Heartbreak Bay (Stillhouse Lake)

by Rachel Caine

  I knew that was coming. My muscles tense until my pulse throbs in my temples. “And what if I click it? What then?”

  “Then you’re participating in the game, Sam,” he says. “Everything has consequences. Gwen’s guilty of killing people, after all. She killed her ex-husband.”

  “She had to.”

  “She helped him kill others.”

  “She didn’t.”

  “I’ve seen that she can do terrible things, Sam. When I gave her the option of killing someone kindly, or leaving them dying in pain, can you guess which one she chose?”

  I can’t answer. My skin crawls. My right hand clenches the mouse, and the cursor is hanging right over the link. All I have to do is click.

  “She’d rather think of herself as a hero,” the voice says. “So let’s find out if she really is. Are you playing, Sam? For her life?”

  Lanny and Connor are at the door, breathless and scared. I put the cell phone on mute and say, “Lanny, go call TBI Detective Randall Heidt and tell him that I have a man on the phone who says he has your mother, and he’s threatening her life. Tell him to trace the call. I’m going to keep him talking. Go.”

  She gapes at me for a second, then spins and runs down the hall. Connor is left standing alone, paler than ever. “Connor. Go call J. B. Hall. Tell her the same thing.” I unmute the phone when I feel like I’m ready to keep going. “Tyler, we talked. I believe we really, really talked. I helped you. I believed you. Come on, man, I thought we connected. When you were on that bridge . . . I know you really felt something. Something real.”

  He’s silent for a long few seconds. Good. Keep thinking, keep the line open . . . “Everything I said to you was true. I didn’t want to lie to you. You’re not guilty of anything.”

  “If you didn’t lie, that means you called me because you thought about jumping.”

  “I think about it a lot. It’s hard, doing this work. Do you understand that?”

  “No, Tyler. I don’t. But I do know one thing . . . You’re not like this. Or at least, you don’t have to be like this. You can change.”

  “Someone has to find them,” he says. “These people need to be stopped. They need to be punished. And if the rest of you won’t do it, then I have to.”

  I’m losing him. He’s looped back to his crusade again. “Tyler, please think for a second about your sister. I said we’d talk about her. Tell me about her. Tell me what she was like.”

  “I don’t want to talk about her. You told me you felt like this once. That someone had to pay. You do understand, Sam, it isn’t a choice. I have to do this to make things right.”

  I don’t know how to save Gwen. I don’t know how to stop an obsession like his; I couldn’t stop mine, not without time and real work and understanding. And Tyler . . . Tyler isn’t like me. I thought he was. That was my mistake.

  My mistake could kill the woman I love.

  “Please, Tyler,” I say. My voice is shaking now. “Come on, man, please don’t do this. She doesn’t deserve this. I’m telling you, she doesn’t.”

  “It’s not my choice anymore,” he says. “It’s hers. And yours. Are you going to play, Sam? Because if you don’t, and you could have saved her—I know how that will feel for you. Next time it’ll be you on that bridge.”

  He’s right. Oh God, he’s right. I don’t know if the kids are getting through, if anyone is working on this. But I have to try to keep him on the phone. Gwen told me he was at Salah Point, but if she was wrong, if he’s somewhere else . . . the phone trace can pinpoint him exactly. Save her life.

  I swallow a terrible mix of despair and bitter rage, and say, “I’m clicking now.”

  I tap the mouse button.

  And I see Gwen. She’s standing, swaying, looking up at something I can’t see. I can’t tell where she is, just a room with shelving. And I can’t look at the details. She fills my world. “Oh God,” I whisper. “Oh God, baby.” She looks desperate, beaten, in pain. Afraid. I’m afraid that he’s brought me here to watch her die, and I can’t, I can’t let that happen.

  “I’m going to ask you a very important question,” Tyler says. “Do you want her to live? No matter what?”

  I say, “Yes. Yes.” There is no other possible choice.

  “I thought so.” He sounds vaguely disappointed. “That was very predictable.”

  I stare at the screen, unable to look away. Afraid to blink.

