Wolfhunter River (Stillhouse Lake #3)(20)

“Changed my number,” says Mike Lustig. “Thanks for picking up, my man. Jesus, what are you driving, an F-15?”

“Beat-up Chevy,” I tell him. “Sounds about the same, right?”

“What? I. Can’t. Hear. You.” He overly enunciates all of it, but he’s just yanking my chain.

“Then you won’t hear me calling you an asshole who hasn’t been in touch,” I tell him. “How long has it been?”

“According to my call log? Four months, give or take.”

“My point exactly. Some friend you are.”

“Settle your pasty self down, I had an undercover assignment. You’d have liked it, I got to learn how to print money.”

“New retirement plan?”

“Way things are going around here, might just be,” he says. “Government service is never exactly fun, but it’s a special flavor of shit now.”

“Preacher says this too shall pass.”

“We got very different preachers.”

“So . . . you called? You just bored?”

“No,” Mike says. He sounds less light now. “Gwen just couldn’t keep her damn self off the news, could she? You realize what all that means now. Creepy crawlies coming out of the woodwork again for her, you, the kids. Damn, all she had to do was keep her head down.”

“You got any idea how much the press was on her? She needed to get in front of it and try to put it to rest.”

“And how’d that work out?” He pauses for a few seconds. “Miranda goddamn Tidewell was on there. Did you see her?”

“No.” I’m glad I didn’t. I haven’t looked at the YouTube footage either. I can’t.

“You don’t need me to tell you that you need to stay the hell away from that, right?”

“I don’t, in fact. But thanks for thinking I’m a first-class idiot.”

“Coach class,” Mike says. “No way your cheap flyboy ass pays for an upgrade.”

“Fuck off, my taxes pay your cushy government salary. Bet you don’t hear that often enough.”

He has a low voice, and a lower laugh; it vibrates the phone speaker. “Man, you can really channel your inner white boy sometimes. Listen, serious for a second: this thing you got with Gwen . . .”

“Don’t. Don’t start it.”

“Sam, it ain’t gonna go well. You have to know that. Sooner or later somebody’s getting hurt. Probably her. And we both know why, don’t we?”

By this time I’ve arrived at the gun range. I get out of the truck. I’m silent for a little while, leaning against the rough concrete blocks of the building. The parking lot’s crowded, but there’s nobody outside, just me and the frogs croaking somewhere in the trees. “Yeah, I know,” I say. “I hear you. But right now, she’s in trouble. I can’t just . . . go.”

“Gwen Proctor’s a survivor.”

“You think I’m not?”

“I think you used to be, until you let your guard down.” Mike hesitates for a few seconds, then sighs. “Listen, I gave somebody your number. Take the call, okay? It’s important.”

“The hell are you getting me into?”

“Nothing you can’t handle,” he says. “Be safe, Sam. I still care. Why, I’ll never know.”

“That’s sweet, but I’m still turning you in for counterfeiting. What’s that, a solid twenty in the federal lockup?”

“See, now you’re just being mean.” He hangs up. I replace his old number with the new one, and I stay where I am for another long moment. He’s right. Bad times are coming between me and Gwen; Miranda’s reappearance ensures that. And I really do need to consider what that can mean. But not now. The longer I can avoid that particular problem, the better.

I go inside and ask Javier if he’s seen anyone suspicious. It doesn’t make me feel better that he hasn’t. Too many targets on our backs, and not a damn thing I can do about any of them. The range is packed right now, not a single lane space open, so I just hang out. I like Javier. He’s a retired marine, still young, and he’s got that gravity that makes people pay attention when he talks, no matter how quietly. He can defuse tension on the range just by walking in; whatever disputes people are having, they generally vanish the second he appears.

If I’d gone to get him when Belldene started his shit instead of handling it myself, he probably would have ended it with a staredown instead of a smackdown.

“You want me to keep an eye out for strangers,” Javier says when I get ready to leave. We can hear the steady, muted hammer of gunfire on the other side of the concrete wall, but neither of us pays much attention. It’s when the firing stops that you have to worry at a gun range, because it means everybody’s paying attention to something, or somebody’s hurt. “Trust me, I will. How are the kids?”

“Good,” I tell him. I know he still feels guilty that Connor and Lanny managed to sneak out of his cabin and get into trouble after Gwen entrusted them to his care. “They’re fine. And they miss you coming by.”

He nods, but there’s a certain set to his expression that I read as reluctance.

“She doesn’t blame you,” I tell him. “Not at all. You did your best to keep them safe.”