Killman Creek (Stillhouse Lake #2)(32)

“Yeah, got that,” he says as he grabs a treat from the tray I’m holding in both hands. He doesn’t miss the tremors. “What is it?”

I don’t want to tell him, not yet, so I slide the tray onto the other, empty table, shake my head, and go back to the bedroom. I put my gun back in its holster. I turn the light off in the bedroom, and after a second of hesitation, I walk to the window and slide the closed curtain aside, just enough to look.

There’s a deck down on the first floor, with round wooden tables and chairs arranged in precise formation around them. The shade umbrellas are tightly folded. Beyond the deck, the lawn rolls down a hill and into underbrush, and beyond that, a forest and climbing hills. It’s a pretty place.

There’s no one down there. Not a soul stirring.

I turn back to the bed as the phone buzzes for attention. This time, I accept the call and say nothing. Just wait. The silence stretches, and finally, Melvin says, “Made you look.” I can hear the smile in his voice. Smug. Relentless.

“I’m not afraid of you, you murderous shit,” I tell him. “Fuck off.”

He hangs up. I sense that Sam’s hovering near my doorway, not quite asking, and without raising my head I say, “That was him. I’m sorry. I let him gaslight me. Won’t happen again.”

“Hey.” I do look up, finally, and his face is tense, but there’s compassion there, too. Concern. “None of this is your fault, Gwen. It never was. Remember that.”

I nod, but my heart isn’t in it. I was uniquely situated to stop a monster, for years. It’s impossible not to feel that. To know in my bones that I bear part of that blame, if only in my own mind. “He said he was here,” I say. “Outside. And then I heard the knock—”

“Bad timing,” Sam says. “Story of our lives. How the hell did he get your number?”

I take a deep breath and shake my head. I don’t know, but I can guess. Absalom. The Georgia cops demanded our cell numbers. That info got entered somewhere in a system, and Absalom would have been looking for those reports. He knows we’re in Georgia, I think, and my pulse jumps again. We shouldn’t stay here. We should run.

But that’s the old Gina, whispering to me. I’m done running. I’m hunting.

I tell Sam that Melvin knows we’re in the state, because I can’t not tell him that, and I feel a little weight come off me when he shrugs. “Have to expect that. We did send up a nice big flare at that cabin. He doesn’t know we’re here. You’re right. He was gaslighting you.”

“So should we go?”

“Do you want to go?” I silently shake my head. “Then we should get a decent night’s rest.”

Sam comes into the room, but not far. Leans against the doorpost. We’re so careful with distance, the two of us; we understand the minefield of memory and deceit and a bloody, sorrowful past.

And it doesn’t mean that the desire to step into that minefield isn’t real, too. I can feel the pull between us, slow and steady, a constant tension that we keep dialed down to a low hum, for the sake of safety. We might sleep in the same space, but we don’t sleep together. I know we’re both thinking about it on some level, especially in this calm, lovely place, stripped down to robes that untie so easily.

What dries my mouth and shakes my confidence is that I wonder if this powerful attraction I feel toward him right now is the rebound reaction of having heard Melvin’s voice. I want comfort. I crave safety. And I know that seeking that in the arms of another man—even Sam—is dangerous. My safety has to be found within myself.

Sam’s probably not doing as much self-analysis, but then again, he isn’t coming forward, either. He stays safely on his side of the line.

“Could still be something in those receipts,” Sam says, and I think it’s just to say anything to break the silence. “Some of the supplies he bought don’t look right. We didn’t see any heavy chain in the house, did we? Saws?”

Those aren’t unusual purchases for a rural cabin, but still, he’s right. We didn’t, not inside the cabin, anyway. I’d think Mike Lustig would have mentioned if he’d found them down in the wreckage of the basement. “You’re thinking he bought them for someone else . . . ?”

“I’m thinking that this could be the beginning of a long thread we can follow. Don’t you?”

I nod. I suddenly flash on something, and I get up and walk back to the rolltop desk. Sam follows and stands near as I quickly thumb through receipts, looking for the most innocuous thing of all.

Paper towels. Toilet paper. The bulk purchases are on the same online order for other household things, like air freshener and bleach, in quantities normally reserved for large businesses. I don’t even know why it’s attracted my attention.

I stare at it for a second, not quite sure what it is that I’m seeing in it. Probably nothing. People buy things in bulk. Paper towels don’t go bad. So why does it bother me?

“Shit,” I say out loud when I finally see it. I hold the page out to Sam and watch him go through the same exact process. It takes about the same amount of time. We’re well matched, Sam Cade and I.

“The address,” he says. “This didn’t get sent to the cabin.”

“No,” I agree. And even though I’m reluctant, I say, “You’d better call Mike.”