Wolfhunter River (Stillhouse Lake #3)(7)

“What the hell happened?” Lanny finally blurts. Her eyes are huge, her face pale even under the too-pale makeup she still favors. “Mom? Is that woman one of the mothers of . . . ?”

“It’s all right, baby,” I tell her. “Let’s go. Right now.”

Connor hasn’t made a sound, but he comes to me and puts his arm around me. He’s had a growth spurt in the past few months, and he comes up to my shoulder now. Lanny’s still taller than he is, but not by that much.

I want them out of here while Miranda is still on the air, unable to pursue. I nod to the Whites; the woman with them—middle-aged, with a utilitarian hairstyle and practical pantsuit—nods back. She studies me as I move my kids out of the greenroom and grab my bag on the way out the door.

I’m dialing my phone before we even hit the outer door. A staffer tries to waylay me, probably to persuade me to go back into the gladiatorial pit of idiocy, and I stiff-arm him out of the way and don’t listen to a word he says.

Then we’re outside, and Sam’s picking up on the other end of the phone. “Done already?” He sounds surprised.

“You weren’t watching?”

“I went to get coffee. What happened?”

“Tell you in the car. We’ll meet you at the end of the driveway,” I say, and we head down the slight slope of the walkway at a good clip.

As we do, I see that the giant monitor on the front of the broadcast building is silently playing the Howie Hamlin Show with closed-captioning beneath the action. There must be a time delay, because apparently Hamlin is just now apologizing to the audience for my abrupt departure. I’m sure the next step—because Hamlin’s staff will have done their homework—is to let Miranda talk about how suspicious my behavior is. About the dead young women found last year floating in Stillhouse Lake, right outside my front door.

About how I got away with murder . . . except that it wasn’t me. It was a man who wanted to frame me at the orders of my ex. Not that they’ll ever believe that.

I shouldn’t have to defend my very existence. My horrible past. The scars on my body and soul.

I can’t believe I let myself get pulled into doing the show. I’ve let my kids down. I’m fighting tears, shaking. I thought I was going to end all our problems, and instead I’ve just made it another sideshow.

My phone rings as we round the curve. I see Sam’s truck idling down at the end of the sidewalk with his emergency flashers blinking. I answer without taking my eyes off our escape route.

“Yes?”

“Ms. Proctor, this is Dana Reyes, the assistant producer of the Howie Hamlin Show. I’m so sorry that came off as such a surprise; we certainly didn’t intend for it to be that confrontational.” Liar. “Please come back to the set. We’ll have the next segment set up for you alone, and I promise, we’ll focus solely on your story”—I practically hear her check her notes—“about the stalking of your family. Obviously, we apologize if you felt offended by—”

I hang up on her. We pile into the pickup, and Sam turns the flashers off and pulls into traffic. It’s a beautiful afternoon in Knoxville, Tennessee, hot and clear, the sky an intense blue. Sam is sending me cautious looks. He doesn’t want to ask. I don’t want to volunteer. The kids are sitting behind us in the extended cab, and they’re uncharacteristically quiet too. Shocked, as I am, that such a nice day has turned so completely toxic.

What did I just do? I think. From Howie’s lead-in about the conversations on the internet, Miranda’s been stirring trouble for a while. I let the onslaught of reporters distract me from keeping track of all the threats out there, and that was my mistake. I didn’t know that this was building against me, against us. But I should have.

Conspiracy theories have been multiplying insanely for years now, ever more ridiculous and far-fetched. Chemicals in contrails. Anti-vaxxers. Climate-change deniers. And all those are almost precious compared to the toxic horror of the 9/11 and school-shooting truthers who reduce the worst nightmare of any parent’s life to fakery, and rip the survivors’ lives apart.

Trust Miranda Tidewell to realize that it’s just the right environment to destroy us with a minimum of effort. Make a slanted documentary, launch some outrageous claims, find something that feels true about them, and sell it hard and often. The delusional and the emotionally disturbed will find something in it to comfort them. The lazy will rely on it as unlikely but possible. And in a year or two, the lazy will convince themselves “better safe than sorry” and pass it along as truth. She’s smart to do it this way. A documentary—even peddling half truths and lies—has a certain amount of built-in credibility.

People will believe it because the same mind-set insists that my innocence, my horror and grief, is just an act. That I had to know, be part of it. Because if they had to admit it was real, that they could be vulnerable to the same terrifying, random events that hit me like a wrecking ball . . . that’s far too frightening.

Better to fight an imaginary demon than face real ones.

The more I think about it, the angrier I get. I do want to go back into the studio, and I want to rip that smug host’s ears off with the volume of my yelling.

That’s a good reason not to go back.

“Hey. You okay?” Sam’s voice is quiet, and it steadies me out of the vibrating rage and into something a little less violent.