Stillhouse Lake

by Rachel Caine

  I do that until my mind is clear again. It takes a couple of minutes. Finally, I start to close in on the questions. How? Someone at the prison must have ganked my number from the phone while I was there. But how did he call? Melvin's phone privileges are strictly reserved for his lawyer; he's not allowed contact with anyone else, and I am specifically on his do-not-call list. But even on death row, I imagine it's possible to buy time with a smuggled cell phone.

  I hope it cost him plenty, the bastard.

  I can't stay in the house. I feel suffocated, desperate, angry. I pace the living room for a while, and then I call Kezia Claremont at the number she's left to ask her to please, for the love of God, keep an eye on my kids.

  "Look out your window," she says. I do, pulling the living room curtain aside, and I see her car is still sitting in the driveway. She waves. "What's up?"

  I tell her about Mel's call, and she gets cool, all business, noting down the number as I read it off--he didn't bother to block it--and saying she'll check into it. I have no doubt it'll be a dead end. Even if they find the phone, it doesn't matter. He's proven he can reach out from behind those bars whenever he wants. Next time it won't be him. It'll be someone else doing his bidding.

  "Kezia . . ." I'm vibrating with tension, sick with it. "Can you stay here and watch the house for about an hour?"

  "Sure," she says. "It's my free time. Nice day and all. Why? He give you some specific threat?"

  "No. But--I need to go. Just for a little while." I feel trapped in here. I'm on the verge of a meltdown, and I know it. I need to get some space, enforce some control. "Hour at the most." I need to flush the confrontation with Mel out of my system before it turns toxic.

  "No problem," she tells me. "I'm making phone calls anyway. I'll be right here."

  I tell the kids I'll be back and that Kezia is right outside, and I make them swear they won't open the door while I'm gone. We go over emergency procedures. The kids are quiet and watchful; they know something's wrong with me, and it scares them. I can see that.

  "It'll be okay," I tell them. I kiss Lanny on the head, then Connor, and they both let me without wiggling out of the embrace. That's how I know they're worried.

  I grab a plastic locking gun case and put my weapon in, clip removed and chamber cleared. I leave the shoulder holster on, but empty. I put a zip-up hoodie on to cover it and stash the case in a small backpack.

  "Mom?" It's Lanny. I pause with my hand on the alarm pad, ready to deactivate. "I love you." She says it quietly, but it hits me like a tsunami, and I'm knocked down inside, drowned in a storm of emotion so violent I can't even breathe. My fingers tremble on the buttons of the keypad, and for a second I'm blinded with tears.

  I blink them away, turn, and manage to smile at her. "I love you, too, honey."

  "Come back soon," she says. I watch as she goes to the knife block and takes one. She turns and goes back to her room.

  I want to scream. I know I can't do it here. I punch in the code, get it wrong, try again, and deactivate. The door's open almost before it's safe, but I've timed it right, just barely, and I reset the alarm as I exit, then lock the door. There. My kids are secure. Protected. Kezia is on the phone as I pass, and she nods to me as she makes notes in a spiral book.

  I kick it into a run. Not a jog, a flat-out sprint down the drive, every step just on the edge of balance, the edge of control. One wrong move will send me sprawling, probably break a bone, but I don't care, I don't care, I need to drive the poison of Melvin Royal out of my system.

  I run like I'm on fire.

  I hit the road and keep running clockwise, up the incline. With the hood up, I'm just another anonymous runner at the lake. I pass a few other people, some walking, some at the docks, and I get a few glances for my speed, but nothing else. I pass Sam Cade's cabin on the right but I don't pause; I pour more energy into my muscles, grinding off the tension, and make it all the way to the top of the ridge, where the range parking lot provides a welcome, flat, easy surface. I slow down and walk to let my muscles slow their burn. I walk in circles. My hoodie is soaked with sweat, heavy with it, and I still feel the rage screaming inside me.

  I'm not letting Mel win. Not ever.

  I pull my hood down before I open the range door--simple courtesy, as well as caution--and nearly run into Javier, who's standing in the way, back to the door as he pins something up on the bulletin board. This is the store area, where they sell ammunition, hunting gear, bow hunting supplies . . . even camouflage-colored popcorn. The young woman manning the counter is named Sophie, and she's a seventh-generation Norton native. I know because she told me, at length, the day I signed up here. Talkative and friendly.

