Stillhouse Lake

by Rachel Caine

  "They're just words," I tell her. "From small men who are brave on the other side of a keyboard and an Internet handle. But I know how you feel."

  "It's awful," she says in a voice that sounds more like a little girl than the adult she's trying to be. She clears her throat and tries again. "These people are vile."

  "Yes," I say in agreement, putting my hand on her shoulder. "They'll never care whether or not you were hurt by what they said, or even if you read it; it was all about writing it for them. It's natural to feel afraid and violated by all this. I feel that way all the time."

  "But?" My daughter knows there's a but.

  "But you have the power," I tell her. "You can turn off this computer and walk away anytime. They're pixels on a screen. They're assholes who might be halfway around the world, or on the other side of the country, and even if they're not, the odds are astronomically on your side that they'll never do anything that doesn't involve shouting at a computer screen. Okay?"

  That seems to steady her. "Okay," she says. "And . . . if they beat the odds?"

  "Then that's why you have me, and I have this." I touch the shoulder holster. "I don't like guns. I'm not a crusader. I wish guns were harder to get, and I could rely on a cattle prod and a baseball bat. But that's not the world we live in, baby. So if you want to start learning to shoot, we'll do that. And if you don't, that's good, too. I'd rather you didn't, believe me, because your chances of getting shot are a hell of a lot better if you're armed. I do this as much to draw fire away from you as I do to return it. Understand?"

  She does, I can see that. For the first time, she sees the weapon I'm carrying as much as a danger as a shield. Good. It's the hardest lesson for someone who's been taught guns are the answer . . . that they're only the answer to a pure, simple, direct set of problems: killing someone.

  I never want her to have to do it. I don't want to have to do it.

  I get her laptop back online, and we're both silently working when Connor appears in the doorway, yawning, still in his pajama pants. He has a wide, blackening bruise on his shoulder, but other than that, he seems fine. He blinks at us and tries to finger-comb his hair straighter. "You're both up," he says. "Why isn't there breakfast?"

  "Shut up," Lanny says, but it's a reflex. "Such a boy. Learn to make pancakes, not like it's rocket science."

  He yawns and gives me a mournful look. "Mom." I see he wants to be treated, today, like a child, to be coddled and pampered and made to feel safe. It's the opposite of Lanny, who wants to face things head-on. And that's fine, too. He's younger, and it's his choice. And hers, too.

  I take a break from the torrential acid bath of hate and go whip up pancakes from a mix, add fresh pecans that I need to use up anyway, and we're in the middle of what feels like a startlingly normal breakfast when there's a decisive sort of knock on our disfigured front door.

  I get up. Lanny has already put her fork down and half risen out of her chair, but I motion her down. Connor stops chewing and stares at me, and my mind is racing with the possibilities. Today, of all days, we face a whole new set of risks. It could be the mailman. It could be a guy with a shotgun ready to blow my face off the second he sees it. It could be someone's left me a mutilated pet on the doorstep. There's no way to tell without looking, and I get my tablet and try to boot it up, then remember that it's dead. Battery's drained. Damn technology.

  "It's okay," I tell them, though there's no way I can possibly know that. I go to the door and check the peephole, carefully, and see a tired-looking African American woman standing there. She looks familiar, but I have trouble placing her for a few seconds because the last time I saw her, it was a fleeting glimpse and she was wearing a police uniform.

  It's the cop who was with Graham last night, who handled the drunks while he talked to us.

  I disarm and unlock, and she freezes a second as her eyes fix on the shoulder holster. "Yes?" I ask, neither inviting nor rejecting. Her dark-brown eyes move up to fix on mine, and she very carefully shows me she has nothing in her hands.

  "My name's Claremont," she says.

  "Officer Claremont. I remember you from last night."

  "Yeah," she says. "My father lives on the other side of the lake. He says he met you and your daughter when you were out on a run."

  The old man, Ezekiel Claremont. Easy. I hesitate, then extend my hand, and we shake. She has a firm, dry, businesslike grip. Up close, in casual clothes, she has an elegant style to her, something not only in the drape of her clothes but in the cut of her hair, her perfectly shaped fingernails. Not what I would have expected from the Norton PD. "Can I come in?" she asks. "I want to help."

