“Funny,” I say, casting him a sideways look. We aren’t lovers. Not that we aren’t, in some ways, intimate; I think that eventually we might circle around to it, but neither of us seems to be in a hurry to get there. We have baggage, God knows. Ex-wife of a serial killer, constantly under threat from Melvin’s groupies, his allies, the baying hounds of Internet vigilantes.
And Sam? Sam is the brother of one of my ex-husband’s victims. Melvin’s last victim. I can still see that poor young woman’s body strung up by a wire noose. Tortured and murdered for pure, sadistic pleasure.
We’re complicated. When I first met Sam, I’d believed he was a friendly stranger, no connection to my old life. Finding out that he had deliberately tracked me, stalked me, in hopes of finding evidence I’d been complicit in my husband’s crimes . . . that had nearly broken everything.
He knows now that I’m not guilty, and never was, but there are still deep cracks between us, and I don’t know how to fill them, or if I should. Sam likes me. I like Sam. In another life, without the rancid shadow of Melvin Royal between us, I think we could have been happy together.
For now, my vision is limited to surviving and ensuring the survival of my children. Sam is a means to an end.
Which, thankfully, he completely understands. I’m sure he sees me exactly the same way.
“What’s up?” he asks me, and I dig the phone out, pull up the text, and pass it over. “Shit. But Graham’s dead, right?” I hear the same free-fall disorientation in his voice, but he recovers faster. “They’re sending someone else?”
“Maybe more than one,” I tell him. “Prester says Absalom might be some kind of hacker collective. Who knows how many people they have in their network? We need to be even more careful now. I’m dumping this phone and buying a new one. We use cash, we stay off cameras as much as we can.”
“Gwen, I can’t keep doing this. Hiding isn’t—”
“We’re not hiding,” I tell him. “We’re hunting.”
He straightens and turns to face me. Sam’s not a big man, nor overly tall; he’s got a lithe strength, and I know he can handle himself in a fight. Most of all—and this is everything to me now—I know that I can trust him. He isn’t Melvin’s creature, and he never will be. I can’t say that of many people anymore.
“Finally,” he says. “So, the kids?”
“I’ll call Javier. He offered to take them before, and we can trust him.”
Sam’s already nodding. “It’s a risk leaving them behind,” he says, “but not as much as trying to protect them while we’re going after Melvin. Sounds right.” He pauses. “Are you sure about this?” He asks it almost gently. “We could leave it to the cops. The FBI. We probably should.”
“They don’t know Melvin. And they don’t understand Absalom. If it’s a collective, they could hide Melvin indefinitely while they track us down for him. We can’t afford to wait it out, Sam. Hiding doesn’t work.” I take in a sharp breath of the cold air and let it out as a warmed stream of fog. “Besides. I want him. Don’t you?”
“You know I do.” He looks me over impersonally. Assessing a fellow soldier. “You’re sure you don’t need more rest?”
I laugh a little bitterly. “I’ll rest when I’m dead. If we want to get to Melvin before the cops do, we’re going to have to be tougher than him, and faster, and better. And we’re going to need help. Information. You said before you had a friend who might be able to assist?”
He nods. There’s a hard set to his jaw and a glitter in his eyes. Sam’s not usually easy to read, but in this moment I see all his rage and heartbreak. Melvin is free out there, free to stalk and kill more women like Sam’s sister. Melvin will kill again. If I know anything about my ex-husband, I know he will want to go out in a blaze of selfish, murderous, Grand Guignol fury.
The FBI is after him. The police of every state adjoining Kansas are as well. But it’s unlikely that they’ll turn him up quickly in the Midwest, because the first thing Melvin has done, I am certain, is to make his way southeast, toward us.
Absalom tracked us this far, and that means that Melvin won’t be across the country, or across a distant border to a nonextradition country. He might not be here yet, but he’s coming for us. I can smell it in the wind.
“We’ll go at seven in the morning,” I tell him. “I want the kids to rest a little more. All right?” I look at my phone. “I’ll call Kezia and Javier to set everything up.”
In a quick move, Sam takes my phone and slips it into his pocket. “If Absalom has this number, you can’t use it to set up the kids’ shelter,” he says, and I immediately feel stupid I didn’t think of it. I must be more exhausted than I think. “I’ll wipe calls and contacts and leave it for someone else to steal. Better it stays on and leads Absalom on a false trail for a while.” He nods across the street, at a lit-up convenience store. “I’ll go get one new phone tonight. We use it to call Javier and dump it immediately. We don’t buy any more phones close to this location; that’s the first place Absalom will search for purchases.”
He’s right on every point. I need to think like a hunter now, but I can’t forget that I’m also prey. Melvin made me vulnerable before by luring me, manipulating me, to end up where he wanted me to be. Now we need to do the same to him.
For years, I clung to a terrible fiction of a marriage—a life in which Melvin Royal controlled every aspect of my reality, and I failed to realize or fear it. Gina Royal, the old me, the vulnerable me . . . she and the kids were Melvin’s camouflage for his secret, terrible life. On my side of the wall, I had only known that it all seemed so normal. But it never was, and now that I’ve left Gina Royal behind, I clearly see that.
I’m not Gina anymore. Gina was tentative and worried and weak. Gina would be afraid that Melvin would come hunting for her.
Gwen Proctor is ready for him.
I know in my heart that it all comes down to us. Mr. and Mrs. Royal. In the end, it always has.
2
LANNY
My little brother, Connor, is too quiet. He’s barely said a word all day, and he keeps his head down. He’s gone behind those walls he builds up, and I want to kick them all down and drag him out and get him to scream, hit the wall, do something.
But I can’t even exchange two words with him without Mom’s radar picking up trouble . . . at least, not until after the door closes behind her, and she’s outside on the motel balcony. I know my mother. Mostly I love her. But sometimes she doesn’t help. She doesn’t know how to let her shields down anymore.
Connor’s awake. He’s good at pretending to be asleep, but I know his tells; for two years when Mom was away—in jail and at trial, accused of being my dad’s accomplice—we’d shared a room because Grandma didn’t have much space, even though I was ten and he was seven and we were too old to be sharing a room. We’d had to be each other’s allies, watch each other’s backs. I’d gotten used to knowing when he was really out, and when he was just pretending. He never did cry much, not as much as I did. These days, he doesn’t cry at all.