Wolfhunter River

by Caine, Rachel

  Child predators run in the family sometimes.

  I’m guessing that one of Dan’s associates—if not Dan himself—will be on the visitor logs for Farrell; Melvin would have made lots of nasty friends while he was waiting his turn at the needle. He probably arranged for payments to Farrell, who smuggled things out of prison to his brother.

  But then I pause. Because it’s too easy. It took me all of two hours to trace this back to Dan’s box. And why would Dan put his own address on the envelope in the first place?

  Two answers. First: He didn’t. Someone else did, with the intention of throwing me off the trail.

  Or second: He did, believing he was fully camouflaged by a PO box, because criminals generally aren’t genius masterminds. Dan’s despicable, and his younger brother being on the same death-row block as my ex . . . that’s persuasive. But maybe it’s meant to be.

  Maybe someone wants Dan O’Reilly to take the fall for this. I need a deeper dive, but I can only do so much.

  I call Kez. I give her all the information, and tell her my misgivings about it. It feels like Melvin would have done better at covering his tracks.

  Of course she asks what was in the envelope. I hesitate, because I can’t turn over the diary. When I do, I look up. My daughter is standing in the office doorway, and she looks . . . strange. She’s watching me, and shifting from one foot to the other. I smile at her, but she doesn’t smile back.

  “Come in, sweetie,” I tell her. She does, but just a reluctant step. It’d odd. I wonder if she’s had another crisis with Dahlia. “I’m on the phone with Kezia. I’ll be just a minute, okay?”

  She nods.

  “Gwen?” It’s Kez, reminding me she’s still waiting. “Contents of the envelope?”

  I lie. I have to. I can’t ask Sam to give up the last piece of his sister’s life to be put in an evidence bag, maybe never see the light of day again. Melvin’s dead; he’ll never pay for the pain he’s caused. “It was a letter,” I say. I know that’s a dumb thing to say, because I’ve already turned over all the letters I got from him. Except the one I received right after coming back from Killman Creek, and that one is at the bottom of the lake.

  “Mom,” Lanny says. I glance at her. Her eyes are wide.

  “I’m going to need that letter,” Kezia is saying.

  Lanny sucks in a breath, pulls back, and pulls something from the pocket of her hoodie.

  It’s an envelope. An open envelope. And when I reach for it and turn it over, I almost drop it. It’s from Melvin. Addressed to me.

  “How did you know? I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I . . . I thought . . .”

  I instinctively mute the call with Kezia. I want to tell Lanny it’s okay. It’s not okay. I feel a wash of absolute despair, absolute horror. “Where did you—where did you get this?” My voice is almost as unsteady as hers.

  “It was in the mail. Don’t be mad.”

  “I’m not mad,” I tell her. “I’m just . . . When did this come?”

  “Yesterday,” she says. “I knew you wouldn’t let me . . .” Her voice fades out. So does the light in her eyes, and I know why. I’ve felt what she’s feeling. And I would have done anything, anything, for her to never feel that. “I just thought . . .” She wipes at her eyes. “Oh God, Mom. The things he said—”

  I hug her as if I can protect her from everything, fold myself around her and take the pain of every cut, every vile word, away. But I can’t, and I know that. I kiss her forehead and whisper, “I’m so sorry, baby.”

  Then I go back to the phone and unmute it and say, “Sorry about that, Kez. I have the letter.” I look at Lanny as I’m saying it. “Come get it.”

  Then I hang up.

  I put the letter and the manila envelope from Sam’s package on my desk. Lanny comes and sits next to my chair, leans her head against me, and cries quietly. I stroke her hair. We don’t talk.

  After half an hour, I say, “Get up.” I pull her to her feet. “We’re going to run.”

  She sniffles and looks at me with reddened eyes. Not quite believing what I just said.

  “We need to run,” I tell her. “You need to run. Go get ready.”

  She finally nods, throws herself into my arms again, and kisses me on the cheek. “I love you,” she says, and then she’s gone.

  I sink down in my chair, staring after her.