  Just like that. She keeps her gaze steady, and there's something quiet and strong about the way she says it.

  But I step outside and close the door behind me. "Sorry," I tell her, "but I don't know you. I don't even know your first name."

  If she's taken aback by my lack of warmth and courtesy, she doesn't show it; she narrows her eyes just a bit, just for a second, and then smiles over it to say, "Kezia. Kez, for short."

  "Nice to meet you," I tell her, which is empty politeness. I'm wondering why the hell she's really here.

  "My father wanted me to come check on you," she says. "He heard about the trouble you were in. Not much a fan of the Norton PD, my pa."

  "Must make things awkward over Sunday dinners."

  "You have no idea."

  I gesture to the porch chairs, and she settles into the one that I realize, with a sharp, glancing sort of pain, Sam Cade has always taken. It hits me with an unwelcome weight that I miss the son of a bitch. No, I don't. I miss someone who never existed in the first place, the same way my Mel never existed. The real Sam Cade is a stalker and a liar, at the very least.

  "Pretty over on this side," she says, scanning the view to the lake. I'm sure she's also thinking, just as everyone else has, of how good a view I would have had of a body being dumped right out there. "His side's a little more blocked by the trees. Cheaper, though. I keep trying to get him to move down the hill so he doesn't have to climb that trail, but--"

  "I'd love to make small talk, but my pancakes are getting cold," I tell her. "What is it you want to know?"

  She shakes her head just a little, gaze still fixed on the lake. "You know, you don't make it easy to help you out. In the position you're in, you might want to put a rein on that attitude. You're going to need some friends."

  "This attitude keeps me alive. Thanks for stopping by."

  I start to get up again. She puts out a perfectly manicured hand to stop me and finally turns her gaze to lock on mine. "I think I might be able to help you find out who's doing this to you," she says. "Because we both know it's somebody close. Somebody local. And somebody who's got a reason."

  "Sam Cade has a reason."

  "I helped confirm his alibi, both times the girls went missing," she says. "He is absolutely not the guy. They've already let him go."

  "Let him go?" I look at the paint slopped on my garage, the words sprayed on the brick in a red fury of anger. "Great. I guess that explains this."

  "I don't think--"

  "Look, Kez, thanks for trying, but you are not helping me at all if your point is to convince me Sam Cade isn't a bad guy. He stalked me."

  "He did," she says. "He's admitted to that. Said he was angry and wanted revenge, but you weren't what he thought. If he'd meant you harm, he had plenty of opportunities to do something, wouldn't you say? I think this is somebody else altogether, and I've been working on a lead. Now, do you want to know what I think, or not?"

  It's so tempting to say no, shove out of the chair, and stalk away . . . but I can't make myself do it. Kezia Claremont may have ulterior motives, but her offer seems pretty sincere. And I do need a friend, even if it's someone I can't trust any farther than I can jump. No more than I can trust Sam.

  "I'm listening," I finally say.

  "Okay. So, Stillhouse Lake's always been a pretty closed-in community up he
re," she says. "Mostly white. Mostly well-off if not wealthy."

  "Not since the downturn, when all these houses went into foreclosure."

  "True, about a third of the properties ended up getting sold or rented out in a rush last year. If we eliminate the residents who are original to the lake, that leaves about thirty houses to look at. We take yours away, that's twenty-nine. Hope you don't mind if I take my father out. Twenty-eight."

  I'm not willing to grant much, but I'm willing, for argument's sake, to eliminate Easy Claremont. He hadn't looked up to scaling the hill to his house, much less abducting, killing, and disposing of two healthy, strong young women. I can exempt myself. Twenty-eight houses. That includes Sam Cade, whom the police already eliminated and I suppose, grudgingly, I might have to as well. Twenty-seven, then. That's a small number.

