Wolfhunter River (Stillhouse Lake Book 3) Read online

  I want them out of here while Miranda is still on the air, unable to pursue. I nod to the Whites; the woman with them—middle-aged, with a utilitarian hairstyle and practical pantsuit—nods back. She studies me as I move my kids out of the greenroom and grab my bag on the way out the door.

  I’m dialing my phone before we even hit the outer door. A staffer tries to waylay me, probably to persuade me to go back into the gladiatorial pit of idiocy, and I stiff-arm him out of the way and don’t listen to a word he says.

  Then we’re outside, and Sam’s picking up on the other end of the phone. “Done already?” He sounds surprised.

  “You weren’t watching?”

  “I went to get coffee. What happened?”

  “Tell you in the car. We’ll meet you at the end of the driveway,” I say, and we head down the slight slope of the walkway at a good clip.

  As we do, I see that the giant monitor on the front of the broadcast building is silently playing the Howie Hamlin Show with closed-captioning beneath the action. There must be a time delay, because apparently Hamlin is just now apologizing to the audience for my abrupt departure. I’m sure the next step—because Hamlin’s staff will have done their homework—is to let Miranda talk about how suspicious my behavior is. About the dead young women found last year floating in Stillhouse Lake, right outside my front door.

  About how I got away with murder . . . except that it wasn’t me. It was a man who wanted to frame me at the orders of my ex. Not that they’ll ever believe that.

  I shouldn’t have to defend my very existence. My horrible past. The scars on my body and soul.

  I can’t believe I let myself get pulled into doing the show. I’ve let my kids down. I’m fighting tears, shaking. I thought I was going to end all our problems, and instead I’ve just made it another sideshow.

  My phone rings as we round the curve. I see Sam’s truck idling down at the end of the sidewalk with his emergency flashers blinking. I answer without taking my eyes off our escape route.

  “Yes?”

  “Ms. Proctor, this is Dana Reyes, the assistant producer of the Howie Hamlin Show. I’m so sorry that came off as such a surprise; we certainly didn’t intend for it to be that confrontational.” Liar. “Please come back to the set. We’ll have the next segment set up for you alone, and I promise, we’ll focus solely on your story”—I practically hear her check her notes—“about the stalking of your family. Obviously, we apologize if you felt offended by—”

  I hang up on her. We pile into the pickup, and Sam turns the flashers off and pulls into traffic. It’s a beautiful afternoon in Knoxville, Tennessee, hot and clear, the sky an intense blue. Sam is sending me cautious looks. He doesn’t want to ask. I don’t want to volunteer. The kids are sitting behind us in the extended cab, and they’re uncharacteristically quiet too. Shocked, as I am, that such a nice day has turned so completely toxic.

  What did I just do? I think. From Howie’s lead-in about the conversations on the internet, Miranda’s been stirring trouble for a while. I let the onslaught of reporters distract me from keeping track of all the threats out there, and that was my mistake. I didn’t know that this was building against me, against us. But I should have.

  Conspiracy theories have been multiplying insanely for years now, ever more ridiculous and far-fetched. Chemicals in contrails. Anti-vaxxers. Climate-change deniers. And all those are almost precious compared to the toxic horror of the 9/11 and school-shooting truthers who reduce the worst nightmare of any parent’s life to fakery, and rip the survivors’ lives apart.

  Trust Miranda Tidewell to realize that it’s just the right environment to destroy us with a minimum of effort. Make a slanted documentary, launch some outrageous claims, find something that feels true about them, and sell it hard and often. The delusional and the emotionally disturbed will find something in it to comfort them. The lazy will rely on it as unlikely but possible. And in a year or two, the lazy will convince themselves “better safe than sorry” and pass it along as truth. She’s smart to do it this way. A documentary—even peddling half truths and lies—has a certain amount of built-in credibility.

  People will believe it because the same mind-set insists that my innocence, my horror and grief, is just an act. That I had to know, be part of it. Because if they had to admit it was real, that they could be vulnerable to the same terrifying, random events that hit me like a wrecking ball . . . that’s far too frightening.

