Killman Creek (Stillhouse Lake #2)(75)

Now we’re helping you. Everything has a price. She’s yours. We’ll give you Melvin. You give us Gina.

I take a long moment of silence. I stare at all the evidence of my madness, and I know it’s still in me; I still half believe those videos of Gina Royal. I wish to hell I didn’t. I want to rip that part of myself up by the roots, but I can’t; it’s the part that holds the memories of my lost little sister, too. It might be toxic, but it’s important.

I think. My coffee sits undrunk, cooling, as the sleet hisses against the windows and the night grows darker. I remember Gina Royal saying she never helped her husband. Swearing it under oath. I remember the video, fake or not, that says she lied.

I remember Gwen screaming into the cold wind while I held her back from plunging into traffic.

And then I type two words.

I’m in.





18

CONNOR

Dad said that Javier and Kezia would never figure out what I did, and he was right about that. He sent me all the instructions: how to download the video onto his phone, how to transfer it to the one Mom gave me, how to take off the parental lock that kept me from using the Internet so I could pretend I found it on a message board. He even posted a fake message there so Javier could find a broken link when he went looking. I already knew Mom’s code to take the lock off. It wasn’t hard to figure out.

Dad told me to do all that and hide his phone before I watched the video on the one Mom gave me.

He knew it would hurt. He said me it would, and that he was sorry.

Dad’s been right about everything.

He proved it.

I’m texting him regularly, whenever I can. I’m sitting in my bedroom now with the door locked in case Lanny decides to check on me, reading his latest message. I wrote to you, kiddo. I sent you letters, birthday cards, presents. Did you get any of them?

There’s only one answer to that. No.

Because she was determined to poison you against me, son. I’m sorry. I should have tried harder.

Were there really presents? Cards? Letters? I don’t know, but I remember Lanny saying that she’d seen one he sent to Mom. Not to us. But it talked about us. Mom never intended to show us any of it.

Maybe she kept everything from us. Everything Dad said, wrote, sent.

It makes sense to me. Everything he says disturbs me, and everything makes sense.

But I still don’t know whether or not to trust him. Mom lied to us. Maybe he’s lying now. I don’t know how to trust anybody, not anymore. So I don’t text back. I just keep rereading his apology.

After another minute, another text pops up. Well, think about it, Brady. You can ask me anything you want, remember that. This is Dad, signing off.

I text back Bye and shut down the phone. Then I take out the battery. I’m still careful about that. I don’t want anybody hurt. Especially Lanny.

I should stop texting him, I know that. I know it’s wrong. Lanny would be furious. Mom—I don’t want to think about what Mom would do. Mom doesn’t matter anymore, and I can’t pretend I ever even knew her. At least Dad hasn’t lied to me. Dad says she helped him. He has evidence. All Mom has is Please believe me, and I don’t anymore.

The phone from Dad is like a secret promise, an escape hatch, and I keep it on me constantly now; I only put it on charge when I’m asleep, and I shove it under the pillow.

I’m living a double life now. Brady has a cell phone. Connor has one. But I’m almost two different people.

Dad only ever texts back. He doesn’t text me first, and we’ve never spoken, not yet. He told me it was my choice, and if I never wanted to call, that was fine, too. He wasn’t going to push me, and he hasn’t. Not like everybody else does.

He lets me make up my own mind.

I’m holding the phone, thinking about turning it on and calling Dad, when I see Lanny slipping over the fence. She’s not leaving; she’s coming back. I didn’t even know she’d been gone. She’s quick and good at it, but Boot still barks and chases after her, as if he’s arguing with her. She picks up a stick and tosses it for him to chase, which I guess is a pretty good excuse in case Javier looks out the window.

Dad doesn’t sound crazy in these messages. He sounds like a father. He asks how I’m doing, what I’m feeling. What I’m reading. He lets me tell him the stories of the books I really like. He tells me stories, too—nothing weird, which I guess people would expect. He tells me about growing up and looking for arrowheads, catching frogs, fishing. Normal stuff that I don’t do. I’m not the one who runs and jumps. That’s Lanny’s job. I live mostly in quiet, and I watch things happen. Maybe that’s bad, I don’t know. It’s just how I like it.

Dad hasn’t once asked me about Mom, or where we are. I wouldn’t tell him that; I know I can’t really trust him that far. But sometimes I wish he would ask, which is weird, and I wonder why I want that. I guess I have this fantasy that he’s going to come in and take me away, and somehow, we’ll be . . . better. He’ll be a good dad, and we’ll go on adventures. I even imagine what kind of car he’ll be driving, what he’ll be wearing, what kind of music will be on the radio. Dad liked weird oldies from the 1980s. So probably that stuff. I sometimes listen to it, too, not because I like it, but because I wonder why he does. I could teach him to like new music. I could make him a playlist.