  "Do you have names?" I ask her. She nods, and from her pocket she produces a folded piece of paper that she hands over. It's plain copy paper, standard from any office printer, and on it is a list of the names and addresses and phone numbers. She's been thorough. Some have asterisks, and I see that those notate criminal records. I'm not particularly suspicious of the two guys with the conviction for cooking meth who share a cabin way up the slope, but it's certainly good information to know. There's a sex offender, too, but Kezia's bold handwritten notation shows he's already been thoroughly questioned and, though not eliminated, mostly discounted as a suspect.

  Kezia says, "I would have done more on my own, but I figured you might need something to do to take your mind off things. This is all my own time, nothing on the books."

  I look at her. She's not smiling. There's something unyielding in her, something that bends but doesn't break, and I recognize it. I feel it in myself, too. "You know who I am," I say. "Why do you want to help me?"

  "Because you need it, and Easy asked. But also . . ." She shakes her head and looks away. "I know what it's like to be judged for something you never got to control."

  I swallow hard, taste the fleeting ghost of my cooling pancakes and syrup. I'm thirsty for coffee. "You want to come inside?" I ask her. "We're having pancakes. I've got enough to stretch to another plate."

  She gives me a slow, quiet smile. "I wouldn't mind."

  11

  Kezia Claremont, it turns out, is a hit with my kids, who start off quiet and wary, but she has a way with them, a natural charm that teases out conversations from silence. She, I think, will make a great investigator someday. She's wasted in uniform, handling rowdy drunks--though she was flawless at that, too. I warm up my breakfast as I make hers, and we eat together as the kids clean their plates and wander off to their separate areas. I think Lanny wants to stay, but I give her the quiet shake of the head, and she retreats.

  "I have some contacts," Kezia tells me quietly, once we're alone. "I can start them on background work, off books. Listen, my father said you were in trouble, and no shit, those vandals hit you fast. You're going to need some on-site protection."

  "I know," I tell her. "I'm armed, but--"

  "But offense isn't defense. Listen, you know Javier. He's the other reason I'm here. He likes you. Not willing to believe you're all the way innocent just yet, but he's willing to help keep the wolves off you if you'll agree."

  I think about how things might have been different if only I'd loaded up the van and departed that first time I had the impulse, headed hellbound and out of town instead of lingering like some fool who couldn't see it coming. I had good reasons, but those reasons seem useless now. They seem like illusions. I can't trade for that van now that I've wrecked the Jeep, and anyway, Javier would never give it to me. Neither of us will want paper trails.

  "If he's willing to keep an eye out for us, I'm good," I say. "I'd feel better if I had the rest of his regiment along with him."

  Kez raises a sharply arched eyebrow. "You'd better take what you get. Allies are going to be thin on the ground for you right now."

  She's right, and I shut up and nod. "I'll take half the list," I say. "I have someone who might be willing to help do the research." Absalom won't be free, but trying to avoid paying for help would be cutting my own throat right now. I can't run. I might as well put my money to use cutting myself out of this net that Mel (because it has to be Mel) has thrown around me. Can't start a new life with it if I'm behind bars. Can't save my family if my kids are taken from me and sent to foster care.

  Kezia's right; at this moment I need to take every ally I can get.

  So when we finish breakfast, I thank her and get her phone number in return. I realize that if I've read her wrong, everything we've discussed could be recorded, documented, part of the official Norton police record . . . but I don't think Prester would go that route.

  I text Absalom, who replies with a simple WHAT, as if I've caught him in the middle of something important, and I tell him in simple terms what I need. His reply is blunt and to the point: thot u in jail. I text back not guilty and get silence for a full minute before he types one single question mark, which I know means what do you need in his particular, peculiar shorthand.

  So I take a picture of the piece of paper, with Kezia's neat, precise handwriting, and I tell him which names I want him to research. He texts back a price in Bitcoin that makes me wince, but he knows I'll pay it, and I do, from my computer. I don't check e-mail. It's time to destroy the account again; even if there are clues in there, I can't swim in the toxic flood without corrupting my soul along with it. I leave it for now, transfer the money to him, and send an e-mail with the same picture of the list, names marked, to the private investigator I've used before, along with her standard fee.

  I'm the bathroom peeing when my burner phone rings, and I grab it and look at the number. I don't recognize it, but it could be Absalom.

