Page 112 of A Wolfe in the Woods

The words struck something deep. Of course he remembered.

Grandma used to make me Earl Grey with cream. Moonlit nights in Everwick, steam on winter windows, her soft humming in the kitchen. My throat tightened.

“Thank you,” I replied, easing into the wooden chair when he disappeared into the small kitchen. It felt like such a small grace to accept, but Bernie had always known how to lift my spirits, sometimes with a peppermint on my desk, sometimes with a quiet supportive word. Tonight, with tea.

“As much as I love having you visit,” Bernie started, coming back into the living room with two steaming cups a moment later, “I know a distracted mind when I see one. You want to tell me what’s going on?”

His gaze lingered, like he could tell I was holding something back. We sat at his small dining table, chairs facing each other.

“I guess I could never hide anything from you,” I replied, wrapping my hand around the warm mug. It had an illustrateddesign of a towering purple rock formation, and it readViolet Valley. It was one of the Protected Parks to the east. Bernie and his wife, Eunice, had taken a road trip out there during summer a couple years before she’d passed.

He’d brought me back a jar of cerulean-colored honey, made from a rare species of bees, and a plushie of a famous boulder that I still kept on my desk. It was a perfect stress ball too, when Erik pissed me off.

“Megan’s my best friend, but sometimes she can be a lot,” I admitted quietly. “Right now, I just…need things to be calmer. Quieter, so I can get my mind right.”

His expression softened and he nodded slowly, as if he knew.

“How have you been?” I asked, reaching over to pat his hand briefly. “Have you…have you decided what you’re going to do?”

It had only been a few days since he’d been fired from Skoll. All the other layoffs had been jarring, but Bernie’s felt like a chunk had been torn from our department, the edges still frayed and jagged. It was so much quieter in the office now, like people were afraid to speak.

“I’ll figure it out. I always do,” he replied. “But I don’t want to talk about me. Tell me what’s wrong, dear.”

My eyes filled with tears that I tried valiantly to blink away. Bernie was always so caring. He reminded me of my grandmother in a lot of ways.

He folded his hands, waiting. I took a sip of my tea to loosen the tightness in my throat and then took in a deep breath.

I didn’t know how to start, so the words tumbled out awkwardly. I started from the beginning…I told him everything. The way my life felt unrecognizable, the ever-increasing stress at Skoll, going back to Everwick, the Hollow, how Jonathan had looked at me like a stranger. I didn’t say his name at first. But eventually it came out anyway.

“Jonathan Wolfe,” I whispered at last. “That’s who I’ve been seeing. I never said his name to you before…but Erik’s already used it against me.”

Bernie went still. I watched his face carefully, afraid I’d said too much.

“And I think I might be falling in love with him,” I confessed, surprising myself as much as him. “But then Erik put something in his head, and now he thinks I betrayed him. He…the way he looked at me, Bernie. It was like I was a stranger. And all the while, I couldn’t believe he would think I was capable of something like that. He believed Erik over me. About some…some project that Skoll is working on, and he thought Erik sent me tospyon him. Can you believe that?”

I shook my head, feeling the saddened disbelief rising all over again. I took a sip of my tea, which was getting colder by the minute. I hadn’t realized how long I’d been talking, but Bernie hadn’t interrupted me once.

“I was hurt,” I confessed. “Then I was angry. But now…now I just feeldefeated. And I miss him. I want to see him, but then I don’t. Because how could he think I’d do something like that? It’s insulting. It shows me he doesn’t trust me. It’s just so, so jumbled in my head, and I don’t know what to do.”

Bernie’s expression shifted into quiet concern. “This isn’t your typical lovers’ quarrel,” he said. “It’s more complicated than that.”

I sighed. I knew why Jonathan couldn’t let me in fully, though. “When someone’s been hurt the way that he has and then a man like Erik steps in…it becomes about more than feelings,” I said carefully. “It’s about survival. He doesn’t trust very easily because he’s been betrayed before. Deeply. By so many people. It’s marked him.”

He met my eyes. “You can’t talk someone out of a fear…” A pause. “You can onlyshowthem the truth.” He looked down athis hands then, shoulders lowering. “Blanche…I didn’t want to involve you. Not after everything you’ve already been through.”

“Involve me in what?” I asked, frowning. I straightened in my chair. “Do you…do you know something about this?”

Bernie closed his eyes for a brief moment, his shoulders sagging. When they opened, he looked directly at me, but there was trepidation in his expression.

“Foley Wolfe’s son,” he murmured, more to himself than to me.

My brow creased in confusion. I nearly jolted at the familiar name. “Yes. You…you know him?” I asked.

A silence stretched before he continued.

“You matter a great deal to me, Blanche…I don’t know if I’d forgive myself if anything happened to you.”

My chest pulled tight. “Bernie, if you’re afraid of telling me something…that alone tells me I need to know. How did you know Foley?”