I bite my tongue. Hard. “I know your experience of them is very different from his,” I say when I can speak again. “That is why I’d like to talk to you.”
“I don’t think that will be necessary, Detective. I appreciate your thoroughness, but I’m sure you can find others to more adequately discuss the topic. I will, however, guarantee that is what you are looking at here. Whether one monster or several, they come from out there. Not in here.”
*
My first “press conference” was memorable for being the first one ever to be held in Rockton. I talked Dalton into letting me do it by convincing him that updating a gathering once was more efficient than snarling at an unending succession of citizens.
Otherwise, that conference was memorable only for the sheer unmemorability of it. I’m accustomed to dealing with pushy members of the press and outraged members of the public, all trying to get their two cents in while paying very little attention to what the police are actually saying. That first time in Rockton, they listened to the update, and they accepted it, much the way one accepts the announcement of a minor flight delay—grumble a bit, but trust that the airline has the situation in hand.
When I hold my conference this morning, people are more unsettled. They have questions. Yet they still listen and accept and, yes, trust.
I spin the story to emphasize the likelihood that the killer comes from without. From the forest. I’m careful to warn that might not be the case, and everyone needs to be careful in town too, but mostly, I want them staying out of those woods.
TWENTY-EIGHT
After the press conference, I head to speak to Nicole. Diana is at the house. Despite my reservations, she’s doing an excellent job with Nicole.
I don’t know what it’s like to be in Diana’s head. God knows, I’ve tried getting there. I realize it’s not uncommon for people to still love their abusers, to put up with the abuse and even turn against those who try to help them. I know it. I don’t understand it. With everything Diana did, it would seem she never truly recognized she was being abused, that she paid lip service to it for my sake, while seeing only the exciting emotional tumult of a toxic relationship.
Yet her patience and kindness with Nicole make me wonder if I’m being unfair. If she did feel trapped in her relationship with Graham, knowing it was abusive but unable to break away. Maybe the sympathy and care she gives to Nicole as a victim is the sympathy and care she couldn’t give to herself.
I think that, and then I think of all the ways Diana betrayed me, all the times I thought I understood her motivations and suffered for it.
When I reach the house, Nicole is on the front porch, bundled in a nest of blankets, wearing dark sunglasses as she sits in a shard of sunlight, her face tilted up to catch it. A cat long denied the sun, now basking in it. When she sees me, she sits up and says she’ll come inside, but I tell her not to rush, I have to check in with Diana first. Nicole settles back in her sunlight, and I head indoors.
Diana’s in the kitchen, making tea. We talk. We’re capable of that, though I’m well aware of how odd those conversations are, speaking to my oldest friend as if she were any other resident tasked with Nicole’s care. Polite and businesslike, not a spark of warmth between us. No chill either. Just … nothing.
Before she leaves, she says, “I hear you have a puppy.”
I tense and say, “Eric got her for me. To train for tracking.”
“Good idea.” She pulls on her boots. “Do you remember when I tried to talk you into getting a cat?”
“Uh-huh.”
A brief smile. “You’re not really a cat person. A dog’s better. I’m glad you have one. I saw you with her the other day. She’s adorable.”
“Thanks.”
“You looked happy.”
I pause, tensing again, as I say, carefully, “I am…,” and I’m waiting for the inevitable comment, the one that suggests she’s done me a favor, tricking me into coming to Rockton, but she only nods and then, before she goes, says, “The next time you come by, maybe you can bring the puppy. Nicole would like that. She mentioned it, and I suggested she ask you to bring her, but she doesn’t want to be a pest. It might cheer her up. She tries to hide it, but it’s … rough. Really rough. Especially the nightmares. I know Will left sedatives, but she’s not taking them. I don’t feel right sneaking them into her tea at night, but I am tempted.”
“I’ll talk to Will and Isabel.”
Diana makes a face at the mention of Isabel. There was an issue between them early on, where Isabel had been convinced Diana was “freelancing.” Selling sex, in other words. But I get only that face—no argument—and then she’s gone, promising to be back in an hour.
Nicole comes inside, and I set the two books beside a chair. She moves them farther from the fire, giving me a wry smile and saying, “Sorry. That’s how he used to keep me in line. Burn pages of my writing.”