“Now, that’s never been proved in a court of law,” Jasper says indignantly, “and ain’t right for you to go spreading falsehoods. But even if we did have a little supply for folks as need it, we’re just performing a service; we didn’t get all these folks addicted to fancy painkillers and then cut them off and leave them desperate. That was your rich doctors and pill companies. Besides, none of that holds a candle to what you did.”
“I didn’t do—”
“Child.” Lilah leans forward. “You were that man’s wife. Now, I’ve been married to this old man for pretty near my whole life, and there ain’t a thing he does I don’t know about. Whatever you made that jury believe, I know you knew. Maybe you didn’t help him kill any of those women, maybe you did, I’m not judging. But don’t try to sell me that load of pinfeathers.”
The absurdity grabs me by the throat, and it’s all I can do to hold back a bark of a laugh. These people—leaders of a criminal gang, the worst in this county, at the very least—think I’m too terrible to remain their neighbor. There’s absolutely no point in telling them I didn’t know about Melvin’s crimes. Lilah Belldene won’t have any sympathy or understanding for who I was: a sheltered young woman hemmed in by my own fear. Melvin had done a great job of keeping his secrets. And whatever I might have guessed, my own fear had taught me to ignore.
“Okay,” I tell them, and let a smile slide like oil over my lips. “Let’s explore that idea for a minute. What if I did know? I’d have to be very, very cold. You think you want to start a fight with me? You’re a mother, Lilah. How far would you go to protect your children?”
“All the way to hell,” she replies. “But we both know the best way to win a fight is not to have one. That’s why you should move on. That’s how you protect them kids. By getting out of our territory.”
“I’ll think about it,” I tell them. “Truth be told, Stillhouse Lake isn’t all that great a place. But make no mistake: If I move on, it’s because we want to move. Not because you ran us off.”
“Does that matter to you?” Jasper asks. “Comes down to the same thing.”
“It matters,” I say, and meet his gaze calmly. “You know it does.”
He nods. “So how long before you’re gone, Mrs. Proctor?”
“I don’t know. A few months. We have to find a place, and sell this one first—”
“That doesn’t work for us,” Lilah interrupts. “We need you gone by next month.”
I shake my head. “That’s not going to happen, Mrs. Belldene. We go on our schedule. If we decide to go.”
Jasper looks around at this haven we’ve so carefully rebuilt, decorated, made into a home. He slowly nods and takes a long drink of his coffee. He sets the cup down with a sigh. “Mighty good coffee, ma’am,” he says. “And I sure wish you had good sense to match. But you don’t, and I can’t help that. You’ll learn. When you do, remember: we tried being neighborly about this.”
Lilah nods. “Y’all enjoy that meatloaf, now. You want to give that dish back, you just bring it on out to our place. If not, we’ll come back for it.”
I understand what that means. One way or another, this is going to get ugly.
No sense in pretending to be social anymore.
I go into the kitchen, get out a garbage bag, and scrape the meatloaf into it. I run hot water and grab the soap and scrub her dish until it’s sparkling clean. I dry it on a hand towel and walk out to thrust it at her.
“You’re a rude bitch,” she says, and takes it. “But still, I thank you kindly. It’s my company dish.”
“You can go now. Both of you. Out.” I let them see it then: the ice and steel and fury that’s carried me through these past few years. The ache and fear and relentless need to protect my kids.
They blink.
“Well,” Lilah says, and raises her eyebrows. “You drop by anytime, Ms. Proctor. And you bring that man of yours too. One of our sons owes him a broken cheekbone and a couple of teeth from last year. He’ll be wanting his payback.”
“Time to go,” I tell her. “Now.”
She heads for the truck. Jasper follows, shooting me one last, flat look, and I shut the door and lock it behind them. I stay at the window, hand on the butt of my gun, until their truck starts and reverses back down the driveway in a flurry of gravel and dust.
“Mom?”
Lanny’s back, clutching the SUV’s keys and looking tense and worried.
“We’re okay,” I tell her, and put my arm around her. Then I wrap both arms around her. “We’re going to be okay.”
