Stillhouse Lake

  Everything he's done is tainted now to me. Every smile was just mechanics. Every laugh was manufactured. Every public sign of affection was just that: for the public.

  And always, always, the monster lay just under the surface of it all.

  Not a large man, Mel. Deceptively strong, but we learned at the trial that he still relied on tricks and guile to lure women in close, and stun guns and zip ties to keep them under control once he had them. He's put on weight, a soft, shivering layer of fat over those long muscles, and it's blurred the once-sharp line of his jaw. He was vain about his looks. And about mine. He always wanted me to be trim and neat and reflect well on him.

  There's not much else I can recognize easily about him right now, because he's been beaten to shit. I let myself gaze at the destruction, the ripening bruises, the cuts, his right eye completely closed, his left just barely cracked open. There are ugly red bruises around his throat, and I can see the clear outlines of fingers. His left ear is heavily bandaged. When he reaches for the phone, I see that several of his fingers are broken and taped together for healing.

  I can't tell you how happy all this makes me.

  I pick up the phone and hold it to my ear, and Mel's voice comes out raspy, but controlled as ever. "Hello, Gina. It took you long enough."

  "You look great," I tell him, and to my surprise, my voice sounds entirely normal. I'm shaking inside, and I don't even know if it's from visceral fear or savage joy at seeing him hurt. He says nothing. "No, seriously. That's really a good look on you, Mel."

  "Thanks for coming," he says, as if he fucking invited me. As if it's a dinner party. "I see you got my letter."

  "I see you got my answer," I tell him, and I lean forward to make sure he can clearly see my eyes. The coldness burning in them like dry ice. He makes me afraid, constantly afraid, but at the same time, I am completely unwilling to let him see that. "This was a warning, Mel. Next time you play with me, you fucking die. Is that clear enough? Do we need to have another round of bullshit threats?"

  He doesn't seem afraid. He has the same indifference that I remember from the arrest, the trial, the sentencing--though there's that one particular picture of him looking over his shoulder in the courtroom that betrays the monster in his eyes. It's chilling precisely because it's true.

  He hardly seems to be listening to me. The noise in his head, the fantasy, must be very strong right now. I wonder if he's imagining taking me apart as I scream. Taking our kids apart, too. I think he probably is, because the pupil that I can see has contracted to a greedy little pinpoint. He's like a black hole: not even light can escape. "You must have bought yourself some friends in here," he says. "That's good. Everybody needs friends, don't they? But you surprise me, Gina. You were never good at making friends."

  "I'm not fucking playing with you, asshole. I came to make sure you understand that you need to forget about me and leave us alone. We are not connected. Not in any way. Say it." My palms are sweating--one grips the phone, the other is pressed on the stained counter. I can't see his eyes very well. I need to see his eyes to see what's looking out of them.

  "I know you didn't mean for me to be hurt like this, Gina. You're not a cruel woman. You never were." His voice. God. It's exactly like the one in my head, still. A perfectly calm, reasonable sort of voice, with a hint of compassion. He's practiced it, I'm certain of that. Listened to himself. Adjusted it to hit just the right notes. Predator camouflage. I think about all those nights we sat side by side, his arm around my shoulders as we watched movies or talked. About the nights I curled up to his warmth in our bed, and he said something in that same, soothing tone.

  You fucking liar.

  "I meant it," I tell him. "Every bruise. Every cut. Get it through your head, Mel, it doesn't work on me anymore."

  "What doesn't?"

  "This . . . charade."

  He's silent for a while. I could almost believe I'd hurt his feelings, if I legitimately thought he had any. He doesn't, none that I'd recognize in any way, and if I managed to bruise them as much as his flesh, I wouldn't care at all.

  When he does speak again, his voice is quite different. Same voice, I suppose, but the tone, the timbre . . . very different. He's dropped the disguise, the way he drops it every third letter he sends. "You shouldn't make me angry, Gina."

  I hate hearing my old name in his mouth. I hate the way he almost purrs it.

