Bitter Falls (Stillhouse Lake #4)(41)

I acknowledge that, though it stings, and keep moving. And sure enough, I find a whole new thread about me. It’s massive, more than a hundred pages. It started after it became clear I wasn’t betraying Gwen as I’d intended, and though it begins with reasonable posts about how maybe I was playing out a long game, that quickly disappears. My motives, according to the thread, range from being brainwashed to never having been really part of the Lost Angels at all; some even think I was a plant that Gwen, the master manipulator, had placed to watch them from the start. It’s a fantastically unlikely theory, but they leap right on it and ride it for pages. They gather every bit of gossip they can find in the media and online, piling supposition upon wild leap upon outright lie.

Up until Melvin’s death, there’s real speculation that I’m one of his secret admirers, which makes me have to step away from the laptop so I don’t punch the screen. I drink a little bottle of bourbon from the minibar, and when I feel calmer, I go back and keep reading.

Gwen’s right; I need to pay attention to all this. I can’t defend myself if I don’t know what’s coming.

After the media circus that erupted due to Gwen’s appearance on the Howie Hamlin Show, and the subsequent trouble we found in Wolfhunter, the tone of the posts changes again.

They really, really hate me now. I’m a traitor to the memory of all the victims, and to the families. But most of all, I was there when Miranda was killed. And just like they assume about Gwen, my proximity to evil is enough to convict me in their message board courtroom. If I was there, I was responsible. The fact that I was shackled at the time, and had no possibility of saving her . . . that doesn’t matter.

They’re going to run with the idea that I shot her myself, and that the FBI—specifically, my friend Mike Lustig—covered it up. That’s going to be their last podcast episode, of course, not their first. I’m sure every enemy I’ve ever made, from grade school on up, will be given a microphone to set the stage for my culpability before they get down to real facts. They’ll build their case carefully, if completely wrong.

Gwen’s right that I need to get myself locked down for this. Just reading these posts has made me feel achingly tense and devastatingly uncertain. Even when you know better, it’s hard to see so many people agreeing about your guilt. It feels like a losing battle from the start.

I click away and skim through the other posts. Lost Angels doesn’t spend all their time targeting Gwen and me, of course; there are remembrance posts for lost loved ones. Casual conversations. Discussions about the worrying popularity of true crime books, movies, shows, and podcasts. Sanity, in the midst of pathological hatred.

There are also, ironically, speculation threads about other serial killers and killing sprees. Some are hashing over old cases. Some are genuinely trying to connect dots. Trying to do some good.

On the fourth page of threads one catches my eye: a post about missing young men. That’s unusual enough to make me look closer. The poster has the thinnest of evidence. Sketchy logic. But something makes me slow down and read more carefully. The writer is piecing together disappearances from all over the southeast, and I know one of those names.

Remy Landry.

What the hell?

I back up and read the whole thing again, and as I do I feel a cold shiver run up my spine. Yes, the evidence is thin, but he could be right. There may be something going on here. His conclusions are bullshit and have to do with Satan worshippers, but these cases do seem, on the surface of it, to have common links.

I pick up my phone and call Gwen. I get voice mail, and I read her the pertinent parts of the post. Then I say, “Could be that Remy’s just one victim. If this proves out, you could be looking at half a dozen connected cases. Maybe more. So . . . watch yourself. Because if this is correct, if there is somebody out there picking young men off and making them disappear . . . they know how to get to people quietly. Call me.”

I shut down the laptop and lie awake, staring at the ceiling, until I finally give up and flip on the TV and get another overpriced miniature bottle of liquor.





13

GWEN

The Gospel Witness Church isn’t exactly the megachurch I’d envisioned; the South normally goes in for massive structures in their houses-of-holy, but this is a modest, cheap clapboard chapel that’s clearly in need of repairs and a fresh coat of paint. The message sign board out front that faces the street is sun-faded and antique. The message spelled out in black slide-in letters says BEHOLD! I COME QUICKLY! and I have to snort-laugh at the double meaning that was probably unintentional. This doesn’t look like a place that has a sly sense of humor, at least not at Jesus’s expense.

It’s late afternoon when I pull into the mostly empty parking lot; it’s also a Friday, which means there’s probably no evening service, since Pentecostals lean toward Sundays and Wednesdays, though there could be Bible study or other classes this evening. If there are, they’re not popular.

I slide my rental car into a parking space off to the side, near a cluster of bushes losing their leaves. Opening the car door slaps me with a blast of chilly wind. I don’t have a coat; I hadn’t needed one for Louisiana. I duck around to the trunk and open my suitcase to find my blazer jacket. Under that lies my gun with the trigger lock in place, and the ammo stored in a separate locked box. I open both, load the gun, don the shoulder holster, and ease the Sig Sauer into a comfortable position. Jacket on after. I grab my purse and lock the car as I leave it.