Killman Creek

by Rachel Caine

  "Please," I gasp. I reach for Sam, and he puts his arms around me again. "Please, please tell me they're okay, please, please . . ."

  "They're okay," he whispers to me. There's a stillness to him, a peace, that I need right now. "Connor's all right. Lanny's all right. You're safe. We're okay. Just breathe."

  My knees give way when we're halfway down the rotten stairs, and Sam carries me the rest of the way. I'm so tired. I can't keep my eyes open anymore. When I manage to look, he's putting me in the passenger seat of a sedan, and I'm looking at the rotten, spoiled colonial splendor of Triton Plantation House. It does look like the White House, destroyed by rot and time. A creek runs by the side of the road, sluggish and choked with mud. Bayou country.

  Sam and Lustig are outside the car, talking in quiet voices. They're both shell-shocked. I can hear it. But I'm not. Not anymore.

  "Rivard was right. State police never showed. If we hadn't made it--" Lustig breaks off. "It's a bloodbath in there. God only knows the bodies we're going to find around here. How many of these places do they have?"

  "Dozens," Sam says. "But we've got Rivard, and once this thing breaks, it'll shatter everywhere. We'll find them. All of them."

  I wish they'd burn it down. All of it, ashes and bones. But I know there's more to this than what I want, and I know that. I'm just so tired that I feel tears sliding cold down my cheeks. I wipe them away with a clumsy, bloody right hand.

  That's Melvin's blood.

  Melvin's dead.

  Mike Lustig leans in and says, "You should thank our boy Sam," he says. "Saved your life."

  "No," I tell him. I feel everything slipping away again. "I saved him."

  I sleep.

  And I don't dream at all.

  28

  GWEN

  One month later

  To most people, I look like I've recovered. I try hard, for my kids. If I still feel fragile as glass inside, I think only Sam can see it now. Sam, who sees everything. That might have bothered me once, but now I'm glad. I talk to Sam. I even see a psychologist who specializes in trauma recovery. I'm getting better. So are the kids. I made sure they got their own therapy, whether they admitted to needing it or not.

  I don't check the Sicko Patrol anymore, but when I ask, Sam quietly tells me that it's continuing to roll on with more fire and energy than before. Despite my wishes, I'm the subject of a lot of articles and blogs again. Some think I'm a hero. Many think I got away with murder.

  One thing I have to accept: now there's no hiding from it anymore.

  The symbol of that is this house on Stillhouse Lake that we're reclaiming as our own. It's not just the four of us; our friends have been here helping. Javier and Kezia. Kezia's dad, Easy Claremont. Detective Prester and several Norton officers I now know by name. Some of the kids' school friends and their parents came, too; they all pitched in to repaint the outside of our house and get rid of ugly reminders of the past.

  I expect new hatred to come at us, but for now, at least, this house is our fortress again.

  Today, it'll be finished.

  "Mom!" Connor holds up something I can't see from across the room. "Is this trash?"

  "Does it look like trash?" I call back, and I manage a smile. He smiles back. It's hesitant, and stutters a little in the middle, but it's a start. We have work to do, Connor and I. Miles to go. He blames himself for too much, and now he's grieving his father. I know Melvin doesn't deserve that, but this isn't about him. It's about Connor, and letting him go through all the stages of grief for a man who never truly loved him. "Thanks, baby. Why don't you take a break?"

  "Why don't you take a break?" Sam says, then takes the trash bag from my good right hand. My left is wrapped and splinted, and it hurts too damn much, but the doctor says it'll heal. Eventually. "Because you need to sit. Stop pushing."

  He's right. It's done. Sam and Lanny have teamed up to repaint the damaged kitchen walls, while Kezia and Javier installed the new front window. Connor and I have picked up the last remnants of garbage. The front curtains stay down for now. I want to look out at the snow and the lightly frozen lake. It seems clean out there, in a way I don't think it ever has before.

  Lanny is sitting with her girlfriend--maybe they're not quite calling it that yet, but I can see the looks--and they're wearing matching braided bracelets. When she thinks we're not looking, I know Lanny's holding Dahlia's hand. She needs this. She needs to be loved. I'll do everything I can; I'll love her more fiercely than any lioness, but I can't give her gentleness, and sweetness, and Dahlia seems to have that for her, at least for now. I stop to hug my daughter, because I can't not, and she lets me cling for a long, long moment before she pushes back and rolls her dark-rimmed eyes. I kiss her dark hair and try not to think about the girl in the noose. The one who got away, I think. I keep asking. They haven't found her, but she wasn't dead at the plantation, either.

