Although quiet on that matter, I couldn’t stay quiet altogether.
“There was something missing with my brother and parents, Coert, that your daughter has. I know they loved me, maybe not my brother, but my mom and dad did. They just didn’t love me enough. And just you thinking about all of this, worried about it, taking the time to process through it says you love her more than enough. So it’s just a guess, but I think your daughter will probably be just fine.”
“For a dad, ‘probably’ doesn’t cut it.”
I stared up in his face remembering precisely why I’d fallen so deeply in love with him.
He held my hand.
He was an amazing lover.
He laughed at my jokes.
He got me when no one else did.
And he was the kind of man who would say things like that.
“For a good dad, ‘probably’ doesn’t cut it,” I returned. “So considering that’s the God’s honest truth, in the end, I know she’ll be fine because you’re intent to make it that way.”
He looked over my head.
I stared at his face.
He drew in a deep breath.
I watched.
He seemed to be having some inner battle.
I let him fight it and hoped to God he won and landed on the right side.
He looked down at me.
“Think I’m the only dad on the planet who wants their kid to whine or throw a tantrum when I say no.”
I smiled at him. “Has it occurred to you that she’s just a good kid?”
“What hasn’t occurred to me until recently is that might be true but only because she’s got a dad who loves her and a mom who loves her the same so I need to give Kim credit because she screwed up and then kept doing that. But since all that went down she’s gotten herself together, and through it all, she’s been a great mom.”
Kim.
The ex.
The ex I’d seen pictures of who had brown hair, brown eyes, very large breasts, an envious behind and an exceptionally pretty smile.
I tried not to allow my expression to change.
I knew I failed in this when he said quietly, “Maybe we should stop talkin’ about this.”
“In all I regret,” I whispered, “and it’s not bitterness, Coert, just regret, it would be impossible to cope if I was standing here with you and you hadn’t had people love you along the way. If you hadn’t had your daughter. You’re not the only one sorting through things. And I think I’ve made it plain even if I’ve done it in a convoluted way that I wished things had gone differently. But it’s not in my power to change that. So at least I have those things to hold on to. In the time in between, you were loved and made something beautiful. So it might be difficult, but I know you had those things. So I can cope.”
As I spoke, his handsome face had changed, gone stunned, even staggered, and I decided that was all the risk I was willing to take that night.
Therefore, I murmured, “Goodnight, Coert. I really hope you find Lars soon and not just because I want to introduce Midnight to the coastal path.”
I then pulled on Midnight’s leash, turned and hurried away, careful to look both ways before we crossed the street because it wouldn’t do to be splatted to oblivion in front of Coert, or worse, get my dog hit when she’d finally found a loving home.
Fortune was shining on me that no one was coming.
But I’d used up all my courage and had no reserves so I started out walking briskly.
And ended up running away.
Gave It to Her Good
Coert
Present day . . .
LARS KEPT IN SHAPE IN prison, and when he got out, Coert could tell as they chased him through the forest outside Shepherd.
Coert might be in better shape but it didn’t matter because the Shepherd cops and Coert’s deputies, who were in foot pursuit with him, were younger than both of them, faster, and pissed since Lars had shot at them.
As he ran, all the officers’ flashlights bobbed and weaved through the dark night, keeping Lars in their sights. So they saw when Lars turned and squeezed off two rounds blind.
But in the direction of Coert.
Coert kept running but did it jagging behind a tree as those around him kept shouting for Lars to freeze. Coert kept with the pursuit, gun in hand but only his flashlight in his other hand was raised.
He’d been counting and he might be off a round or two, but since they’d run Lars off the road and he’d taken off on foot, he hadn’t had time to reload. So by Coert’s count, he was either out of ammo, or he only had a round or two left.
This was important but within seconds it wouldn’t matter.
When Lars twisted again to raise his weapon toward Coert, he wasn’t looking where he was going and ran smack into a tree.
He careened around it, losing balance, firing off a shot straight up in the air, probably more reaction than desperation, and with no aim.
Lars hit the dirt and Coert saw the gun fly to the side. He was barely down a second before one of the Shepherd officers was on him, kicking the gun through the leaves.
One of Coert’s deputies got to him next. Rolling him to his stomach, he twisted his arm, knee in his back, other hand going for his cuffs.
Coert and the four others in pursuit stopped, fanned around, guns at the ready, but it was only Coert that was breathing heavily.
Time to carve some of it out to start running regularly again.
“You wanna read him, boss?” Clarke, Coert’s deputy who was cuffing him asked.
“I don’t even wanna look at him,” Coert muttered.
Clarke gave a terse nod, finished cuffing Lars while he read him his rights then got off him and yanked him up to his feet.
Coert had holstered his weapon, and as Clarke turned him around, he caught Lars’s eyes.
“Fuckin’ pig,” Lars spat, literally, aiming saliva Coert’s way after he said it.
Unfortunately for him, at that exact time, Clarke started pushing him and Lars ended up spitting on himself.
Coert didn’t smile.
He just watched Clarke guide Lars back through the forest, the other officers moving in behind.
Then he followed them.
Coert waited until after he’d called Kim to let her know they got him and it was all okay. He waited until he’d called Malcolm and Tom in Denver to let them know it was all good. And he waited until he’d told Monica to call Cady and share that she was again safe.
The last being what Coert did first.
Only after he’d done all that and Lars had long since been processed and was sitting cuffed to a table, ankles in shackles in one of Coert’s interrogation rooms, did Coert go in.
It was a blow, being alone in that room with that man after all these years.
But the blow was not about Lars.
It was about all he brought back in regards to what Coert had done to Cady.
“Man, fuck,” Lars bit out on seeing him. “Just fuckin’ fuck off, you fuckin’ pig.”
Coert moved opposite the table to him but didn’t sit.
He stayed standing, looked into his eyes and spoke.
“We have your notes, receipts and other detritus, the stuff you left at your pad in Blakely. We have the Denver investigator’s travel notes and reports, all of these linking to information we found in Blakely and we’re likely to find in that mess of a car you left us. We have your gun and the ammo you left behind. Different guns used in seven murders in five states, but the ammo you left behind matches four of those murders. We have clothing with residue on it of the accelerant used in fires set in Magdalene, Denver, Reno, Cheyenne and Litchfield, Minnesota. We can place you in all of those locations at the time of the murders. You’ve been processed here but we’re extraditing you tomorrow to Colorado. You’ll be tried and convicted there for four fires, four murders. From there, I don’t know. We’ll see how much travel you’ll be doing. But since you’ll get life, and you gotta hope you get a decent attorney or you might face the injection, it might end for you in a lotta ways in Denver.”
“You like this don’t you, standin’ there, thinkin’ you’re the shit, big man sheriff, shiny badge?” Lars asked snidely. “But you’re a piece of shit.”
“We have very different definitions of that, Lars.”