  I don't respond, because I know not responding throws him off. I just watch him, sitting quietly in my chair, and suddenly he leans forward. The guard stationed on his side of the barrier focuses on him like a laser beam, and his hand hovers near the stun gun he's carrying. I guess they don't want to shoot prisoners in front of their family members.

  Mel doesn't seem to notice, or care, that the guard's behind him. He lowers his voice even more to say, "You know, your Internet fans out there are still looking for you. It'd be a shame if they ever found you. I can't imagine what they'd do. Can you?"

  I let the silence hiss between us like a live wire, and then I slowly lean forward until I'm an inch away from the Plexiglas. Two inches from him. "The first hint I have that they know where I am, I will put an end to you."

  "Tell me how you plan to do that, Gina. Because I have the power here. I've always had the power."

  I just stare at him. He has the phone in his right hand, but his left hand is under the level of the tabletop. Blocked by his body from the guard, who is almost directly behind him. The guard is now looking at me, not at Mel.

  I realize with a jolt that Melvin is massaging his crotch. It's making him hard, thinking of how he could arrange my murder. I feel sick, but I do not feel horrified. I'm past that now. I can't see his eyes, but I know the monster's looking out.

  And I'm revolted. I'm angry.

  I keep my voice low as I say, "Take your hands off your dick, Melvin. Next time you piss me off, you won't have one left. Understand?"

  He gives me an untroubled smile. "If I die in here, everything I know goes online. I've made arrangements. Just like you have."

  I believe him. It's the kind of thing Mel would do, one last spit from the grave. He wouldn't care that it destroys his children--not anymore. He loved them once, I have no doubt of that, but it was a selfish kind of love. He was proud of them because he was proud of himself. He loved them because they loved him, without question or condition.

  But in the end, there's only Mel, and walking meat for Mel to use. I've learned that the hard way.

  Violence is all he understands, which is why I've called in this favor from Absalom. I want Melvin to clearly feel what he risks when he comes after us. Fear of death is the only thing that can possibly persuade him to leave us alone. I don't know if he can fear pain; I know he experiences it, but fear is a tricky thing with him. One thing is certain, though: he won't want to die, or be maimed for life. Not unless it's on his own terms. He takes control to sickeningly perverse levels.

  "Here's the deal," I tell him. "You leave us alone and forget about coming after us, and I won't have you fucked with an iron bar and beaten to death in the shower. How's that?"

  His lips are split and swollen, but he smiles, and as he does, the purplish skin stretches and a dark crimson split opens, threading a line of fresh blood down his chin. It drools on his broken fingers and wicks into the clean cotton bandage in a spreading red stain. That's the monster, all over him. No longer in hiding at all. He doesn't seem to notice, or care. "Sweetheart," he says. "I never knew you had it in you, all this violence. It's honestly sexy."

  "Fuck you."

  "Let me tell you how this is going to go, Gina." He likes saying my old name. Rolling it around in his mouth. Tasting it. Fine, let him have it. I'm not Gina anymore. "I know you. You're no more mysterious than a windup toy. You're going to go running back to your rural little patch and pray that I won't follow through on my threat. You'll dither around for a day, maybe two. Then you'll realize you can't count on my goodwill, and you'll grab my children and run
away, again. You're destroying them, you know, with all this running and hiding. You think they won't break? Brady's going silently mad, and you don't even see it. But I see it. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree. And you're going to run away and rip up their lives and doom them to another slide down the spiral--"

  I hang up in the middle of his calm, eerily even diatribe, stand up, and stare at him through the dirty plastic. Other people have leaned against this barrier. I can see the sweaty outlines of handprints and the gauzy impression of lipstick.

  I spit.

  The saliva hits the glass and rolls down. It makes it look like he's crying, except for the sickening, constant smile on his face. For a moment I'm overcome with it all--the Lysol-and-sweat stink of this place. The sight of fresh blood dripping from his chin. The slick, awful way his voice still worms inside me and sets off tremors of fear and disgust and self-doubt, because I once trusted this thing.