  Maybe she's found safety. Maybe something good came out of it for her.

  Sam's waiting with a beer for me, and I gratefully take it and sink down next to him on the new couch. The old one was filthy, and anyway, it's time. It's time for new things. Fresh starts.

  "Mike called," Sam says, then takes a deep pull of the beer. Connor settles in on the other side of him, and when Sam puts an arm around his shoulders, he doesn't flinch. He takes out a book and starts reading, but that's expected. It's a new book, I realize. One I haven't seen before. That seems significant, but I don't know why. "He's going to be tied up in DC for a while, but he says hi. Rivard's executive assistant rolled hard the second he knew the old man was locked up. He gave Mike the keys to the kingdom."

  "Everything?" I ask, giving him a look. The trauma of Baton Rouge sometimes seems like a nightmare, a month out, but suddenly it's vivid again. Memories of empty, hungry eyes. The gun kicking in my hand. I can still feel the shock traveling through my arm, up my body. Feel the blood on my face. I take a breath. "You're sure? Everything?"

  "Almost a thousand arrests just this week," he says. "All over the world. Including the ones who bought tickets to the show that night."

  That's code, and I understand it. The show. The one where I was to be tortured to death. I shiver a little and huddle closer to his warmth. "That sounds good."

  "They're going to get all of them. Rivard was a businessman; he kept excellent records. Even the trolls are getting hauled in and booked." Sam laughs a little bitterly. "Not that it's put a dent in your hate mail, but give it time."

  "So Mike's okay?"

  "Mike," Sam says, "is the new golden boy of the Bureau, and I think he likes it. Oh, one more thing. The forensic work on the videos finally came in: faked, of course. Not that you had anything to prove to us about that. Any of us." He looks over at Kezia, at Javier, at the kids, and I feel gratitude well up inside. Over this past month, each of them has come to me and told me when and where they'd come to the realization that they were wrong. Predictably, maybe, my daughter was the last.

  Sam apologized first. Not that he had anything to be sorry for. Oh, the kids believed me first, I think, but it took an adult admitting it before they were comfortable saying so. I think they get that reluctance to show vulnerability from me. I hope that I can show them something else, now.

  I tip my head up and look at him. He kisses my forehead, a quick brush of lips that leaves me warmer. This is sweet. And I'm so grateful for that. "Thank you."

  "You're welcome," he says, offering me his bottle. We clink glass. "The FBI's putting out a public statement tomorrow that completely clears you. The end."

  I sigh a little. It was a minor issue, given everything else that's happened, but I'm glad it's settled now. "You and I both know that isn't true," I tell him. "There will always be some people out there who don't believe it. Any of it."

  "In a fight between some Infowars-swilling neckbeard and you, I know who to put my money on," he says. He takes another drink, and I can tell that he's trying to make it casual when he says, "About my cabin. Seems like the
owner wants me to sign another lease starting next month. Rent's going up, too."

  "I see."

  "So I might be homeless pretty soon." There's a slight, teasing question in his voice. I smile, but I don't look up.

  "That would be sad."

  "So sad."

  "And I suppose you might need a place."

  "Now that you mention it. Got any leads?"

  Lanny and Dahlia are whispering together. Giggling now. "Oh, just get it out there," Dahlia says. "We all know."

  "Yeah," Connor says, turning a page. "It's pretty obvious."

  "Okay, okay, fine. Mr. Cade, you're welcome to move in here." I feel a tremor, though I mean it. This is a huge step for me. An expression of trust I wasn't sure I could ever give anyone again.

  "You sure?"

  This time I do glance up. His eyes are steady and kind, and I catch my breath, because there's a look there I've never quite seen before. Intense, as if he's seeing me for the first time, all over again.

  "I'm sure," I say. There used to be a minefield between us, but all those bombs are gone now, blown up, and what's left in its place is good ground. A good place to build. It'll take work, but I've never been afraid of that.

  "Dinner's ready!" That's Kezia, from the kitchen. "I didn't cook it, so it's safe, I swear." The running joke of the past few weeks has been Kezia Claremont's inexplicable talent for ruining absolutely everything she tries to cook. It's a gift.

