Wolfhunter River (Stillhouse Lake #3)(45)

“Funny,” I say, “I remember the same things being said about me when I was in jail, waiting for my trial.”

Fairweather doesn’t respond to that. He stops the recorder on his phone, pockets the device, and stands up to open the door. “All right, ma’am.” he says. “Well, I thank you kindly for your assistance. Would you mind if I contact you again, if I have some more questions?”

“No, sir, I don’t mind at all.” Aren’t we just the picture of southern cordiality?

He gives me his business card. “Don’t forget to email me permission to get your cell phone records, and have Mr. Cade send me a timeline and the same letter granting permission. It speeds things up considerably.”

“I’m not sure speeding things up is in that girl’s best interest,” I tell him. “You seem to be moving awfully fast already.”

“Just because it looks like an open-and-shut case doesn’t mean I won’t put in the work. But I don’t expect any twists in this story, Ms. Proctor. Bad blood between them, Marlene even reached out to you for help on her situation, and it blew up before she could get it.” His expression loses a little of its aw-shucks-country-boy charm. “And the longer I’m on this case means the less time I put in looking for that little girl.”

“Ellie White,” I say. “The kidnapping. You were on the task force?”

“Until this mess,” he says.

“I hope you find her.”

“With respect, ma’am, I’m almost hoping I’m not the one who does,” he says. “Because that girl is almost certainly dead.”





8

SAM

After we drop Gwen off—and I hate leaving her there alone—I take the kids back to the motel. Connor is fidgeting with the desire to get at his assigned job: tracking down the case of the missing young women of Wolfhunter. Lanny tries to pretend she’s massively uninterested, but I know she is.

She also asks a lot about Vee Crockett, which worries me a little. Normally Lanny can be skeptical and a pretty good judge of character, but there’s something about Vee’s situation that seems to have gotten past her natural defenses. Maybe it’s the fact that she’s afraid Dahlia Brown’s getting tired of their relationship; teens run hot as hell, then cold as ice, and that’s normal. But Vee’s not someone I’d like her to be fascinated with. Not, I remind myself, that I have any say in the matter. I may be in the household, but I’m not family.

No matter how much I’d like to be.

Lanny, predictably, tells Connor he’s going to have to wait an hour, grabs her laptop, and asks me if she can use my room to call Dahlia. I tell her yes, and leave her alone for whatever drama plays out. Connor, grumpy, loses himself in a book, and I check messages on my phone, leaning back in the armchair in the corner of their room.



It’s under an hour when Lanny comes through the connecting door and hands her laptop to Connor. “Here,” she says. “Keep it.” She flops onto the other bed and rolls over on her side.

She sounds angry and hurt, and I turn my attention to her as Connor shrugs and starts mining for internet gold. She’s been crying, no question. Her eyeliner’s a mess, her cheeks flushed, and from the red in her eyes, she’s been at it a while.

I sit down beside her, but far enough away that she doesn’t feel like I’m in her space. “So?” I say. “What’s up?”

“Nothing.” She sniffles wetly and shoots me a sidelong glance. “Have you ever been dumped?”

Hoo, boy, this is that conversation. I briefly wish her mom was here, but she isn’t, and I am. So I say, “Yeah. Absolutely.”

“And?”

“There was a girl. Her name was Gillian.”

“When was this?”

“High school.”

“Was she beautiful? Did you love her?”

“She was gorgeous, and yeah, for a while. Then one day she just wasn’t interested anymore. Next thing I know, she’s dating someone else on the same baseball team.”

“Well, that’s awkward,” Lanny says.

“Especially when she told everybody I’d been sleeping around on her.”

This time I get the whole stare. “Did you?”

“No. But that’s what she said.” I shrug. “It happens. My foster mom once told me she got thrown out of a car on a date with her boyfriend and had to walk a mile back to town, in heels, in the dark. That’s how her breakup happened.”

“Seriously?” Lanny blinks. “He just left her?”

“When you say dumped, she got dumped. Right by the side of the road,” I say. “She told me she never wore high heels on a date again. So I didn’t feel so bad after that.”

“I guess.” The way she says it means she doesn’t believe she’ll ever feel good again. I remember those years, where everything came in overwhelming waves and was destined to last forever. There’s a lot great about it. Even more that’s dangerous.

“Something happened with Dahlia,” I say, which isn’t a genius guess.

She takes a deep breath and lowers her voice to a tense whisper. She doesn’t want to say this with Connor in the room, clearly. “Dahlia says she can’t see me anymore. Her mom’s pissed off about the rumors going around, the documentary, all that crap, and she thinks I’m a bad influence or something. It’s not even my fault!”