Wolfhunter River (Stillhouse Lake #3)(81)

“Mr. Lustig has your best interests at heart, Sam,” Miranda says. She pulls the car out from the curb and starts driving. I don’t know where we’re going. And I don’t like it. “Someone needed to help save you from yourself. If Mike and I colluded, I promise it’s because we both still care.”

“Oh, you care now.” I say it flatly, and I hope she can feel the slap. She sinks back into her seat and stares straight ahead.

“Yes,” she says, “I do. Somehow. Even with everything you’ve done to push me away.” I remember that tone, that voice. Low and with a faint rasp to it, like a cat’s tongue. It’s like falling back into the past, and it scares the hell out of me.

Miranda doesn’t look quite like herself. Her hair’s down, spilling in smooth waves over her shoulders; she’s wearing a plain black shirt and blue jeans. Expensive, of course; she wouldn’t be caught dead in some regular store brand. But she’s as casual as I’ve ever seen her when not under the influence . . . and then I realize she’s drunk. Not wildly drunk, like she used to get. But enough. “What did you do?” I ask her. My voice sounds tight now.

“I saw Gina,” she tells me. “Don’t worry. I didn’t spill your secrets. I just wanted to . . . to test her a little.”

“Did you hurt her?” I don’t realize how angry I am until I hear the sound of my voice. Mike’s hand clamps down on my shoulder; he recognizes that tone. The way I’ve shifted forward, ready to lunge. “Don’t, Mike. Did you hurt her?”

“No,” Miranda finally says. “She’s fine. And so are the children, apparently; I didn’t see them.”

That’s something. It lets me step back from a very long drop. “Why would you do that?”

“She’s dragging you right down with her,” Miranda says. “That doesn’t have to happen. I don’t want that to happen, Sam. I never did. I care too much to watch you . . . debase yourself like this.”

“Then don’t watch. Go back to KC and leave us alone,” I tell her. “Let it go.”

Her face flushes, little hard dots of red in her cheeks and forehead. She can’t keep herself quite as icily calm when she’s drunk. “You’re not a mother. I had a child I carried in my body, and she was absolutely destroyed. Someone has to pay for that.”

“Someone did,” I say. “Melvin Royal got a bullet in his head.”

“You of all people knew she was guilty too. And now you’re letting her get away with it.”

“Yeah, I was angry and deluded. I got better; you should try it.”

“The documentary will be made,” she says. “Your lives will still fall apart, because Gina coming out of the shadows was the beginning of the end for whatever you think your relationship was. You ought to be smart enough to realize that.” She reaches into her pocket and brings out a folded piece of paper. She hands it to me.

It’s a printed article from the internet. In it, someone is earnestly talking about Gwen Proctor as a full partner in her husband’s crimes. It’s not from five years ago. It’s brand-new.

“I didn’t print the comments section,” she says. “But I can promise you there are thousands posting, and they’re just as full of rage as they ever were, if not more so. No one believes in her innocence. No one but you. And once the documentary is out, no one ever will again. She’ll have no peace from now on. But we will have some measure of justice.”

Jesus. The monster in this equation isn’t Gwen. It’s sitting next to me, and I helped create it. “Call them off.”

“You started it, Sam. You’re the one who founded the Lost Angels. The one who made up the wanted posters with her picture we used around the neighborhoods every time we found her. You pushed us to follow her every move, track her aliases, keep showing up and driving her away. The one who came up with the idea to prove, once and for all, just how guilty she really is by moving in next door to her at Stillhouse Lake. Why would I call them off? I trusted you to finish this for all of us. And instead, you fell in love with her.”

The edge sharpens on the last of that. Ah, God, no. Don’t tell me that’s what this is really about. I see the red rims of her eyes, the barely controlled grief and rage. This is about how she feels about me as much as her loss. I’d fooled myself into believing that we were just allies, but for her it was always more. It was a relationship.

I just never saw it that way. She was a means to an end. And she used me in the same measure.

I turn to stare in disbelief at Mike. “And you’re in this with her.” He’s got his stone face on, but I know he’s feeling guilty behind that. He has to be.

“Look, man . . . I like Gwen. I do. But I have to put my brother first, and Gwen is never going to shake her past. It’s just too heavy. I don’t want you going down with her.”

“So you’re okay with her being harassed, stalked, maybe killed. And the kids along with her.”

“No,” he says, “I’m not. But I’m also not okay with you being collateral damage. Hear this woman out. That’s all I’m asking.”

“You don’t know her,” I tell him. “Jesus, Miranda, don’t you get it? I never loved you. I barely liked you. We had our losses in common. And now it’s over.”