Wolfhunter River (Stillhouse Lake Book 3)

by Rachel Caine

  “And he’s friends with Chief Weldon.”

  “Cousins.”

  “They have any other relatives around here?”

  “It’s a small town, Ms. Proctor. And cousins abound.”

  “Any of them accountants? Bankers, maybe?”

  He stares at me for a few seconds before he says, “Carl Weldon works at the bank. His father is Chief Weldon’s daddy’s brother. Why do you ask?”

  I don’t think I want to tell him any more details; if I do, and I’m wrong, my kids are in even more danger. He has enough to be on his guard about if he’s not in on all this. I just shake my head and leave it there. “How long before they let us leave?” I glance at the clock hanging over the coffee machine; it’s now three thirty in the morning. Despite the coffee, I feel like I’m running on empty, and my stomach rumbles to remind me that it’s been many hours since I last ate. I made sure the kids had something, but I’ve skipped a couple of meals now, and I’m suffering for it.

  “Well, you can go anytime you want, but your SUV’s going to be in evidence processing and held here. You got another way home?”

  I don’t. And I’m not even sure it’s worth going home at this point. “I’m not sure where to go from here,” I tell him. “I’ll be honest: I’m so exhausted. And I’m really afraid that the place we were staying—the lodge—might have been part of this attack on Sam and Connor. Can’t go back there.”

  “There’s always the Motel 6 . . . it ain’t fancy, but I can guarantee you that it’s not owned by one of the Weldons. I can send you back there in a cruiser and ask them to stick around, make sure you’re okay. At least you can get a few hours of rest.”

  I hate it, but he’s right. “I still need transportation for later, if I can’t get my SUV back.”

  “I got a buddy with a garage out of Fountain Ridge; he can get one of his loaners out in about an hour. He’ll want a good-faith deposit, though.”

  “Okay.” I feel immense relief, honestly; being without some means of escape feels awful. “Hook me up with that. I’ll give you a credit card number. Thank you.” He nods, clearly wanting it to be No Big Thing. I leave it there.

  I sit and nurse my coffee while he makes the calls. My kids are still sleeping, and I just want to crawl in and join them, but I can’t. Even here, surrounded by supposedly impartial county deputies, I can’t really relax. I’m not even sure why, but I just feel like there’s more to this. More coming.

  I need to find a way to bail Sam out of this mess, fast. And I need to protect my children from this circling, dark storm. Right now, those two feel like opposite goals. But something in the back of my mind is telling me that they aren’t, not really. That the solution to everything is in a town I’d rather not go back to, and people I’d rather not face again.

  Wolfhunter isn’t finished with us yet.

  The cruiser takes us to the Motel 6. The officer walks in with us and, once we’re in the two adjoining rooms, tells us that he’ll be out in the parking lot until we’re ready to go back to the county sheriff’s office for that rental car. I intend to sleep. I do.

  The kids definitely are worn out; they crash in the two beds in their room, exhausted as they’ve ever been. But not me. I can’t stop. I’m worn to a thread, but I keep moving. Thinking about Sam. Thinking about Vee Crockett. Thinking about the spiraling disaster of my life.

  I keep the connecting door open for a while, but the mounting panic inside me needs an outlet, and finally I shut it, go to the bed, and curl up on my side. I put the pillow to my face.

  I shatter.

  The pillow stifles the sound that boils out of me like steam. It’s pure grief. Pure anguish. Pure hell.

  When it finally stops, it isn’t because I don’t hurt inside; it’s because I just can’t find the breath to scream anymore. I gasp for air. I tuck myself into a protective ball and pray, pray, pray that I can find a way to live through this one more time. I meant what I said to Sam: I’m not running away from Stillhouse Lake. I can’t. Whatever comes, we have to meet it here in the house that we made a home, in a town that doesn’t want us. I thought the lake would drown the last traces of Melvin Royal forever. But he’s not gone. He’s never going to be gone. The damage he did to me, to us, is permanent.

  Melvin would laugh to see me like this. Paralyzed. Traumatized. It’s what he would have wanted.