  She takes one look at me, and her face closes up shop. No small talk here, not anymore. She has the tense, glassy look of someone willing to grab an under-the-counter weapon and blast away at a second's notice.

  I say, "Mr. Esparza," and Javier finishes putting the last thumbtack into a poster and turns to look at me. He's not surprised. I'm sure, with his excellent spatial awareness, he knew exactly who I was the second I opened the door.

  "Ms. Proctor." He doesn't look unfriendly, like Sophie, just politely blank. "Better not be anything in that holster. You know the rules."

  I unzip the hoodie to show him that it's empty, and sling the backpack off to show him the gun case. I can see him hesitate. He could refuse to allow me on the premises--it's his right, as range instructor, to do that for any reason, anytime. But he just nods and says, "Bay eight at the end is open. You know the drill."

  I do. I grab hearing protection from the rack and move quickly past the turned backs of other shooters, all the way to the end. Perhaps not so coincidentally, bay eight's overhead light seems darker than the rest. I usually shoot in the bays closer toward the door; this, I remember, is the spot Carl Getts was using that day Javi busted him for improper range procedure. Maybe it's where he puts the pariahs.

  I lay out my gun and clips and put on the heavy earmuffs; the relief from the steady, percussive explosions is visceral, and I finish loading with smooth, calm motions. This, for me, has become like meditation, a space to let emotions trickle away until nothing exists but me, the gun, and the target.

  And Mel, who stands like a ghost in front of the target. When I'm shooting, I know exactly who I'm killing.

  I destroy six targets before I feel clean and empty again, and then I lower the gun, clear the clip and chamber, and put the weapon down, ejection port up, pointed downrange. Exactly as I should do.

  As I do, I realize the shooting has stopped. It's silent in the range, which is shocking and weird, and I quickly strip off the earmuffs.

  I'm alone. There's not a single person left in the bays. There's just Javier at the end by the door, watching me. Because of where he's standing, I can't see his face that clearly; he's right under one of the spots, which glares bright on the top of his head, shimmering on close-cropped brown hair, and casts his expression into shadow.

  "Guess I'm not that great for business," I say.

  "No, you're fantastic for business," he replies. "Sold so much ammo the past few days I had to restock twice. Too bad I don't own a gun store. I could retire just on this week. Paranoia sells."

  He sounds normal, but something about this feels strange. I load everything into my gun case and lock it, and I'm shoving it back into the backpack when Javier takes a step forward. His eyes are . . . dead. It's unsettling. He's not armed, but that doesn't make him any less alarming. "Got a question for you," he says. "It's pretty basic. Did you know?"

  "Know what," I say, though there's really only one question he could be asking.

  "What your husband was doing."

  "No." I tell him the absolute truth, but I have zero hope that he'll believe me. "Mel didn't need or want my help. I'm a woman. Women are never people to someone like him." I zip up the backpack. "If you're going to do some vigilante justice here, get on with it. I'm not armed now. I couldn't take you even if I wa
s, and we both know it."

  He doesn't move. Doesn't speak. He's just regarding me, assessing me, and I remember that like Mel, Javier knows what it means to take a life. Unlike Mel, the reason for his anger right now doesn't come from selfishness and narcissism; Javier sees himself as a protector, as a man who fights for right.

  It doesn't mean I'm in any less danger.

  When he does finally speak, it comes out soft, almost a whisper. "How come you didn't tell me?"

  "About Mel? Why do you think? I left all that behind me. I wanted to. Wouldn't you?" I let out a sigh. "Come on, Javi. Please. I need to get back to my kids."

  "They're all right. Kez is watching them." There's something about the way he says her name that clears things up for me. Kezia Claremont didn't come just because of her father's concern; her father had met me exactly once, and while he seemed a nice old guy, that hadn't quite rung true for me. She'd mentioned Javier in a businesslike way. But the way Javier refers to her is more revealing. I can see the connection immediately; Javier likes strong ladies, and Kez is definitely that. "Thing is, I almost helped you get out of town right after that first murder. Doesn't sit right with me, Gwen. Not at all. You sat in my kitchen and drank my beer, and I think, what if you did know? What if you sat in your own kitchen back in Kansas and listened to those women scream in the garage while your husband did his thing? You think I wouldn't care about that?"

