Killman Creek (Stillhouse Lake #2)(100)

My throat’s dry, fried with anger and adrenaline, and I have to try twice before my voice works properly. “You believe him about the police?”

“I think it’s possible. Worst thing we could do is call the local cops and tip his men off down there.”

“You think he’s telling the truth? That he can call it off?”

“I think if we let him near a phone, the first call he’s going to make will burn that place to the ground and kill everybody in it,” Mike says. “Because a cockroach like this? He knows how to survive, first and last.”

Mike steps out of the van and makes a call, and I hear Rivard making muffled noises, but I ignore him now. He’s meaningless. I’m trying to calculate how far it is to Baton Rouge from Atlanta, and what the chances are we can get there in a few hours. Not good. The flights up and down the East Coast are a mess from the storm, and even if Mike can somehow work his FBI magic again, the storm’s moving southwest, which means it’s between us and where we need to be. It’ll cause rolling chaos.

We have to get Gwen out of there. The idea that she’s in that house, with him, makes my skin crawl and my stomach turn. I don’t care how it happens, but I want her safe. I want to hold her again and tell her how sorry I am that I let this happen to her.

And every passing minute means the chances are smaller I ever will.

Mike’s first call is brief, and when it’s done, he says, “My guy’s on the way. He’ll make the van and Rivard disappear until I say different.”

“He understands who Rivard is, right?”

“He knows. He’s solid, and he owes me.”

I wonder what kind of person is solid against the wealth Rivard has, but I have to trust he’s right. “What about the cops?”

“I’m calling the New Orleans FBI office instead,” he says. “Rivard could well own half the cops in that parish down there, but I know the NOLA folks. He doesn’t own them.”

Except, when that call ends, I can tell it doesn’t go well, and my blood pressure spikes up again, pounding my temples. “What?” I ask him.

“Major stuff going down in New Orleans. Terrorist alert,” he tells me. “My guys say there’s no way they can break loose to help us. They say call the locals.”

“What about the state police?”

“Most of them are going to be stretched thin, and dispatched to New Orleans to assist. Besides: same problem as the locals. We don’t know who Rivard’s bought off, and I don’t have any personal friends down there I can count on.”

I check my watch. It’s just gone six o’clock. Gwen’s murder starts at midnight, streamed live.

We have seven hours to get to her. Time zone change gives us the extra hour.

Hold on, I think. Jesus, Gwen, hold on for me. You promised.

Hold on.





25

GWEN

When I wake up this time, I wake up in bed.

The nausea hits me immediately in a violent rush, and I curl in on myself to try to hold it back. My head pounds so hard I think my skull will crack, and I can feel myself trembling—not cold now, but shaking from the aftereffects of the drug. Once that begins to recede a little, and the burning bile calms in my stomach, I feel other things. The same pains from before, but with more added. My back feels raw. I think the rough wood of the crate left a small forest of splinters.

When I open my eyes, I try to make my foggy mind tell me where I am. The room’s dim, but I can make out white sheets over me. They feel damp and smell like someone else’s skin. A stench gradually creeps over me: mold, an old smell: bodies in the ground. The reek of age and decay.

The fear creeps back sluggishly, too tired to continue . . . but it brings clarity with it. Purpose.

I shift to relieve a torturous cramp in my hip, and I feel the bed shift in a way that isn’t due to my motion at all. I freeze. There’s someone next to me in the bed. I can feel the animal warmth of his body, and every instinct in me screams at me not to move, as if like a child, I can make myself invisible. Staying still won’t help me.

I have to help myself.

I try to edge away, hoping to slide out of bed quietly, but I stop when I realize I can’t move my left wrist.

The one that aches so badly.

My wrist is tightly handcuffed to the old wrought iron bedstead. I must have broken something, maybe a small bone in my hand, because trying to pull at the restraint, however gently, earns me a pulse of agony so bright it takes my breath. I want to scream, and I can’t.

I’m not in my clothes. Someone’s changed me into an old, stiff nightgown. The nylon feels brittle, as if it might crumble into dust if I move too aggressively.

The light outside the window is getting dimmer. The sun’s going down. I turn my head, and I can just make out the features of the man who’s lying next to me.

I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that it’s Melvin Royal, but I am. Seeing him here, asleep without a care in the world, is such a shock that it feels like a punch to my heart. A fatal blow. I feel a scream gathering in my throat.

Kill him is the next thought that rushes into the void of my mind, and I bend my right elbow and lunge. I’m trying to bury it in his throat, lean my weight on the point of it until I shatter his hyoid bone, and for a second it feels like I’m going to accomplish that. I feel my elbow bear down on his throat and I start to push . . . and then he’s rolling away. Laughing.