Stillhouse Lake (Stillhouse Lake #1)(10)

“Maybe there’s a compromise,” I say. “Mrs. Wilson doesn’t object to the hair. Maybe tone down the makeup, lose the accessories, don’t go full black on the clothes. You can still be weird. Just not weird.”

She momentarily brightens. “Can I finally get an Instagram account, then? And a real phone instead of these stupid flip things?”

“Don’t push it.”

“Mom. You keep saying you want me to be normal. Everybody has social media. I mean, even Principal Wilson has a lame-ass Facebook page full of stupid cat pictures and weird memes. And she has a Twitter account!”

“Well, you’re an antiestablishment rebel; work with that. Be different by refusing to follow the trend.”

That wasn’t flying, and she gave me a disgusted look. “So you want me to be a complete social leper. Great. There’s such a thing as an anonymous handle, you know. Doesn’t have to be my name on it. I swear, I’ll make sure nobody knows who I am.”

“No. Because about two seconds after you open an account, it’ll be full of selfies. Location tagged.” The toughest thing in this image-obsessed day and age was trying to keep the kids’ images off the Internet. There are eyes always searching for us, and those eyes never close. They don’t even blink.

“God, you’re such a pain in the ass,” Lanny mutters. She hunches in on herself to stare out the window at the lake. “And of course we have to live at the ass-crack of nowhere because you’re so paranoid. Unless you plan on packing us up and moving us to someplace even more redneck.”

I let the paranoid part slide past, because it’s true. “You don’t think the ass-crack of nowhere is beautiful?”

Lanny says nothing. At least she doesn’t have a smart comeback, which is a minor victory. I take every victory I can get these days.

I steer into the gravel driveway and bounce the Jeep up the hill to the cabin, and Lanny is out the passenger side before I’ve even pulled the parking brake. “The alarm’s set!” I shout after her.

“Duh! Isn’t it always?”

Lanny’s already inside, and I hear the rapid tones of the six-digit code being punched. The interior door slams before I can hear the all-clear signal, but Lanny never gets it wrong. Connor does, sometimes, because he’s not as careful about it—always thinking of something else. Funny how the two of them have changed places in four years. Connor’s now the one with the rich interior life, always reading, while Lanny lives with her armor bolted proudly on the outside, begging for trouble.

“You’re on laundry duty!” I say as I enter after Lanny, who, of course, is already slamming her bedroom door. Emphatically. “And we’re going to have to talk about this sooner or later! You know that!”

The surly silence behind the door disagrees. It doesn’t matter. I never give up when it’s important. Lanny knows that better than anyone.

I reset the alarm and then take a moment to put my stuff away, stash everything in its proper place. I like to have order, so that I never have to waste a moment in an emergency. Sometimes I turn the lights out and run crisis drills. There’s a fire in the hall. What’s your escape route? Where are your weapons? I know it’s obsessive and unhealthy.

It’s also practical as hell.

I mentally rehearse what I’d do if an intruder broke in the garage door. Grab knife from block. Rush forward to block him in the door. Stab stab stab. While he’s reeling, slice the tendons at the ankles. Down.

Always, in my rehearsals, it’s Mel coming for us—Mel, looking exactly the same as he had in the trial, wearing a charcoal-gray suit his lawyer had bought, with a blue silk tie and pocket square that matched his denim-colored eyes. He looks like a well-dressed, normal man, and the disguise is perfect.

I hadn’t been in the crowd at his court appearance, where everyone reported he’d looked like a perfectly innocent man; I’d been locked up, awaiting my own trial. But a photographer had captured him at just the right moment as he turned and looked at the crowd, the victims’ families. He still looked the same, but his eyes had gone flat and soulless, and seeing that picture had given me the eerie feeling that something cold and alien was inside of that body, staring out. That creature hadn’t felt the need to hide anymore.

When I imagine Mel coming for us, that’s what’s staring out of his face.

Exercise done, I make sure all the doors are locked. Connor has his own code, and when he comes home, I’ll listen for the tones and the reset. I can tell if it’s wrong, or if he forgets. The key fob to set the whole system to alert and ring in the Norton Police Department is constantly with me in my pocket. My first action in any emergency.

I sit down at the computer in the bedroom I’ve made my office. It’s a smallish room, with a narrow closet that holds winter clothes and supplies, and it’s dominated by a battered, magnificent rolltop desk I rescued from an antiques shop my first day in Norton. The date penciled on the drawer puts it at 1902. It’s heavier than my car, and someone had used it as a workbench at some point, but it’s so large that it comfortably holds computer, keyboard, and mouse, plus a small printer.

I enter my passcode and hit the target to start the search algorithm running. This is a relatively new computer, bought fresh when I got to Stillhouse Lake, but it’s been customized with all manner of black-hat goodies by a hacker who goes by the name Absalom.