Stillhouse Lake (Stillhouse Lake #1)(57)

Someone’s sending a message.

It has to be Mel.

In a strange, uneasy turn, I actually hope it is, because at least I know Mel. I know where he is. But he has help, I think. Help willing to do exactly what Mel asks. And I won’t lie, that frightens me deeply. I don’t want to find Lanny dead next. Or Connor, slaughtered in his bed. I don’t want to die at the end of a wire noose, burning in unspeakable agony from being flayed alive.

It’s the wee hours when Prester sends me home. Norton is a ghost town, not a single other vehicle on the empty streets, and the deep night gets darker and darker as the squad car turns for the lake. It’s Officer Lancel Graham driving me—I suppose because that means he can head straight home afterward. He doesn’t talk to me. I don’t try to start a conversation. I lean my head against the cool glass and wish I could sleep. I won’t sleep tonight, or probably tomorrow, either. The photos of that murdered young woman will flare into horrific color against my eyelids, and I won’t be able to blink them away.

Mel isn’t haunted by his victims. He always slept soundly and woke rested.

I’m the one who has nightmares.

“We’re here,” says Graham, and I realize that the sedan has stopped, that somehow I closed my eyes and drifted off after all, into an uneasy doze. I thank him as he comes around and opens the door. He even offers me a hand out, which I take for politeness, and then I am unsettled when he doesn’t let go immediately. I can see him—no, feel him watching me.

“I believe you,” he says, which surprises me. “Prester’s on a bad trail, Ms. Proctor. I know you have nothing to do with this. Sorry, I realize it’s tearing up your life.”

I wonder how much Prester has said, and if the news about my other name, about Gina Royal, has started to leak already. I don’t think so. Graham doesn’t have the look of someone who knows about my ex-husband.

He just seems sorry and a little concerned.

I thank him again, more warmly, and he lets me go. Javier steps out onto the porch as I approach, and he’s juggling his car keys in his hand. Impatient to be gone, I think.

“The kids—” I begin.

“They’re fine,” he says, cutting me off. “Asleep, or at least, pretending to be.” He gives me a sharp, merciless look. “He kept you a long time.”

“It’s not me, Javier. I swear that.”

He murmurs something that sounds like sure but is hard to hear as Graham fires up his cruiser again in the background. The flare of taillights paints Javier’s face crimson. He looks tired, and he rubs his face like a man trying to scrub away the last few hours. I wonder if this will drive him away from being my friend, as surely as it has Sam Cade. As surely as it will Officer Graham, once he knows my past—not that he’s truly a friend. Just friendly.

Nobody stays, I should know that by now. Nobody but the kids, who don’t have a choice in the matter because they’re mired in this bog just as I am, up to the neck.

“Lady, what the hell are you into?” Javier asks me, but I don’t think he wants to know. Not really. “Look, I told you, I’m a reserve deputy. I like you, but if it comes down to it . . .”

“You’ll do your duty, just like you did tonight.” I nod. “I get it. I’m just surprised you agreed to help me leave town in the first place.”

“I thought you were running from an abusive ex. I’ve seen the look plenty of times. I didn’t know . . .”

“Didn’t know what?” I challenge him directly this time, staring right into his eyes. I can’t read him, but I don’t think he can read me, either. Not completely.

“That you were involved in something like this,” he says.

“I’m not involved!”

“Doesn’t look like that.”

“Javi—”

“Let’s keep this real, Ms. Proctor. You get cleared, we’re cool. But until you are, let’s keep some distance, okay? And if you want my advice, you get the guns out of your house and turn them over to the range for safekeeping. We can hold them for you until this blows over, and I can swear out an affidavit for the PD. I just hate to think—”

“You hate to think about the cops coming and me having a small arsenal in here,” I say softly. “About the collateral damage that could cause.”

He nods slowly. There’s nothing aggressive about his body language, but there’s strength underlying it, a kind of calm, masculine strength that makes me want to believe in him. Trust him.

I don’t.

“I’ll hang on to my weapons until I see a court order telling me to surrender them,” I tell him. I don’t blink. If he thinks it’s aggressive, so be it. In this moment, in all moments now, I can’t afford to be seen as weak. Not for myself. I have two children in the house, and I’m responsible for their lives—lives that are never safe, never secure. I will do anything I must to defend them.

And I’m not giving up my weapons.

Javier shrugs. The gesture says he doesn’t care; the regretful slowness of it says he does. He doesn’t say good-bye, just turns and walks to the white van he’s driven up in, the one I came so, so close to escaping in. Before I can speak, he rolls down the window and pitches me the title for the Jeep. He doesn’t say the trade is off, but then, he hardly has to.