Wolfhunter River (Stillhouse Lake #3)(13)

“I don’t know,” I say. “Snake in the mailbox has me on edge, obviously. So does what happened today. I just feel—”

“Exposed?” he asks. Puts his arms around me. “I’m sorry. I really am. I know you didn’t want to do that damn show in the first place, and I’m sorry I didn’t warn you off it harder. I had a bad feeling, and I’m sorry to be right. I still didn’t think they’d dare pull that, not after all the agreements.”

“Neither did I, or I never would have been there.” I relax into his warmth. His strength. I can disarm for a moment here with him, even if it is out in the open. “Maybe we’ll get lucky. Maybe somebody left a fingerprint on the mailbox.”

“You never answered the kids,” he says, and tips my chin up. It’s dark, but not dark enough that I miss the look in his eyes. “What kind of snake was it?”

“Timber rattler.”

“Jesus, Gwen!”

“I know.” I rest my head against his shoulder. “I’m fine. The snake’s fine, even. No harm done.”

He has a lot to say about that, I can sense it, but he holds back. I can tell he brought me out here to talk about something, but I doubt it’s the snake in the mailbox. Odd. He usually doesn’t hesitate to bring up uncomfortable things.

I think about how strange this is. Every once in a while, it hits me: Sam is the brother of one of Melvin’s victims. By any logic at all, he shouldn’t be here, and we shouldn’t have . . . this. It didn’t start that way; I didn’t trust him, and he believed deep down that I was guilty. It’s taken time and work and pain to get here to this moment of trust, of peace. And it’s still fragile, even though we’ve built that bridge. It isn’t steel. It’s glass. And sometimes there are cracks.

After a long moment of silence, he says, “Listen, about Miranda Tidewell. Did she . . . did she say what she was really planning?”

“Just some kind of documentary. For release everywhere, I guess, or as wide as she can manage. I’m going to guess it won’t be flattering.” I try to make that sound light, but it isn’t. It can’t be. Miranda Tidewell is filthy rich and brutally angry, and if she can’t take an actual hatchet to my life, she’ll do it with a metaphorical one instead. She understands the power of the medium.

“Gwen.” He moves his hands from my waist and cups my face, a wonderfully gentle gesture, something that makes me catch my breath. “How are we going to do this? Tell me. Tell me how we protect the kids from this.”

“I don’t know,” I tell him. I feel tears prickle at the corners of my eyes, and blink hard to keep them from forming. “Maybe we can’t. Maybe we have to help them learn to live with it instead.”

“God,” he says, “I hope you’re wrong. I really do.”

When he kisses me, it’s sweet and gentle, with an ember of heat beneath it. A little desperation too. I feel that. We’re always, ever standing on the edge of a cliff with some long, dark drop below. Right now that cliff feels especially precarious.

“Food’s ready,” he says. “How scared do we all need to be?”

“Very,” I say. “I need you and the kids to be on guard.” I hate that. I hate taking away the small bit of normality we’ve carved out for the kids. But they’re going to have to understand what might be coming.

We lay it out over the dinner. It’s rosemary chicken, my favorite. That was sweet of them. The chicken’s delicious, the beans done just right; the salad is a mess but my kids are trying. None of us really taste any of it, I think, as we talk about the possibility that Stillhouse Lake may get more and more hostile for us. We talk about awareness, and staying with friends and adults we can trust. We talk about what to do if things go wrong. It’s not a fun conversation, but it’s necessary.

The kids don’t protest. I see Lanny’s mutinous anger; she’s just gotten to an age where she wants her life to get bigger, not smaller. Connor’s less bothered. He’s been introverted since well before this, and I don’t see that changing anytime soon.

But I have to keep close watch on my daughter.

They ask to be excused. I let them go with their plates half-finished, and Sam and I clean up the kitchen. I keep glancing over to be sure I’ve set the alarm to stay. He notices, but he doesn’t comment. I wash the plates and pass them over, and he dries and puts them away. It’s done in a comfortable, easy silence, but my mind keeps going back to the studio, the frozen horror, the way I lost it on live television. It’s like touching a hot stove, but I can’t stop.

I’m almost grateful for the distraction when the home phone rings. I keep a landline for safety reasons; nine times out of ten it’s some recorded voice trying to scam me, but landlines don’t go down nearly as fast in a crisis as cell phones, and they’re not reliant on either battery or house power.

I feel better having it as a fail-safe.

I reach for the phone, then pull back. I don’t recognize the number, so I listen as the recorder catches the call. Old-fashioned, but this way I can screen calls and pick up if I recognize urgency. I’ve got the volume low, and I’m prepared to walk away. But after the greeting starts, a real human voice on the other end says, “Uh, hi, I’m looking for . . . for somebody named Gwen Proctor?”