Stillhouse Lake

by Rachel Caine

  This time we won't run. This time I will trust Absalom's false identities. This time I will bet on normal life for once, and not rip my children's souls apart to save their physical bodies.

  I don't like it. But that has to be my decision.

  "No, sweetheart," I tell her. "We stay."

  Whatever comes, I tell myself, we aren't running away from it.

  I avoid any encounters for the next few days, quite successfully. Our runs around the lake are done at a pace that discourages others from chatting, and I don't do any neighborly visiting. I'm not the cookie-baking kind of mother on my best days--not anymore. That was Gina, God rest her soul.

  Lanny goes back to school, and though I wait tensely for the phone to ring, she isn't in trouble again in the first few days. Or the next. The police don't return for another chat, and slowly, slowly, my anxiety levels begin to gear down.

  It's the following Wednesday that I get a text from Absalom, marked with his standard A as a signature. It's just a web address, and I type it into the browser on my computer.

  It's a newspaper story from Knoxville, quite a bit distant from us, but it's about Stillhouse Lake.

  MURDER AT ISOLATED LAKE COMMUNITY STUNS RESIDENTS

  My mouth goes dry, and I shut my eyes for a moment. The letters glow randomly against my eyelids, and I can't seem to banish them, so I open and look again. The headline's still there. Beneath, with no reporter byline, sits a story that must have been cribbed from a wire service, and I slowly scroll down past blinking reminders to subscribe, to read the weather, to buy a heating pad and a pair of high-heeled shoes. I finally arrive at the text of the story. It isn't much.

  When residents of the small town of Norton, Tennessee, woke to the news of a body in local Stillhouse Lake, no one expected it to be a murder. "We just thought it was a boating accident," said Matt Ryder, manager of the local McDonald's restaurant. "Maybe a swimmer who had a cramp and drowned. I mean, that happens. But this? Just can't believe it. This is a good little town."

  "Good little town" describes Norton well. It's typical of the area, a sleepy village struggling to reinvent itself for the modern age, where the Old Tyme Soda Palace occupies space next to SpaceTime, an Internet cafe and coffee bar. One caters to nostalgia for a time gone by. The other strives for all the conveniences of a much larger town. On the surface, Norton looks successful, but digging deeper reveals a problem facing many rural areas: opioid addiction. Norton, by best estimates of local law enforcement, has a significant addiction problem, and drug trafficking is common. "We do our best to control the spread of it," said Chief of Police Orville Stamps. "Used to be meth cooking was the worst of it, but this Oxy and heroin problem is something else. Harder to find, and harder to stop."

  Chief Stamps believes that drugs could have played a factor in the death of the still-unidentified woman, whose body was found floating in Stillhouse Lake last Sunday morning. She is described as a Caucasian with short red hair, between eighteen and twenty-two years of age. She has a small scar that indicates removal of a gall bladder, and a large, colorful tattoo of a butterfly on her left shoulder blade. At press time, there was no official identification, though sources inside the Norton Police Department say there is a strong likelihood the victim is from the area.

  Officials are keeping silent on the cause of the woman's death, though they have classified it as homicide and are interviewing residents of the lakeside community--a formerly exclusive, wealthy area fallen, like most of the state, on harder times--to discover who, if anyone, might have information to lead to the identity of the victim or killer. They believe that the body was placed into the water after death and say the killer attempted to weigh it down. "Pure luck it didn't work," said Chief Stamps. "She was roped to a concrete block, but the propeller of the boat must have cut one of the ropes when he started the engine, and up she came in the end."

  The Stillhouse Lake area was known as a rustic retreat for locals until the mid-2000s, when a development company sought to reinvent the lake as a high-end refuge for upper-middle-class and upper-class families seeking lakefront second homes. The effort was only partially successful, and the gates to Stillhouse Lake are now open to anyone. Many of the wealthy have fled to more exclusive enclaves, leaving behind retirees, original residents, and empty homes sold at foreclosure auctions. While it's known among residents to be a peaceful place, the influx of new residents--renters and buyers--has made some uneasy.

  "I have to believe that somebody up there saw something," Chief Stamps said. "And somebody will come forward to give us what we need to solve this case."