I don’t really believe that.
Neither, from the stiffness of her shoulders, does she.
Sam comes home late and exhausted. We’re having barbecued chicken and corn bread dressing, which pleases everyone; I have the Belldenes’ meatloaf in a plastic sack in the kitchen. I’m considering having it tested for rat poison.
Sam’s filthy and sweaty. His hands are raw from the work, and it makes me ache to see it. He does this for us. Sam likes building things, but it’s a job, not a passion. He’s a pilot. He ought to be flying. And he isn’t because . . . because of his commitment to us, at least for now. I didn’t ask him to do that. That’s just who he is: a solid, real, stand-up man willing to sacrifice for the people he loves. He doesn’t want to leave us here on our own; he knows things are fragile.
But that sacrifice shouldn’t be forever. And that’s yet another reason to give up my devotion to Stillhouse Lake.
I follow him to the bedroom and silently help him with his dirty clothes; he groans a little as he works one shoulder, and I massage it for him. “Thanks, Gwen,” he says. “Sorry. I pulled something.”
“I’d be surprised if you weren’t sore every day,” I tell him. “Shower, mister. Dinner’s ready in half an hour.”
“Oh, half an hour?” He raises his eyebrows. Sam Cade has a surprisingly innocent face, considering all that he has seen and knows and is capable of doing. He keeps secrets shockingly well, even from me. Like me, he diligently practices his firearms, and while he’s never told me everything he’s had to do to protect me and the kids, I’m sure there are deep waters there too. All that is an interesting contrast to the light that dances in his eyes right now. “Plenty of time, then.”
“Hmmm.” I pretend to consider it, then slip off my shoes and unbutton my jeans. “Good point.”
Sex in the shower is wonderful, of course, and the running water drowns out any sounds that might disturb the kids. I love this man, and he loves me, and even though things might never be perfect between us, at moments like this they are damn close. I hang on to him, breathless and trembling, as the hot water runs over us and washes us clean. There’s always a flash of memory of the pain Melvin used to inflict on me during sex. But Melvin’s gone now. That’s all gone.
This is real and sweetly hot, and Sam is the best lover I have ever known, and I am very, very lucky.
We cling together and kiss with the clean water cascading down our faces, sealing us together, and then, reluctantly, we part. I step out and towel dry; my hair’s a damp mess, but I don’t care. I let it go.
I wait until he steps out, half-dressed already, and then I say, “We had some visitors while you were gone.” Better tell him before Lanny or Connor blurt it out.
“Oh?” He stops in the act of pulling a T-shirt over his head to look at my expression, to verify what he sensed in my tone. “Who?”
“Jasper and Lilah Belldene. Apologizing for their son’s shooting ‘accident.’” I air-quote that last part, and his expression darkens. “But in reality? Declaring war on us.”
“War? Why? What the hell did we do?” He backtracks immediately. “Except for me socking her son stupid that one time at the gun range. Which he deserved.”
“It’s me, not you,” I tell him. “I’m the bad apple. More reporters, more focus by cops, and they haven’t forgotten that failed documentary that Miranda Tidewell started on me.” That documentary had come for us out of
the blue, a purely malicious attempt to make my life hell, and it had worked until her death put a stop to it. “I see their point, really. It’s hard to keep a low criminal profile when I put a spotlight squarely on this place every time I step out the door.”
He finishes putting his shirt on and shoves his feet into flat loafers. I can tell by the fast, staccato movements he’s pissed off, but not—I hope—at me. “Some nerve coming up here. Did they think they were going to intimidate you?”
“I’m not really sure. Maybe it was just their version of another warning shot.” I wonder if I should talk about moving. I know I should, but this doesn’t seem to be a conversation for right now. Tomorrow, maybe. I sense something more than a pulled muscle is bothering him.
“The actual warning shot cost me two hundred bucks. I’d say their point was already made.”
“Sorry, Sam.”
“Not your fault.” He stands up and kisses me, light and gentle. “Your hair’s wet.”
“Keep doing that, it won’t be the only thing.”
