Wolfhunter River (Stillhouse Lake #3)(107)

“I’m sorry,” I tell her. Not for this. For everything that brought her here.

And then I can’t hold her, and she’s falling, and I’m falling too. I know I should get up. I feel that urgently. But there’s a thick, warm pool of blood forming under me and sinking into the expensive Oriental carpet, and I don’t know if it’s from Celeste or from me, and maybe it doesn’t matter anymore.

“Mom?”

Someone’s holding me down. There’s pain, sharp enough to make me open my eyes. “Ow.”

“Tie it tighter!” That’s my son’s voice.

“I’ve got it.” Lanny. The pain gets worse. “Sorry, Mom, but we have to stop the bleeding.” It really hurts, and I struggle to make them stop. “Hold her down!”

More hands on me. I look up.

I see Sam, looking stark and calm. Connor’s next to him. Both of them are holding on to me as my daughter pulls a leather belt taut over a thick, bulky piece of cloth. She’s used her own shirt for the bandage, I realize. She’s just wearing a sports bra. Put something on, I try to tell her, because I don’t like anyone being vulnerable right now, not here, not in this place.

There’s a man in a police uniform and a big hat pacing around behind them. He’s talking on the phone.

“Quiet,” Sam tells me, and puts his hand on my face. “Gwen, help’s on the way. The kids are okay. We’re all okay.”

I think he’s lying, but I don’t care.

I let it go.





EPILOGUE

GWEN

Four months later

I’m shifting uneasily in a stiff chair and facing an unblinking glass eye. It’s not the Howie Hamlin Show this time.

It’s a video camera, but it isn’t on. It’s sitting on a shelf along with a bunch of other equipment. Tools of the trade. A trade I hope I’ll be joining, if I make it through this interview.

“I usually start by saying, ‘Tell me about yourself,’” the round-faced woman sitting across from me says. She’s a tanned sort; outdoorsy is the word that comes to mind, and she hasn’t bothered to dye her graying, practical hair. “That’s really not necessary for you, because Lordy, I have never seen so many Google results come up on anyone who’s not an actor in my life. But still: tell me about yourself, Gwen. I want to know your view.”

“That’s the last thing I want to talk about,” I tell J. B. Hall. The J, she’s informed me, doesn’t stand for anything at all. The B is for Barbara, which she loathes. “I’m not that complicated. I just want to keep my family together, and safe from harm.”

“The most basic of things,” she says. “Leads to all sorts of nonsense, doesn’t it?”

“In my case? Yes.”

“I admire what you’ve managed to do,” J. B. says. “Not just surviving, though that’s admirable, but the things you’ve uncovered in the process. Not everyone has these instincts. Or the drive. It’s impressive.”

“I don’t do it alone,” I tell her.

“I know that. Family affair, is it?”

“More or less.” It hurts to say it, because I’d like to say yes. I want Sam as family. I need that. And maybe that will happen. But there are wounds between us that are going to take time and love to heal before either of us wants to make it legal. We’re together. I can’t say we’re fine. Not yet.

“Instincts and dedication are everything in this business,” she tells me. “Everything else can be learned. You’ve already taken most of the coursework, is that right?” She’s talking about the associate’s degree necessary to secure a private investigator’s license.

“I’m seventy-five percent finished,” I tell her. “I’ll be done by the end of the quarter. At that point, I can either start as an independent company, or join another one.”

“And why did you choose mine?”

“Because the Whites recommended you,” I tell her. Ellie’s parents have been extraordinarily grateful for her safe rescue, even though I had little enough to do with that. This woman was with them in the greenroom that terrible day on the show, the day everything started to come apart. Smart, calm, competent. I like her. I want her to like me, and that’s a relatively new sensation.

“That’s odd they’d recommend me,” she says, “seeing as I got next to nowhere on that case, and you and your friend Mr. Cade got everywhere.”

“They like you,” I say. “And you have a lot of positive Google results, so . . .”

She laughs. I like her laugh. Low and raspy. It reminds me a bit of Miranda Tidewell, but I never heard that woman laugh, not with any kind of humor. There is something similar about J. B. Hall, but a cleaner version. A healthier one. Maybe that’s why I’m here, trying to make amends to a ghost who—I’m sure—would still be happy to drag me to hell.

Jesus. I need more therapy.

We’re in a high-rise office in Knoxville—as high-rise as Knoxville gets, about twenty-seven stories. The J. B. Hall Agency is busy as hell outside of the glass cube we’re sitting inside; there are at least a dozen people talking, walking, working on computers, and I know there are twice as many already out and working outside. It’s a good place. It has good energy.