“I’ll take night,” Gwen says. “You need in there first?”
I straighten up and shake my head, and Gwen avoids looking at me directly. She grabs her bag and takes it with her into the bathroom, and I hear the door shut and lock.
I can either sit here and listen to her undressing, or I can do something useful.
I choose to go get us some food.
When I come back, Gwen’s done with her shower, the room’s desperate smell has been replaced with a warm, fruity scent, and she’s fully dressed again except for shoes. I approve. Sleeping vulnerable here isn’t a plan I’d recommend. I hand over a bag with a burger and fries, along with a canned soda, and we sit on opposite beds silently refueling for a while.
“I should have asked,” she says. “Was that your FBI friend on the phone? Mike?”
I nod without replying. The hamburgers are a crime against beef patties, but I choke down the last bites anyway. I need the fuel.
“And why exactly is an FBI agent helping us out . . . ?”
“Because sometimes I do him favors. And he owes me at least three right at this moment. Besides, he’s low on bodies to follow up leads, and he thinks I’m probably more reliable than the state troopers.”
“Only probably?”
I shrug. “Mike’s not a guy who trusts anyone completely. He wasn’t really detailed about his tip, so what you saw is what he gave me. Arden Miller, Markerville. He didn’t have an address, and said we wouldn’t need one. If it really is a ghost town, that’s probably true.”
“And how does Arden relate to Melvin?”
“Lustig heads up a task force that investigates dangerous Internet groups. Absalom’s on his radar, and apparently, Arden has something to do with them.”
“So are we dealing with a hermit? A survivalist? What?”
“Not a clue,” I say. “But we will be really damn careful.”
“Yeah, about that. Before we head straight for the town, let’s take time to do some research on Arden Miller and see if we can put together a decent game plan for this place. We can hit the local library in the morning. I’ll take the Internet searches, you take the book searches . . . ?”
“It’s a plan,” I say. We’ve finished the burgers by then, both of us wolfing them down at a speed that meant we were actively trying to avoid tasting them. I take the wrappers to the trash, and while I’m up, I take a good look at the door. There’s a flimsy chain lock that’s clearly been ripped out several times, and neither the door nor the frame looks sturdy enough to resist a stiff breeze, much less a solid kick.
“How’s the bathroom?” I ask her. “Security-wise?”
“There’s a window, but it’s small and barred, and no fire release.”
“Let’s not start any fires.” I drag over a chair upholstered in baby-shit brown and wedge it under the door handle. It might not help much, but it’s better than nothing.
“What time in the morning do you want to get up?” Gwen asks me. Her voice sounds a little tight. Nerves. It’s a normal enough question, but it feels like something you ask a spouse, or a lover, and we both feel the implication hanging in the air. I walk to my bed, take the clip-on holster from the back of my jeans, and put it on the bedside table. Gwen’s shoulder holster is already hooked over the bedpost, like a particularly edgy piece of bondage gear.
Yeah, maybe don’t go that way, I tell myself. I lean over and start unlacing my boots.
“Seven’s early enough,” I tell her. “Or whatever time the werewolves attack.”
“I think we’re more in zombie territory,” she says. She’s sitting cross-legged on top of the covers, but she gets up, folds back the sheets, checks for bugs, and then crawls in. “Okay, well, good night.” Sounds awkward. Feels the same.
My second boot hits the floor. I move them under the nightstand, in easy grabbing distance if I need them, and lean back against the pillows. The mattress is lumpy and tired. It matches my mood. “Good night, Gwen.” It sounds ridiculous.
We’re both silent for a long few seconds. The laughter starts deep in my guts, as ridiculous and infectious as shaken champagne, and when I can’t help it anymore, I let it out.
Gwen laughs, too. It feels good, cleansing, and in the aftermath, even the drab room seems brighter. “Sorry,” I finally manage. “It just seems so polite. Fuck, we’re adults, aren’t we? Why is this so . . .”
“Good question,” she says, rolling over on her side to look at me. It silences the last of my laughter. “Why is it?”
“You know why,” I tell her.
“Just once, I’d like to hear you say it.”
“Because there are dead people standing between us,” I say, and instantly, all that brightness is gone, and the truth is so frightening that it feels like a ghost, sending my skin into shivers and goose bumps. “My sister, for a start.”
She doesn’t flinch from it. “And all those women I should have been able to help. Even Melvin’s half brother—he committed suicide, did you know that? Between the small-town shunning and the Internet basement heroes, he couldn’t take it anymore.” She swallows, and I wish I hadn’t started this now. “The last post he put up on his social media said that it was my fault, that if I’d been a good enough wife, Melvin wouldn’t have—”
“That’s bullshit,” I interrupt. I sound angry, and I don’t mean to. “It was never your fault. Blaming you was just petty.” I let a second go by. Then another, because I’m standing on the precipice of admitting something I never intended to. I take the plunge. “I tracked Melvin’s brother. Just like I tracked you. I knew where he lived. I knew where all of you lived.”
Gwen freezes, and I can see that she hesitates. She doesn’t really want to ask, but as always, she doesn’t turn away, either. “Did you send him hate mail, Sam?”
I’m staring at the irregular, rusty water stain on the ceiling. It looks like Australia. My hesitation lasts too long before I work up the courage to say, “Yeah, I did. I sent some to you, too. Seemed easy, at the time. Felt like justice. But all it was doing was destroying you in slow motion, one envelope at a time. And I’m sorry for that, God, Gwen, I’m sorry.”
My voice sounds painfully raw on that last, and I know she can hear that. And know that it’s as genuine as the laughter that started this.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Gwen stand up. She sits on the edge of my bed and takes my hand. In a Hollywood movie, the music would come up, we’d kiss, and all of a sudden passion would explode and there’d be some soft-porn montage, all gold-lit skin and awkward angles.
But this is real, and it hurts, and instead of that, I just tell her, half in a whisper, about the hate I used to feel. It’s like lancing an infected wound. I tell her about how I obsessed about exacting bloody justice. It isn’t romantic. It’s appalling. But as with the laughter, when it’s done, there’s a strangely clean feeling in the air.
She squeezes my hand at the end and says, “You were hating him all that time. Not me. At least now we’ve both set our targets right.”
There’s a rare grace in what she’s just done. It’s forgiveness, and pity, and understanding, and without even thinking about it, I move her hand to my mouth and gently kiss her fingers. I could sketch every inch of her from memory. The shape of her hand is burned on mine in tactile perfection.