“Gwen.”
I kiss the corner of his mouth. “Dinner,” I tell him. “Then we figure out what we’re going to do.”
Before I can even broach the subject at dinner, Lanny’s all over it. “Mom, come on, who were those people? The old people?”
Sam looks at me, and I look at him. He shrugs. And he’s right, of course; I can’t protect my kids anymore by keeping things from them. “Remember the folks who might have put the rattlesnake in our mailbox?” I ask her.
“Oh shit,” she says. I give her a look. “Crap. Whatever. The Hillbilly Mafia?”
“They want us gone from Stillhouse Lake.”
“Why?” Connor asks.
I remember Lilah Belldene’s words. Not personal. But it was, and is, deeply personal. It always is when my kids are involved. “Same reason people in Norton don’t like us. We bring too much attention.”
“Mom?” My son’s put away his sunglasses, and his bruised eyes make me wince. The swelling’s not so bad, at least. “Maybe it’s also what I did. Hank Charterhouse is hurt pretty bad.”
“Who’s Hank Charterhouse?” Sam asks.
“One of the kids Connor hit. Also, first cousin to the Belldenes,” Lanny says. “I mean, everybody in town knows that’s why Hank gets away with stuff.”
The idea that Connor’s also someone they may hold a grudge against is unsettling, and it raises my hackles high. Don’t you dare come for my kids.
Melvin Royal tried coming for our kids. Melvin Royal is rotting in a cardboard coffin in a pauper’s grave, marked only with a number. I did that.
The Belldenes ought to take a lesson.
I eat a few bites of chicken before I say, “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do. Now that you kids are enrolled in the Virtual Academy, you can do your lessons anywhere, right?”
“Yeah?” Lanny, at least, doesn’t sound sure she likes where this is going. “Uh, we did our lessons, Mom. I mean, you can check.”
“I already did, and thank you. But I need to ask you all a serious question.” That gets all their attention, and for a second I doubt myself. Maybe I shouldn’t start this. Maybe I’m doing the entirely wrong thing, running away again. But I have to open the question. “What do you guys think about not fighting this war with the Belldenes?”
Sam slowly sits back. “You’re talking about moving.”
“Well, yes. I think it might be the right thing to do.” I take a deep breath and plunge in. “Look, we’ve got no reason to fight with them; we’ve got nothing to win here except staying put in a place that barely tolerates us, in a house that’s now listed on message boards and websites all over the internet to make it convenient for even more people to harass and threaten us. Sam, I know finding work has been tougher for you since—since all that mess with the documentary. And kids—” I look at Lanny and Connor. “You haven’t had an easy time of it here. I’m sorry for that. I thought I was doing something good making you part of the community, but . . . the community’s not taking us in. And I know how much that hurts.”
Connor doesn’t say anything. He just stares down at his plate. Lanny says, “Well, there are some nice people here. Kez and Javier, even Detective Prester. A few teachers aren’t terrible.” She’s trying to be fair, but I know it hasn’t been easy for her either. The friends she made a year ago aren’t her friends now. I don’t like my kids feeling so . . . alone.
Sam’s not giving me anything. He’s gone quiet, which means he’s trying not to put too much weight into this conversation—which is less a conversation right now and more of a monologue. I need him to jump in, but when he doesn’t, I feel compelled to keep going.
“I can ask in town about selling the house,” I tell him. “That doesn’t mean we have to make a commitment right now, just . . . look at our options. Hell, we could even rent the place out, the way some others around the lake do.” Nothing except a slow nod. So I keep talking. “I need to interview the dad of my missing person in Louisiana, check with the victim’s friends there, things like that. It’ll take some legwork to cover all the bases.” I pause and look at my children. “I can take you guys along if—and this is a big if—you promise me that you’re going to treat this seriously. I can leave you at the hotel while I’m doing my work, and you can do your school assignments. And—”
Sam says, “I can come along.”
I don’t expect that, and I’m left not quite knowing what to think about it. I scramble, because I don’t know what he’s thinking. “Don’t you have work?”
