Heartbreak Bay (Stillhouse Lake)

by Rachel Caine

  By this time, I have my jeans on. My shoes. And Sam’s dressed too.

  Lanny flies out of the room and heads for her brother. Sam and I exchange a look, and he says, “Stay calm. Let me take the lead, okay?” That’s a leap of trust, and I know he’s right. If they’re here for me, better he go first and find out. I resist the urge to unlock the gun safe, to have a weapon in my hand. This is not the time.

  I follow him down the hall to the living room, just as the first volley of firm knocks hits the front door.

  Sam looks back at me to be sure I’m calm and okay, and I just nod. He swiftly disarms the alarm and opens the door.

  The officer standing there has his gun drawn and ready, and he sweeps Sam with a head-to-toe assessment before he says, “Knoxville Police Department, identify yourself, please.”

  “Sam Cade,” he says. “I live here. Can you show me your badge?”

  The cop holds out his identification and looks past him, to me. Here it comes. I brace myself for the inevitable. “Gwen Proctor,” I say. “I live here too.”

  The officer says, “Who else is in the home?”

  “Lanny and Connor, our kids,” Sam says. “That’s it.”

  “Okay, sir, please show me your ID.” Sam reaches slowly for his back pocket, removes his wallet, and displays it. The officer nods. “I need you to step out, please. Sit down on the curb by the police vehicle, there’s an officer there waiting.” He keys his radio and reports something I don’t catch, because my pulse is thudding hard in my ears. I know what’s coming next. I’m ready. I put my hands up.

  But he gives me an odd look and says, “Ma’am, put your hands down. I need to see some ID from you too.”

  “In my purse,” I say. “Right there next to you. May I get it?”

  “Slowly.” I take the purse down from the shelf and open it. I tip out my wallet on the side table and pull out my ID. He inspects it. “Ma’am, please join the gentleman at the curb and have a seat. I’ll get back to you.”

  “Wait, what?” I blink. “What—why are you here?” At least I have enough presence of mind not to blurt out, Aren’t you here to arrest me, but it’s a close race.

  “We have a credible threat against members of your household,” he says. “Before you exit the residence, please tell me if there are any firearms on the property.”

  “Yes. In gun safes.”

  “And who has access to those?”

  “Just me and Sam.”

  “Okay. I’m going to need you to exit the residence now. I’ll bring out the kids.”

  I swallow hard and press my luck. “Officer, it’s better if I get them. May I do that, please?”

  He hesitates for a long few seconds, then nods. “Go ahead. I’m right behind you.”

  I knock on Lanny’s door first and say, “Honey? Come on out. It’s okay.” She does, breathing fast. She’s gotten dressed too. “Go outside and sit next to Sam.”

  She looks at me, trying to gauge if it’s really okay or if I’m just saying it is, but she goes.

  I knock on Connor’s door. I’m not surprised to see he’s calm and collected and ready too. “I heard,” he says. “It’s okay, Mom.”

  But it isn’t. The policeman says, “Connor Proctor?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Please turn around and put your hands on the wall. Spread your legs. I’m going to need to search you for weapons. Is there anything in your pockets that might cut or stick me?”

  “N-no sir.”

  It hits me hard, and late, that the officer didn’t search me. Or Sam. Or Lanny.

  Only my son.

  My voice is sharp when I say, “What the hell is going on?”

  The officer ignores me. He searches Connor with calm efficiency, steps back, and keys his radio. “Bringing him out now.” Then he finally turns his attention to me as he puts a hand on Connor’s shoulder, holding him in place. “Ma’am, you can ask the detectives about the specifics, but someone posting as your son threatened to kill you, Mr. Cade, and your daughter. We’re going to need to question all of you. I’d appreciate it if you’d cooperate fully.”

  I barely hear any of that after Your son threatened to kill you. I hear a high, thin buzzing in my ears, and I have to brace myself against the wall. A photo of the four of us rocks on its hook, and I grab it to steady it. My voice, when it comes, sounds oddly flat. “That’s wrong. Connor didn’t do that. Let him go.” I don’t look at my son. I don’t dare, and I can’t even think why. Maybe because I’m afraid he’ll think I’m doubting him.

