Stillhouse Lake (Stillhouse Lake #1)(73)

I’m the bathroom peeing when my burner phone rings, and I grab it and look at the number. I don’t recognize it, but it could be Absalom.

I quickly wipe and flush before I hit the “Answer” button and say, “Hello?”

“Hello, Gina.”

The voice takes my breath away. It’s the voice from my head, the voice I can never exorcise no matter how much I pray. My fingers go numb, and I lean against the sink, staring at my horrified, stark face in the mirror.

Melvin Royal is on the phone with me. How is this happening?

“Gina? Still there?”

I want to hang up. Keeping an open connection is like holding a bag full of spiders. But somehow, I manage to say, “Yes. I’m here.” Melvin likes to brag. Likes to savor his victories. If he’s orchestrated this, he’ll say so, and maybe, just maybe, he’ll say something that I can use.

He has my number. How did he get my number? How could he?

Kez. She was new in my life . . . but I hadn’t given her my number. Sam. No, not Sam. Please, not Sam.

Wait.

I’d taken my phone to the prison. I’d had to surrender it on the way in, pick it up on the way out. Someone inside there is responsible for passing along his mail. Not impossible they hacked my phone, too. They’d have had enough time. I’m ill that I didn’t think of it before.

Mel’s still talking. His voice holds that artificial warmth now. “Sweetheart. You’re having a real bad week. Is it true there’s another body?”

“Yes. I saw her.”

“What color was she?”

I’d expected a lot of responses from him. Not that one. “Sorry?” I say blankly.

“I made a color chart once, of how they look at different stages without skin. Was she more of a raw-chicken color, or was it more of a slimy brown?”

“Shut up.”

“Make me, Gina. Hang up on me. But wait, if you do, if you do, you’ll never find out who’s coming for you.”

“I’m going to kill you.”

“Absolutely, you should do that. But you won’t have time. I promise you that.”

I’m colder than I think I’ve ever been. His voice still sounds so like him . . . reasonable, calm, measured. Rational. Except nothing he’s saying is rational at all. “Then tell me. You’re wasting time.”

“I guess you found out about your new friend Sam. You just can’t catch a break with men, can you? I’ll bet he was thinking about all the things he was going to do to you. Got him off every night, that anticipation.”

“Is that what gets you off, Mel? Because it’s all you’ll ever get. You’re never seeing me again. Never touching me. And I’m going to get through this.”

“You don’t even know what’s happening. You can’t see it.”

“Then tell me,” I say. “Tell me what I’m missing. I know you’re dying to tell me how stupid I am!”

“I will,” he says, and suddenly his tone shifts. The mask shreds loose, and I hear the monster talking. It’s very, very different. It doesn’t even sound human. “I want you to know that when it comes, when it all falls down, it’s your fault, you worthless, stupid bitch. I should have started with you. But I’ll finish with you, one of these days. You think I won’t touch you? I will. From the inside out.”

It raises my skin into goose bumps, makes me back into a corner, as if somehow he can reach out and grab me even through the phone. He isn’t here. He won’t be here. But that voice . . .

“You’re never leaving that cell,” I manage to say. I know I no longer sound like Gwen. I sound like Gina now. I am Gina now.

“Oh, didn’t you hear? My new lawyer thinks I have a rights violation case. Might get some evidence thrown out. Might be a new trial, Gina. What do you think, you want to go through it all again? Do you want to testify this time?”

The idea makes me physically sick, and I feel acid scorch the back of my throat in a bitter wave. I don’t answer him. Hang up. I’m screaming it at myself, as if I’m standing outside of my body. Hang up hang up hang up! It’s like being trapped in a nightmare, and I can’t seem to move . . . and then I take a breath and the paralysis breaks, and I move my thumb to the “Disconnect” button.

“I’ve changed my mind,” he says, but I’m already pressing. “I’ll tell you—”

Click. I did it. He’s gone. It feels like I won a point . . . did I? Or did I just run away?

Oh God. If they got into my phone, they might have more from it. The kids’ numbers. Absalom’s. What else did I have in there?

I sink down to a crouch with my back wedged in the corner between the sink and the hinges of the door, and I put the phone carefully on the floor and stare at it as if it might change into rotting meat, or burst into a flood of scorpions. I reach up and take down the hand towel and I bite into it hard, so hard my jaw muscles ache, and I scream into the muffling comfort of it.

I do that until my mind is clear again. It takes a couple of minutes. Finally, I start to close in on the questions. How? Someone at the prison must have ganked my number from the phone while I was there. But how did he call? Melvin’s phone privileges are strictly reserved for his lawyer; he’s not allowed contact with anyone else, and I am specifically on his do-not-call list. But even on death row, I imagine it’s possible to buy time with a smuggled cell phone.