Stillhouse Lake

  Officer Graham's right. I need to take her to the range and teach her properly, because I know my child, and soon, all my orders not to touch the guns won't be enough. She takes her cues from me, though she doesn't want me to know it. As I look at her standing there, holding the knife, pale and afraid and yet fearless, I love her with an intensity that hurts me. I also fear what I've made her into.

  "It's okay," I say, very gently, though of course it isn't true. "Lanny. Please put the knife away."

  "Guess it's not a great idea to murder-stab cops," she says, "but Mom, if--"

  "If they come back with some official paperwork, I'll go quietly," I tell her. "And you will take care of Connor. Connor, you'll do whatever Lanny says. All right?"

  "I'm the man of the house, you know," he grumbles, and it chills me, because I hear an echo of his father in it. But unlike his father, it isn't aggressive. It's just a complaint.

  Lanny rolls her eyes as she slots the knife back in the block, but she doesn't say anything. Instead, she gently shoves Connor in the direction of his room. He plants his feet and doesn't go. He's too busy looking at me, that knot of concern in between his brows, his eyes fierce with worry. "Mom," he says. "We should get out of here. Now. Just leave."

  "What?" Lanny blurts it out before she can stop herself, and I can see that the idea hasn't been far from her mind, either. She's been dreading the news, and expecting it. I've kept my kids balancing on that knife edge for too long. "No. No, we're not. Are we leaving? Do we have to? Tonight?"

  I can see the unmistakable plea in her. She's only just found friends, something she lost in Wichita in an unimaginable whirlwind of horror. She's found, however briefly, a little happiness. But she isn't begging. She's just hoping.

  I don't need to answer, because she does it for herself. She looks down and says, "Yeah. Yeah, of course we are. We have to, right? If the cops dig deep, they're going to find out . . ."

  "If they take my fingerprints, yes. They'll find out who we are. I'm delaying to give us some time." I take a deep breath, so deep in hurts. "Go get what you need. One suitcase, okay?"

  "You'll look guilty if we run away now," she tells me. And of course she's right. But I can't stop this train; it's well beyond any control I can exert. If we stay, I risk the storm descending from both sides. Running may make me look guilty, but at least I can get them away from this, get my kids safe, and come back to clear myself.

  Connor's off like a shot. Lanny looks at me with a mournful silence, then follows.

  I say, "I'm so sorry," to her back.

  She says nothing at all.

  7

  It's damn late, but I call Javier and ask him to bring the van as quick as he can; I tell him the Jeep's ready for pickup, and I'll pay him extra for the trouble. He doesn't ask questions but promises to be with us in half an hour. It's cutting things close.

  I go to my room, unhook my laptop, and stow it in my go-bag for dismemberment and disposal later. It isn't lost on me that in this I have some common ground with my ex-husband.

  It's different this time, isn't it? Mel's haunting voice whispers to me as I stuff extras into the bag, things I want to keep. You're not just running from stalkers, or even from me. You're running from the police now. How far do you think you'll get once they're really hunting for you? Once everyone is hunting for you?

  I pause in the act of grabbing the photo album I never leave behind. There are no pictures of Mel in it, just me and the kids and friends. Mel might as well have never existed . . . Except that he is right. Mind-Mel, anyway. If I run, and they decide I'm worth chasing, it becomes a whole different paradigm. I doubt Absalom will help me evade the law. He'd be the first one to rat me out.

  There's a knock at the door. I shove the photo album in, zip the bag, and leave it on the bed. Everything else I own is cheaply acquired, easily replaced, and disposable.

  When I answer the door, Javier is standing there.

  "Thanks," I tell him. "I'll get your keys--"

  He interrupts me to say regretfully, "Yeah, about that. We never got around to talking about it, but just so you know, I'm a reserve deputy. Heard on the radio that they were looking to question you right about the time you called about the van. You're not going anywhere, Gwen. I had to make the call."

  Standing right behind him is Detective Prester. He's wearing a dark suit today, and a blue tie so ineptly knotted I wonder if he just made a square knot and called it good. He seems tired and pissed off, and in his hand is a crisp triple-folded piece of paper with an official seal showing on the front. He says, "I'm disappointed, Ms. Proctor. I thought we had some kind of civil conversation between us. But you were about to go and run away on me, and I have to tell you, that doesn't look good. Not at all."

