“Timber rattler.”
“Jesus, Gwen!”
“I know.” I rest my head against his shoulder. “I’m fine. The snake’s fine, even. No harm done.”
He has a lot to say about that, I can sense it, but he holds back. I can tell he brought me out here to talk about something, but I doubt it’s the snake in the mailbox. Odd. He usually doesn’t hesitate to bring up uncomfortable things.
I think about how strange this is. Every once in a while, it hits me: Sam is the brother of one of Melvin’s victims. By any logic at all, he shouldn’t be here, and we shouldn’t have . . . this. It didn’t start that way; I didn’t trust him, and he believed deep down that I was guilty. It’s taken time and work and pain to get here to this moment of trust, of peace. And it’s still fragile, even though we’ve built that bridge. It isn’t steel. It’s glass. And sometimes there are cracks.
After a long moment of silence, he says, “Listen, about Miranda Tidewell. Did she . . . did she say what she was really planning?”
“Just some kind of documentary. For release everywhere, I guess, or as wide as she can manage. I’m going to guess it won’t be flattering.” I try to make that sound light, but it isn’t. It can’t be. Miranda Tidewell is filthy rich and brutally angry, and if she can’t take an actual hatchet to my life, she’ll do it with a metaphorical one instead. She understands the power of the medium.
“Gwen.” He moves his hands from my waist and cups my face, a wonderfully gentle gesture, something that makes me catch my breath. “How are we going to do this? Tell me. Tell me how we protect the kids from this.”
“I don’t know,” I tell him. I feel tears prickle at the corners of my eyes, and blink hard to keep them from forming. “Maybe we can’t. Maybe we have to help them learn to live with it instead.”
“God,” he says, “I hope you’re wrong. I really do.”
When he kisses me, it’s sweet and gentle, with an ember of heat beneath it. A little desperation too. I feel that. We’re always, ever standing on the edge of a cliff with some long, dark drop below. Right now that cliff feels especially precarious.
“Food’s ready,” he says. “How scared do we all need to be?”
“Very,” I say. “I need you and the kids to be on guard.” I hate that. I hate taking away the small bit of normality we’ve carved out for the kids. But they’re going to have to understand what might be coming.
We lay it out over the dinner. It’s rosemary chicken, my favorite. That was sweet of them. The chicken’s delicious, the beans done just right; the salad is a mess but my kids are trying. None of us really taste any of it, I think, as we talk about the possibility that Stillhouse Lake may get more and more hostile for us. We talk about awareness, and staying with friends and adults we can trust. We talk about what to do if things go wrong. It’s not a fun conversation, but it’s necessary.
The kids don’t protest. I see Lanny’s mutinous anger; she’s just gotten to an age where she wants her life to get bigger, not smaller. Connor’s less bothered. He’s been introverted since well before this, and I don’t see that changing anytime soon.
But I have to keep close watch on my daughter.
They ask to be excused. I let them go with their plates half-finished, and Sam and I clean up the kitchen. I keep glancing over to be sure I’ve set the alarm to stay. He notices, but he doesn’t comment. I wash the plates and pass them over, and he dries and puts them away. It’s done in a comfortable, easy silence, but my mind keeps going back to the studio, the frozen horror, the way I lost it on live television. It’s like touching a hot stove, but I can’t stop.
I’m almost grateful for the distraction when the home phone rings. I keep a landline for safety reasons; nine times out of ten it’s some recorded voice trying to scam me, but landlines don’t go down nearly as fast in a crisis as cell phones, and they’re not reliant on either battery or house power.
I feel better having it as a fail-safe.
I reach for the phone, then pull back. I don’t recognize the number, so I listen as the recorder catches the call. Old-fashioned, but this way I can screen calls and pick up if I recognize urgency. I’ve got the volume low, and I’m prepared to walk away. But after the greeting starts, a real human voice on the other end says, “Uh, hi, I’m looking for . . . for somebody named Gwen Proctor?”
I get a sick feeling in my stomach. I’ve fielded lots of abusive phone calls, of course. Nameless strangers who want to kick me while I’m down, shouting insults. Nameless men who tell me in detail about their fantasy of raping and murdering me, or my children, or both. A creepy more-than-few who tell me they loved me at first sight and knew we were destined to be together, if only I’d just understand.
Then that hesitant female voice continues, “Please, I’m begging you. Please answer me. I don’t know where else I’m supposed to turn.”
And I know it’s one of those calls.
It started with a random call, the distant friend of a cop who had my number. A woman crying months ago, begging me to tell her what to do because she didn’t know how to stay alive. She was the mother of a fourteen-year-old boy who’d abducted, raped, and killed a neighbor’s five-year-old. Who’d hidden the body under his bed for three days. She’d found it. Reported it. Turned in her own son to the police.
She hadn’t been prepared for the terrifying truth: people blamed her too. Blamed her for raising a killer. Blamed her for not knowing. Not stopping him.
I’d spent an hour trying to help her find ways to deal with what she was going through. In the end I looked up a domestic violence shelter where she could at least hide out for a while. I don’t know what happened to her. But she told someone else who’d contacted her about me, and how I’d helped. And so on.
For the past three months I’ve been getting these tragic, disembodied voices begging me for help and answers I don’t have. The best I could give most of them was understanding and the cold comfort of knowing they weren’t alone in this nightmare.
Sam’s watching me, and his expression says don’t. And he’s right, of course. We don’t need more trouble. I almost let it go. I can hear her breathing. Hear her choking back a sob.
“Okay, then,” she says, and I hear the dull defeat in it. “Sorry I bothered you. I’ll hang up now—”
I grab the receiver. “This is Gwen,” I say. “What’s the problem?”
There’s a deeply indrawn breath on the other end of the line. “Sorry,” the woman says. “I figured I could get through this without being such a . . . a damn mess. I guess I’m not like you. You seem pretty near made of steel, from what I’m told.”
I still have no idea who this is, or what it’s about, but I have an instinct that I should listen. “Oh, I’m not, believe me,” I tell her. “It’s all right. Take your time. What’s your name?”
“M-Marlene,” she says. “Marlene Crockett. From Wolfhunter.” Her accent is pure rural-Tennessee drawl. “It’s up around—well, up ’round the backside of nowhere, I guess.” She laughs nervously. It sounds like cracking glass. “Never heard of it, right?”