  The officer, of course, doesn’t let go. He fixes me with a cool, assessing look that tells me he’s ready if I decide to flip out on him. I get myself under control, though my muscles are all tense and twitching, desperate to grab my son and wrap him protectively in my arms. The officer must see that, because he says, “Ma’am, please go outside to the police vehicle and take a seat on the curb. We’ll sort all this out when the detective arrives.” It’s not warm, but at least it’s a little less than aggressive, and I take a breath, then look at my son.

  “It’s going to be okay,” I tell him. He’s pale, tense, and I can’t read the expression on his face at all. I’ve never seen him like this before. He’s never been in this place before.

  “Don’t worry, Mom. I didn’t—”

  “I know,” I tell him, and I believe it to my bones. “Honey, I know.”

  “Let’s save it for the detective,” the officer says. “Ma’am. Please go ahead. We’ll be right behind you.”

  It’s very hard to turn my back on my son, even though I hear the footsteps following me. I want to look back, turn around, somehow reset the clock to half an hour ago, to peace and safety and love.

  I want to protect him, and I can’t. I can’t. It feels like it’s going to end me, this need, but somehow I keep walking through the living room, out the door, down the sidewalk.

  Sam and Lanny are seated together on the curb beside the police car, and Sam’s got his arm around Lanny’s shoulders. They both stand up when they see me, and I see them look past me, to Connor.

  “Oh hell no, you get your hands off my brother!” Lanny shouts, and lunges forward. Sam catches her from behind, and I step in her way. She rushes right into me, and I throw my arms around her as Sam does the same from the other direction. She struggles. Hard. “Let go! Let me go, you can’t let them do this—”

  “I’m not,” I tell her. I sound icily calm. “Lanny. It won’t do anybody any good if you pop off and get arrested. You know better. Sit down. Now.”

  I’ve never used that tone with her before, and it gets through. She goes still. Sam doesn’t let go, and I don’t either, until I feel her muscles unclench. “You’d better fix this,” she says. I hear the fury in it. The betrayal.

  I let go. Sam takes our daughter back to where they were, but he’s watching me closely as the cop leads Connor past us. I reach out and put my hand on my son’s cheek, very briefly.

  He says, “I’m okay, Mom. It’s fine.” Empty words, and I’ve never felt that more than I do right now. He’s putting on a brave face, but he’s scared and I know that. I’m terrified.

  I watch my son put into the back seat of the police car, and I force myself to sit down next to Sam. I pull out my phone with trembling fingers and say, “Lanny. What message boards does Connor post on?”

  “He—he doesn’t—”

  “Don’t bullshit me. Not now.”

  She’s quiet for a moment, and turns her head to face the police car. Connor. Then she says, “Some of the crime boards, but not under his own name. Sometimes he posts on a forum that a couple of guys from school set up. It’s called Loserville.”

  I search for it, and find it fast. I take in the content quickly—mostly complaints about school, mockery of teachers, some truly horrible harassment—and my heart sinks. I don’t know why my son would post here at all. It’s a cesspool of the darkest impulses of young men. There’s a whole thread on girls at school. I don’t read i
t. I can’t. I’m afraid what I’m going to find out about my own child.

  I feel sick. Sweaty. I blink and focus on the search bar, and ask Lanny what he goes by on the board.

  She doesn’t want to say, that much is obvious.

  She’s crying. Silent tears running down her cheeks. Angry at herself, disappointed in him, I don’t know. Then she says, “Ripperkid.”

  I can’t move for a few seconds. My muscles simply won’t respond. The name drops into me and just . . . sinks. I shut my eyes and let the awful, sickening ripples of it go through me, then take a breath and type it in. I want to ask her why he’d choose that hellish moniker. I don’t. I think, like me, he’s choosing to stand and fight, and this . . . this is part of that.

  He hasn’t posted that much. Most of it isn’t noteworthy. He’s mocked a few teachers, insulted a few people, but thank God, he’s never joined the pack of hellhounds in outright harassment.