  "I know you would," I tell him, and slip the backpack over my shoulder. "They never screamed, Javier. They couldn't. The first thing Mel did was cut their vocal cords when he abducted them. He had a special knife for it; the police showed it to me. I never heard them screaming because they couldn't scream. So yes. I fixed lunch in my kitchen, I made meals for my children, I ate breakfast and lunch and dinner, and there were women dying on the other side of that fucking wall and don't you think I hate that I didn't stop it?" I lost control at the end of that, and the echoes of my shout come back like bullets, striking me hard. I close my eyes and breathe, smelling burned powder and gun oil and my own sudden sweat. My mouth tastes sour, all the breakfast sweetness curdled. I see her in a flash again, that skinless girl dangling, and I have to bend over and put my hands on my knees. The gun case slides forward and knocks me in the back of the head, but I don't care. I just need to breathe.

  When Javier touches me, I flinch, but he just helps me stand up and braces me until I nod and pull away. I'm ashamed of myself. Of my weakness. I want to scream. Again.

  Instead, I say, "I used all the ammo I brought. Can I buy a couple of boxes?"

  He silently leaves and comes back to set two boxes on the ledge of bay eight. Turns to go. I slide the backpack off and sit it at my feet, braced against the wall of the bay, and say, "Thank you."

  He doesn't answer. He just leaves.

  I go through most of the two boxes, shredding target after target--center mass, head, center mass, head, targeting extremities for variety--until my ears are ringing even with the hearing protection, and the noise inside me is finally still. Then I pack up and leave.

  Javier's not in the store. I pay for the ammunition; Sophie conducts the transaction in mutinous silence, thrusting me my change across the counter rather than handing it to me. God forbid she might accidentally touch the ex-wife of a killer. That shit might be contagious.

  I exit, still looking for Javier, but his truck is gone, and the parking lot is pretty much deserted, except for Sophie's conventional blue Ford parked in the shady spot.

  I reverse my run to head home, but as I pass Sam Cade's house, I see that he's sitting on the front porch, drinking a cup of coffee, and against my conscious decision I slow down to look at him. He looks back, sets the coffee down, and stands up.

  "Hey," he says. It's not much, but it's more than I got at the range. He looks uncomfortable, a little flushed, but also determined. "So. We should probably talk."

  I stare at him for a second. I think about kicking up my run and taking off, fast and hard. Retreating. But two things that Kezia said keep echoing in my head: First, Sam Cade has alibis for the girls' abductions. Second, I need allies.

  I look down at the house. Kez's car is still there.

  "Sure," I tell him, walking over to mount the steps of the porch. He gets a little more tense, and so do I, and for a second there's silence as deep as back in the shooting range. "So. Talk."

  He looks down at his coffee cup, and from where I stand I can see it's empty. He shrugs, throws open the front door of the cabin, and walks inside.

  I pause on the doorstep for one second, two, and then follow.

  It's dark inside, and I have to blink a couple of times as he turns on some dim overheads and skims back one of the checkered curtains covering the windows. He goes straight to a coffeepot, fills his cup, takes down another, and splashes it full. He hands it to me, along with the sugar, without a word.

  It should feel comfortable, but it feels like effort, like a steel bar between us that we're struggling to get around. I sip the coffee and remember that he likes hazelnut blend. So do I. "Thanks," I say.

  "You smell like gunpowder," he tells me. "Been up shooting at the range?"

  "Until they tell me I can't, I will," I say. "Cops let you go, then."

  "Seems like." He studies me over the top of the cup, cautious, dark eyes guarded. "You too."

  "Because I'm not fucking guilty, Sam."

  "Yeah." He drinks. "So you said. Gwen."