“Yeah, well, seems like my services are no longer required at the jobsite.”
I’m stunned. “Why?”
“At a guess? The Belldenes have put the word out they don’t want me working anywhere in this county.”
I feel a pulse of real, vicious anger toward everybody who had a hand in putting that bitter misery in his eyes. It’s there for only a moment, then quickly gone, and he’s smiling again.
“Bright side, that’s a lot less gas I burn. Downside . . . not sure what I’m going to do now.” His voice is even, his eyes steady. Whatever fury he has boiling in there, he’s not letting it out.
“Damn, I’m so sorry. This is all—” I gesture helplessly at the world. At myself. The whole package, bound up with a past I can’t control and can never shed. Scars and wounds and armor and agony.
I’m angry for him. A little angry at him, truthfully, that he didn’t tell me before we sat down here. But it’s why he was so noncommittal earlier. He wanted me to have reasons to leave this place that weren’t about him.
I make my tone lighter, my smile brighter. “In that case,” I say, “I don’t see any reason why you can’t join us for our epic road trip out to Louisiana.” And honestly, now that I’ve said it, I realize that I’m actually relieved. I don’t even know why for a moment; it hasn’t occurred to me until now that this case is leading me back to a place I desperately never wanted to go.
Back to the bayous. To a sweaty green hell like the place I faced down my ex-husband and my own personal nightmares. No, this isn’t anything like that, I tell myself sternly. This is me, going to help someone else. I’m in control.
That doesn’t stop my heart from racing, or my muscles from tensing. I’ve made strides in overcoming the trauma that I suffered after the night I was forced to kill Melvin. But that doesn’t mean it’s completely behind me either. I need to call my therapist, I think. And that’s probably a good impulse; I already booked Connor in for a session next week. I should make sure I get myself right too. Between the impending threat of the Belldenes and this foreboding trip . . . I can feel myself starting to spin out.
And Sam knows it, I think, because he says, “Louisiana. Where exactly—”
“Not there,” I tell him, shorthand that he understands perfectly. “But you know, same state. Similar area. So I . . . I appreciate your company.”
“And after that?”
I take a deep breath. “
Kids? What do you think?”
They’re quiet, looking at each other, and then Connor slowly raises his hand. “I vote we move,” he says.
“Where?”
“Anywhere but here?”
That’s pretty definitive. I fix my gaze on Lanny, who crosses her arms. “Sure,” she says. “I guess. Not like I’ve got any social life here anyway. But not anyplace small, okay? Someplace interesting. Maybe somewhere with more than two fast food choices.”
“I’ll take that under consideration,” I tell her. Back to Sam. “You?”
“I know you hate giving up.”
“I do. I really, really do,” I reply. “But you know what I hate more? Watching the people I love get hurt. No home is worth that. Not to me.” I swallow hard, because the warmth in his gaze nearly undoes me. “What’s your vote, Sam?”
“I feel selfish voting given the circumstances. But . . .” He raises his hand. “Yeah. Move.”
“Okay,” I say. “We move. So say we all.” I feel a weirdly mixed wave of emotion. Frustration, yes; I put a real emotional stake in holding on here. Stillhouse Lake, for me, has become less of a refuge and more of a fortress, with enemies at the gates. But I feel relief too. It’s easy to get locked in, get tunnel vision, and feel utterly trapped by my own decisions. But I just proved to myself that we could change that future.
And it feels good. Terrifying, but good.
“You know it’ll take months to sell this place, if we intend to sell it,” Sam says. “The Belldenes going to be that patient, do you think?”
“I doubt it. They’ll make sure we get gone, one way or another.” I give him a smile, but I know it looks grim. “What do you want to bet they give us a lowball offer and strong-arm us to take it?”
“Seems likely,” he says. “They’ve got their fingers everywhere.”
“Well, we’ll worry about that later,” I say. “Meanwhile: road trip. Hey . . . since you’re currently available—”
“That’s one way of putting it,” Sam deadpans. “And before you ask, no. I don’t mind watching the kids while you interview the dad.”
Bitter Falls Page 8
