Stillhouse Lake (Stillhouse Lake #1)(67)

He yelps and lets go of the sides of the truck just before his fingers are crushed. It’d be funny if I weren’t scared shitless and responsible for two innocent children, whereas these jackasses aren’t even responsible for their own selves.

When the two facing me decide to rush me, I flip the stun function switch on the flashlight and keep it pointed away from me as I activate it. It’s still like a brick to the face; the strobing, asymmetric, incredibly bright lights and the ear-shattering shriek are bad enough behind the thing, much less ahead of it.

It knocks Carl and his friend flat on their asses, mouths open in frantic yells I can’t hear over the din. I feel a bitter, fantastic rush of adrenaline that makes me want to smash the hell out of them with the tire iron and make sure, absolutely sure, that these assholes never threaten my children again.

But I don’t. I’m on the thin, shivering edge of it, but what stops me is the idea that I’ll just prove Prester right. Prove myself a murderer. Local blood on my hands. As quickly as they’d acquit someone else for shooting me, they’d strap me down for the needle if I hit these guys when they’re down. It’s really all that keeps me standing there, holding the strobe and siren on them instead of finishing this for good.

Even though I’m blinded by the strobes, I know the police are coming when Connor rolls the window down next to me and grabs my arm. He’s pointing down at the road, and when I look that way, I see a cruiser pulling up with its light bar slashing the night. I see two figures get out and start toiling up the hill toward me, flashlights bobbing and illuminating startling patches of green brush and bone-pale rocks.

I shut the flashlight’s defense mode down and keep the halogen beam fixed on the two drunks, who are now struggling up to their knees, spitting mad. They’re still holding hands to their ears. One of them leans over and throws up a gush of pale beer, but the other—Carl—keeps his gaze fixed hard on me. I see the hate in it. There’s no reasoning with him. And no way to feel safe.

“Police are coming,” I tell him. He looks over, like he didn’t notice—and he probably hadn’t—and a flash of pure rage makes me tighten up my grip on the tire iron again. He wants to hurt me. Maybe kill me. And maybe he wants to take his fury out on the kids.

“You fucking whore,” he says. I think about what a satisfying crunch the tire iron would make coming in contact with his teeth. He’s five foot eight of bad breath and shitty posture, and I can’t think I’m taking a light out of the world if I end him. But I suppose he has people who love him.

Even I have that much.

Officer Graham is the first to make it to my side. I’m glad to see him; he’s bigger and taller, and he looks like he could intimidate the spine out of just about anyone if he wanted to give it a try. He takes in the situation, frowns, and says, “What the hell is going on?”

It’s in my best interest to get my story in first, and I’m quick off the mark. “These idiots decided to pay me a not-so-friendly visit,” I say. “They blocked us into the driveway. Somebody—probably them—vandalized the house. I tried to go cross-country, but a rock took out my steering. I didn’t have a choice. I had to try to keep them away from my kids.”

“Lying bitch—”

Graham extends a hand toward the drunk without taking his gaze off me. “Officer Claremont will be taking your statement,” he tells him. “Kez?”

Graham’s partner tonight is a tall, lean, African American woman with close-cropped hair and a no-nonsense briskness. She leads the two drunks over to the wrecked pickup and calls for rescue and an ambulance to get the three from the cab and the one broken farther up the hill. They’re babbling at her in high-pitched, urgent, slurring voices. I don’t imagine she’s enjoying herself.

“So all this came with no provocation at all, is what you’re saying,” Graham says.

I turn back to look at him, then lean into Connor’s open window to kiss his forehead. “Lanny? You all right, sweetheart?”

She gives me a thumbs-up and tilts her head back to help slow down the bloody nose.

“Mind putting down the tire iron?” Graham says in a dry voice, and I realize I’m clutching it tightly, as if I’m still facing threats. My thumb is resting on the stun function button of the flashlight, too. I ease myself back from that invisible cliff and lay both things down next to the Jeep, then take a couple of steps away. “Okay. Good start. Now, you said these boys blocked you in. You had words with them?”

“I don’t even know them,” I say. “But I guess the information is out about my ex. I’m assuming you know.”

He doesn’t betray much, but I see something stir down in the depths of his gaze, and his mouth goes tight. He deliberately loosens it. “As I understand it, your husband is a convicted murderer.”

“Ex-husband.”

“Uh-huh. A serial killer, if I got it right.”

“You know you do,” I say. “Word’s traveling fast. Guess it would in a small town like this. I asked Detective Prester for some kind of protective detail for my kids—”

“We were on the way to take that up,” he tells me. “We’d have been parked out front tonight.”

“I guess the paint would have probably dried by then.”

“Paint?”