  I nearly throw the coffee in his face for that, but I manage not to, mainly because I know it would only get me arrested for assault, and besides, it's not hot enough to scald. Then I wonder why I'm so damn angry. He has the right to hate me. I don't have the right to hate him back. I can resent his deception, sure, but in the end, there's only one of us with a real grudge. Real pain.

  I sink down in a chair, suddenly very tired, and am only aware of drinking the coffee in a peripheral sense kind of way. I'm consumed with watching him, with wondering, suddenly, who he really is. Who I really am. How we can possibly rebuild any kind of ease between us.

  "Why did you come here?" I ask him. "The truth this time."

  Sam doesn't vary his focus at all. "I wasn't lying. I'm writing a book. It's about my sister's murder. Yeah, I tracked you down. It took a friend in military intelligence to do it, and by the way, he was very impressed with how you kept disappearing. I missed you four times in a row. I took a chance you'd stay here, since you bought the place this time."

  So. The stalking isn't in my imagination. Not at all. "That's how. Not why."

  "I wanted you to confess what you did," he says. He blinks, as if he's surprised he said it out loud. "It was all I thought about. I'd built you up into . . . Look, I believed you were part of it. Knew everything. I thought you--"

  "Were guilty," I finish for him. "You're hardly alone. You're not even in the minority." I swallow some coffee without tasting it. "I don't blame you for that. I don't. In your position, I'd have--" I'd have done anything to get justice.

  I'd have killed me.

  "Yeah." He draws that out into a sigh. "Problem is, once I met you, talked to you, got to know you . . . I couldn't see it. I saw somebody who barely survived what she'd gone through and just wanted to keep her family safe. You just weren't . . . her."

  "Gina wasn't guilty, either," I tell him. "She was just naive. And she wanted to be happy. He knew how to take advantage of that." Silence falls. I find myself breaking it by saying, "I saw your sister. She was--she was the last one. I saw her the day the car crashed into the garage."

  Sam freezes, holds for just a bare second, then smoothly puts down his coffee. The mug hits the table surface a little hard. There's a matte, polished expanse of wood between us, not an invisible barrier, and maybe that's better. I could reach across it. So could he.

  Neither of us does.

  "I saw the photos," he says, and I remember how he told me never to let my kids see pictures. Now I know why. It wasn't a vague sympathy after all, and it hadn't been a
bout what he'd seen in Afghanistan. "I don't suppose you can forget it, either."

  "No." I swallow coffee, but my mouth feels dry anyway. I've taken the seat nearest the open window, and the buttery light illuminates him in ways that are both kind and unkind. It reveals the fine lines around his eyes, bracketing his mouth, a peculiar little indention near his left eyebrow. A pale, almost invisible spiderweb of scarring that runs from under his hairline onto his right cheek. It sparks color flecks in his eyes that make them mesmerizing. "I see her all the time. In flashes. Whenever I close my eyes, she's there."

  "Her name was Callie," he tells me. I already know that, but somehow it's been so much easier to think of her as the body and the woman and the victim. Putting a name on her, hearing him say it with that mixture of sorrow and love--it hurts. "I lost track of her when we got separated in the foster system, but I found her--no, she found me. She wrote to me when I was deployed."

  "I can't begin to understand how you feel," I tell him. I mean it, but he hardly seems to hear me. He's thinking about the living girl, not the dead one I remember.

  "She Skyped with me when she could. She'd just started at Wichita State. No major yet, because she couldn't decide between computer science and art, and I told her--I told her to be practical, to pick computers. I probably should have told her to do what made her happy. But you know. I thought--"

  "You thought she'd have time," I finish for him in the silence. "I can't imagine, Sam, I'm so sorry. I'm so--" My voice, to my horror, breaks right in two, cracks on the word, and inside, I begin to shatter. I hadn't realized I was made of glass until now, when it all gives way and the tears come, tears like nothing I've felt before, a tsunami of grief and rage and fury and betrayal and horror, of guilt, and I put my coffee cup aside and sob openly into my hands, as if my heart is broken along with everything else inside me.

  He doesn't speak. Doesn't move, except to push a roll of paper towels across the table. I grab handfuls and use them to muffle my grief, my guilt, the keening awful pain that I've felt at a distance for so long and never quite faced head-on.