Stillhouse Lake (Stillhouse Lake #1)(48)

“Run,” I see him say, enunciating it so I can lip-read. “Run away.”

I walk instead. Slowly. Calmly.

Because fuck him.



On the way back to the airport, I am shaking so hard from delayed reaction that I have to pull over and buy a sweet, sugary drink to calm my nerves; I drink it parked, then decide to take a detour. I’m wearing a large pair of sunglasses, a blonde wig, and a floppy hat, and it’s close to sunset when I park four blocks away and walk to the empty lot that used to be our family home.

It’s nice, this little park. Thick green grass, neatly maintained; there’s a border of bright flowers and a stark marble square with a fountain bubbling on top of it. I read the inscription, which says nothing about this being a murder scene at all; it only lists the names of Mel’s victims and a date, and at the end, PEACE BE IN THIS PLACE.

There’s a bench invitingly close. There’s another small wrought-iron table and chairs on a concrete patio ten feet farther off, where our living room might have been.

I don’t sit down. I don’t have the right in this place to make myself at ease. I just look, bow my head a moment, and walk off. If anyone’s watching, I don’t want them to recognize me or approach me. I just want to be a lady out for a walk on a nice day.

It feels like I’m being watched, but I think that’s the weight of guilt on my shoulders. Ghosts must surely still linger here, angry and hungry. I can’t blame them for that. I can only blame myself.

I am walking fast by the time I reach my car again, and I pull out a little too quickly, as if something is chasing me. It takes miles for me to feel secure again, and to strip off the suffocating, sweaty weight of the wig and hat. I keep the sunglasses on. The sunset’s too bright without them.

I pull over again and take out my tablet computer. The reception isn’t great, and I have to wait for the feeds to load, but there it is: my house, viewable from the front door, the back, the long view, the inside. I can see Sam Cade out back, hammering boards on the unfinished deck.

I call Sam, and he tells me all’s well there. It all sounds like a normal, placid day. Uneventful.

Normality sounds like heaven, unattainable and forbidden. I’m all too aware how much power Mel still has over us. How he found us, I don’t know and probably never will. He’s got a source; that’s clear enough. Whoever is passing him information might not even be aware of the harm they’re doing. He’s a good liar. He’s always been a master manipulator. He’s a virulent virus loose on the world, and I should have used my shot at him to just kill the son of a bitch. If I call Absalom to set up something more final, it’ll cost more than I can safely pay. I know that. And when it comes to buying a murder, even the murder of a man on death row . . . there’s something in me that balks. Maybe it’s just a fear that I’ll be caught, and my kids will be left alone in the world. Helpless and unprotected.

I’m extra cautious on the rest of the drive, hyperaware of possible people trailing me, yet desperate to get home now. Every minute I’m gone is another minute I’m not there to protect my children, to act as their shield. I use express drop-off for the rental car. Security seems to take an eternity, and I want to scream at the idiots who don’t know how to take their shoes off, or their laptops out, or their phones from their pockets.

It doesn’t matter, because once I’m through, I find the flight out to Knoxville has been canceled. I have another two-hour wait for the next flight, and I find myself calculating the distance. I have a frantic impulse to drive it, to be doing something, but that would take even longer, of course.

I have to wait, and I do it sitting by a plug, charging my tablet. I watch the feed from the house as the sun starts to set and the picture adjusts to a grainier grayscale image. I flip to the inside camera and find that Sam is sitting on the sofa with a glass in his hand, watching TV. Lanny is making something in the kitchen. I don’t see Connor, but he’s probably in his room.

I keep watching the outside of the house. In case of . . . anything. I keep the display on even as the flight finally boards, and reluctantly thumb it off when the flight attendant tells me to disable the Internet function. I’m trying not to think about what might happen during the time I’m in the air. It’s not a very long flight, but it’s long enough. I pull the tablet out as soon as the sign indicates I can, hook it up to the costly airplane Wi-Fi, and check again.

It’s all peaceful. Eerily calm. I think about Mel’s bloody smile, and I find myself shivering like I’m freezing. Maybe I am. I turn off the overhead air and ask for a blanket, and I watch the tablet’s slow, glitching feed throughout the flight, until we’re heading in to the airport.

It takes forever to get to the gate and deplane. I am watching the cameras the whole, shuffling way up to the door, and the instant I’m through, I stow the tablet and run down the jet bridge tunnel, dodging other passengers, and sprint through the terminal toward the exit. I feel the hot breath on the back of my neck, again. I feel something like the light graze of snapping teeth.

Then I’m outside in the humid darkness and looking frantically for where I parked my Jeep. When I find it, I check the cameras again, and then I leave the tablet up and active on the passenger seat as I speed away from the airport and head toward Stillhouse Lake. I call Sam and tell him I’m on the way.

Whenever it’s safe on the drive, I snatch glimpses of the camera feeds, as I reassure myself that my children are all right, that no one has gotten to them . . . All the way, I remember that ghostly, ghastly smile on Mel’s broken face.