Wolfhunter River (Stillhouse Lake #3)(48)

She’d met me at the airport coming home from deployment. I’d still been in my fatigues. She’d looked like a perfectly composed mannequin draped in designer fashions holding a sign with my name printed on it.

We have something in common, Mr. Cade, she’d said. My daughter, and your sister. Let me drive you. We’ll talk.

I’d been shell-shocked, raw, angry, devastated, and vulnerable at that time in my life. And Miranda had been far worse than I was. The toxic relationship we’d formed . . . I’ve seen her unkempt, messy, wearing clothes that stank of days of drinking bouts. I’ve carried her back into her three-story, six-thousand-square-foot mansion and helped her to the toilet when she needed to vomit. I’ve listened to her rages. I’ve taught her to shoot a gun.

We’ve done awful things together.

“How did you get this number?” I ask her. That’s not the most urgent question, but it’s the only one I can stand to ask at the moment.

“Money and contacts,” she says, and I hear the amusement in the words. It’s her answer to most things. “You’re not at home. I know. I visited there yesterday, along with my film crew. I did leave a note. I even signed my name, remember? Did you tell her that?”

I hadn’t. I’d taken the goddamn note and run it through the shredder.

When I don’t respond, she keeps going. “Where exactly are you hiding, Sam?”

“I’m not hiding,” I tell her. It’s half-true, anyway. “And we’ve got nothing to talk about, except how you’re going to back the fuck off and leave us alone.”

“Us.” The contempt and scorn in the word feels like a lash against my back. “My God, Sam, really? This is insane.”

“It’s not your business,” I say. “Go home to Kansas City, Miranda. Let it go.”

“I sold the house in Kansas City. I’m . . . What’s the popular phrase these days? Property surfing. Though I have to admit, I had to spend a very unpleasant evening at that local bed-and-breakfast in Norton, and I won’t be going there again. I understand there are some reasonably adequate houses for rent out at Stillhouse Lake. Maybe you can recommend the one you used to have.”

I don’t answer. I can’t. The idea of Miranda, with millions to spend and the leisure to indulge her hate, holing up like a venomous spider within striking distance . . . it’s honestly horrifying. I know Miranda. I know she was out of control when I left her. If she’s abandoned her old life in Kansas City, all her creature comforts and enablers and sympathetic friends . . . then God only knows what she’s planning.

“You didn’t answer me,” she says. “Is this some kind of game you’re playing, pretending to be in a relationship with her? I really hope it is, because the alternative makes me want to vomit.”

“Let’s not do this,” I tell her. “Come on.”

“So it’s true? You’re actually sleeping with her. She was Melvin Royal’s wife, for God’s sake. Hurt her, yes, by all means. But don’t debase yourself.”

I don’t want to talk to Miranda about Gwen. My past is a wrecking ball. I’ve always known it was out there, rushing toward me. I just never imagined how much it would hurt when it finally hit. “I’m only going to say this once,” I tell her. “So believe that I mean every word. If you come for her, you come through me. You make even a move toward hurting those kids, and I will end you. They don’t deserve any of this. Gwen, the kids—they’re innocent. Just leave it alone. Just stop.”

She’s silent for so long that I think I’ve actually gotten through to her. Then she says, “She’s really turned your head inside out. My God, she’s good at making otherwise-sensible men believe her, including the ones on her jury. We swore to make her pay. I thought you believed in that.” She sounds almost . . . sorry for me.

She’s right. I’d believed every word of that at the time I’d met her. I’ve moved past it, but nothing’s changed in Miranda’s life. She’s frozen in the amber of her grief and rage, obsessed with reliving her dead child’s last moments.

Revenge is not my life. I don’t want it to be, not anymore. Even after reading Callie’s journal . . . especially after that, because I can see myself ending up like Miranda: broken, cored hollow, filled with rage if I step off that cliff.

I don’t mean it to hurt when I say, “I’m sorry for you, Miranda. I really am.” But from the sharp intake of breath on the other end, it does sting. Deeply. “Please stop. I’m asking you. Please. If we ever had any kind of feelings between us, please don’t do this.”

“I’m only talking to you because we did have that,” she says. “One chance. You’re better than this. Just walk away from that woman, even if you don’t help me. Or I swear to you, the price you pay for it will be very, very high.”

I think of Gwen, sobbing in my arms. Waking from nightmares that she can’t talk about. Defending her kids despite her own danger. And saving me too. Gwen isn’t perfect, by any stretch. But she’s a damn sight more real and alive and human than Miranda, whose malevolence is the only thing keeping her broken heart beating.

“Okay, you can say you gave me a chance, if that makes you sleep at night,” I say. “If you’re coming at me, do your fucking worst.”