  Until then, nights on peaceful Stillhouse Lake will remain as they always have been . . . dark.

  I roll my chair back, as if retreating from the article. It's about us. About Stillhouse Lake. But even more than that, what strikes me is what likely caught Absalom's attention as well . . . the way the killer weighed down the body. And the age and description of the victim--it rings some kind of bell, something distant, but I can't lay hands on a memory to go with it.

  It also sounds eerily like the young women Melvin abducted, raped, tortured, mutilated, and buried in his own watery garden.

  Tied to concrete blocks.

  I try to get control of myself, my racing mind. It's a coincidence, obviously. Disposing of a body in water is hardly unique, and most smart killers try to weigh them down to delay discovery. Concrete blocks, I remember from Melvin's trial, aren't unusual, either.

  But that description . . .

  No. Young, vulnerable women are the favorite target of many serial killers. Not definitive in any way. And there's nothing to say it is a serial killer. Could have been a suspicious death gone wrong, a panic to hide a body. An inexperienced, unprepared murderer who hadn't planned to kill at all. The story more or less alludes to drugs, and there is a drug problem in Norton; we heard that from Officer Graham. The murder must be, as suggested, tied to that.

  Nothing to do with us. Nothing to do with Melvin Royal's crimes.

  But murder practically at your front door? Again?

  It's a terrifying prospect, for many reasons. I fear for my kids' personal safety, of course. But I also fear for the torment that we'll go through if we are branded, again, as Royals. I'd made the decision to stay and tough it out, but that is harder now, in the face of this story. The Sicko Patrol will notice. They'll dissect every detail. Look for photos. I can't control pictures others take; no doubt I appear in the background of someone's shot at the park, or the parking lot, or the school. If I don't, then Lanny does, or Connor.

  This has just made staying extraordinarily risky.

  I text back to Absalom. Why'd you send?

  Similarities. You saw, right?

  I didn't tell Absalom where we'd settled, but I suspect he knows. I had to file paperwork to buy this house under the identity he made for me. It'd be child's play for him to find out my exact address. He was the one who sent me lists of likely destinations when I'd had to flee last time. Still, it helps me to think he doesn't know, or care, where exactly we are. He's never betrayed us. He's only helped us.

  But that doesn't mean I can bring myself to trust him completely.

  Doesn't seem relevant, I tell him. Weird tho. Keep an eye?

  Wilco.

  Absalom ends the conversation, and I sit for a long time, staring at the words on the computer screen. I wish I could feel some sympathy for the poor, dead, unknown woman who was found in the lake, but she's just an abstract. A problem. I can only think that her death leads to pain for my kids.

  I was wrong to make a knee-jerk decision to stay here. Never close off escape. That's been my mantra for years now, and it's pure survival instinct. I'm not reversing my decision, exactly, but this article, the similarities to my ex-husband's crimes . . . it's woken something uneasy in me that I've learned to heed.

  I won't uproot my kids on a whim and run, but I damn well need to make plans to do an emergency bugout in case things turn ugly. Yes, I do ow
e it to my kids to provide them a stable upbringing . . . but even more than that, always, I owe them safety.

  I no longer feel the safety I did before, in the face of that story. It doesn't mean I'm running.

  But it means I need to prepare.

  I quickly Google vans available for purchase in the area and come up gold: there's a large cargo van for sale or trade just a few miles away, in Norton. I think ahead to packing materials. We have collapsible plastic crates for some things, but I'll need to add a few more from the local Walmart. I try to avoid big-box stores, since it means being recorded on surveillance cameras, but there isn't a whole lot of choice around Norton, unless I want to make the drive into Knoxville for supplies.

  I look at the clock and decide there isn't time to be DEFCON One paranoid. I grab a large-billed trucker hat with no logo on it and a pair of large sunglasses. I make sure my clothes are as anonymous as possible. Best I can do as a disguise.

