Killman Creek (Stillhouse Lake #2)(108)

But right now I’m so grateful I am weeping. I can’t stop.

“Please,” I gasp. I reach for Sam, and he puts his arms around me again. “Please, please tell me they’re okay, please, please . . .”

“They’re okay,” he whispers to me. There’s a stillness to him, a peace, that I need right now. “Connor’s all right. Lanny’s all right. You’re safe. We’re okay. Just breathe.”

My knees give way when we’re halfway down the rotten stairs, and Sam carries me the rest of the way. I’m so tired. I can’t keep my eyes open anymore. When I manage to look, he’s putting me in the passenger seat of a sedan, and I’m looking at the rotten, spoiled colonial splendor of Triton Plantation House. It does look like the White House, destroyed by rot and time. A creek runs by the side of the road, sluggish and choked with mud. Bayou country.

Sam and Lustig are outside the car, talking in quiet voices. They’re both shell-shocked. I can hear it. But I’m not. Not anymore.

“Rivard was right. State police never showed. If we hadn’t made it—” Lustig breaks off. “It’s a bloodbath in there. God only knows the bodies we’re going to find around here. How many of these places do they have?”

“Dozens,” Sam says. “But we’ve got Rivard, and once this thing breaks, it’ll shatter everywhere. We’ll find them. All of them.”

I wish they’d burn it down. All of it, ashes and bones. But I know there’s more to this than what I want, and I know that. I’m just so tired that I feel tears sliding cold down my cheeks. I wipe them away with a clumsy, bloody right hand.

That’s Melvin’s blood.

Melvin’s dead.

Mike Lustig leans in and says, “You should thank our boy Sam,” he says. “Saved your life.”

“No,” I tell him. I feel everything slipping away again. “I saved him.”

I sleep.

And I don’t dream at all.





28

GWEN

One month later

To most people, I look like I’ve recovered. I try hard, for my kids. If I still feel fragile as glass inside, I think only Sam can see it now. Sam, who sees everything. That might have bothered me once, but now I’m glad. I talk to Sam. I even see a psychologist who specializes in trauma recovery. I’m getting better. So are the kids. I made sure they got their own therapy, whether they admitted to needing it or not.

I don’t check the Sicko Patrol anymore, but when I ask, Sam quietly tells me that it’s continuing to roll on with more fire and energy than before. Despite my wishes, I’m the subject of a lot of articles and blogs again. Some think I’m a hero. Many think I got away with murder.

One thing I have to accept: now there’s no hiding from it anymore.

The symbol of that is this house on Stillhouse Lake that we’re reclaiming as our own. It’s not just the four of us; our friends have been here helping. Javier and Kezia. Kezia’s dad, Easy Claremont. Detective Prester and several Norton officers I now know by name. Some of the kids’ school friends and their parents came, too; they all pitched in to repaint the outside of our house and get rid of ugly reminders of the past.

I expect new hatred to come at us, but for now, at least, this house is our fortress again.

Today, it’ll be finished.

“Mom!” Connor holds up something I can’t see from across the room. “Is this trash?”

“Does it look like trash?” I call back, and I manage a smile. He smiles back. It’s hesitant, and stutters a little in the middle, but it’s a start. We have work to do, Connor and I. Miles to go. He blames himself for too much, and now he’s grieving his father. I know Melvin doesn’t deserve that, but this isn’t about him. It’s about Connor, and letting him go through all the stages of grief for a man who never truly loved him. “Thanks, baby. Why don’t you take a break?”

“Why don’t you take a break?” Sam says, then takes the trash bag from my good right hand. My left is wrapped and splinted, and it hurts too damn much, but the doctor says it’ll heal. Eventually. “Because you need to sit. Stop pushing.”

He’s right. It’s done. Sam and Lanny have teamed up to repaint the damaged kitchen walls, while Kezia and Javier installed the new front window. Connor and I have picked up the last remnants of garbage. The front curtains stay down for now. I want to look out at the snow and the lightly frozen lake. It seems clean out there, in a way I don’t think it ever has before.

Lanny is sitting with her girlfriend—maybe they’re not quite calling it that yet, but I can see the looks—and they’re wearing matching braided bracelets. When she thinks we’re not looking, I know Lanny’s holding Dahlia’s hand. She needs this. She needs to be loved. I’ll do everything I can; I’ll love her more fiercely than any lioness, but I can’t give her gentleness, and sweetness, and Dahlia seems to have that for her, at least for now. I stop to hug my daughter, because I can’t not, and she lets me cling for a long, long moment before she pushes back and rolls her dark-rimmed eyes. I kiss her dark hair and try not to think about the girl in the noose. The one who got away, I think. I keep asking. They haven’t found her, but she wasn’t dead at the plantation, either.

Maybe she’s found safety. Maybe something good came out of it for her.