  But he’s been talking about his father. About Melvin Royal. He’s answered questions. Detailed the crimes. He knows far, far more than I ever thought he did. He’s only fifteen. He shouldn’t know these things.

  But it’s the message from today that catches my full attention, finally. I take a screen capture of it, and only then focus on the words frozen on the screen. I’m so sick of my fucking so-called family. Liars and hypocrites, just like my dad. I’m going to make it happen. One, two, three bullets to the head. By tomorrow I’ll be an orphan.

  I freeze as my gaze skims over the IP address that posted the message.

  Because it’s ours.

  The post came from our house. But it couldn’t have. I know Connor didn’t do it.

  My phone buzzes in my numb hand. It’s a blocked number. I swallow, taste ashes, and say, “I need to take this.”

  “Now?” Sam’s annoyed. “Really?”

  I don’t answer. I just get up and walk away, over near the corner of the house. I can still smell the fresh paint where we blocked out the vandals. I slide to accept the call and put it to my ear.

  “What did you do?” I ask it with real ferocity. If I could reach through this phone and grab something, I’d rip it off. “What did you do to my son?”

  “I didn’t do anything,” the man says. Bland tones. Calm. I’m anything but. “I provided his login information to a friend I know. He’s very, very good at faking originating IP data. Your son will be inconvenienced. He’s not in any danger. Yet.”

  “Not in any danger? He’s being arrested!”

  “He’s a juvenile. He’ll get the benefit of the doubt, and they’ll eventually work out he didn’t post the message. But this isn’t about him, Gina Royal. It’s about you. And I’m sure by now you’ve figured that out.”

  “You son of a—”

  “It’s time to start making choices. Tomorrow morning at nine o’clock sharp, you will either walk out your door, get in your car, and drive . . . or you’ll stay home, fight a losing battle to protect your family, and everything will be gone. Everyone that matters to you. Besides . . . I think you want to find me. Don’t you?”

  “Yes.” I hiss it, and I can hear the venom in the sound. “You came after Kez.”

  “I didn’t. She came after me. I only wanted to stop her. I did stop her.”

  If you think that, you don’t know Kezia. I think it, but I don’t say it. I want his attention firmly on me now. “What do you want from me?”

  “The truth,” he says. “The truth about who you really are, deep down. People always reveal themselves eventually. All their darkness and damage. And you will too.”

  There’s something so horribly serene about him. He thinks he’s right. He knows it. And I know none of what he just said is empty threat; he’s shown me that he has the ability, and the will, to come after me, my family, my son.

  “I just get in my car in the morning and drive. Just like that. And where am I supposed to go?”

  “I’ll tell you once I see you go. And if you value the lives of Sam and the kids, you won’t tell them where you’re heading once you know. You can bring your guns, it won’t matter. This will be over on Friday, one way or another. I promise. Think of it as . . . a retrial.”

  He hangs up. I stand frozen, listening to the sudden silence after the disconnection, and then I slowly put the phone back in my pocket and turn to look. A detective’s sedan is pulling into our street now, lights flashing. All our neighbors are awake. Watching on their porches, or through their windows.

  This isn’t a refuge anymore. Everything we’ve built has become a noose, and it’s tightening slowly around our necks.

  I go back to Sam and Lanny. My daughter glares at me, and I feel the force of it like hot irons. Sam’s looking at me too. He’s gone unreadable. “Everything okay?” he asks me.

  “Yes,” I lie. I sit down on the cold concrete curb next to him as the police detectives come toward us. “Sam? I need you to be there for Connor. Really be there. Will you do it?”

  He gives me a strange look. “Of course I will. Why? Where are you going to be?”

  I manage a smile. “Here, of course. With you. But . . . if anything goes wrong . . .”

  He puts his arm around me. Not wary or annoyed any longer. I lean against him and stare at my son, who sits quietly in the police car, not looking at anything in particular. Connor’s a strong kid, but my God. My God.

  MalusNavis will destroy him to get to me. And Lanny too. He’ll find her cracks and break her apart. Sam too. I can already see the reality of it stretching out before me, and it’s devastating. Horrifying.