  I’ve never wanted anything more in my life than to be standing with her right now.

  27

  GWEN

  The lighthouse’s beacon, I realize now, is working, after all. It’s blinking steadily. Calling me right toward him.

  I climb the steep hill, sweating, filthy with dried blood and mud and mold. Heartsick but resolute.

  There’s only a single door on the bottom level, large enough that—like in the cannery—a forklift could be driven inside, if necessary. I reach for the doorknob. Hesitate. I look up, and the camera looks down.

  “You asked if I ever found the man who took my sister,” Jonathan says through a speaker near the top of the door. “He never did it again. It took her four minutes to die, Gina. Four minutes.”

  I don’t want to feel sympathy for him. I can’t. “Did you kill him?” I ask.

  “I don’t kill people,” he says. He means it. “I’ve never killed anyone directly. Could you die in here? Yes, but it’s possible I could too. That seems fair.”

  “Is Kezia here? Is she still alive?”

  “Yes, and yes,” he says. “Come in. There’s nothing that will hurt you on the other side of the door.”

  I take him at his word. In his own weird way, I think he’s trying to be completely honest with me. I can’t—won’t—do him the same favor.

  The doorknob turns. I step into what I suppose would be a storage room—large, perfectly round, with fixed shelving on all sides that is stocked with cans and boxes. Not a soul in sight.

  I look up. The tower’s staircase curls up in a dizzying, narrowing spiral. Off to the side is an elevator, and I head for it, but when I press the button, it’s locked down. No power to it at all.

  I make for the stairs. And something occurs to me. Something important that just . . . doesn’t fit.

  And then it does fit. The missing piece in a horrible, horrible puzzle.

  “Would you rather die, or see someone you love die?” he asks me. I freeze with my foot on the first step. “It’s a simple question, Gina. I answered it when I was seventeen years old.”

  “I’d rather die,” I say. And it’s true. Utterly true. “But you’re not going to make me kill myself. If someone I love dies, it’s because you killed them, Jonathan. Just like someone killed your sister.” I take a step up, then another. I don’t know when something will happen, but I know it’s coming. The air feels alive with it. It’s time to use what I just worked out. The little clue he gave me. “You know what I wonder, though?”

  “What?” he says. I’ve been moving slowly, testing for traps, but there doesn’t seem to be anything except stairs to climb. No rooms, no traps, nothing. I move faster.

  “How you know it took her four minutes to die?”

  The silence is profound.

  “You told me you never found your sister’s killer,” I say. I’m moving up, steadily, carefully, and as quickly as I dare. “Tragic Jonathan, with his kidnapped sister and his dead parents and his house half-burned. Poor little Jonathan, always the victim.” I hear footsteps above. I jerk my focus up to the top level. The staircase ends there. “Let’s play a new game. Truth or dare. Because I dare you to tell me the truth.”

  Second curl of the spiral. I’m moving fast now. I need to, I know that. I can feel it. He isn’t answering me.

  “You want someone else to know,” I say. My breathing’s fast, ragged, and my whole body aches. “To see you for who you are. Where’s Kezia? Is she up there with you?”

  “Yes, she is. I had to put her gag back on, I’m afraid; she was being
too noisy. But she’s alive and well. In fact, I think she’s starting to understand me. But do you? You think you’re smart. Tell me. Go ahead, Gina Royal. Tell me my story.”

  “There was no van,” I say. “There was no man who grabbed your sister and took her away. No abductor who hit you in the head.”

  “How could you possibly know that?” He sounds interested. Not offended. Not yet.

  “Four minutes. You said it took four minutes, and you couldn’t have known that unless you were there. So here’s what I think: You killed your sister. You took her out to the salt marsh that day, and you killed her. Then you had an accident on the way back—maybe a bad fall, I don’t know. But when you came to, you knew you had to have some kind of story. You made up the abductor and the van. You just made it up, and they all believed it because you were so hurt.”

  He doesn’t answer, and that’s how I know I’m right.

  “But your mother knew, didn’t she? She lasted a year, knowing her son killed her daughter. The papers said it was accidental death, but is that what happened?”

