Bitter Falls (Stillhouse Lake #4)(37)

But there’s always a possibility that one of these messages is from a stalker with time and inclination to travel. To shadow our family until an opportunity presents itself. And that terrifies me, because I know better than anyone that safety is an illusion.

I stop at the thirty-fourth message, because that one is a picture of the four of us together. Me, Sam, the kids. We’re in front of the cabin, talking as we carry in groceries. Lanny’s smiling. I’m wearing my favorite red sweater. There are targets on each of us.

This picture is recent, within the last month, because I just bought that damn sweater when the weather started to turn.

The caption feels like a knife at my back. You don’t get to be happy. How many times have I heard that? From the lips of victims’ families, former friends, perfect strangers.

Often enough that I have to work not to believe it.

I archive all the emails, complete with all the header information, onto a thumb drive, and then I dive into the radioactive folder for another unsettling swim in the sewer. It’s even worse, but at least most of it is just words, not pictures. I put those on a separate drive. Close to two hundred of those.

Sam’s hand falls on my shoulder, and I flinch. “You’re quiet,” he says.

“Yeah.” I shut the lid on the computer and turn with a smile. But my smile dies at the serious look on his face.

“I need to talk to you,” he says. “Got a minute?”

“Sure. Remy’s father hasn’t called back yet anyway.” I let a second go by before I ask the question I’m kind of dreading. “What is it?”

He sits on the edge of the bed across from me and rubs his hands together. That’s a tell of his; it means he’s feeling very uncomfortable, working himself up to something personal. “I’ve been contacted by the Lost Angels,” he says.

Contacted. Not targeted? I don’t answer, because I’m not sure what to say. He doesn’t, either, for a moment.

“They wanted me to know that they’re about to do a podcast. You know how popular those are right now.”

They are. Listeners in the millions. I even subscribe to some myself.

“About me?” I ask. He shakes his head. He’s looking down now. It alarms me more than the rest of it.

“Not directly,” he says. “It’s about me. They believe I had something to do with Miranda’s death.”

Miranda Tidewell and Sam had a . . . relationship. Not the traditional, sexual kind as far as I’m aware, though she was possessive of him; she and Sam shared a deep trauma. Miranda’s daughter had been murdered by my ex-husband. And so had Sam’s sister. She’d been the one to help him through that grief, not me. She’d been the one who’d channeled Sam’s grief into a pure, burning rage against Melvin, and against the woman she believed had enabled Melvin to commit his crimes.

Me.

Miranda had sharpened Sam and pointed him at me like a spear, and I thank God that he’d had enough of his soul left to recognize that he’d been used. And that I was innocent.

But Miranda hated me to her last breath, and she blamed Sam for turning on her and protecting me. I wasn’t there when she was killed, but Sam was. The official verdict was that he didn’t have a thing to do with it . . . but that wasn’t about to satisfy the conspiracy-hungry anger addicts on the Lost Angels website.

They’re coming for Sam. That horrifies me, because he thinks he’s ready for it. He’s seen what happened to me, to my kids . . . but observing isn’t the same as experiencing, and he’s about to get drowned in a storm of shit. Worse, a podcast like that could make him a pariah in his own right; it could ruin him professionally as well as personally. He wants to fly again, but the first thing potential employers do these days is conduct a Google search. Sam’s name is about to become notorious.

I reach out and take his hands, and he looks up and meets my gaze. He manages a quirk of a smile. “Sorry,” he says. “I didn’t see this one coming. I guess it’s nice they sent me a warning before they get the knives out.” I don’t think it is. I think they wanted him to start dreading it. It’s psychological torture, and the Lost Angels have a lot of experience in that. I don’t want to hate them; most of them are the family members of my ex-husband’s victims who are genuinely grief-stricken—and probably normally good—people. But on that message board, on that website, they unite in one dark purposes: to make me pay. And now Sam, because Sam left them to side with me.

So I take a deep breath and plunge in. “Okay. So, here’s what’s going to happen,” I tell him. “Once the podcast drops, they’ll start getting momentum in a week or two as word spreads. You need to shut down your email account right now and make a new anonymous one; don’t use it for anyone except people you trust. Make another one you’ll put other places where you have to enter an email address, but keep it completely firewalled off. Don’t do anything without logging into VPN first. Ditch your phone and get a new one. And call the people you trust and tell them what’s going to happen, so they’re on guard for any social engineering by trolls who want to get your new phone or email. Our real vulnerabilities come from people thinking they’re doing something harmless.”

“You’ve put thought into this,” he says.

“I expected it,” I admit. “The Lost Angels were never going to let you go without punishment. Look, the moment you decided to stay with us, you became a target too; I’m actually surprised it took this long. But they’re coming at you now, and it will not be pleasant. They’re going to say terrible things about you. Me. Maybe about the kids. Anything to spur a comeback from you.” I hold his stare. He’s starting to understand. “They’ll smear your reputation and find people who’ll swear to all of it; you’ve made enemies in your life, and they’ll come crawling out of the woodwork like cockroaches when the lights go out.”