Stillhouse Lake (Stillhouse Lake #1)(93)

I’d been afraid that she was part of it, too, but I hear the tense anger in her voice, though she’s trying to hold it back. She’s trying to talk him down.

She’s trying to save me.

“It’s me,” I say. “It’s Gwen.”

“Jesus!” I hear a confusion of noise, like she’s nearly dropped the phone. I also hear another voice, male, but I can’t make out what he’s saying. “Jesus, Gwen, where are you? Where the hell are you?”

“Up on the ridge past Graham’s house. We need an ambulance up here,” I tell her. “He’s shot, and he has a stab wound in his side. I need police. He told me my kids are up in his grandfather’s cabin. Do you know where it is?”

I’m shivering so hard my teeth are clacking together. The truck’s engine has warmed a little, and the blast of the heater feels fantastic. I drag Kyle’s down jacket over and put it over my shoulders. My left arm still burns, but when I look at it in the overhead light, I find the pellets haven’t gone deep enough to do real damage. The wound to my head, though . . . I feel sick and weak and dizzy. The bleeding hasn’t stopped. I reach up and feel the pulse of warm, watery blood coming from the slash in my scalp, and fumble for tissues to press against it. I almost miss Kezia’s reply.

No, it isn’t Kezia. It’s Sam. He’s in the car with her. “Gwen, are you all right? Gwen?”

“I’m okay,” I lie. “My kids. Graham’s boys are at that cabin, too. I don’t know if they’re armed, but—”

“Don’t you worry about that. We’re coming to you right now, okay?”

“Graham needs an ambulance.”

“Fuck Graham,” he says, and I hear the vicious edge in his voice. “What about you?”

The tissues I’ve pressed to my wound are already a sodden mess. “I might need stitches,” I say. “Sam?”

“I’m here.”

“Please. Please help me get the kids.”

“They’re going to be okay. We’ll get them. You just stay there. Hang on. Kez has the location of the cabin. We’re coming to you. It’s all coming straight to you.”

Kezia’s driving, and I’ve been in the car with her; she’s using police tactics, driving with controlled wildness and tremendous speed. I look in the rearview mirror. I can see the headlights of a police cruiser swerving and speeding down the main road. I see them turn at the Johansens’ cutoff.

Sam’s still talking, but I’m tired. The phone rests on my leg, though I’m not sure when I put it down. My aching, pulsing head is leaning against the window glass. I’m not shivering anymore.

I say, Get my kids, or at least I think it, before everything goes very, very dark.





14


“Gwen? My God.”

I open my eyes. Sam is crouched beside me, and he looks . . . odd. He turns and says, “I need that first-aid kit!”

Kezia is right behind him, and she dumps a large red bag beside him. He rips open the Velcro top and searches inside.

“What are you doing?” I ask him. I’m not clear. I’m definitely not, but I’ve stopped hurting, mostly. Amazing what a little sleep will do. “I’m okay.”

“No, you’re not. Quiet.” He takes a thick pad of bandages and presses them tight to my head, and the pain comes back in a sullen roar. “Can you hold that for me? Hold it.” He presses my hand to the pad, and I manage to do as he says while he breaks out more bandages and wraps everything in place. “How much blood did you lose?”

“Lots,” I tell him. “Doesn’t matter. Where’s the cabin?”

“You are not going to the cabin.” I fumble for my gun. He effortlessly takes it away, empties the chamber and strips the mag in one move, then tosses the pieces in the back seat of the SUV. “You are not going anywhere but to the hospital. You need x-rays on that skull. I don’t like the look of that. You could have a depressed fracture.”

“I don’t care. I’m going.” And I will, in a minute. It seems a monumental effort to get out of the truck right now. “Did you get my text?”

He gives me an odd look. “When?”

“Never mind.” Graham was successful in that. He’d managed to break my phone before the text got sent. “How did you figure out he was bad?”

“He didn’t show up for the search,” Sam tells me. He’s busy checking my eyes with a penlight, which is annoying and painful, and I try to bat him away. “Kez did a little digging. Turns out he’d been gone a full day off work during the time of each abduction, and again on the days we figure he disposed of the bodies. She’d been having a feeling about him for a while. When we found out he showed up at the station and gave you a ride—”

“Thanks,” I tell him. He looks set and grimly angry.

“Yeah, not like we got here in time to do much good rescuing you.”

I still one of his hands that’s probing my neck for injuries and hang on to it. “Sam. Thank you.”

We look at each other for a few seconds, and then he nods and continues his evaluation.

Kezia’s gone to check on Graham. She comes back and takes the first-aid kit, and soon after that I see the flashing signals of the ambulance. Out here in the sticks, the ambulance comes with four-wheel drive, which allows it to pull up past the truck and toward the trail head, where I see Kezia tending to Graham in the wash of the headlights.