  I quickly wipe and flush before I hit the "Answer" button and say, "Hello?"

  "Hello, Gina."

  The voice takes my breath away. It's the voice from my head, the voice I can never exorcise no matter how much I pray. My fingers go numb, and I lean against the sink, staring at my horrified, stark face in the mirror.

  Melvin Royal is on the phone with me. How is this happening?

  "Gina? Still there?"

  I want to hang up. Keeping an open connection is like holding a bag full of spiders. But somehow, I manage to say, "Yes. I'm here." Melvin likes to brag. Likes to savor his victories. If he's orchestrated this, he'll say so, and maybe, just maybe, he'll say something that I can use.

  He has my number. How did he get my number? How could he?

  Kez. She was new in my life . . . but I hadn't given her my number. Sam. No, not Sam. Please, not Sam.

  Wait.

  I'd taken my phone to the prison. I'd had to surrender it on the way in, pick it up on the way out. Someone inside there is responsible for passing along his mail. Not impossible they hacked my phone, too. They'd have had enough time. I'm ill that I didn't think of it before.

  Mel's still talking. His voice holds that artificial warmth now. "Sweetheart. You're having a real bad week. Is it true there's another body?"

  "Yes. I saw her."

  "What color was she?"

  I'd expected a lot of responses from him. Not that one. "Sorry?" I say blankly.

  "I made a color chart once, of how they look at different stages without skin. Was she more of a raw-chicken color, or was it more of a slimy brown?"

  "Shut up."

  "Make me, Gina. Hang up on me. But wait, if you do, if you do, you'll never find out who's coming for you."

  "I'm going to kill you."

  "Absolutely, you should do that. But you won't have time. I promise you that."

  I'm colder than I think I've ever been. His voice still sounds so like him . . . reasonable, calm, measured. Rational. Except nothing he's saying is rational at all. "Then tell me. You're wasting time."

  "I guess you found out about your new friend Sam. You just can't catch a break with men, can you? I'll bet he was thinking about all the things
he was going to do to you. Got him off every night, that anticipation."

  "Is that what gets you off, Mel? Because it's all you'll ever get. You're never seeing me again. Never touching me. And I'm going to get through this."

  "You don't even know what's happening. You can't see it."

  "Then tell me," I say. "Tell me what I'm missing. I know you're dying to tell me how stupid I am!"

  "I will," he says, and suddenly his tone shifts. The mask shreds loose, and I hear the monster talking. It's very, very different. It doesn't even sound human. "I want you to know that when it comes, when it all falls down, it's your fault, you worthless, stupid bitch. I should have started with you. But I'll finish with you, one of these days. You think I won't touch you? I will. From the inside out."

  It raises my skin into goose bumps, makes me back into a corner, as if somehow he can reach out and grab me even through the phone. He isn't here. He won't be here. But that voice . . .

  "You're never leaving that cell," I manage to say. I know I no longer sound like Gwen. I sound like Gina now. I am Gina now.

  "Oh, didn't you hear? My new lawyer thinks I have a rights violation case. Might get some evidence thrown out. Might be a new trial, Gina. What do you think, you want to go through it all again? Do you want to testify this time?"

  The idea makes me physically sick, and I feel acid scorch the back of my throat in a bitter wave. I don't answer him. Hang up. I'm screaming it at myself, as if I'm standing outside of my body. Hang up hang up hang up! It's like being trapped in a nightmare, and I can't seem to move . . . and then I take a breath and the paralysis breaks, and I move my thumb to the "Disconnect" button.

  "I've changed my mind," he says, but I'm already pressing. "I'll tell you--"

  Click. I did it. He's gone. It feels like I won a point . . . did I? Or did I just run away?

  Oh God. If they got into my phone, they might have more from it. The kids' numbers. Absalom's. What else did I have in there?

  I sink down to a crouch with my back wedged in the corner between the sink and the hinges of the door, and I put the phone carefully on the floor and stare at it as if it might change into rotting meat, or burst into a flood of scorpions. I reach up and take down the hand towel and I bite into it hard, so hard my jaw muscles ache, and I scream into the muffling comfort of it.