Wolfhunter River (Stillhouse Lake #3)(53)

As I leave, Mrs. Pall is standing in the foyer, as if she’s a robot who plugs into the socket there. Her gaze follows me. I can’t resist. “I hear you have cream cake,” I tell her. “Any chance I can get some to go?”

She glares at me without answering, but then, I didn’t expect a gracious parting gift. I’m just enjoying twisting her tail.

Suddenly she smiles and says, “Have a very good day, Mrs. Royal.”

“Proctor,” I tell her.

“Oh yes, of course. I quite forgot.” In a pig’s eye.

Then the door shuts, and I can’t work out which of us won that. I frown at the shiny surface for a long moment. Something’s off with that woman. I have no idea what it is, other than general weird unlikability. Not really my problem.

The only reasonable thing to do while I’m waiting for Hector Sparks’s call, though, is to go to the motel, talk to Sam, and maybe get some clarity on what’s making him so twitchy.



When I call him, he sounds clipped, but normal, and it’s a brief call; I wait outside on Hector Sparks’s perfectly ordered lawn for five minutes until the SUV glides up. Sam’s in it by himself, and I get in quickly and stare at him while I fasten my seat belt. “You left them alone?”

“Yeah, I did,” he says. “I needed to talk to you. It’s ten minutes, Gwen. Lanny’s on guard.”

“Okay,” I say, but it isn’t, not really. “Private talk. This sounds dire.”

He plunges right into it. “Gwen . . . I need you to seriously think about moving away from Stillhouse Lake. Because Miranda Tidewell is not going to give up on this.”

“You sound like you actually know her.” He doesn’t answer immediately. “You do.” I’m taken aback. I don’t know how to feel about that. It’s certainly not my right to police who he knows, but that woman . . .

“I do.” He says it quietly, and I can read how reluctant he is to admit it. “We connected after I got back from my last deployment. She met me at the airport. Helped me reacclimate to civilian life, and . . . figure out how to deal with Callie’s murder.”

I feel a real twinge of anger, and I bury it. Or try to. “Sam, if the two of you were lovers, just come out with it already.” I hate that I feel a surge of jealousy. But I can’t deny it either.

“No, it wasn’t like that,” he says. “Look, we talked before about how I was part of the pack of stalkers that came after you online, but . . . not the full extent of what I did, or how. She knows. And she’s going to use it.”

“Use it how?”

“To destroy us,” he says.

I turn and give him a really long look. “Can she?”

He doesn’t do more than glance my way, then turns his attention back to the road. We’re making a turn onto the main street already. Five blocks, more or less, to the motel. It seems a long way suddenly.

“She’s capable of doing anything to fill that bottomless hole where her soul used to be,” he says. “Melvin did that to her. She’s dangerous, Gwen. To you, to the kids, maybe. I need you to understand and think how we’re going to protect against that.”

“Is she physically dangerous?”

“I honestly don’t know. I feel like I don’t know where to look for trouble anymore. It’s not just watching my back, your back; it’s watching everything.”

“We’ve always known that,” I say. “Always. Three sixty, three sixty-five.” That means 360 degrees of awareness, 365 days a year. Our personal code. And it hasn’t failed us yet. “It feels like there are still things you’re not telling me. Am I wrong?”

“No,” he says, and takes in a deep breath. “I also got an outreach from a company in Florida. They’re looking for a private pilot to work standby. Good salary, benefits, the whole package.”

I’m ashamed that the first thing I feel is a deep fear that he’s found a real reason to leave me. Leave us. I quickly throttle that back and say, “Congratulations. Are you thinking about taking the job?” That sounds accusatory. I can’t help it.

“I wasn’t, not seriously,” he says. “Not until Miranda showed up.”

“Do you really think she can’t find you in Florida? She tracked us down at Stillhouse Lake.” I turn and look at the ramshackle, fading town of Wolfhunter as it glides past the window. The despair it emanates burns down my nerves. “I said I wasn’t going to run anymore.”

“I know you said that. But circumstances have changed.”

“Have they? Do you really think I’m more afraid of an angry, grieving mother than I was of my murderous ex who skinned women? I said I’m not running. I won’t.” I talk tough. I feel like I need to right now, because the undeniable truth is that if Sam does take that job in Florida, if he leaves us . . . I don’t know what that means. We’ve been so careful about not putting names and labels on what we have that I don’t even know what I’d be losing, except . . . everything.

I swallow hard. “Sam—I can’t do this. Not now.”

“We can talk about it later,” he says, and I know he’s struggling with this too. Probably more than I am, if that’s possible. “Okay. How’d this morning go?”