  Better to fight an imaginary demon than face real ones.

  The more I think about it, the angrier I get. I do want to go back into the studio, and I want to rip that smug host’s ears off with the volume of my yelling.

  That’s a good reason not to go back.

  “Hey. You okay?” Sam’s voice is quiet, and it steadies me out of the vibrating rage and into something a little less violent.

  “No,” I say. “It was an on-air ambush. I suppose you know Miranda Tidewell.”

  I see him stiffen. The glance he throws me is wide-eyed and shocked.

  “Holy shit,” Sam says. “She was in the studio? With you?”

  “Absolutely. She’s saying the Lost Angels group is making a documentary,” I tell him. “About me. I suppose they can’t avoid dragging you into it too.”

  “Oh my God.” Sam looks absolutely wrecked. I wonder if he’s met Miranda; he might have, after coming back from Afghanistan. He’d missed my trial and acquittal, so he came into the horror show late in the game. Miranda would have wanted him on her side . . . and I remember with an uneasy twinge that Sam was on that side for a while. At least the side of those who believed I was guilty. “Okay. We need to get out of here and go straight home.” If he wants to tell me I told you so, he holds back, for which I’m deeply grateful. He’d warned me not to rely on the goodwill of television personalities. He’d been right.

  I’d promised the kids a fun day in Knoxville after the show. But I know that ship has sailed; the last thing I want to do is have them vulnerable out in public, with at least some percentage of the city on alert for us after that disaster. Some jerk won’t be able to resist the bait, and I am not having my kids harassed. “Yes,” I agree. “Sorry, guys. I know I promised we’d stay the afternoon, but—”

  “You’re looking out for us,” Lanny says. Connor, predictably, doesn’t say anything. “We get it. But, Mom . . . we can handle things.” She says that with the absurd confidence of a fifteen-year-old, and I’m terrified that she means it.

  “Well, I can’t handle things right now,” I say, because that way I’m not insulting either of them by pretending that they haven’t been through hell and back. “I know this is a long trip for nothing. I’m sorry. I really didn’t see this coming.” I should have. If I’d been on guard, watching the internet like I should have . . .

  “It’s okay,” my son finally says. “We understand.”

  That’s sweeter than I deserve, and suddenly I’m even angrier that there are people out there treating us like paper targets. My kids are as real, and as incredible, as they come. And I will fight for them to the end.

  Sam says, “How about some ice cream for the road?”

  “Ice cream!” Connor says, suddenly animated. “Oreo ice cream?”

  “Whatever you want, my dude,” Sam says. “Lanny?”

  I look into the rearview mirror. She’s wrinkling her nose, but she says, “Sure.” A concession. “Mom? Are we back at DEFCON One, or what?”

  “I don’t know,” I tell her. “Sweetie, I just don’t know. But for now, I think we have to be very, very careful.”

  We make the drive back to Stillhouse Lake and our house without incident, though I’m hyperalert for anything. The ice cream is good, and Connor is in an expansive mood after wolfing down both his and half his sister’s; I’d worry about his eating habits, but the morning pastry is an anomaly, and my son’s metabolism keeps him rail-thin anyway. He’s putting on height and muscle, a process that’s slow now, but I can see that it’ll accelerate
soon. Good. It’s an unfortunate fact of our lives: I need my kids to grow up faster than normal. That’s been true since the day our lives blew up. Burn in hell, Melvin.

  The past few years haven’t been easy for Lanny and Connor. Or me. But I’d thought we were easing into some kind of peace, finally. We had Sam, who was as fiercely protective of them as I was, who’d followed me up into the wilderness to win them back. We had a home. We had at least a tentative kind of acceptance from friends and some of the neighbors.

  But after this . . . I don’t know. I just don’t.

  “Let me out here,” I tell Sam. “I’ll get the mail. You guys get dinner going, okay?”

  “Okay, but you know this means you lose your vote.”

  “You hold my proxy vote,” I say. “Something healthy?”

  “Boo,” my kids say in chorus. I roll my eyes and wave them on up the hill.