  I look down at the letter on my desk, the letter that has hurt my child so very much, and it takes every ounce of strength I have not to scream, not to rip it to pieces and fling it into the lake and drown it, drown him, silence his voice forever.

  I don’t do that. I stand up. I leave the room. I change clothes.

  And we run.

  Kezia comes by an hour later to pick up the letter. Javier is with her; it’s his off day. He gets fist bumps from the kids. Javier asks for Sam, and I explain he’s out at a job site. Javier nods. “Yeah,” he says. “Can I get a word?” He glances at the kids. “Alone?”

  We walk off toward the lake. Kez stays with the kids. Javier kicks around some rocks before he says, “Not sure I should even tell you this, but a guy came around this morning to buy 7-millimeter Remington Magnums.”

  “Which means?” I don’t recognize the ammunition.

  “Sniper rounds,” he says. “He wanted sniper rounds. I didn’t have any. I told him he had to order them in.”

  “Did you know him?”

  “Spud Belldene. Jesse’s uncle. He served in the first Iraq war.”

  “As?”

  “What do you think?”

  Not good news. “They’d kill us over a drunken fight?”

  “They’re Belldenes,” he says, like it answers the question. “There’s a chance that he’s just buying ammo for practice. He likes to keep his hand in from time to time.”

  It’s hot out here, and I’m still sweating buckets. “Weird timing, though. Considering we’re looking for a sniper.”

  “Yeah,” he says. “Which is why I brought it up.” He rocks back and forth, heel to toe, arms crossed. “The feds raided their compound up there three months ago but didn’t find anything; they thought the Belldenes were cooking meth. They weren’t. At least, not there. But . . . thing is, if Spud meant you any harm, I don’t think he’d buy his ammo from me. He knows we’re friends. He knows I’d warn you about it.” He rubs his hand over his head; it’s freshly cut short, a sharp military style that makes him look ready for battle. “But shit, maybe that’s what he intended. He just wants to rattle you. I don’t know.”

  “This can’t just be about Sam breaking the guy’s teeth.”

  “Well,” Javier says, “wars have been started for less up here. Never can tell what people take personally. Especially people like the Belldenes; they live on pride. Die on it too. Sam’s a stranger to them, city folk. So are you.”

  “And it’s not about my ex?”

  “Doubt it. You, the kids . . . you’re collateral damage to them. Leverage. They go after other men for their real sport.”

  It’s ironic, really. For so long I’ve been under threat for what Melvin did. And here I am again, defending myself against strangers for something I had no part in. It’s darkly, sickly funny.

  “How do I stop this?” I ask Javier. I don’t really expect an answer.

  He shakes his head. “Don’t know that you can,” he tells me. “Maybe it’s time to consider getting out of this town for a while. Between the Belldenes and this documentary everybody’s talking about . . .”

  “Everybody’s talking about it?”

  “This is hot gossip in Norton. And it’s bringing up a lot of old bullshit, about you being guilty of murder. Some of them will jump on whatever paints you in a bad light.”

  Great. I suppose I should have assumed that. “And how do I fight it?”

  “You don’t fight the sea. You leave until the flood’s over.” He’s uneasy. And that makes me uneasy. “Watch your back. I’ll do what I can to cool things down.”

  We don’t
fist-bump. We hug. I love Javi. I trust him, just as I do Kez. He’s had my back from the beginning, since the day I walked into his gun range, and I know he’ll do what he can.

  When they leave, though, I feel exposed. And helpless. It makes me angry.

  We stay inside for the day. I watch from the windows for the white van, the film crew, but they’re not here. Not where I can see them, anyway. It makes me itch to think they could be hiding in the trees right now, filming me, filming our house. After a while I try to concentrate on the book I’m reading, but I keep looking up, scanning the perimeter like I’m on a military post instead of my own porch. Looking for the flash of a camera lens in the trees.

  Or the flash of a sniper’s scope.

  It feels like a normal day, but there’s something underneath that I don’t want to examine too closely.