  I feel the trap closing over me. It's not a bear trap, but silk strands weaving together into an unbreakable net. I can scream, I can rage, but I can no longer run from this.

  Whatever this is.

  I give Javier a smile I don't feel and say, "It's all right." He doesn't smile back. He's studying me with wary intensity. They are all, I think, well aware that I hold a concealed carry permit. They know I'm dangerous. I wonder if they have snipers out in the darkness.

  I think about my kids, and I hold up my hands. "I'm not armed. Please. Check me."

  Prester does the honors, quick, impersonal sweeps of hands over me, and I flash back to the first time this happened to Gina Royal, bent across the burning hood of the family minivan. Poor, stupid Gina, who'd thought that invasive. She hadn't had a clue.

  "Clean," Prester says. "All right. Let's make this nice and easy, shall we?"

  "I'll come quietly if you let me talk to my kids first."

  "All right. Javier, you go in with her."

  Javier nods and reaches down to take a black case from his pocket and slot it onto his belt. A gold-washed deputy's star gleams there. He's officially on duty now.

  I go inside and find Lanny and Connor sitting tensely, staring at the door; relief melts over them, but then I see the change as Javier comes in, too, and takes up a guard stance at the door. "Mom?" Lanny's voice breaks a little. "Is everything okay?"

  I sink down on the sofa and put my arms around them both, holding them close. I kiss them before I say, as gently as I can, "I have to go with Detective Prester for now. Everything's okay. Javier is going to stay here with you until I get back."

  I look up at him, and he nods and looks away. Lanny's not crying, but Connor is, very quietly. He wipes his eyes with both hands, and I can tell he's angry with himself. Neither of them says a word.

  "I love you both so much," I say, and then I get up. "Please look out for each other until I'm back."

  "If you're back," Lanny says. It's almost a whisper. I pretend I didn't hear because if I look at her now, I'll break, and they'll have to drag me away from them.

  I manage to walk on my own out of the house, down the steps, and I join Prester at the car. When I look back, I see Javier stepping inside and locking up the house.

  "They'll be okay," Prester tells me. He ushers me into the back and ducks in after me. It's like sharing a cab, I think, except the doors don't open from the inside. At least the ride's free. Graham gets in the front seat and drives.

  Prester doesn't say anything, and I don't get any kind of vibe from him; it's like sitting next to a piece of sun-warmed granite that smells faintly of dry-cleaning fluid and Old Spice. I don't know what I smell like to him. Fear, probably. The sweaty aroma of a guilty woman. I know how cops think, and they wouldn't have come to get me if I wasn't a--as they like to term it--person of interest. Which is a suspect that they haven't quite collected enough evidence on to charge. I worry about Lanny, with so much responsibility landing on her at just the wrong time in her life. Then I realize I'm thinking like I'm actually guilty.

  Which I'm not. Not of the murder at the lake. Not of anything except marrying the wrong man and failing to notice he was the devil wearing human skin.

  I tak
e in a slow breath, let it out, and say, "Whatever you think I did, you're wrong."

  "I never said you did anything," Prester says. "To borrow a colorful phrase from the English, you're helping us with our inquiries." He's nearly as bad at British accents as he is at ties.

  "I'm a suspect, or you wouldn't have a warrant," I tell him flatly.

  For answer, Prester unfolds the paper. It's good, official stock, with the logo of the city on the top, and the word WARRANT printed on it in bold letters, but where the particulars should be, it's just nonsense words graphic designers use to fill space. Lorem ipsum. I've used the same text so often, I can't help but let out a soft laugh. "Ain't no way we could get a warrant with the information we have right now, Ms. Proctor, I'll tell you that for free."

  "Nice prop. Does it work often?"

  "All the damn time. Fools around here take one look at it and think it's in Official State Latin or some such nonsense."

  This time I laugh, because I can imagine a drunk, angry guy trying to parse out the words. Official State Latin. "So what's really so urgent that you have to come get me in the middle of the night?"