  I used a pretext of checking the mail, but as I stand there, I pull out my phone and dial. When the answering service picks up on the other end, I tell them I need an immediate callback from Dr. Marks. They’re cool and professional, the people in that office; they’ve heard it all. I suppose I should have put more distress into the message, but Dr. Marks knows me. She’ll understand the message.

  It’s only a few minutes later when the call comes. Katherine Marks. “Gwen,” she says, and as always, her voice is crisp, calm, oddly soothing. “How’d the television appearance go today?”

  “Did you watch?”

  “No, I’m afraid I couldn’t. I had clients.”

  “Well . . .” I shift a little, reluctant to admit it now that I’m actually on the phone with her. “Not well. I had the . . . the thing we talked about.”

  “You reacted to the camera?”

  “Yes.” Paradoxically, the second I admit it, all the memories come tumbling back. I thought I was past this, though Dr. Marks had warned me that this particular kind of post-traumatic stress might keep rebounding on me. It goes deep. That day and night at Killman Creek, I’d believed, really believed, that I was going to die as Melvin Royal’s victim. Tortured to death for an audience paying to see it happen, and all of it, all of it, happening in front of the unblinking eye of a video camera. “I kept seeing it all over again. I couldn’t . . . I couldn’t control it.”

  “Do you want to come see me?”

  “I can’t,” I say. What I mean is, I don’t want to. I want to hide here, at home with my family. “I was hoping you might be able to just . . .”

  “Talk you through it?” she finishes, just a little wryness in the tone. “You’ve been remarkably reluctant to dig deep into this. Are you saying you’re ready to do that now?”

  “Yes,” I say. What I really mean is, No. Or, I don’t know if I can. I close my eyes. The breeze is warm and damp as it rushes over me, and I breathe in slowly, then out in a rush.

  I open the door to the memory, and the first thing I see is my ex-husband, Melvin Royal, lying next to me, smiling at me as I wake up. I’m there. I feel the crowding, heavy Louisiana humidity. Smell the rotting wood of the house. The damp, stiff nightgown sticking to my skin belongs to a dead woman.

  I feel the shackles biting into my wrists.

  No. NO.

  “Gwen?”

  I open my mouth. Nothing comes out. I turn from the memory, shove it deep, slam a mental door and lock it with a cartoonishly large imaginary padlock. But I still see his Cheshire-cat grin, and the glassy dead eye of the camera watching me.

  I watched him beat a woman to death. Beat her until there was nothing left of her. I can’t go back there.

  “I’m sorry,” I tell her. My voice sounds small and defeated. “I can’t—”

  “It’s all right,” Dr. Marks says. “You pushed too fast. Let it go. Step back. Listen to your heartbeat. Breathe. You don’t have to do this until you’re ready, and you’ll feel it. Until then, you need to protect yourself from something that hurts. There’s no shame in that.”

  I do as she says. I’m almost panting, but as I slow down, I’m back here, at Stillhouse Lake. The air is familiar. The fresh smell of the trees cuts the memory of rancid decay. I open my eyes and stare at the peaceful, soft ripples of the lake.

  I’m not there. But in a way I never left. Maybe I’m not ready to leave it behind yet.

  “I’m sorry,” I tell her again. “I just—I thought I could do it today. But I almost lost it.”

  “Almost,” she says. “But you didn’t. You need to forgive yourself for human weakness. No one’s strong all the time.”

  I need to be, though. I have enemies, just as much now as ever. Strength is the only thing that stands between those faceless threats and my children.

  I make an appointment with her in two weeks. We’ll sit for an hour, and I’ll try to get this poison out of me. But today’s not the day.

  When I hang up, it’s not quite sundown, just a shady late afternoon, and I enjoy the silence for a minute before I head to the mailbox standing at the bottom of the drive. It’s painted a cheery yellow with flowers on the lid, and though the kids wanted to put our names on it, I told them no, very firmly. I let them sign the work with their initials. I figured that was a compromise. I focus on the painting, on the peace it represents, and I tell myself that I’ll get through this.