  As I'm retrieving cash from the safe, I hear the honk of the post office delivery van down the drive and look out. He's finished filling my box, and I go out to grab the contents, still thinking hard about what has to be done to prep for an emergency. Selling the house wouldn't come into the calculation; it would have to be done post-move anyway. I'd have to pull the kids out of school without warning or explanation, again. But other than those considerations, we don't have a hell of a lot of ties to break, really. I've kept us mobile for so long, keeping things light is still natural for all of us.

  I'd thought this would be the place where we'd get to break that cycle. Maybe it still is, but I need to be practical. Escape needs to be a viable option. Always.

  Step one is getting the van.

  There's an official-type letter in my mess of circulars and junk mail. State of Tennessee. I rip it open and find my license to carry.

  Thank God.

  I put it in my wallet immediately, dump the rest of the junk mail in the trash, and retrieve my gun and shoulder holster from the safe, too. Feels good, putting it on, feeling the weight--and knowing that unlike other times I've worn it, I actually have the paper to show I'm legally allowed. I've practiced drawing out of this holster many times, so there's nothing odd about it at all. Feels like an old friend at my side.

  I add a light jacket to conceal the gun and head out in the Jeep to buy the van. It's a long drive into the country outside Norton, and though I've printed turn-by-turn directions--the downside of refusing to join the smartphone revolution is a reliance on maps and paper--it's still a confusing mess to get to the listed destination. There's a reason, I think, that scary movies are so often set out in the woods; there's a brooding, primitive power out here, a sense of being made so small and vulnerable. The people who thrive here are strong.

  It catches me by surprise to find, once I've arrived at the address of the van for sale, that the name on the mailbox of the 1950s-era cabin--small, sturdy, rustic as hell--is ESPARZA. Norton, and Stillhouse Lake, isn't an area that boasts a large Hispanic population, and I realize that it has to be Javier Esparza's home. My range instructor. Former marine. I feel instantly comforted and at the same time strangely guilty. I won't cheat him, of course, but I hate to imagine his disappointment, his anger if he finds out later just who I am. If the worst happens, I bug out, and he wonders if I'm fleeing in the van he sold me for even worse reasons than being married to a serial killer.

  I don't want to lose Javi's good opinion. But I will, for the sake of my kids' future and safety. I absolutely will.

  I get out and walk to the gate, where I'm greeted by a muscular bristle of brown-and-black fur. The dog comes armed with a fusillade of barks as loud as the gun range. The rottweiler stands waist-high to me, but when he puts his front paws on the top of the fence, he's as tall as I am. He looks like he could rip me to dog food in under ten seconds, and I am very careful to stop where I am and make no threatening moves. I don't make eye contact. Dogs can take it as aggressive.

  The barking brings Javier to the door. He's wearing a plain gray T-shirt, soft from years of laundry, equally well-worn jeans, and a pair of heavy boots, which is sensible out here in the country, where timber rattlers and old, forgotten pieces of metal are equal risks to unprotected feet. He's also drying his hands on a red dish towel, and when he sees me, he grins and whistles. At the sound of the whistle, the dog backs off and retreats to the porch, where it lies down, panting happily. "Hey, Ms. Proctor," Javi says, coming to open the gate. "Like my security system?"

  "Effective," I say, eyeing the dog carefully. It seems perfectly friendly now. "I'm sorry to bother you at home, but I guess you have a cargo van for sale . . . ?"

  "Oh. Oh yeah! Almost forgot, to be honest. Used to belong to my sister, but she dumped it on me when she joined up and shipped out last year. I've got it back here in the garage. Come on back."

  He leads me around the side of the cabin, past a chopping block for firewood with an ax still embedded in the stump and an old, weathered outhouse. I cast it a look, and he laughs. "Yeah, not in use for decades. I poured concrete in the hole and floored it and use it for tool storage now. But you know, I like preserving the past."

  He must, because garage is a generous description. What I actually see is a barn that looks as vintage as the outhouse--original to the property, I think. Horse stalls have been knocked down to fit in a long, blocky cargo van. It's an older model, the paint gone milky and matte instead of shiny, but the tires are in good shape, which is important to me. Spiders have chained the whole thing to the ground in a wispy net. "Shit," Javi says, picking up a broom to scythe through the silky webbing. "Sorry. Haven't checked it in a while. They can't get inside it, though."