  I put the pillow aside. I’m still shaking. I’m raw and bleeding inside. But the thought of Melvin’s satisfied grin makes me sit up, take deep breaths, and get myself the fuck together. The path out of this might be black and full of sharp edges, but I’ll find my way.

  And Sam? What about Sam? I know he’s wandering the same dark territory that I am. He’s hiding something from me. But he’s also the man who came after me when I was alone and hurt and desperate. The man who helped me find my children when they were lost. The man who cracked Absalom. Who saved Connor just yesterday.

  Doesn’t that count too? Can’t there be some way, any way, back to the light for both of us?

  My head aches from the emotion and stress, and I get up and go to the bathroom. I study myself in the mirror. Fine lines etched lightly on my forehead, at the corners of my lids. A distant, shocked look and reddened eyes. I look like someone who’s seen hell and lived.

  That’s something to rest on for a moment.

  My cell phone rings, and I put it on the bathroom counter to see who’s calling. I don’t know the number, but I answer it anyway.

  “I need to talk to you,” a cool, elegant voice says. “I’d like to come inside.”

  Inside?

  It’s a second later that I realize who it is, and the ice inside me grows into a glacier. I hang up the call. I look at myself in the mirror again.

  Then I go to the door and open it to face Miranda Nelson Tidewell.

  Out in the parking lot, the deputy gets out of his cruiser and comes toward us. Miranda must know he’s coming. She doesn’t turn to look. She’s taller than I am. Thinner, in the way that some rich people are, as if she’s dieted away half her rib cage. Dressed in a black shirt and jeans. A brooch with a gold bird is the only jewelry, and I know she wears it because her daughter loved birds and was in school to become a vet.

  “Everything all right, Ms. Proctor?” the deputy asks me. He has his hand on the butt of his gun. He can’t figure out what’s going on between the two of us.

  I’m not sure I can either.

  Miranda raises her perfectly shaped eyebrows. A cool, calm challenge.

  “We’re all right,” I tell him. “She’s going to come in for coffee.”

  He doesn’t like it, but he nods and goes back to his cruiser.

  “Coffee,” Miranda says. She sounds amused. “I can’t imagine what kind of trash this place must have available, but by all means. Let’s be civilized.”

  We just stare at each other for a long moment. She has haunting eyes, the kind of blue that seems like arctic ice, with color that shifts with her mood. Pale-blonde hair, going gray in graceful swoops.

  I move back, and she steps inside. I don’t take my eyes off her as I shut and lock the door. She’s the one who ought to be afraid. After all, she’s now locked in here with me.

  But she’s not, in any way I can detect. She examines the room clinically, and while she seems mildly revolted, she says, “Are your children here?”

  “Not in the room,” I say. “Next door.”

  “Good.” She suddenly meets my gaze. “I’m sorry they’re been made part of this.”

  “Well, that’s a lie,” I say. “You want me to feel your pain. The pain of a mother losing her children. You think I don’t know that? I saw it on your face every day during my trial. I admit, I thought you moved on with your life. But here you are. Still.”

  “Here I am.” She’s studying me, trying to read me. “I find it obscene that they let you keep those children, considering what you’ve done.”

  I still haven’t raised my voice, though I want to. “And
what is it I’ve done, besides survive a man even you have to admit was a monster?”

  “You enabled him. You supported him. You helped.”

  “I. Survived.”

  “My daughter didn’t.” Her expression doesn’t alter. I’m not sure that it can. The plastic surgery is brilliant, but the effect is unnatural. Nevertheless, I see something move underneath, like a creature shifting in its shell.

  “How far are you going to go with this . . . documentary?” I ask her. “Coming after me is one thing. Involving my kids . . . that’s not okay. Are you planning to hound Sam too?”

  “Sam. Well. He chose his bed. Literally, it seems.” The distaste just steams off her words. “Sam certainly knew who Gina Royal really was, at least before he went to Stillhouse Lake. And yet you were still able to twist him all out of shape.”

  “I’m very tired, Miranda. Why are you here?” I ask it bluntly, because I’m already sick of playing her game. And the urge to rip out a handful of that perfectly ordered hair is pretty strong.