  I pull the door down and see a blur just before I hear a rattling hiss. Instinct makes me jump back just before the snake strikes. I take several fast, stumbling steps away; snakes can reach almost their full body length, and this one misses me by a few inches, retracts, and begins to slither angrily into a knot inside the box.

  A snake. In my mailbox.

  I try to control my racing heartbeat and instant shakes. It’s a nasty-looking bastard, mottled gray and brown like the forest floor, with the distinctive head of some kind of viper. I don’t know snakes, but I know if they rattle, it can’t be good. I don’t know if I’ve let out a scream. Probably.

  I dial the Norton police officer I know best—Kezia Claremont, one of the few people I trust with my kids—and must reach her in the car, because her voice comes in close and tinny, rumbled by road noise. “Hey, Gwen. What’s up?”

  “There’s a snake in my mailbox.” My voice sounds remarkably flat. “I think it’s some kind of rattlesnake.”

  “What?”

  “Rattlesnake. In my mailbox.” I glance around and grab a fallen branch that’s lying nearby, making sure I look for any friends the snake might have first. I use the stick to flip the door of the mailbox shut, trapping the snake inside . . . and then I begin to wonder if this branch might have already been used for this very purpose. Too late to worry about fingerprints, if that was even possible to get from rough wood. “My kids could have opened that, Kez. Jesus Christ.”

  “Is it poisonous?”

  “It rattled.”

  “Are you bitten?”

  “No. No, I don’t think so.” Now that the adrenaline is starting to recede, I feel sick and woozy. I check my hands and arms for any bites, but I’m clean. “I’m okay. But someone needs to come get this thing out.”

  “Okay, here’s what I want you to do: keep that box shut. Tape it shut if you need to. I’m sending a specialist to come get it.” There’s a pause. The road noise lessens. “You think someone put it in there? Deliberately?”

  “The box was shut when I got here, Kez. And the mail was inside. That snake arrived after the mail. Unless vipers have figured out how to close doors behind them, it sure didn’t seal itself in there on its own.”

  Kezia’s quiet after that for a few seconds. I hear clicks; she’s switched over to texting. I can hear the distraction in her voice as she replies. “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do. I’ve got the snake guy and forensics dispatched. As soon as the snake’s gone, forensics is going to process that mailbox. If we’re lucky, somebody’s left us a print.”

  I can’t imagine anyone fool enough to do that, but she’s right—it’s worth a shot. “Okay,” I tell her. “I’ll wait here
until they arrive.”

  “I’m on my way.”

  Lanny comes back down the hill as the vivid blue sky fades to faint orange above me, and the trees give up their daytime green and become sharp black points. The wind’s died down, and the lake is still. Most of the boats are gone.

  I’m standing six feet from the mailbox, and I don’t take my eyes off it.

  “Mom?” Lanny says.

  “Go back in the house,” I tell her. I’m staring at the mailbox, maybe a little obsessively. “I’ll be there in a bit. I’m waiting for someone.”

  “Uh, okay?” She doesn’t know exactly what I’m doing, or what to ask. “Should I go ahead and start the chicken or what?”

  “Yes,” I tell her. “Go ahead. Thanks, honey.”

  “Okay.” She doesn’t leave. “Mom, are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.” She frowns at me. “Honey, I just . . . I need some time, okay? I need to work through some things. You go on. Tell Sam I’m okay.” Because I know Sam will be down here next.

  She knows damn well I’m not telling the whole truth—and I’m not, because I need to keep her safe—but she goes, finally. I like that instinct in her, to question everything. It will serve her well in the future, even with me. And I’m glad she didn’t stay. I’m very aware—hideously aware, as night begins to fall—that I’m standing out here alone, exposed, and a snake in my mailbox is hardly the only threat out here. What if the person who put it there comes back? What if they’re behind me right now?

  I give in. I take a fast look around as my daughter heads up the hill.

  No one around. No threats I can see.

  But it doesn’t mean they aren’t there. Waiting.

  2

  GWEN

  The man arrives first about ten minutes later. He’s a rough specimen who looks like he’s just spent weeks out in the woods, and I don’t like it. Or him. Or any of this. He says, “Hey. I’m here for that snake.”