  He wants to see who I am.

  Then I will show him. And it’ll be the last damn thing he ever sees.

  18

  SAM

  I shouldn’t be surprised when the detectives separate us, but it still stings; I don’t know what’s going on with Gwen, but I find myself watching her at a distance, trying to read her stiff body language, wishing I’d had time to get her to tell me what the hell just happened. I’m missing half the questions the detective talking to me is asking. I don’t know him, he doesn’t know me, and he’s not patient with my distraction.

  “Hey!” I blink and focus on his face instead of over his shoulder, because he’s snapping his fingers in my face. “You with me, Mr. Cade? Because the faster we get through this, the better for both of us.”

  The last thing I want is an express train to Connor being arrested. But I focus. “Sorry, what did you say?”

  “Does Connor have access to guns in the house?”

  “No. We keep them locked and secure.”

  “In gun safes.”

  “Yes.”

  “And do these safes have codes?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay. Does Connor know any of those codes?”

  “No.” I say it firmly, and I don’t expand on that; embroidering is where people get into trouble. Fact is, I don’t know that for certain. Connor’s a smart kid; I have every reason to think that if he wanted into the gun safe, he’d find a way. But this? This is bullshit. Connor is not out to kill us. I’m not about to entertain the idea that he is.

  “How often do you change them?”

  “Every couple of months.”

  He’s frustrated, I can tell; he’s not getting the long-winded responses he’d like, where he can drive a wedge into a crack. He changes tack. “So, Connor has a history of violent outbursts—”

  “Connor had one post-traumatic stress incident that he’s gotten counseling to deal with.” I stop there. I badly want to shout, Do you know what this kid has survived? Do you? But it won’t do any good. He doesn’t want to know.

  “He was also involved with a cult—”

  “He wasn’t involved. He was kidnapped. Along with me.” That’s it. I’m done being cooperative. “Look, I’ve answered your questions. That’s enough. I will take you in, we’ll open the gun safes, I’ll inventory everything against our records, and we are done.”

  “Sir,” the detective says. “We’
re done when I say we’re done. And Connor needs to come to the station to answer some questions.”

  “Not without his parents he’s not.”

  “You’re welcome to attend the questioning.” He says that like it’s a favor. It’s not. It’s the law that he can’t question the kid without us present. “You know, you’re not doing the boy any favors being uncooperative.”

  “I’ve been nothing but cooperative. Now let’s go look at the safes and move it along. It’s been a long damn day.”

  Gwen casts me a look as we pass; I give her a nod and a smile, trying to let her know it’s all okay. She doesn’t look okay, though. She looks like she is one thin nerve away from hijacking that police cruiser and driving her son away. That’s the thing Gwen fights every day: the urge to run, the urge to protect her kids even when doing it isn’t productive or smart. She doesn’t think I see it, but I do.

  I mouth, I love you, and lead the cop inside.

  We hit the safes, and I show him the paperwork that has all our registered firearms. He checks them off, one by one. While he’s doing that as slowly as possible, he says, “So, does the kid know how to shoot?”

  “I assume you already know the answer to that.”

  “We’re aware of the flyers at the gun range. Your son was observed shooting there. We heard there were . . . complaints.”

  “Not about him. He’s not a criminal,” I say. “Connor’s a good kid who’s been dealt a bad hand.”

  “Hell of a bad hand, if your dad’s a serial killer.”

  I straighten up after opening the last safe and meet his blank brown eyes. Hold the stare. Then I say, “I’m his dad.”

  “No offense.” The man shrugs and checks the last gun off the list. “Okay. All accounted for, like you said. Do we have your permission to search Connor’s room?”

  “Get a warrant.” The one thing that could save or damn him is the laptop that they’re certainly going to need a warrant to grab anyway. I’m risking them taking all our electronics, just to be pissy about it, but I’m not about to let them poke around unsupervised in my son’s room. “I’d like to go back to my wife now.” I realize, with a weird jolt, that I just called her my wife. I haven’t done that before; we’re common-law married, but somehow I’ve just never defined it that way.