  I call the kids in, and propose a trip into town for cake and ice cream; they seem happy with that, though lately Lanny’s been obsessing a little over calories. She just ran off about a thousand. I think she’ll be fine.

  When we make the drive into Norton, everything still seems normal. There’s an old man driving a tractor down the middle of Main Street, throwing clods of dirt in every direction, but that happens at least once a week. I creep along behind him until we make the turn into the first stop. We usually start at the ice-cream store and finish at the cake place, but as I pull in and park, I spot a clean white van glide in after. It doesn’t have any logos on the side, and from the sticker on the bumper, it’s a rental. There are two people in the van, and as I turn off the engine, I keep watching them as they exit the vehicle and go to the back.

  I don’t know what I’m expecting them to do, but when I see that the taller African American man has a handheld video camera and the woman is plugging in a microphone, I realize exactly what’s going on.

  It’s the camera crew.

  They’ve found us.

  “Mom?” Lanny, who’s got her door half-open. “Something wrong?”

  “Close the door,” I tell her. My tone makes Connor scoot back from his exit too. “Let’s just wait a minute.”

  “What’s happening?” Connor starts looking around, and the cameraman fits the viewfinder to his eye.

  He’s getting a good shot of the back of my SUV, including the license plate.

  “It’s getting hot in here,” Lanny says. “Can we just go in and get some ice cream now?”

  “No,” I say. “Sorry, but I think it’s best we just go home.”

  “Why?”

  From where they’re sitting, they can’t see the van. I might have told Lanny if we were on our own; my daughter understands things better than my son when it comes to our sometimes-precarious social standing in town. But I’m not yet willing to ramp up Connor’s anxiety levels. He’s wound pretty tight; the terrible experience with his dad not long ago has made him even more introverted. I miss the days when he was still hanging out with geeks his own age, enthusiastic for games and movies and Dungeons & Dragons tournaments. I still think those things are inside him, but I don’t think he feels safe anymore expressing them.

  Just another reason to hate my ex. Roast in hell, Melvin. Preferably on a slow-turning spit.

  “I’ll tell you once we’re home,” I say. I start the engine and back up. I have to pass the van to head for the exit, unfortunately, and that means the cameraman is perfectly positioned to see us. I have a faint hope that the kids won’t see that, but of course Lanny does, right away.

  She points straight at them. “What the hell are they doing?”

  “Filming us,” I say. “Put your hand down, please.”

  My daughter does not put her hand down. Instead, she turns it and effortlessly raises a proud middle finger. “Hope they got that,” she says. “Assholes. Why are they doing that?”

  I don’t want to tell them this, but it’s best they’re prepared. “You remember the woman on the Howie Hamlin Show?”

  “Miranda Tidewell,” Connor says. “She’s rich.” When we both look back at him, he shrugs. “I looked her up. Since she was doing a documentary about our father. Why is she doing that?”

  “People want to hear about him, unfortunately. And us. So we have to be careful.”

  “Yeah,” Lanny says. “Which you’d realize if you ever got your nose out of your books.”

  They’re fighting again. I wish that they wouldn’t, but I know that’s the standard sibling relationship, especially at this age. Lanny did handle Connor with kid gloves for about two months after I came back from Killman Creek and gave them the hard news about their dad’s death—and that I’d had to be the one to kill him, which was hard—but the peace treaty never really lasts. In fact, there’s even more of an edge to it now. We’ve talked it over, but I don’t think Lanny can get over the idea that her brother was talking to their dad during that time. Melvin, damn him, had convinced our son to trust him, and Lanny just can’t comprehend that. It’s a wound between them, and I hope that eventually it will heal. But it damn sure hasn’t yet.

  We’re at the parking lot exit now, and unfortunately there’s traffic coming in both directions, so I’m stuck. The cameraman has walked off to the side, still filming. I’m sure he’s tightly focused on our faces. I hate it. It feels like a violation of our privacy, even if it’s not technically against the law. Or maybe it is against the law? I don’t know what the rules are in this state for filming minors without consent. Might be something to look into.

