“Oh. Well, if I can help at all, let me know.”
He made a hat-tip gesture with his helmet and told me that the police were going to want to talk to Felix as well, before he went back to work.
“Darling,” I murmured.
Felix raised his head, tugged his glove off, and wiped furiously at his face. “I can’t do this.”
“I’m here, Felix. I’ll help you with everything I can.”
“No. No, not—” He faltered and covered his eyes, taking a few deep breaths. “Please go to work.”
“What?”
“I need to handle this.”
“I’m not going to leave you to do it alone,” I protested.
“Bo, please go. With you here I’ll just… keep crying.”
Something had changed in Felix’s tone. It was like watching the light inside of him suddenly snuffing out. His melodic amber voice was simply…gone. So very rarely did tone or emotion affect someone’s voice color, but in that moment…. The color of Felix was but a ghost of his splendor.
He started walking toward the rubble of the gift shop.
“Felix!” I called.
He didn’t stop.
BECAUSE I’Dgone to Snowy Ridge with Felix in his car, Katie the cashier drove me back to his place so I could pick up my own vehicle. Felix was a wreck, so I was trying not to let the sinking feeling in my gut pull me under completely, but something was wrong. I knew Felix had a history with fire—maybe even a phobia, considering what he’d endured in the past—and that’s why I’d wanted to stay with him. I remembered Alan saying someone hadset fireto their house when he was little. Felix was no stranger to arson, and I just wanted to make sure he was going to be okay.
Add to that the vandalized sign? Felix had been a resident of Lancaster for ten years, seven of which he’d been a confirmed bachelor. Despite being single for so long, it seemed most people knew he was gay and it was never a problem. Until now. Days after we publicly put our relationship out there, this happens? Oh no. This was the kind of thing where the cops better hope they found the culprit before I did.
I was beyond angry. I was raging that someone could have been hurt, even killed, because some sick fuck out there was way too preoccupied with how two men spent their time together. But as pissed as I was, my fear over Felix and the sudden mood shift won out. I just wanted him to talk to me, to say it was nerves, and he’d see me at home tonight. But as I sat in my equally tiny office at the elementary school, calling his cell over and over, Felix never answered. Maybe he was in the area that had spotty service. Right? That was it. Except, when I tried for a fourth time, with the intention of leaving him a voicemail, the phone had been turned off.
In a daze I went through my lessons with the kiddies. I hardly remembered who I taught or what kind of feedback I gave. For all I knew, they could have all been performing a perfect execution of Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D Major and I’d have just said “good job, now practice more.” I tried Felix’s cell one more time after driving to the high school for concert rehearsal, but it was still going straight to voicemail. I wasn’t so sure Alan would be there, but on the off chance he was, I planned to ask him if he’d heard from Felix.
I walked through the front door, went past the office and toward the auditorium, then stopped.Shit, I had to apologize to Cass for my absence. I turned, marched back, and stopped at the front desk.
“Mr. Merlin!” the receptionist exclaimed. She clasped her hands together almost comically. “Is everything okay?”
Not really, no.
“It’s fine,” I said, giving her the politest smile I could muster. “Is he in?”
“Mr. Cass? Oh yes, he is.”
“May I go in?”
She nodded and held her hand toward the hallway in open invitation.
I thanked her, went to the principal’s office, and knocked on the doorframe. “Mr. Cass?”
He glanced up from his computer and his expression dropped. “Mr. Merlin.”
I stepped inside. “First, please let me apologize. I know how bad it looks, a new teacher not showing up without any calls as to why. But if I could take a moment to explain the situation….”
Cass spun in his chair to face me. He pointed at the door. “Close that, will you?”
“Oh. Sure.” I shut the door and took a seat in front of his desk. I was starting to sweat in my winter jacket. “So this morning, just before I was on my way to work—”