  “You helped kill my daughter. And I want to know why a mother would do that. How a mother could do that, and not slit her own throat.”

  There it is, finally. Right out in the open. A naked statement, not even clothed in anger. She’s stating a fact, as she sees it. And demanding an explanation.

  “Melvin Royal killed your daughter,” I tell her. “Melvin Royal didn’t need or want my help. He was a serial killer. He fantasized and planned and stalked and abducted and murdered all by himself. I’m alive because I was stupid. Because I believed him when he told me he was working late, or making tables in his workshop, and do you know why? Because on some level, he frightened me, and I was afraid to even begin to find out why.” I catch my breath. “You have no idea how much that hurts when I look back at it. How sorry I am that I didn’t—didn’t become what I needed to be, when it would have saved lives.”

  If she was expecting a full confession, she’s disappointed, but I can’t tell what Miranda is feeling. She’s a frozen lake of a woman, with something dark swimming deep beneath the surface.

  She turns and walks to the tiny desk. I feel myself go still as my instincts and training start to kick in. “Do you know how long I’ve wanted to do this? Talk to you face-to-face?” she asks me. She holds up one of the cheap foam cups. “I believe you mentioned you might make some coffee?”

  I put in a filter, tear open a packet, add the water. It takes time, and we don’t talk as the coffee slowly brews into the two-cup pot. I pour. She stands to drink it, sipping with elegant little motions. Her gaze moves around, missing nothing.

  “I wanted to see your face when I asked you about Melvin,” she says.

  “And what did it tell you?” I ask.

  “That you lie very well.” She drinks. I wait. “Well enough you even convinced Sam, and I never thought that would be possible. If you’d known him when I met him, you’d have been shocked how angry he was. How bitter. And how dedicated to hurting you. Has he told you that?”

  She leans against the counter. Hot coffee in her cup, no other weapon I can see except the brooch she wears. It’s strange, but I can feel her violence. I can feel the boundless hate inside her, blackening the space between us. The worst thing about Miranda is that I know her hatred comes out of an even greater grief. It makes it very hard to want to hurt her. And so easy for her to want to see me dead.

  “Why did you let me in?” she asks. “You could have left me standing on the doorstep. You didn’t have to acknowledge me at all. Yet you did.”

  “My husband murdered your daughter,” I tell her. “I do acknowledge you. I know you blame yourself for not being able to protect your child; I’ve spent years trying to protect mine. I understand your rage perfectly. I just wish it wasn’t aimed at me.”

  She doesn’t answer. But she puts down the half-finished coffee. I watch her hands. One goes in her pocket. I tense all over. I can’t imagine she has something in her pocket; I can’t see any outline of anything dangerous. But I can’t afford to be wrong.

  “Do you even understand why you obsess about me, instead of Melvin?” I ask her.

  “Your husband’s dead. I can’t hurt him.”

  “You didn’t target him even when he was still alive,” I say. “You came after me. Why do you think that is?”

  “Because you got away with it.”

  “Because in your narrow little world, it was my job to keep my husband happy, right? My duty to satisfy him in ways that kept him away from your daughter. And I didn’t do that. But I wasn’t Melvin’s keeper. His sins were his own.”

  She flinches. It’s a small thing, but I see it. “You knew. Your neighbor saw you helping him. There was video of you with him taking a girl inside.”

  “The neighbor lied for attention. The video was faked; the FBI proved it. Do you really believe every wild theory that you think proves your case?”

  “I’m going to see you destroyed.”

  “Get in line, Miranda. You don’t even rate the time it takes to get a restraining order.”

  Now she’s glaring. “The Lost Angels will carry on making your life a misery. If I can’t have justice for Vivian, then at least I can have some comfort knowing you’ll suffer the rest of your life for what you’ve done.”

  She’s quick, I give her that. I’m looking at the welling fury in those cold eyes, and her hand comes out of her pocket. I see something in it. I dive sideways, hit the floor as I pull the gun from the shoulder holster, and I bring it into line, dead center on her heart.

