Killman Creek (Stillhouse Lake #2)(31)

When he opens the door and comes out, he’s wearing what must be a hotel-provided bathrobe and slippers, and his sandy-blond hair has been toweled dry but is still slick at the ends. He looks warm and at ease. “Sorry,” he says, indicating the clothes with a sweep of his hand. “Mine need a wash. They reek.”

“Mine do, too,” I say. “Don’t suppose they have a laundry service . . . ?” We have extra clothes in our backpacks, but I don’t know when we’ll next have a shot at cleaning things. So he goes to call the front desk while I head to the shower.

It’s magnificent, and I linger in the water, letting the pounding spray on the top of my head drive out the images I glimpsed on that video. I want to call the kids again. I want to make sure they’re okay, even though I’ve already done that, even though I know that they’d look at it as half-crazy behavior. I get out of the shower and dry off, find the robe—lush and fluffy—and slide my feet into the clean, new slippers. This feels like a kind of luxury I’ve never really known before. I can see how someone could get used to it.

I hear my phone buzz, and I grab it. I check the number, which at a glance seems familiar—Mike Lustig’s, from before?—and I click on and say, “Hello?”

I get dead air, and a rattle of static after, and my defenses come up fast. “Mike?”

“Mike?” says a voice on the other end, and I freeze. I forget to move, though I have a sudden urge to throw the phone away like I’ve grabbed a spider. “Who’s Mike? Are you cheating on me again, Gina? That’s disappointing.”

I close my eyes, and then I open them again, because I don’t want to be trapped in the dark with him: Melvin Royal, serial killer, ex-husband, father of my children. I’ve sunk down on the edge of the bed without knowing it; my legs have lost their strength. I stare blindly at the cheerful pale-yellow wall, the framed print of a peaceful Monet garden, but all I can see is shattered bricks, a gaping dark maw where a wall had been. The cracked egg of the two-car garage that Melvin used as a workshop.

The odor of death and rot, metal and terror.

The swaying body hanging from the wire noose of a winch.

I have the sudden, horrible sensation that Sam’s dead sister is right behind me, looming close. Melvin’s conjured that ghost, but I’m the one who’s haunted.

The icy stillness in my chest releases, and I’m suddenly flooded with heat, blood, rage. My hand shakes, and I take a firmer grip on the phone now. “Where are you, Melvin? Come on, tell me. You’re not afraid of me, are you?”

I know instinctively how much he’ll loathe that idea, and sure enough, it sparks an immediate reply. Not as controlled as the first. “You?” The barked word, and laugh, has so much contempt in it that it’s like a knife across my skin. But my skin’s thicker now, and the edge doesn’t draw blood. “No, Gina. I’m not afraid of you. How’s the weather in Georgia, by the way?” Gina, not Gwen. He’ll always call me that.

“Cozy,” I say calmly. “How’s hiding like a cornered rat?”

“Oh, I’m not hiding, sweetheart.” His tone drops into a range that feels wrong. A little frightening. “I’m looking up at that warm square of light where you are. If you turn out all the lights, you’ll see me. Pull back the curtains, Gina. Take a good look.”

My free hand fists itself in the bedclothes, a violence the lovely room doesn’t deserve, and I take in a deep, slow breath tinted with the faint scent of lavender. “The hell I will,” I say. “Because you’re a goddamn liar. You’re not here. You have no idea where I am.”

“Prove it. Go and look.”

“Fuck off with your mind games, Melvin. You’re not there. If you were, you’d be knocking on the door.”

I bolt to my feet, because at that very moment, there’s a knock. Brisk. Three taps on the main entrance.

I hang up the call, drop the phone, and lunge to open my bedroom door. “Sam! Don’t!” I grab my handgun from the shoulder holster slung over the chair, and he pauses, already in the act of unlocking. I rush to put my back to the wall. My heart’s pounding, and although I do not believe Melvin is the boogeyman he wants me to think, the timing is too eerie. I calm myself, then nod to Sam. I’m ready, but I hold the gun at my side, pointed down.

He opens the door and steps quickly back, and I see our nice hostess standing there in her blue sari, smiling. There’s another advantage of having the gun down; I can quickly slip it into a pocket of the robe before she turns her gaze toward me. “Please excuse me, I came for your clothes . . . ?”

I’d forgotten all about the laundry, and I feel incredibly stupid. Hot and cold at once. I go and grab mine. Sam stuffs them in with his and hands her the crinkling plastic bag, and she gives us a nod and a smile and moves away. She turns back as he begins to close it. “Oh, wait, sir,” she says, stepping back. Behind her is her daughter, with a silver tray. “Your scones.”

“Sorry it took so long,” the daughter says. “I hope you like them.”

They look delicious, and I say so and thank her. I wince as Sam closes and locks the door again. “Sorry,” I say. “I’m jumpy.” My heart’s racing. My hands are shaking. Melvin has put poison in my veins, like the call was a snakebite.