Bitter Falls (Stillhouse Lake #4)(12)

She doesn’t. She hasn’t thought it through. She knows her boy’s a bully; she knows damn well she’s skating on thin ice. I see it written all over her thin, angry face. So of course she attacks again. “You bitch!” she yells. “Calling my son a bully when your damn kid’s the son of a goddamn murdering rapist who killed half a dozen girls and ripped their goddamn skins off. The nerve of you. You come on out in this hall and I’ll kick your city-girl ass!” Her accent’s thickened so much it’s hard to make out that last part.

No way am I going to get into a fight with this woman. People think badly enough of me in Norton; infamy’s a curse, particularly in rural backwaters like this one. I make most of the locals uncomfortable. I don’t fit. I refuse to accept blame for what my husband did. Women are always, somehow, to blame for the acts of men; that’s more true now than it ever has been.

And all that free-floating anger I won’t accept rebounds on my kids. And while I want to punch her several times for that, I don’t. I just turn my back on her and take my seat again beside Connor, who’s staring at me in outright confusion. He’s never seen me walk away from a fight.

Maybe he needs to.

“It’s okay,” I tell him and take his hand again. “Ignore the noise.”

“It’s not just noise,” he says. “Mom, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have hit him like that, but I couldn’t . . . It felt like I was drowning. Like I had to get out of there but at the same time I just . . . couldn’t move.” He takes a deep breath, and I can hear the sob buried somewhere deep underneath. It cuts me deep. “I’m not you. I’m not Lanny. I can’t be that brave.”

The woman at the door is still yelling abuse, but I hear the no-nonsense raised voice of a nurse telling her to settle down if she doesn’t want to be ejected from the hospital. When I look, the couple is gone from view, but not from hearing. The argument drifts down the hallway, full of angry swears and quelling icy warnings on the nurse’s part.

The nurse checks in a few moments later. She’s a plump African American woman with triangular features and a sharp cut to her natural hair. She gives me a look, as if she’s waiting to see if I’m going to be trouble too; I just thank her for looking after my son. She relaxes. No smile, though.

“The doctor’s reviewed the X-rays,” she says. “That nose isn’t broken, just pretty badly bruised. It might not hurt yet, but it will, and those bruises will be spectacular. Over-the-counter pain relief will help. Connor, keep an ice pack on your face for the rest of the day, as much as you can stand. It’ll help.”

I nod. Connor’s already swinging his legs off the bed. “Can I go now?” he asks. She shakes her head.

“It’ll take about an hour to get paperwork finished,” she says. “I’ll let you know.”

She’s right on target. It’s nearly four thirty by the time we get the discharge paperwork. I sign for it on Connor’s behalf. When I’m done, she says, “Last thing is you’ll need to check out at the front counter.”

She means pay the bill. I nod and thank God that I have a real job now, with real health benefits for me and the kids. J. B.’s been generous on the per-hour rate on these investigations I’m doing, too, so we’re a lot less pressed for cash now than we were. When we landed at Stillhouse Lake, I blew most of my remaining cash buying and fixing up the house, and my internet office work hadn’t exactly been completely plugging the money drain, not with two kids. Sam helps with bills, but I don’t let him give more than is strictly necessary. I remember, grimly, that I’m going to have to pick up the check for at least one other kid’s treatment bill. So maybe we’re not less cash-strapped, after all.

Connor looks mournfully down at the blood on his sweater. “I look like hell.”

“You look like you’ve been hurt,” I tell him. “And we’re going straight home. You can take a shower and get clean clothes.”

He doesn’t look up. “And tomorrow? Do I have to go back to school?”

I sigh. “We’ll discuss it.”

I walk between him and the room with the angry parents; they glare at us from the doorway, but don’t come charging out. We walk briskly to the front desk, collect the discharge instructions, pay the bill, arrange for the Charterhouse kid’s bills to be sent to me, and are out and at the SUV in record time.

We both slow down as we come closer.

My tires are flat. All four of them. And when I crouch down to inspect them, there are jagged slashes in the rubber.

I swallow a burst of rage so thick it tastes like metal in my mouth, and call a cop for the second time in a day.





It’s a relief when we finally get home. Sam’s already there waiting, worrying because it’s getting dark. He’s been texting me. I had Connor type a reply, but I have no idea what he’s said. Probably not much, knowing my son.

Sam meets us at the door, with Lanny close behind. Both of them look anxious. Neither of them looks surprised at the state of Connor’s face. Just grim, in Sam’s case, and horrified, in Lanny’s. She gets over that disturbingly fast and says, “Does it hurt?” She’s studying him closely. He nods. “Wow. You look like you survived a Saw movie. I didn’t know a nose could bleed that much.”