Stillhouse Lake (Stillhouse Lake #1)(26)

But that description . . .

No. Young, vulnerable women are the favorite target of many serial killers. Not definitive in any way. And there’s nothing to say it is a serial killer. Could have been a suspicious death gone wrong, a panic to hide a body. An inexperienced, unprepared murderer who hadn’t planned to kill at all. The story more or less alludes to drugs, and there is a drug problem in Norton; we heard that from Officer Graham. The murder must be, as suggested, tied to that.

Nothing to do with us. Nothing to do with Melvin Royal’s crimes.

But murder practically at your front door? Again?

It’s a terrifying prospect, for many reasons. I fear for my kids’ personal safety, of course. But I also fear for the torment that we’ll go through if we are branded, again, as Royals. I’d made the decision to stay and tough it out, but that is harder now, in the face of this story. The Sicko Patrol will notice. They’ll dissect every detail. Look for photos. I can’t control pictures others take; no doubt I appear in the background of someone’s shot at the park, or the parking lot, or the school. If I don’t, then Lanny does, or Connor.

This has just made staying extraordinarily risky.

I text back to Absalom. Why’d you send?

Similarities. You saw, right?

I didn’t tell Absalom where we’d settled, but I suspect he knows. I had to file paperwork to buy this house under the identity he made for me. It’d be child’s play for him to find out my exact address. He was the one who sent me lists of likely destinations when I’d had to flee last time. Still, it helps me to think he doesn’t know, or care, where exactly we are. He’s never betrayed us. He’s only helped us.

But that doesn’t mean I can bring myself to trust him completely.

Doesn’t seem relevant, I tell him. Weird tho. Keep an eye?

Wilco.

Absalom ends the conversation, and I sit for a long time, staring at the words on the computer screen. I wish I could feel some sympathy for the poor, dead, unknown woman who was found in the lake, but she’s just an abstract. A problem. I can only think that her death leads to pain for my kids.

I was wrong to make a knee-jerk decision to stay here. Never close off escape. That’s been my mantra for years now, and it’s pure survival instinct. I’m not reversing my decision, exactly, but this article, the similarities to my ex-husband’s crimes . . . it’s woken something uneasy in me that I’ve learned to heed.

I won’t uproot my kids on a whim and run, but I damn well need to make plans to do an emergency bugout in case things turn ugly. Yes, I do owe it to my kids to provide them a stable upbringing . . . but even more than that, always, I owe them safety.

I no longer feel the safety I did before, in the face of that story. It doesn’t mean I’m running.

But it means I need to prepare.

I quickly Google vans available for purchase in the area and come up gold: there’s a large cargo van for sale or trade just a few miles away, in Norton. I think ahead to packing materials. We have collapsible plastic crates for some things, but I’ll need to add a few more from the local Walmart. I try to avoid big-box stores, since it means being recorded on surveillance cameras, but there isn’t a whole lot of choice around Norton, unless I want to make the drive into Knoxville for supplies.

I look at the clock and decide there isn’t time to be DEFCON One paranoid. I grab a large-billed trucker hat with no logo on it and a pair of large sunglasses. I make sure my clothes are as anonymous as possible. Best I can do as a disguise.

As I’m retrieving cash from the safe, I hear the honk of the post office delivery van down the drive and look out. He’s finished filling my box, and I go out to grab the contents, still thinking hard about what has to be done to prep for an emergency. Selling the house wouldn’t come into the calculation; it would have to be done post-move anyway. I’d have to pull the kids out of school without warning or explanation, again. But other than those considerations, we don’t have a hell of a lot of ties to break, really. I’ve kept us mobile for so long, keeping things light is still natural for all of us.

I’d thought this would be the place where we’d get to break that cycle. Maybe it still is, but I need to be practical. Escape needs to be a viable option. Always.

Step one is getting the van.

There’s an official-type letter in my mess of circulars and junk mail. State of Tennessee. I rip it open and find my license to carry.

Thank God.

I put it in my wallet immediately, dump the rest of the junk mail in the trash, and retrieve my gun and shoulder holster from the safe, too. Feels good, putting it on, feeling the weight—and knowing that unlike other times I’ve worn it, I actually have the paper to show I’m legally allowed. I’ve practiced drawing out of this holster many times, so there’s nothing odd about it at all. Feels like an old friend at my side.

I add a light jacket to conceal the gun and head out in the Jeep to buy the van. It’s a long drive into the country outside Norton, and though I’ve printed turn-by-turn directions—the downside of refusing to join the smartphone revolution is a reliance on maps and paper—it’s still a confusing mess to get to the listed destination. There’s a reason, I think, that scary movies are so often set out in the woods; there’s a brooding, primitive power out here, a sense of being made so small and vulnerable. The people who thrive here are strong.