Wolfhunter River (Stillhouse Lake #3)(32)

Kezia comes by an hour later to pick up the letter. Javier is with her; it’s his off day. He gets fist bumps from the kids. Javier asks for Sam, and I explain he’s out at a job site. Javier nods. “Yeah,” he says. “Can I get a word?” He glances at the kids. “Alone?”

We walk off toward the lake. Kez stays with the kids. Javier kicks around some rocks before he says, “Not sure I should even tell you this, but a guy came around this morning to buy 7-millimeter Remington Magnums.”

“Which means?” I don’t recognize the ammunition.

“Sniper rounds,” he says. “He wanted sniper rounds. I didn’t have any. I told him he had to order them in.”

“Did you know him?”

“Spud Belldene. Jesse’s uncle. He served in the first Iraq war.”

“As?”

“What do you think?”

Not good news. “They’d kill us over a drunken fight?”

“They’re Belldenes,” he says, like it answers the question. “There’s a chance that he’s just buying ammo for practice. He likes to keep his hand in from time to time.”

It’s hot out here, and I’m still sweating buckets. “Weird timing, though. Considering we’re looking for a sniper.”

“Yeah,” he says. “Which is why I brought it up.” He rocks back and forth, heel to toe, arms crossed. “The feds raided their compound up there three months ago but didn’t find anything; they thought the Belldenes were cooking meth. They weren’t. At least, not there. But . . . thing is, if Spud meant you any harm, I don’t think he’d buy his ammo from me. He knows we’re friends. He knows I’d warn you about it.” He rubs his hand over his head; it’s freshly cut short, a sharp military style that makes him look ready for battle. “But shit, maybe that’s what he intended. He just wants to rattle you. I don’t know.”

“This can’t just be about Sam breaking the guy’s teeth.”

“Well,” Javier says, “wars have been started for less up here. Never can tell what people take personally. Especially people like the Belldenes; they live on pride. Die on it too. Sam’s a stranger to them, city folk. So are you.”

“And it’s not about my ex?”

“Doubt it. You, the kids . . . you’re collateral damage to them. Leverage. They go after other men for their real sport.”

It’s ironic, really. For so long I’ve been under threat for what Melvin did. And here I am again, defending myself against strangers for something I had no part in. It’s darkly, sickly funny.

“How do I stop this?” I ask Javier. I don’t really expect an answer.

He shakes his head. “Don’t know that you can,” he tells me. “Maybe it’s time to consider getting out of this town for a while. Between the Belldenes and this documentary everybody’s talking about . . .”

“Everybody’s talking about it?”

“This is hot gossip in Norton. And it’s bringing up a lot of old bullshit, about you being guilty of murder. Some of them will jump on whatever paints you in a bad light.”

Great. I suppose I should have assumed that. “And how do I fight it?”

“You don’t fight the sea. You leave until the flood’s over.” He’s uneasy. And that makes me uneasy. “Watch your back. I’ll do what I can to cool things down.”

We don’t fist-bump. We hug. I love Javi. I trust him, just as I do Kez. He’s had my back from the beginning, since the day I walked into his gun range, and I know he’ll do what he can.

When they leave, though, I feel exposed. And helpless. It makes me angry.

We stay inside for the day. I watch from the windows for the white van, the film crew, but they’re not here. Not where I can see them, anyway. It makes me itch to think they could be hiding in the trees right now, filming me, filming our house. After a while I try to concentrate on the book I’m reading, but I keep looking up, scanning the perimeter like I’m on a military post instead of my own porch. Looking for the flash of a camera lens in the trees.

Or the flash of a sniper’s scope.

It feels like a normal day, but there’s something underneath that I don’t want to examine too closely.

I call the kids in, and propose a trip into town for cake and ice cream; they seem happy with that, though lately Lanny’s been obsessing a little over calories. She just ran off about a thousand. I think she’ll be fine.

When we make the drive into Norton, everything still seems normal. There’s an old man driving a tractor down the middle of Main Street, throwing clods of dirt in every direction, but that happens at least once a week. I creep along behind him until we make the turn into the first stop. We usually start at the ice-cream store and finish at the cake place, but as I pull in and park, I spot a clean white van glide in after. It doesn’t have any logos on the side, and from the sticker on the bumper, it’s a rental. There are two people in the van, and as I turn off the engine, I keep watching them as they exit the vehicle and go to the back.

I don’t know what I’m expecting them to do, but when I see that the taller African American man has a handheld video camera and the woman is plugging in a microphone, I realize exactly what’s going on.