  I look at the oncoming traffic and wish everything would move faster, but there is yet another tractor rumbling toward us at an achingly slow speed. The dark eye of that camera at the periphery of my vision seems to get deeper, like the mouth of a well I’m falling into. I blink, and I see the camera in the Howie Hamlin studio, the feeling of being frozen and helpless.

  I blink again, and I see a filthy, moldering Louisiana mansion. A room spattered with blood. Chains.

  And a camera filming, filming, filming. Just like the camera Melvin had set up to show my murder to a waiting, paying audience of watchers.

  I hear what sounds like an approaching scream.

  “Mom!” Lanny’s alarmed voice makes me mash the brakes, and I realize that I’ve drifted almost into oncoming traffic, and the scream was the horn of a passing truck. She rakes her black hair back from her face and gives me a worried look. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” I automatically tell her, because that’s what I always tell her. And myself. But it doesn’t take a paid psychologist to figure out that I’m not okay. I’m having flashbacks. Cold sweats. Nightmares. And now this filming, bringing it all back. I need to talk to Dr. Marks.

  I take a couple of deep breaths and whip the wheel left when there’s a break in traffic. Out of the corner of my eye, I see the man angle his camera to follow our path.

  I don’t really feel safe until we’re over the hill, turned onto the main highway, and headed out of Norton.

  Lanny fidgets in silence for a while, waiting for a fuller explanation I’m not willing to give; she finally puts her headphones on and stares out the window. Connor drops into his book and vanishes from the world.

  I’m glad for the silence until Lanny shoves her headphones aside and asks, “You’re not going to get married again, are you?” Well, that comes out of nowhere.

  “Honestly?” I say. “I doubt it.”

  “Even to Sam?”

  “Even to Sam.”

  “Why not? Are you guys breaking up?” I don’t want this discussion. I glance around. Connor doesn’t seem to be listening.

  “We’re not breaking up,” I tell her. “Nothing’s changed. It’s just . . . I’m happy where we are, is all. I don’t think there’s any reason to be pushing it, do you?”

  “As long as you’re not breaking up.” She shrugs, as if she doesn’t care. I know better. She likes Sam a lot, and most of all, she likes how Connor is with Sam. It takes a lot for my son to trust people, but when he’s with Sam, I see a kid who feel
s like he’s . . . normal. Seen. Loved by someone with whom he feels safe. It’s pretty special, and very necessary.

  So I say, “Sam’s always his own person, Lanny, and he makes his own decisions. But I don’t see him leaving us anytime soon. If I do, I’ll tell you.”

  Lanny just shrugs again, as if it doesn’t matter to her. Headphones go back on.

  We’re almost home when I get a phone call from Sam. He’s made it home. “Everything okay?” I ask.

  “Fine,” he says, but with such crispness I wonder. “You heading home?”

  “Yes. I’m not far. Why?”

  “Because we had a note on the door. A film crew was here looking for you,” he says. “Also, we’re out of oregano.”

  “Note? Film crew?” I repeat. At least I don’t repeat oregano. “Jesus, they’re getting bold. I just spotted them in town too.”

  He’s silent for a few seconds. “We probably need to talk about this.”

  “Probably.” I’m not looking forward to that talk, or the other one that we need to have.

  All through the evening I can feel it sitting between us like a stone wall, and I want to reach across it, feel him reaching back . . . but I don’t know if I should. Or if that’s even possible right now.

  Time, I tell myself as we silently do the dishes, me washing and Sam drying. Give him time. But time could drive him away, and I don’t know how to do this; nobody prepared me for how terrifying being in love, really in love, could be.

  My landline phone rings, derailing me, and I’m caught between irritation and relief. I dry my hands and grab it because I recognize the number on the caller ID. It’s Marlene, from Wolfhunter.

  I get silence after my somewhat-brusque hello. Noise on the line. Breathing. I’m about to hang up when I hear a young woman’s voice say, “Help me.”

  I pause, uncertain. “Hello? Who is this?”

  “Vee,” she says. “Vera Crockett. Momma said you help people. And your number was in her phone.”