  He's still talking into the receiver.

  I don't pick up the phone again, but I lean both palms on the counter and lock eyes with the monster. The man I married. The father of my children. The murderer of more than twelve young women, whose bodies undulated under the water as they slowly, slowly rotted away. One of them's never been identified. She's not even a memory.

  I hate him with so much force that it feels like dying. I hate myself, too.

  "I'm going to kill you," I tell him, enunciating so clearly I know he can make out the words through the soundproofing. "You filthy fucking monster." I'm well aware that they're recording me through the camera set up high in its protective bubble overhead. I don't give a damn. If I end up on the wrong side of this barrier someday, maybe that's just the price I have to pay to protect my kids. I can live with that just fine.

  He laughs. His lips part, his mouth opens, and I can see the raw, dark cavern of his mouth. I remember that he bit his victims with those teeth, chewed off pieces of them. I think that the look in his eyes must have been the same as he gives me now, straining to open up those puffy, bruised lids. It doesn't look human at all.

  "Run," I see him say, enunciating it so I can lip-read. "Run away."

  I walk instead. Slowly. Calmly.

  Because fuck him.

  On the way back to the airport, I am shaking so hard from delayed reaction that I have to pull over and buy a sweet, sugary drink to calm my nerves; I drink it parked, then decide to take a detour. I'm wearing a large pair of sunglasses, a blonde wig, and a floppy hat, and it's close to sunset when I park four blocks away and walk to the empty lot that used to be our family home.

  It's nice, this little park. Thick green grass, neatly maintained; there's a border of bright flowers and a stark marble square with a fountain bubbling on top of it. I read the inscription, which says nothing about this being a murder scene at all; it only lists the names of Mel's victims and a date, and at the end, PEACE BE IN THIS PLACE.

  There's a bench invitingly close. There's another small wrought-iron table and chairs on a concrete patio ten feet farther off, where our living room might have been.

  I don't sit down. I don't have the right in this place to make myself at ease. I just look, bow my head a moment, and walk off. If anyone's watching, I don't want them to recognize me or approach me. I just want to be a lady out for a walk on a nice day.

  It feels like I'm being watched, but I think that's the weight of guilt on my shoulders. Ghosts must surely still linger here, angry and hungry. I can't blame them for that. I can only blame myself.

  I am walking fast by the time I reach my car again, and I pull out a little too quickly, as if something is chasing me. It takes miles for me to feel secure again, and to strip off the suffocating, sweaty weight of the wig and hat. I keep the sunglasses on. The sunset's too bright without them.

  I pull over again and take out my tablet computer. The reception isn't great, and I have to wait for the feeds to load, but there it is: my house, viewable from the front door, the back, the long view, the inside. I can see Sam Cade out back, hammering boards on the unfinished deck.

  I call Sam, and he tells me all's well there. It all sounds like a normal, placid day. Uneventful.

  Normality sounds like heaven, unattainable and forbidden. I'm all too aware how much power Mel still has over us. How he found us, I don't know and probably never will. He's got a source; that's clear enough. Whoever is passing him information might not even be aware of the harm they're doing. He's a good liar. He's always been a master manipulator. He's a virulent virus loose on the world, and I should have used my shot at him to just kill the son of a bitch. If I call Absalom to set up something more final, it'll cost more than I can safely pay. I know that. And when it comes to buying a murder, even the murder of a man on death row . . . there's something in me that balks. Maybe it's just a fear that I'll be caught, and my kids will be left alone in the world. Helpless and unprotected.

  I'm extra cautious on the rest of the drive, hyperaware of possible people trailing me, yet desperate to get home now. Every minute I'm gone is another minute I'm not there to protect my children, to act as their shield. I use express drop-off for the rental car. Security seems to take an eternity, and I want to scream at the idiots who don't know how to take their shoes off, or their laptops out, or their phones from their pockets.

