Killman Creek (Stillhouse Lake #2)(37)

I drive past the address, turn the next corner, and park. “We’d better take everything with us,” I say. “Not the place you leave stuff in view.”

“Good plan,” Mike says. “Common wisdom is, you don’t park in this neighborhood unless you leave somebody behind to watch the ride.”

“You volunteering?” Gwen asks drily, then gets out. I know she’s armed underneath that leather jacket. My gun is in a pancake holster on my left side; I like cross-body draw because it gives me time to assess before the weapon’s in my hand. Too many shots get fired before the brain catches up. “So. How do we want to do this?”

I lock the rental and mentally kiss the deposit goodbye. “Split up?”

“No,” both Mike and Gwen say. They exchange a look, as if surprised they agree on anything. “Outer perimeter only,” Mike says. “Start at the back, work our way ’round. We see anything sketchy, we’re out, and we sit on the place until I can get some guys here.”

“What are you going to tell them?” Gwen asks as we start walking. To our right is an old, boarded-up convenience store. There are eyes looking out between the boards, so it’s probably being used as a squat. “Since all your evidence is inadmissible.”

“I’ll say we heard sounds of a person in distress,” Mike says. “Which, when we find this video, won’t be too hard to believe. I’ll drop it inside, some point.”

“You seriously think that’s going to play.”

He shrugs. “Gets us a step farther. Right now, progress is all I got.”

We turn right at the alley, which makes my skin tingle and hair prickle painfully on the back of my neck. With two-story crumbling warehouses on either side, it looks like a place shadows gather. I’d rather not get knifed out here. Mike isn’t wearing a protective vest, either. This feels like an ambush waiting to happen.

The first warehouse we pass on the right-hand side is concrete blocks, so it’s surviving better, though the corrugated roof has rusted heavily. The chain-link fence is cut in two places. But the next warehouse, the one we came for, looks worse. Yet this chain link is new and shiny, and there’s a loop of barbed wire across the top to keep out anyone thinking of hopping it. The NO TRESPASSING signs are new and bright red, lacking the gunshot spatter that I’d seen on the ones in front in Google Street View. I wonder if someone has been out to renew all of it. Probably.

“Over here,” Gwen says, pulling on the chain link right at the farthest pole. It rattles, and when I come over, I see that it’s been cut and fastened with a couple of paper clips. I work them free, and Gwen shoves the opening back. It’s big enough to crawl through.

I look at Mike. He holds up both hands. “Not my circus,” he says. “You take care.”

He’s using us. Still. But I get why. I watched the video. I have a dim sense of what lies behind Mike’s calm face and unflickering smile.

I want to rip my fucking eyeballs out, he’d said, leaning heavily on me as we staggered back to our quarters that night. I want to scream until I throw up.

All night, he’d been smiling that same smile.





9

GWEN

Inside the perimeter fence, it feels like we’re alone on the face of the earth, and I instinctively check around me for escape options. It’s not good. One exit, behind us. I prefer multiple ways out. If I have to, I can scale that fence, sacrifice the jacket to provide some protection from the cutting wire edges. What if he’s in there . . .

He isn’t, I tell myself firmly. Though, honestly, what better place for Melvin Royal to be holed up? A deserted warehouse, with his followers to bring him food and comforts and victims. It’s so eerily possible that I slow, nearly stop, and earn a look from Sam. He doesn’t see it. He’s intent on finding clues.

I’m terrified we’re about to find something much, much more dangerous.

It feels like the zombie apocalypse has arrived inside this yard. The Atlanta sky has grown cloudy above us, and the coverage is low enough that I can’t see jets cutting through to remind me that the world still turns. I hear nothing but the wind hissing through the fence and the rattle of graying plastic trash as it listlessly drifts and flutters. The area where we stand was a parking lot once, but it’s long surrendered to the assault of weeds, grass, and weather. It’s a minefield of up-jutting, broken asphalt, mixed in with dead or dying stalks. Easy to lose footing in here. Impossible to run safely. Even from here, I can see the shiny padlock on the back door. The clasp that holds it looks newly installed.

“Gwen?” asks Sam, who’s retreated to stand next to me. “You okay?”

I don’t want to do this, I want to tell him. I want to remind him that I was right about the basement. But I know the difference between a genuine instinctive warning and the chaotic product of fear. So what if Melvin’s squatting here? There are two of us, both good shots, both with reason to see him dead. It means my nightmare could be over in a few minutes instead of days, or weeks, or never.

“Okay,” I tell him, and I make myself give him a nod. I’m still simmering about him watching that horror show of a video alone, because it feels like protection, like a man making decisions for me. We’ll have that conversation later. For now, it’s business. “Let’s do this. Careful of the footing.”