if he thinks he was outsmarting Leland, and then outsmarting me, he might give that to me.”
I hated that he got to further scare people.
But what Bohannan said made sense.
“Are you saying he knew Alice and her friends were going to be out there?”
“I’m saying he lured Alice and her friends out there.”
Holy God.
“The girls said that?” I asked.
“It was a game, instigated by Alice.”
“He got to her beforehand,” I whispered.
“He got to her beforehand,” Bohannan confirmed.
“Behind my boathouse, he disappeared,” I reminded him.
Bohannan said nothing.
Oh God.
“Did you keep that from me too?” I demanded.
“No,” he finally answered. “That time, he disappeared, and it was concerning.”
Concerning?
“So he does have preternatural powers,” I stated drily.
“No, Larue. And he never did. What he has are skills. And he proved that today by making that difficult of a shot across the fucking lake.”
On that, I had nothing further.
“This is a ploy to rattle you,” Bohannan shared.
I was wrong.
I did have something.
“He shot David.”
“He’s trying to rattle you.”
I bolted off the couch, piked toward him and screamed, “He shot David.”
“He’s feeding his need, Larue. He’s got sniper skills, and that means not a soul in Misted Pines is safe. And many people who live in these mountains know guns, they know what that shot means, so they know that.”
“So he meant to leave David alive?”
A hesitation.
God! This was torture!
Finally, he answered, “No, he meant to scare the shit out of you, Celeste too, and make me give chase. He meant for David to bleed out. He had no idea you’d see him and have it together enough to call 911. If David laid on your deck maybe two minutes longer, that would have happened. You saved David’s life today, sweetheart.”
It should, but it didn’t make me feel even an iota better.
“He’s the puppet master, Bohannan.”
“He’s rattling you.”
“Because he’s god!” I shrieked.
“And you’re rattling me.”
I shut up.
Because I’d never heard that tone from him.
Even when he threw the coffee mug across the kitchen.
That was when I felt it.
His tone, bearing down on the room as sure as if the ceiling had come disengaged and it was slowly falling, intent to crush us.
This was wrath, what I heard, what I was feeling.
This was end-of-days shit.
Bohannan did not like David being shot, for starters.
But it was more, and it wasn’t just all the other stuff this guy was doing that he did not like.
Bohannan did not like me sad or scared or hurting.
He didn’t like it at all.
And it would be the end of days if I didn’t get myself together.
“I’m just worried about David,” I said softly.