Stillhouse Lake (Stillhouse Lake #1)
Rachel Caine
PROLOGUE
GINA ROYAL
Wichita, Kansas
Gina never asked about the garage.
That thought would keep her awake every night for years after, pulsing hot against her eyelids. I should have asked. Should have known. But she’d never asked, she didn’t know, and in the end, that was what destroyed her.
She normally would have been home at three in the afternoon, but her husband had called to say he had an emergency at work and she’d have to fetch Brady and Lily from school. It was no bother, really—there was still plenty of time to finish up in the house before starting dinner. He’d been so lovely and apologetic about having to disrupt her schedule. Mel really could be the best, most charming man, and she was going to make it up to him; she’d already decided that. She’d cook his favorite dish for dinner: liver and onions, served with a nice pinot noir she already had out on the counter. Then a family night, a movie on the couch with the kids. Maybe that new superhero movie the kids were clamoring to see, though Mel was careful about what they watched. Lily would curl into Gina’s side, a warm bundle, and Brady would end up sprawled across his dad’s lap with his head up on the arm of the sofa. Only bendable kids could be comfortable like that, but it was Mel’s favorite thing in the world, family time. Well. His second-favorite, after his woodworking. Gina hoped that he wouldn’t make an excuse to go out and tinker around in his workshop this evening.
Normal life. Comfortable life. Not perfect, of course. Nobody had a perfect marriage, did they? But Gina was satisfied, at least most of the time.
She’d been gone from the house for only half an hour, just long enough to race to school, pick up the kids, and hurry home. Her first thought as she turned the corner and saw the flashing lights on her block was Oh God, what if someone’s house is on fire? She was properly horrified at the idea, but in the next, selfish second, she thought, Dinner’s going to be so late. It was petty but exasperating.
The street was completely blocked off. She counted three police cars behind the barricade, their flashing light bars bathing the nearly identical ranch houses in blood red and bruise blue. An ambulance and a fire truck crouched farther down the street, apparently idle.
“Mom?” That was seven-year-old Brady, who was in the back seat. “Mom, what’s happening? Is that our house?” He sounded thrilled. “Is it on fire?”
Gina slowed the car to a crawl and tried to take in the scene: a churned-up lawn, a flattened bed of irises, crushed bushes. The battered corpse of a mailbox lay half in the gutter.
Their mailbox. Their lawn. Their house.
At the end of that trail of destruction was a maroon SUV, engine still hissing steam. It was embedded halfway into the front-facing brick wall of their garage—Mel’s workshop—and leaned drunkenly on a pile of debris that had once been part of their solid brick home. She’d always imagined their house as being so firm, so solid, so normal. The vomited pile of bricks and broken Sheetrock looked obscene. It looked vulnerable.
She imagined the SUV’s path as it jumped the curb, took out the mailbox, slalomed the yard, and crashed into the garage. As she did, her foot finally hit the brake of her own vehicle, hard enough that she felt the jolt all the way through her spine.
“Mom!” Brady yelled, almost in her ear, and she instinctively put out a hand to hush him. In the passenger seat, ten-year-old Lily had yanked her earbuds out and leaned forward. Her lips parted as she saw the damage at their house, but she didn’t say anything. Her eyes were huge with shock.
“Sorry,” Gina said, hardly aware of what she was saying. “Something’s wrong, baby. Lily? Are you okay?”
“What’s happening?” Lily asked.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine! What’s happening?”
Gina didn’t answer. Her attention was pulled back to the house. She felt strangely raw and exposed, looking at the damage. Her home always seemed so safe to her, such a fortress, and now it was breached. Security had proved a lie, no stronger than bricks and wood and drywall.
Neighbors had poured out onto the street to gawk and gossip, which made it all so much worse. Even old Mrs. Millson, the retired schoolteacher who rarely left her house. She was the neighborhood gossip and rumormonger, never shy about speculating on the private lives of everyone within her line of sight. She wore a faded housecoat and leaned heavily on a walker, and her day nurse stood beside her. They both looked fascinated.
A policeman approached Gina’s vehicle, and she quickly rolled down her window and gave him an apologetic smile.
“Officer,” she said. “That’s my house there, the one that the SUV crashed into. Can I park here? I need to look over the damage and call my husband. This is just awful! I hope the driver wasn’t hurt too badly . . . Was he drunk? This corner can be dangerous.”
The officer’s expression went from blank to hard-focused as she spoke, and she didn’t understand why, not at all, but knew it wasn’t good. “This is your house?”
“Yes, it is.”
“What’s your name?”
“Royal. Gina Royal. Officer—”
He took a step back and rested his hand on the butt of his gun. “Turn your engine off, ma’am,” he said as he signaled to another cop, who came at a jog. “Get the detective. Go!”