Stillhouse Lake (Stillhouse Lake #1)(72)

I’m not willing to grant much, but I’m willing, for argument’s sake, to eliminate Easy Claremont. He hadn’t looked up to scaling the hill to his house, much less abducting, killing, and disposing of two healthy, strong young women. I can exempt myself. Twenty-eight houses. That includes Sam Cade, whom the police already eliminated and I suppose, grudgingly, I might have to as well. Twenty-seven, then. That’s a small number.

“Do you have names?” I ask her. She nods, and from her pocket she produces a folded piece of paper that she hands over. It’s plain copy paper, standard from any office printer, and on it is a list of the names and addresses and phone numbers. She’s been thorough. Some have asterisks, and I see that those notate criminal records. I’m not particularly suspicious of the two guys with the conviction for cooking meth who share a cabin way up the slope, but it’s certainly good information to know. There’s a sex offender, too, but Kezia’s bold handwritten notation shows he’s already been thoroughly questioned and, though not eliminated, mostly discounted as a suspect.

Kezia says, “I would have done more on my own, but I figured you might need something to do to take your mind off things. This is all my own time, nothing on the books.”

I look at her. She’s not smiling. There’s something unyielding in her, something that bends but doesn’t break, and I recognize it. I feel it in myself, too. “You know who I am,” I say. “Why do you want to help me?”

“Because you need it, and Easy asked. But also . . .” She shakes her head and looks away. “I know what it’s like to be judged for something you never got to control.”

I swallow hard, taste the fleeting ghost of my cooling pancakes and syrup. I’m thirsty for coffee. “You want to come inside?” I ask her. “We’re having pancakes. I’ve got enough to stretch to another plate.”

She gives me a slow, quiet smile. “I wouldn’t mind.”





11


Kezia Claremont, it turns out, is a hit with my kids, who start off quiet and wary, but she has a way with them, a natural charm that teases out conversations from silence. She, I think, will make a great investigator someday. She’s wasted in uniform, handling rowdy drunks—though she was flawless at that, too. I warm up my breakfast as I make hers, and we eat together as the kids clean their plates and wander off to their separate areas. I think Lanny wants to stay, but I give her the quiet shake of the head, and she retreats.

“I have some contacts,” Kezia tells me quietly, once we’re alone. “I can start them on background work, off books. Listen, my father said you were in trouble, and no shit, those vandals hit you fast. You’re going to need some on-site protection.”

“I know,” I tell her. “I’m armed, but—”

“But offense isn’t defense. Listen, you know Javier. He’s the other reason I’m here. He likes you. Not willing to believe you’re all the way innocent just yet, but he’s willing to help keep the wolves off you if you’ll agree.”

I think about how things might have been different if only I’d loaded up the van and departed that first time I had the impulse, headed hellbound and out of town instead of lingering like some fool who couldn’t see it coming. I had good reasons, but those reasons seem useless now. They seem like illusions. I can’t trade for that van now that I’ve wrecked the Jeep, and anyway, Javier would never give it to me. Neither of us will want paper trails.

“If he’s willing to keep an eye out for us, I’m good,” I say. “I’d feel better if I had the rest of his regiment along with him.”

Kez raises a sharply arched eyebrow. “You’d better take what you get. Allies are going to be thin on the ground for you right now.”

She’s right, and I shut up and nod. “I’ll take half the list,” I say. “I have someone who might be willing to help do the research.” Absalom won’t be free, but trying to avoid paying for help would be cutting my own throat right now. I can’t run. I might as well put my money to use cutting myself out of this net that Mel (because it has to be Mel) has thrown around me. Can’t start a new life with it if I’m behind bars. Can’t save my family if my kids are taken from me and sent to foster care.

Kezia’s right; at this moment I need to take every ally I can get.

So when we finish breakfast, I thank her and get her phone number in return. I realize that if I’ve read her wrong, everything we’ve discussed could be recorded, documented, part of the official Norton police record . . . but I don’t think Prester would go that route.

I text Absalom, who replies with a simple WHAT, as if I’ve caught him in the middle of something important, and I tell him in simple terms what I need. His reply is blunt and to the point: thot u in jail. I text back not guilty and get silence for a full minute before he types one single question mark, which I know means what do you need in his particular, peculiar shorthand.

So I take a picture of the piece of paper, with Kezia’s neat, precise handwriting, and I tell him which names I want him to research. He texts back a price in Bitcoin that makes me wince, but he knows I’ll pay it, and I do, from my computer. I don’t check e-mail. It’s time to destroy the account again; even if there are clues in there, I can’t swim in the toxic flood without corrupting my soul along with it. I leave it for now, transfer the money to him, and send an e-mail with the same picture of the list, names marked, to the private investigator I’ve used before, along with her standard fee.