  It doesn't matter, because once I'm through, I find the flight out to Knoxville has been canceled. I have another two-hour wait for the next flight, and I find myself calculating the distance. I have a frantic impulse to drive it, to be doing something, but that would take even longer, of course.

  I have to wait, and I do it sitting by a plug, charging my tablet. I watch the feed from the house as the sun starts to set and the picture adjusts to a grainier grayscale image. I flip to the inside camera and find that Sam is sitting on the sofa with a glass in his hand, watching TV. Lanny is making something in the kitchen. I don't see Connor, but he's probably in his room.

  I keep watching the outside of the house. In case of . . . anything. I keep the display on even as the flight finally boards, and reluctantly thumb it off when the flight attendant tells me to disable the Internet function. I'm trying not to think about what might happen during the time I'm in the air. It's not a very long flight, but it's long enough. I pull the tablet out as soon as the sign indicates I can, hook it up to the costly airplane Wi-Fi, and check again.

  It's all peaceful. Eerily calm. I think about Mel's bloody smile, and I find myself shivering like I'm freezing. Maybe I am. I turn off the overhead air and ask for a blanket, and I watch the tablet's slow, glitching feed throughout the flight, until we're heading in to the airport.

  It takes forever to get to the gate and deplane. I am watching the cameras the whole, shuffling way up to the door, and the instant I'm through, I stow the tablet and run down the jet bridge tunnel, dodging other passengers, and sprint through the terminal toward the exit. I feel the hot breath on the back of my neck, again. I feel something like the light graze of snapping teeth.

  Then I'm outside in the humid darkness and looking frantically for where I parked my Jeep. When I find it, I check the cameras again, and then I leave the tablet up and active on the passenger seat as I speed away from the airport and head toward Stillhouse Lake. I call Sam and tell him I'm on the way.

  Whenever it's safe on the drive, I snatch glimpses of the camera feeds, as I reassure myself that my children are all right, that no one has gotten to them . . . All the way, I remember that ghostly, ghastly smile on Mel's broken face.

  That smile tells me he's not done.

  That we're not done.

  6

  Darkness already has a firm hold as I make the turn on the road out to Stillhouse Lake. I go too fast, speeding around the inky turns, hoping no one is walking this path tonight, or driving with lights off.

  They aren't. It's quiet, and I pull into my driveway with a sense of relief, which is paradoxical because this home, this sanctuary, isn't safe anymore. It's an illusion. It's always been an i
llusion.

  Sam Cade is sitting on the porch drinking a beer as I pull up and shut off the Jeep's headlights. I reach for the tablet to shut it off, only to find that the battery's completely drained. I stow it and take a couple of breaths to compose myself. Somehow, I never expected to arrive and find everything okay.

  Even though that was my fondest hope.

  I get out and walk up to join Sam on the porch; he silently hands me a cold Samuel Adams, which I twist open and swig gratefully. It tastes wonderfully like coming home.

  "That's a hell of a quick trip," he says. "Everything okay?"

  I wonder what kind of vibe I'm giving off that he'd ask. "Yeah. I think so. Just some business I needed to take care of. It's done." No, it isn't. Nothing is done. I thought he'd get the message, but instead he wasn't even worried. He isn't afraid of me.

  That means I'd better be afraid of him. Again.

  "Well. We got the deck frame built out. A few more days to put the boards down and waterproof, and it'll be ready to use." He hesitates, then says, "Gwen, the police came around about an hour ago. Said they wanted to reinterview you about, you know, the girl in the lake. I told them you'd call."

  My stomach lurches, but I nod and hope that I seem just fine with that. "I guess they're still grasping at straws about the dead woman. I was hoping they'd settle that by now." Or is this something new? Something courtesy of Mel?

  "Guess nothing's settled, since they haven't caught the killer," he says. He takes another drink. "You're not holding back anything, are you?"

  "No. Of course not."

  "I only ask because I didn't like the feeling they gave me. Just be careful when you talk to them, okay? Maybe take a lawyer along."