Wolfhunter River (Stillhouse Lake #3)(25)

I intend to tear it up, and I try, I really do; I grab it in both hands and start to twist it, but the second I feel the paper start to give, I stop.

What if there’s something important in it?

I can hear my mom’s voice. Nothing your father has to say is important. It’s just cruel.

But . . . what if there’s a clue to what he’s planned, and by tearing it up I miss it? No. I have to look. Just quickly. Just to be sure.

I sit down on the bed and—before I can talk myself out of it—I rip the top open.

Inside, there’s a letter. Several pages long, folded in half. I remember how my mom used to put on latex gloves before handling his letters, but I don’t have any. I pull the letter out.

Dear Gina, it starts, and I feel my mouth dry up. My dad tried to kill my mom. He nearly succeeded. She killed him. And here he is calling her by the old name, the name she hates.

It’s like nothing happened. Only everything did.

My hands are shaking. I feel cold. I can almost, almost hear his voice, looking at his handwriting. I can picture him sitting in a cell writing this, but I can’t see his face anymore. It’s just a blur, an impression. Mostly it’s just eyes. He always had these eyes that could change from nice to cruel in an instant.

I put the letter down and wipe my hands on my pants. They feel damp. And I can’t get them to stop trembling. What if it’s poisoned? I think, but that’s dumb, that’s some bullshit you see on TV, poisoned paper that kills you for touching it. But in a way, Dad poisoned everything he touched.

I’ve been thinking a lot about you lately, as my situation changes, he writes. Does he mean, while he was out of prison? On the run? I don’t know. I want to stop reading now, and I’ve only read one sentence. I’m afraid. Really afraid. I’ve been thinking about how I once thought you could save me from myself. It’s not your fault you didn’t. Nobody could.

That isn’t so bad. It’s almost like he’s apologizing. Almost.

No, that’s not what I blame you for, Gina. I don’t even blame you for running away, taking the kids, changing your name. Pretending you never knew me. I understand why you did that.

But you know what I don’t understand, you faithless bitch?

I don’t understand why you think you’re special. You’re not. You stopped being special to me even before the accident; you were just a convenient prop in the act. Like the kids.



It feels like my bed is plunging through the floor. Falling straight down. I’m dizzy. Sick. And I can’t stop reading.

I was thinking about killing you. Thinking about it every time I took a new one back to our home. Our sanctuary. I fantasized that I’d bring you in there when I had someone on the hook, show you, watch the horror come into you, and then make you take her place.

It entertained me between guests.



I stop. I just . . . stop. The paper falls out of my hand and drifts down to the bed. This is your dad. This is who he was. This is what he thought about.

I want to cry, but I can’t.

I try looking around my room, fixing on things that make me happy. My fluffy pink unicorn that Connor won for me at a school fair last year. My posters. The paint I chose for the walls of my very own, permanent room.

But it all feels like a nightmare now. Like nothing is real except the paper sitting in front of me on the bed.

I pick it up again. I don’t want to, but it feels like I have to get all the way through.

I don’t understand how you’ve justified whoring yourself out to the brother of that last one I took. I don’t understand how he doesn’t strangle you in your sleep and blow his own brains out. Maybe someday. Maybe if he knew more about how his sister died, how much she suffered, how long she begged me to end it. Something to consider. Maybe I’ll send him something special.



Sam. He’s talking about Sam, oh my God. I cover my mouth one hand. I keep reading because I can see the end coming, and God I want it to end.

You don’t know who he is, Gina. You don’t know what he’s capable of doing. I’m laughing at the thought that you only bring monsters into your bed. You deserve that.



He’s saying that Sam is a monster. That isn’t true. It can’t be.

Someday you’ll get what’s coming to you. Maybe not from me. But one of them, one of them you trust . . . that will be rich.

Give my love to our children.

—Yours forever,

Melvin.



I realize by the end that I’m gasping, and I have to wipe my burning eyes. It hurts, it hurts, because I can hear him in my head, and now I know I can’t not hear him anymore. Dad. My father. The monster.

This is who he was. Is. Forever.

I didn’t think I had any illusions left to break, but sitting there shaking, with that letter spread out in pages in front of me, I know I had so many.

The thought comes to me then: What if Mom lied? What if he’s still alive?

And it terrifies me so much I grab my pillow and hug it close and scream into it to try to let that feeling out.

I gasp out loud when there’s a knock on the door. I’m suddenly, horribly convinced that it’s Dad out there, dead and rotten and grinning. Here to get me and take me back as his guest.

Mom says, “Hey, I thought you were taking a shower. Are you done?”