  “She died in the fire at our house,” Jonathan says.

  “Did you kill her?”

  “No.” He’s quiet for a second or two. “She started the fire. She tried to kill me.”

  There’s still no emotion in it. Just an observation, a flat fact with no impact to him. Though I wonder. I wonder if locked inside that damaged brain there isn’t a howling, screaming monster made of guilt and pain and horror.

  “And your father drowned in the bay,” I say. “Suicide. Because he knew, and couldn’t live with it either.”

  “You knew about what Melvin was doing. You helped him do it. Admit it.”

  “I didn’t know. I didn’t help. But you killed your sister, Jonathan. Admit that.”

  He’s never said it, I think. Never had to. But after a moment of silence, he says, “She was being a brat. I just wanted to teach her a lesson. So I took her to the marsh.”

  “There wasn’t a van. Or a man with a pipe.”

  “She hit me with a rock,” he says. “While I was holding her head under the water. I just wanted her to stop talking. She almost got away. I didn’t think I was hurt that bad until later. When they found me, I was passed out on the side of the road. I couldn’t talk for a long time. I don’t know why I told them that story, but everybody believed it.”

  I swallow hard. “Jonathan, you lied when you said you never killed anyone.”

  “I didn’t,” he says. “I was only holding Clara under the water to make her stop talking. Then she hit me. But she slipped in the mud, and she was already . . . confused. She went deeper into the water. She couldn’t get out. It was her choice. It took four minutes for her to go under and not come up.”

  There’s so much wrong with him. I can’t fix him. I can’t fix any of it.

  “That part wasn’t your fault,” I tell him. “You were hurt. Your skull was crushed. You couldn’t have saved her.”

  When he speaks again, I finally hear emotion in his voice. Anger. “I don’t need your forgiveness.”

  “You loved her.”

  “Love is selfishness. Greed. That’s all it is. I asked Sam a question earlier,” he says then. “I asked if he wants you to live. He does. Just so you know. And that’s greedy too.”

  I hear something powering up, and I don’t understand what it is. Some kind of engine.

  “I have one last question to ask you, Gina Royal. Would you rather die falling,” he asks me, “or frying?”

  I’m on metal stairs.

  Oh God. He’s going to electrocute me.

  28

  KEZIA

  I stay quiet, partly because I believe him when he says he’ll hurt my baby, and partly because I need to wait, to let him get comfortable. I need to act when he’s in the middle of something else, when he doesn’t have time to think.

  Jonathan has Gwen to focus on now. Gwen, who’s come to the lighthouse to find me. And him. And I am helpless, and I have never hated myself more than I do right at this moment.

  I’m sweating buckets. I listen silently to him as he talks to Gwen. As she hits him right in the tenderest spots. Gwen has only words, and she uses them like bullets. I see them hit home.

  She’s right, I think. This bastard isn’t an avenging angel. He’s a broken devil, guilty to his bones, and she’s just ripped his mask right off.

  Would you rather die falling, or frying? He’s already hitting a button when he asks it, and I don’t think, I don’t plan. I try to yell, “Jump, Gwen! Jump!” It comes out as a confused, muffled mumble from the gag.

  She’s already in motion. She figured it out.

  But she’s so high.

  The camera that was on her loses her as she falls. Jonathan’s attention swings to another monitor, and I see the blur.

  I see her hit the concrete floor, and it is brutal. I yell something, I don’t even know what it is, more of a denial than anything else. Gwen, make it, you have to make it . . .

  Jonathan spins his chair toward me and lunges to his feet, and I realize I’m out of time. “I warned you,” he says. “You chose this.”

  I choose the moment that he bends toward me, and I pull my knees in, lever myself up with all the power I can, and twist. My bound legs sweep in a fast arc across the floor and hit him midcalf, knocking him sideways. He’s crouching, off balance, and it dumps him hard on his side. He lets out a surprised yell, and I twist back and pull my legs in and slam my boots into his face. I hear bone crunch. He screams this time and tries to roll away. I don’t let him. I throw my legs over him and pull him in toward me and slam my heels down on his crotch with all the force I have.