  That sounds more aspirational than factual, but I don't let it bother me. He retrieves a key from a hook on the wall, opens the door, and starts the van up. It catches almost immediately, and the engine sounds well tuned and smooth. He lets me climb in, and I like what I see. Middling mileage, all the gauges reading clear. He flips the hood to let me take a look, and I check the hoses for any signs of cracking or crumbling.

  "Looks great," I say, reaching in my pocket. "Trade me for the Jeep and a thousand cash?"

  He blinks, because he knows how much I've put into the Jeep; for a start, I've installed the gun safe in the back, which he helped me source. "No. Seriously?"

  "Seriously."

  "No offense, but . . . why? That's a sweet trade. Terrain you have around the lake, the Jeep's a better vehicle."

  Javi isn't stupid, which is a little unfortunate right now. He knows he's getting the better part of this deal, and there is little to no reason for me to be swapping an environmentally appropriate Jeep for a big, clumsy cargo van . . . Not at Stillhouse Lake.

  "Honestly? I don't ever go off-roading, really," I tell him. "And I'm thinking of moving, eventually. If I do, we have way too much stuff for the Jeep. The van makes more sense."

  "Moving," he repeats. "Wow. I didn't know you were thinking about that."

  I shrug, keeping my eyes on the van and my expression as neutral as I can. "Yeah, well, things happen; you can't always predict what comes next. So. What do you think? Want to take a look at the Jeep?"

  He waves that aside. "I know the Jeep. Look, Ms. Proctor, I trust you. I need a thousand to give my sister, and I keep the Jeep. She'll be fine with that."

  I take out my wallet and count out the money. It's less than I expected to pay, and I'm relieved. More for us to use when we have to reinvent ourselves, create new names and backgrounds.

  Javi accepts, and we sign over titles to each other; I'll have to get the ownership switched officially later, but for now, that'll do. He writes a receipt for me, and I make one for him while sitting at his small kitchen table. He still has the dish towel over his shoulder, and I notice that it matches a red-and-white checked one on a rack over the sink. The place looks clean and orderly, with just a few ornaments and colors among the beiges and dark browns. He still has suds in one side of the dual sink. I caught hi
m washing dishes as I arrived.

  It seems like a nice place. Calm. Centered, like Javi himself.

  "Thanks for everything," I tell him, and I mean it. He's treated me well since the beginning. It matters, in a life like mine, where I was never treated as just myself . . . I was always my father's daughter, then Melvin's wife, then Lily and Brady's mother, and then--to many--a monster who'd escaped justice. Not a person in my own right, ever. It has taken work to get to this point where I feel entirely myself, and I cherish it. I like being Gwen Proctor because real or not, she is a full and strong person, and I can rely on her.

  "Thanks for this, Gwen. I'm real happy about the Jeep," Javi says, and I realize that for the first time he's called me by my first name. In his mind we're now equal. I like it. I extend my hand, and we shake, and he holds on just a little longer than is necessary before he says, "Seriously. You in some kind of trouble? Because you can tell me if you are."

  "I'm not. And I'm not looking for a knight to come riding to the rescue, Javi."

  "Oh, I know. I just want to make sure you know you can always ask me if you need help." He clears his throat. "Some people, for instance, don't want anybody to know where they're going when they leave town. Or what they're driving. And I'm cool with that."

  I send him a curious look. "Even if I'm wanted?"

  "Why, are you guilty of something? On the run from something?" His tone sharpens just a bit, and I see that it bothers him.

  Yes, and yes. But the guilt is nebulous, not actual, and I'm not on the run from the law. Just from the lawless. "Let's just say I might have someone trying to find me when I leave," I say. "Look, you do what you gotta do. I'm not about to ask you to go against your ethics, Javi. I swear. And I promise you, I haven't done anything wrong."

  He nods slowly, considering it. He finally realizes he's still got the dish towel, and I like the self-deprecating grin as he flips it toward the sink, where it lands in a heap. I wish he hadn't done it, because suddenly, strikingly, it looks like a disembodied lump of bloody flesh, out of place in this clean kitchen. I let out my breath slowly, hands flat on the table.