  "She made an effort, though. She burned some toast," Javier says as Kez carries a big pan of roasted chicken and vegetables to the table. "Let's eat before Boot gets it all."

  Boot rolls over at the mention of his name and licks his chops. I pat him, and he grunts and closes his eyes. He's recovered better than any of us.

  "Yeah, get everything on the table," I say, then slip out from Sam's warmth to put on my coat, hat, and gloves. "I'm just going down to check the mail. Be right back."

  "Be careful!" That comes from everybody at once. Sam is watching to see if I need company. I shake my head.

  I'm smiling as I make my way--carefully--down the hill. The house is secure. Clean and new, all the bad stuff gone. I know it's symbolic. I know healing will take time and love and care.

  But we're family. We're survivors.

  I open the mailbox. There's a lot stuffed inside, and I stand there next to the recycling bin at the end of the drive and dump off junk catalogs and mail until I'm down to a light handful of bills and a letter. I look down at the last envelope, and I stop moving. For a moment I stop breathing. If I could pause my heart, I would.

  It's Melvin's handwriting. I look at the postmark.

  Someone mailed it after he died. Maybe somebody in Absalom, one last, bitter stab out of the dark.

  I look at the way he's written my name in careful, precise block letters, and I remember seeing the frenzy that came over him when he killed Annie. I can't forget that. Ever.

  I think about it for a moment, and then I put the other mail in my coat pocket and walk farther down the hill, across the road, and onto the shore of Stillhouse Lake.

  The water's glassy and still, frozen into ripples. I look around on the shore and find a sizable rock about the size of a grapefruit. I hold Melvin's letter in my healing left hand and toss the stone out with my right. It breaks easily through the thin ice and reveals dark, freezing water.

  I get another stone, a smaller one, and I search in my pockets. The mail came with a rubber band. I use it to wrap Melvin's letter around the rock.

  I throw the weighted, unopened letter into the water. For a second I see the pale flicker of the paper, and I imagine the ink starting to bleed. In a few hours what he wrote completely gone, and the paper reduced to drifting fragments of pulp.

  "Mom?" It's Connor, calling from the house. I turn and wave. "Mom?"

  "I'm coming," I call back.

  The last of my ex is at the bottom of the lake. No one will ever know what Melvin wanted to say.

  And maybe, if he's burning in hell, that will hurt him worst of all.

  SOUNDTRACK

  I choose music for each book I write, because it helps me find the right tone and tempo of the story. Since it helped inspire me, I thought you'd enjoy seeing the music that goes along with Gwen's journey in Killman Creek.

  I hope you enjoy the musical experience as much as I did, and please remember: piracy hurts musicians, and music aggregation services don't provide a living. Buying the song or album direct is still the best way to show your love, and help them create new work.

  "Eminence Front," The Who

  "Sledgehammer," Peter Gabriel

  "Poker Face," Lady Gaga

  "Staring at the Sun," TV on the Radio

  "Games Without Frontiers," Peter Gabriel

  "Hate the Taste," Black Rebel Motorcycle Club

  "Box Full o' Honey," Duran Duran

  "Red Rain," Peter Gabriel

  "Time of the Season," The Ben Taylor Band

  "Mama," Genesis

  "Welcome to the Circus," Skittish

  "Beneath Mt. Sinai," The Stone Foxes

  "Whatcha See Is Whatcha Get," The Dramatics

  "Human," Rag'n'Bone Man

  "Believer," Imagine Dragons

  "Jockey Full of Bourbon," Joe Bonamassa

  Rachel Caine's website contains more information about her books, her appearance schedule, and more: www.RachelCaine.com.

  Follow her on social media:

  Twitter: @rachelcaine

  Facebook: rachelcainefanpage

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  To my friend Steve Huff, most especially, and my coconspirator Ann Aguirre. Special thanks to the mighty Liz Pearsons and the great T&M team, who just plain rock.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Photo (c) 2014 Robert Hart

  Rachel Caine is the New York Times, USA Today, and Amazon Charts bestselling author of more than fifty novels, including the Stillhouse Lake series, the New York Times bestselling Morganville Vampires series, and The Great Library young adult series. She has written suspense, mystery, paranormal suspense, urban fantasy, science fiction, and paranormal young adult fiction. Rachel lives and works in Fort Worth, Texas, with her husband, artist/actor/comic historian R. Cat Conrad, in a gently creepy house full of books.