  Prester's near-imaginary smile vanishes, and he looks unreadable. "Your name. You've been living a whole pack of lies, and let me tell you, it doesn't exactly sit well with me. We got an anonymous call about your real name today and heard you might be planning to beat it out of town, so I had to make a move fast."

  I go a little cold, but I'm not really surprised. It was a logical play for my ex-husband to make, to make my life harder and more miserable. Any little, spiteful thing to hurt. It also locked me here, in Norton, and prevented me from starting the cycle again. Instead of answering, I turn my head.

  "You know how strange all this looks," Prester says. "Don't you?"

  I don't answer. There's really nothing I can say to make any of it better. I just wait as the cruiser bumps onto the main road leading to Norton, and we speed toward town.

  I don't flinch when Prester spreads out the photos in front of me. Why would I? I've been faced with Melvin Royal's gruesome work a hundred times now. I'm fully acclimated to the horror.

  There are only two that still wake a flutter in my chest.

  The photo of the woman hanging limp from a wire noose in my old garage, naked and yet stripped even further by the removal of pieces of her skin.

  The one taken underwater of Mel's garden of women, floating eerily in the dark with their legs chained tight to weights, some hardly more than skeletons.

  He'd made a science of body disposal, of exactly how much weight to use. Calculated it, using trial and error with dead animals, until he was sure how much to add to keep the bodies down. That all came out at court.

  Mel is worse than a monster. He's a smart monster.

  I know it doesn't help me that my expression stays calm as I look at all this horror, and my body doesn't flinch, but I know, too, that faking it will be transparent. I look across the array of photos to meet Prester's gaze. "If you're looking to shock me, you'll have to do better than this. Try to imagine how many times I've had to look at these before."

  He doesn't answer. Instead, he slides one more photo onto the pile. It was, I realize, taken on the docks of Stillhouse Lake, probably the one not far from my front door. I can see the worn wingtip shoes that Prester's wearing right now peeking in the edge of the shot, and regulation polished black ones that must belong to a uniformed officer, maybe Officer Graham. I am noting the shoes to avoid studying what's in the center of the picture.

  The young woman is barely recognizable once I'm forced to focus on her. She is an anatomy lesson of pink muscle and dull yellow ligaments, with the occasional flash of white bone. Sunken, clouded eyes, and a weedy fall of wet dark hair that half hides part of her skinned face. Her lips are intact, which makes the whole obscenity worse. I don't want to think why her lips are still full and perfect.

  "She was weighted down some," Prester says. "Rope got cut by the motor, though, and the gut bacteria brought her back up. You know, it wouldn't have taken much to keep her on the bottom since her skin's gone. Lots of places for gases to escape. I suppose you'd know all about that, though. Wasn't that how your husband did it?"

  Mel's victims had never floated. He'd have collected another dozen for his silent, drifting garden if The Event hadn't happened. That was one thing Mel wasn't guilty of: being bad at what he chose to do.

  I say only, "Melvin Royal liked to do this kind of thing to women, if that's what you mean."

  "And he disposed of his girls in the water, didn't he?"

  I nod. Now that I've fixed my gaze on the dead girl, I can't look away. It hurts, like staring into the sun. I know the afterimage will stay burned on my brain for the rest of my life. I swallow, and my throat clicks. I cough, and suddenly, the urge to vomit comes hard; I hold it back, somehow, though sweat breaks out against my suddenly cold skin.

  Prester notices. He has a bottle of water, and he pushes it across to me. I uncap and gulp, grateful for the cool, glassy weight that gathers in my stomach. I drain half the bottle before I recap it and set it aside. It's a gambit, of course, for my DNA. I don't care. If he chooses to wait for it, he could request confirmation from the Kansas PD. I'm documented, printed, photographed, and filed, and though the old Gina Royal is dead to me, we still share the same blood and bone and body.

  "You see my problem," he tells me in that warm, slow voice. It drones deep, and I think of old-time hanging judges, hoods, ropes, nooses. I think of the girl swaying from the end of a wire. "You were involved in a case like this back in Kansas. Got tried for being an accomplice. It might be hard to see it as some kind of coincidence happening again so close to you, is my point."

  "I never knew about what Mel did. Never, until the day of the accident."