  He doesn’t even scream this time. He gags, mouth open like a dark hole. I use my legs to pull him closer, and then I heave myself up to a standing position over him. He’s fumbling for something. I don’t have time, I have to try.

  I brace myself, and I pull forward with everything I have. Weight, strength, everything. I feel that broken rib stab hard, and it takes my breath away, but I try again. Again. I feel the pipe joint give near the top, just where it disappears from view. It hurts, oh God it hurts, and I think I might break something, but that’s better than dying here, helpless.

  I lunge one more time, and it snaps free.

  Momentum sends me falling forward on top of the man, who’s still panting for breath. I have enough control to land knees-first on his chest, and I feel his bones snap. He stares into my face, and even now, even now, there’s nothing in his expression except a mild, strange frown.

  “Stop,” he says.

  I wonder how many people have said that to him—dozens, at least. I don’t stop. I roll off him and pull my knees into my chest as I do, tight as I can despite the white agony that lances through me, and force my handcuffed hands under my ass, press harder to get them around my feet, and then my hands are in front. I do it fast, but he’s starting to move with purpose again. I have to be faster.

  I lunge for the knife at his belt before he can get to it and cut my feet free, then drop onto his chest again, knees first, and pin him flat. He cries out and flails, nearly throws me off. I grab the key ring and slide it off his belt loop. I’ve practiced this move before, trying to get out of handcuffs. I know how to bend my fingers, twist the key. I’m free in three seconds, and he’s bucking hard, trying to throw me off.

  I lunge forward. I put the knife to Jonathan’s throat, and I think real hard about cutting. He stops moving and stares at me with wide, glassy eyes. “You could,” he says. “Or you could save your friend. She’s hurt.”

  It’s a breathless, hot second of wanting to do it, but somehow, somehow I don’t. I snap the cuff on his right wrist, lever myself off, and drag him to the big, round lighthouse console. It has legs bolted into the concrete. I fasten the other end around one, and I check him for weapons. He’s clean. And he’s hurt, curled in on himself like a dead bug. Gasping against the pain I’ve inflicted.

  Good.


  I look at the monitors as I straighten up.

  Gwen’s alive. My friend’s alive.

  And I need to get to her. Fast.

  29

  GWEN

  I don’t have a choice, not really. I leap over the railing.

  I jump.

  I fall.

  I land hard and wrong on the concrete, hard enough I feel my lower left leg snap with a searing crack. Something in my side too. I scream, and the sound rings in echoes, funneled to the top. I can hear the electricity in the air; I’d have been dead if I hadn’t jumped.

  I’ve lost the gun I had in my hand, and I roll and crawl to grab it, and scoot myself backward until I feel a cool concrete wall. God, it hurts so much I’m weeping, shaking, barely able to catch my breath against the pressure of welling screams.

  I hear the silence when the generator stops.

  I hear Kez screaming. It echoes from the top of the tower like a slap from God, and then she stops. She stops.

  Oh no no Kez no.

  I get up. My left leg is badly shattered. I can’t put my weight on it. I make it to the stairs. I jump. Step after step after step, jump after jump. Let him fry me, because if he doesn’t, I’m going to finish this. Not for Sheryl, not for the other rooms full of murderers. Not for little Clara, the first innocent victim in this chain of death.

  I have to do this for Kezia.

  I’m seven grim, agonizing steps up the spiral when I hear steps coming down to meet me. My ears are ringing again; my head is full of flashes of strange light. I stop, brace myself, and take aim. I see a shadow slide across the railing. My hands are shaking, and I’m not sure I can hit him at this distance, but I have to stop him, I have to. I take a breath. I wait. He comes closer, another turn down the spiral.

  I see a shot and I take it. I miss, gouging a chunk of concrete out of the wall, and I immediately aim again. Fire again, a continuous spread. He’s stopped. Crouching. He’s shouting something. I can’t hear him, the ringing in my ears is worse than ever, but it doesn’t matter, I’m done listening.

  I aim. I hold. I’m ready.