Page 73 of By the Book

“He missed every shot,” I said. “Every single one. That’s got to be statistically impossible.”

My mom gave me a look of cool amusement. She looked better today—her eyes clear, her expression alert, the fatigue and strain of the last few days already easing out of her face. Of course, I probably looked better too. A little R&R will do that for you. The chaos at the library had been two days before, and once the sheriff had let us go, we’d done nothing but sleep and eat and live quietly normal, perfectly boring lives.

For a few minutes, we watched as Bobby listened to my dad, nodding at various moments, asking a few questions, before launching into what I could only hope was an impassioned plea for my dad to stop carrying a gun everywhere and buy, I don’t know, pepper spray.

“You picked a good one,” my mom said.

“Yeah. I did.”

“I know we weren’t particularly fair to him at the beginning. He’s so different from the others, Dashiell. And he’s—” She stopped. “When I—whenwe—heard about the accident, I think it was the first time I understood. Really understood. The Jeep had been totaled. You’d almost been killed. Before that, when you were arrested, it seemed like a joke. I mean, no one could seriously believe you’d be capable of killing Vivienne.”

“Uh, ow.”

“I’m starting to suspect that you’ve had other brushes with danger, though. When you saved Hugo, for example. The other murders you’ve solved. You’ve never said anything, but you haven’t been…safe, have you?”

“Hastings Rock is about as safe a place as you could ask for, Mom.”

“You’re not answering my question.”

I thought about it. “It’s like I said: I guess nowhere is really safe. That’s one of the things you learn when you get older, isn’t it? Tragedy happens everywhere. It happens all the time.”

“And now you sound like me.” She seemed to consider her next words. “When I realized, finally realized, how much danger you must have been in, I was frightened, although you may find that hard to believe. And because it’s easier to be angry than to be frightened, I was angry. Angry at you for choosing to stay here. And angry at him. Because he hadn’t kept you safe. Hugo would have kept you safe.”

“Hugo would have put me in bubble wrap,” I said. “And at another point in my life, I would have let him. It’s not Bobby’s job to keep me safe. He’s not my bodyguard. He’s not my babysitter. Bobby’s my boyfriend. And my partner. We help each other.”

My partner, at that moment, was still trying—apparently unsuccessfully—to help my dad. As we watched, my dad swung around, jabbering excitedly at Bobby. Poor Bobby had to duck and weave to keep my dad from pointing the gun at him in a burst of undue enthusiasm.

“Honestly,” I said, “at this rate, I’m going to have to save him.”

My mom laughed softly. But not for long, and when she fell silent, the crash of waves against the sea cliffs filled the space between us. “There was this part of me that thought, if we came out here, I’d discover I’d been mistaken. You wouldn’t be this…this stranger I didn’t know how to talk to. You’d come home, and you’d be safe, and everything would be okay again.”

I thought I knew what that meant. Whatokaymeant. Okay meant stable. Uneventful. Controlled. Okay meant that, after a few weeks, she and my dad could disappear back into their writing and forget all about me, because I would be safely tucked away on a shelf somewhere.

“I appreciate you telling me that,” I said. “And I know this isn’t what you want to hear, but I’m not going home.”

My mom blinked as though she’d forgotten I was there.

“I love you and Dad, and I appreciate everything you’ve done for me. But this is my life now, and I’m going to stay here and keep building that life. I hope you and Dad will want to be part of it.”

“Of course you’re going to stay here. That’s what I’ve been saying, isn’t it?”

“Er—” A very painful moment passed before I managed to come up with “It is?”

My mom laughed again—a longer, richer laugh. “Let me try again. Do you know what I thought when we found that dead woman? The mayor?”

I shook my head.

“Maybethoughtisn’t the right word. I was overwhelmed. All the years I’ve spent writing about trauma and grief and psychosis, and then the first time I see a murder victim, my higher-order thinking completely shuts down.”

“I think it was more manslaughter than murder,” I said. “If you believe Colleen’s story.”

Waving the words away, my mom continued, “And at some point, I realized, youweren’toverwhelmed. You were all right. You were thinking clearly. You were calm. You were in control of yourself.”

“I was pretty upset,” I said. “It never gets any easier. Finding people like that, I mean.”

My mom nodded, but she spoke as though she hadn’t heard me. “I’ve been thinking about what you said last night. About your best writing. We’ve spent so much time talking about the craft, Dashiell. Arguing about forms. Analyzing stories. Little tips and techniques. And somehow, because I am an idiot, I managed not to tell you the most important thing, the one that Iwish someone had told me when I was young and just starting to write.”

Laughter came from far off. My dad’s. And Bobby’s, too—good-natured, easygoing laughter. My throat felt like it had closed, so I just stood there and stared at her.

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