Stillhouse Lake (Stillhouse Lake #1)(63)

Sam Cade has been stalking me. I have no question about it now; he moved in after I had, into that cabin, though he made a point of not encountering me until much later on. He made it seem natural. He worked his way in the door, into my life, into the lives of my kids, and I hadn’t seen a thing.

I wanted to throw up. Gwen Proctor wasn’t a new person. She was just Gina Royal 2.0, ready to fall for anything sold to her by a man with a nice face and an easy smile. I’d left him with my kids. Jesus. God forgive me.

I can’t get my breath. I realize I’m sucking in air too fast, and I duck my head and try to control my breathing. I feel light-headed, and I hear the scrape of the chair as Prester gets up and comes around to rest his hand gently on my back. “Easy,” he tells me. “Easy, slow down now. Deep breaths. In, out. Good.”

I pant the question out, ignoring his advice. “What did he do?” Anger is what I need. Anger steadies me, grounds me, gives me a purpose and forces the panic right out. I straighten up, blinking away the spots, and he takes a step back. I wonder what he’s just seen in my face. “Is it him? Is Sam the one who killed those girls?” Because wouldn’t that just be perfect. Gina Royal falls for a serial killer, twice. Can’t say I don’t have a type.

“We’re looking into that,” Prester says. “Point is, Mr. Cade is a person of interest, and we’re questioning him. Sorry about springing it on you that fast, but I wanted to know . . .”

“You wanted to see if I already knew who he was,” I snap back. “Of course I fucking didn’t know. I’d never have left my kids with him, would I?”

I can see him taking the idea out for a spin. No way I’d willingly allow a victim’s relative into my life, into my house, if I had known better. Prester’s trying to fit some scenario together where Sam Cade and I have done this together, but not only do the edges not fit, they’re not even from the same damn puzzle. Either I killed these girls or Sam Cade did, in some crazy attempt to implicate me and earn me the prison sentence he thought I’d cheated . . . or neither of us did it. But we didn’t do it together. Not by the facts he’s got before him.

Prester doesn’t like this at all. I can see him working at it, and I don’t blame him for looking like he needs a bottle of bourbon and a day off.

“If Cade did this,” I tell him, “then you nail his ass to the wall. For God’s sake, do it.”

He sighs. He’s in for another long day, and I can tell he knows it. He reads the file folder again, flipping pages, and I let him think about it.

When he finally stands up, he gathers his files and pictures. I can see he’s made a decision, and sure enough, he holds the door open for me and says, “Your kids are down the hall to the right, in the break room. Sam drove them here in your Jeep. Take ’em home. But don’t leave town. If you do, I’ll make it my personal mission to set the FBI on your trail, and I will ruin whatever life you’ve got left. Understand me?”

I nod. I don’t thank him, because he’s not really doing me any favors. He realizes that he’s got precious little to hold me on, if anything, and a good defense attorney—like, say, one from Knoxville—would knock his case into the trash without even breaking a sweat, especially with Sam Cade right there hiding in plain sight. Christ, I even feel a little sorry for Prester in that moment.

But not enough to hesitate. I am out the door in a second, rushing past the small bullpen room of the Norton Police Department. I see Officer Graham filling in some paperwork, and he looks up as he sees me pass. I don’t nod or smile, because I’m too fixed on the break room door. It’s clear glass with miniblinds hanging at a cockeyed angle, and through the gap I see Lanny and Connor sitting together at a square white table, dispiritedly picking at a bag of popcorn sitting open between them. I take a breath, because seeing them alive and fine and unharmed feels so good it physically hurts.

I open the door and step in, and Lanny stands up so fast her chair skids backward across the tile and nearly tips over. She rushes to me and remembers that she’s the oldest just in time to not throw herself into my arms. Connor blasts past her and flings himself at me instead, and I hug him fiercely and open one arm to her, and she grudgingly accepts. I feel the stabbing relief start to melt, replaced with something sweeter, warmer, kinder.

“They arrested you,” Lanny says. Her voice is muffled against me, but she pulls away to look directly at me on the last word. “Why did they do that?”

“They think I might be responsible for—”

I don’t finish the thought, but she does. “For the murders,” she says. “Sure. Because of Dad.” She says it like it’s the most logical conclusion in the world. Maybe it is. “But you didn’t do it.”

She says it with casual conviction, and I feel a swell of love for her, for that unthinking trust. She’s usually so suspicious of my motives that having her grant me this one thing means more than I can begin to comprehend.

Connor pulls away, then, and says, “Mom, they came and got us! I said we shouldn’t go, but Lanny said—”

“Lanny said we’re not getting into a stupid fight with the cops,” Lanny supplies. “Which we didn’t. Besides, they didn’t come for us, exactly. They just couldn’t leave us there alone. I made them bring the Jeep. So we’d have a way home.” She hesitates for a moment and tries to make the next question look casual. “Um . . . so did they tell you why they want to talk to Sam? Was it something you told them?”