  "Funny that your neighbor said different."

  That puts my back up, despite my efforts to stay calm. "Mrs. Millson? She was a vicious gossip, and she saw that as her chance to be some reality-show star. She perjured herself to get on the news. My lawyer destroyed her testimony on the stand. Everyone knows she was lying, and I had nothing to do with it. I was acquitted!"

  Prester doesn't blink. His expression doesn't shift. "Acquitted or not, doesn't look so good for you. Same kind of crime, same signature. So let's go through this, step by step."

  He puts another picture down, covering the first one. In a way, it's almost as upsetting as the first, because I see a fresh-faced young brunette woman with a saucy grin, sitting with her head bent to touch against another woman's. The other woman is the same age, blonde, with a sweetly wistful look. Friends, I think. They're not similar enough to be related.

  "This is how she used to look, this girl Rain Harrington we found floating around in our lake. Pretty girl. Well liked around here. Nineteen years old. Wanted to be a veterinarian." He adds another photo, of her cradling an injured, bandaged dog. It's blatant manipulation, sentimentality, but I still feel it move through me like a subtle earthquake. I shift my gaze. "Nice, lovely girl without an enemy in the goddamn world. Don't you look away!"

  That last comes as a bellow, shockingly loud, and if he expects me to flinch, he will be damn disappointed. If I don't do it at the range, at the kick of the gun in my hand, I fucking well won't show him any weakness here. Good tactic, though. The police back in Kansas could have learned something from Detective Prester. He switched so effortlessly, so quickly, that I have no doubt he'd trained somewhere tough . . . From his accent, maybe Baltimore. He's broken real criminals.

  His problem now is that I'm not one of those.

  I stare steadily at the photos, and my heart aches for her, this poor girl. Not because I've done anything to her, but because I am human.

  "You took most of her skin off while she was still alive," the detective says, softly, almost like one of the many voices I hear in my head. Like Mel's voice, for instance. "She couldn't even scream, because her vocal cords were cut. That's a hell of a thing. Best we can figure, she wa
s tied down at every possible joint, and her head clamped with some kind of leather band. You started at her feet and worked your way up. We can see the exact point where she died from the process, you know. Living tissue has a reaction. Dead tissue doesn't."

  I say nothing. I do not move. I try not to imagine it, her terror, her agony, the utter pointless horror of what happened to her.

  "You do it for your husband? For Mel? He make you do it for him?"

  "I guess you think that makes some kind of sick sense," I tell him, and I keep my voice just the same pitch, the same volume. Maybe Detective Prester has voices in his head, too. I hope so. "My ex-husband is a monster. Why wouldn't I be, too? What kind of normal woman would marry a man like that, much less stay with him?"

  He stares through me when I look up. I feel the burn, but I don't move from the gaze. Let him look. Let him see. "When I married Melvin Royal, I did it because he asked. I wasn't especially pretty. I didn't think I was especially smart. I'd been taught my whole value to the world was making some man a happy little wife and bearing his children. I was perfect for him. An innocent, sheltered virgin who'd been sold the fantasy of a knight in shining armor coming to love and protect me, forever."

  Prester says nothing. He taps a pen against his notepad, watching me.

  "The thing is, yes, I was a fool. I chose to be his perfect stay-at-home wife and mother. Mel made a good living, and I gave him two wonderful kids, and we had a happy home. It was normal. I know you can't believe that; hell, I can't believe that I did. But I went through all those years of Christmases and birthdays, PTA meetings and dance recitals, drama club and soccer, and nobody suspected a thing. That's his gift, Detective. He's really so very good at playing human that even I couldn't see the difference."

  Prester lifts his eyebrows. "And here I thought you'd give me the battered-woman defense. Isn't that the go-to explanation?"

  "Maybe," I tell him. "And maybe most of those women are victims. But Mel wasn't--" I flash to that one moment in the bedroom when his hands tightened that padded cord around my throat, when I saw the cold, alligator menace behind his eyes and I'd known instinctively that he wasn't right. "Mel is a monster. But that doesn't mean he couldn't be damn good at being everything else, too. How do you think that feels, knowing you slept with that? Knowing you left your kids with it?"