  I cannot die here. My children need me.

  I’m a fraction of pressure from killing her when I realize that though both her hands are raised in a stabbing motion . . . she has no knife. She has a cell phone. Her face is bone white, but she looks exultant, like a martyr giving up her soul. She intended this. She walked in here ready to die. Glad to die if it sends me to prison.

  I ease off the trigger.

  The exultation fades from her face. She shuts down, and for a second neither of us moves. Then she says, “I really thought that would work.” It’s a mild, careless observation. She lowers her hands.

  It terrifies me how close she came. If I’d shot her, it would have looked like cold-blooded murder; she wouldn’t have had a weapon. Chances are I’d have been convicted. I myself told the deputy to let her inside. I’d only have my word to back up a justified shooting. And no proof at all. They’d play the TV-show confrontation at my trial.

  Case closed.

  I shake off the adrenaline rush as I holster the gun again. “Well, it didn’t, did it,” I say. I climb back to my feet. “Now you can leave, and I never want to see your face again. Not here, not near me, not around my kids. Whatever sick thing you and Sam might have had once, it’s over. Leave him alone too. Understand?”

  “We don’t forget,” she says. “The Lost Angels are never going to stop. Never, until you get what you deserve. If Sam gets in the way of that, so be it.”

  “The only thing Sam and I deserve is peace,” I tell her. “So do you, by the way. I hope you find it. Now get the fuck out of my room.”

  Her mouth tightens a little at that. “Still a vulgar mouth on you,” she says. “Good. I wouldn’t want anyone to feel sorry for you.” Before she leaves, she delivers the lowest parting blow she can. “Tell Sam I miss him.”

  I want to pull the gun and empty the magazine into her straight, arrogant back. I don’t. I wait until she’s gone, and then I collapse back to the bed, shaking.

  She came so close.

  No.

  I did.

  13

  SAM

  I don’t like being in jail. It’s my first time, and it feels worse than I imagined it would. I’m not claustrophobic—can’t be a pilot if you are—but the walls close in anyway. Despite what I said to Gwen before they led me out, I feel lost now. Very much on my own in a place that feels like the belly of the proverbial beast.

  Two hours in, I’m trying to close my ey
es, and not daring to really sleep, when a voice from outside the bars says, “Opening number six.”

  I’m in number six. I hear the rattle of the lock, and I sit up fast, already reaching for the makeshift blackjack I’ve put together.

  I feel pretty stupid when Mike Lustig ducks under the too-low opening and steps inside. The cell locks behind him, but he doesn’t seem to notice. He nods toward the weapon. “That soap in your sock, or you just happy to see me?”

  “Jesus, man.” I put it down and sink onto the narrow, shallow bunk. The mattress feels like it’s filled with crushed scorpions. “The hell are you doing here?”

  “You’re in jail. Dumb question.”

  “I didn’t think you’d want to risk your new, shiny rep associating with a felon.”

  “First off, I’m not associating. I’m investigating. Second off, shut your damn mouth. Did you talk to them?”

  “Facts only,” I tell him as he leans against the wall. He’s a big dude, Mike, bigger than you’d think would fit into a pilot’s cockpit, but he’s damn good despite his size. He takes up a lot of this small space. “Nothing but facts.”

  “You know better,” he says. “Any word comes out of your mouth they can twist. And right up in here, they will.”

  I stop and look at him. Really look. He’s tired. He’s come all the way from DC, probably on his own dime, to help me. “Gwen called,” I say.

  “Hell, yes, she did. Good thing, too, because I guarantee you that in this snake pit you’d have some episode by morning and end up either dead or beaten half to it.” He puts scare quotes around episode. “Killing a cop’s bad enough, but killing a small-town cop in a town that thinks of the Civil War as being waged last week? Only way it gets worse for you is if you’re black. Which you’re lucky you’re not.”

  “But you are,” I say. “Maybe this isn’t the place for you.”

  “Oh no, son, it’s exactly the place for me,” Mike says. “I’m your best friend until the judge I woke up gets your bail hearing done.”