She didn’t believe they’d take her home at all.
She got really scared when her nose started to get snotty and it was hard to breathe with the tape over her mouth, so she made herself stop and breathe, slow and regular. She was still scared, but she felt exhausted, too, and she finally just closed her eyes and tried to pretend she was somewhere else, back home with her momma.
She pretended so hard that she fell asleep, curled up in her momma’s lap, and when she woke up, she wanted to tell him she needed to pee, really bad, but he was talking on his phone, and they were in the dark, in a forest.
He saw her sit up. He turned around. And she saw through the front windshield the turn ahead and the lights that were coming around it. The lights that were heading straight at them.
She tried to scream at him, to tell him to watch out for the other car, but he just frowned at her and said, “I told you to shut—”
And then the other car hit them, and everything rolled and crashed, and she thought she heard the man screaming.
Help me, Ellie wanted to say, but she was too scared and too hurt, and then the man stopped screaming, and there wasn’t any sound at all.
1
GWEN
The wide, dark eye of the television camera reminds me of bad things. Very bad things. I try really hard to keep in mind why I’m sitting here. I’m here to tell my story, frankly and honestly.
Because other people have been telling it for far too long now, lying about me and my kids.
It’s been all over the news for months now: Escaped serial killer abducts ex! Shootout in murder house! It’s always written for maximum ghoulish effect, and contains at least a passing mention that I was arrested as his accomplice.
Sometimes they remember to say that I was acquitted. Mostly they like to forget that detail. There have been a hundred reporters swamping my email to the point that I just shut it down and ignored it. At least half of them have made the long trip to Stillhouse Lake to try to get me to open the door and tell my side.
But I’m not stupid enough to do it without knowing what I’m getting into first. This television appearance took almost a month of negotiations, of guarantees of what I will and won’t be asked. I chose the Howie Hamlin Show because he has a good reputation; he’s been sympathetic to other crime victims and an advocate for justice.
But as I take my seat in the interview chair, I’m still feeling unready. I didn’t expect this rising level of panic, or to feel burning sweat on the back of my neck. The chair is too deep, and I feel fragile perched on the edge of it. It’s the camera. I thought I was past this, but I’m not. Maybe I never will be.
The camera keeps staring.
Everyone else is so relaxed. The camera operator—just the one—is chatting with someone else, nowhere near the machine and its unblinking eye. The host of the show is conferring with someone offstage in the dimly lit and cable-tangled distance. But I feel pinned in place, and every time I blink, I see that other camera, the one set up on a tripod in a ruined plantation house in Louisiana.
I see my ex and his horrible smile. I see blood.
Ignore it.
This place is smaller than I expected. The stage consists of a short riser and three armchairs spaced around with a small, glossy table for accent. The table holds a couple of books, but I’m too nervous to study them. I wonder why three chairs. Are there always three chairs? I don’t know. I can’t remember, even though I watched this show beforehand to learn what to expect.
You can do this, I tell myself, and practice deep breathing. You faced down not one but two serial killers. This is nothing. It’s just an interview. And you’re doing this for the kids, to make them safer. Because if I let the media tell the story without me, they’re only going to make it worse.
Doesn’t help. I still want to bolt out of this place and never come back. The only thing that holds me in place is the sight of my kids, Lanny and Connor, watching from the greenroom. It’s a worn waiting area with a soundproof window to the studio so the people inside can watch the action. Lanny gives me an excited thumbs-up. I manage a smile somehow. I’m sweating my makeup off, I know it. I’m so unused to wearing it now that it feels like a layer of latex paint, smothering me.
I flinch at a touch on my shoulder, and when I turn, there’s a bearded guy in a ball cap with something in his hand. I nearly hit him. Then I realize it’s just a small microphone with a long cord attached.
“I’m going to hand this to you; you run it under your shirt and clip it on your collar, okay?” he says. I guess he sees how jumpy I am, because he takes a step back. I shove the tiny mic under the hem of my blouse, and take it up to where it’s supposed to be; he nods when I get it into position, then drops a battery pack behind me in the chair. “Okay, you’re live,” he says. I reply with a thanks I don’t feel. The wire feels cold against my bare skin. I wonder if the microphone can pick up my shallow, rapid breathing. I fiddle with the placement, just to be sure.
“Two minutes,” someone out in the darkness says, and I jerk upright. The host is still lingering offstage. I feel deeply alone and exposed. The lights blaze on, blinding me; I have to resist the urge to put up my hand to block the glare. I lace my fingers together to keep myself from fidgeting.
At the one-minute mark, the host steps up on the riser. He’s a solidly built middle-aged white man, dark hair going silver at the temples. He’s wearing a nice dark-blue suit, and I immediately wonder if I’m underdressed. Or overdressed. This is not me; I don’t care about these things. Usually.
But then, I’ve never been live for a TV audience before either. Not of my own volition, anyway.
“Hey, Gwen, how are you?” he says, and we shake hands. His feels warm against my ice-cold fingers. “Listen, don’t worry about anything. I know this is nerve-racking, but we’ll get you through it, okay? Just trust me. I’ve got you covered.”
I nod. I have no choice at this point. He has a warm smile, the same temperature as his hands. It’s all a normal day at work to him.
I try another deep breath.
Thirty seconds crawl by, and then there’s a countdown. The last three counts are silent hand signals, and then the host’s smile lights up on cue. He leans a bit forward toward the camera. “Hello, and welcome to this extraordinary episode of Howie Hamlin. Now, we’ll be covering later in the program the shocking ongoing case of the abduction of little Ellie White, but before that we’ll have an in-depth discussion of the case everyone has been talking about: Melvin Royal. There’s been one very important voice missing from this media clamor, and we’re so lucky to have her with us today: Gwen Proctor, or as she was previously known, Gina Royal. Gina Royal was the wife of the infamous serial killer Melvin Royal, who was recently shot dead in Louisiana during what can only be described as an unbelievably brutal attack on his—”
I can’t stand it. I interrupt him. “Ex,” I say, and bring Howard—Howie—Hamlin to a sudden halt in his polished intro. “I’m sorry for interrupting, but I’m his ex-wife. I divorced him a long time ago.”
He takes a brief beat and says, “Yes, yes, of course, you’re quite right, and that is my mistake. He was your ex-husband at the time this shocking incident occurred. So you’d like to be called Gwen Proctor now, not Gina Royal, is that correct?”