I see the flicker of shock go through him. He pulls his chair over and leans forward, elbows on his knees. “Sure,” he says. “Let’s go.”
He thinks he’s ready.
But I register the revulsion and horror in his eyes as I scroll.
Nobody’s ever really ready. Not for this.
3
SAM
Just knowing that Miranda Tidewell ambushed Gwen on the show this morning was bad enough, but hearing about the documentary she’s planning sets off a storm of white noise in my head. I can’t process that Miranda Tidewell and Gwen Proctor can occupy, however briefly, the same space. I’ve held them completely separate in my head, in neat, contained boxes. Never to meet.
But life doesn’t work like that, and now that Gwen’s told me about the Lost Angels documentary, I feel like I’m starting a slow fall down a deep, dark well. There’s an impact coming. And it’s going to be deadly.
All I can do for now is pretend it isn’t happening. I’ll keep living my normal life, my real life, for as long as I can. Because what Miranda represents . . . it’s dead, as dead to me as Gwen’s marriage is to her. I tell myself that, even as I recognize that Melvin’s ghost has never stopped haunting either one of us. Dead doesn’t mean gone.
Watching the sick parade of trolls and their dark, inventive ways to hurt her . . . I’d like to say that it surprises me. It doesn’t, exactly. It feels all too horribly familiar.
By the time we’re halfway through, I’m numb to most of it. I’m sure that’s her default these days. We agree to cherry-pick the worst offenders and take them in tomorrow to Norton PD; at the very least, Kezia Claremont will be on our side, and Detective Prester, while not the warmest man I’ve ever met, is fair. He feels a little sympathy for Gwen’s situation, and that counts. We should make best efforts to have law enforcement watching our backs right now.
Our little community at Stillhouse Lake doesn’t have its own police force, except informally in that Kezia Claremont moved into the neighborhood up the hill and across the lake from us, not far from her dad’s place. Ezekiel—Easy, to his friends—Claremont is a charming, feisty old guy who needs the help, though he still insists he doesn’t. I stop in every other day or so, have a beer with him down on his jury-rigged and likely illegal deck, pick up things he needs. He’s been up on this hill for a long time, no doubt resented by all his rich, white neighbors until the economy tanked, and most of them moved away. We came in after that . . . Gwen, to rehab a trashed house and make it her own. Me, to watch her and prove she wasn’t what she said she was.
Except I was wrong. Gwen is exactly what she appears to be. She is one of the most fierce, honest women I’ve ever met. That wasn’t a simple adjustment to make, realizing that, but once I did it, I felt . . . free. Like the rage that had possessed me for so long had lifted.
It scares me to think it might not have left . . . just circled. Maybe all that anger I let loose in the world is still out there, and headed straight back for us.
In the morning, we head for the police.
Norton’s a typical southern small town a few miles from Stillhouse Lake, and it’s clinging to the edges of an economic hope and prayer. The boarded-up stores tell a story. So do the potholes in the roads. Nobody fools themselves into thinking this town’s got a bright future, but they’re grimly determined to make it work. I personally like Norton; I like the preservation of the buildings, even if they’re standing empty. It’s a place that has some style, even if Gwen often thinks of it as a lost cause. She tends to see the darker side. I try to look for the light, or at least, I’ve been making it a mission lately.
The police headquarters hasn’t been substantially remodeled since the eighties, and it’s due for it, but at least the parking is generous. When we walk in, we immediately get the look from the woman behind the desk, or rather, Gwen does: blank and suspicious. It isn’t that Gwen’s a stranger. It’s that she’s Gwen, and the woman on the other side of that desk knows all about her past.
I lean in and interrupt the staring contest. “Hi. We’re here to talk to either Detective Prester or Detective Claremont.”
The woman shifts her stare to me. It warms slightly. “And may I say why?”
“It’s confidential,” I say, and give her a smile. It seems to work. She picks up the phone and dials. Gwen looks at me and rolls her eyes. I shrug. Not everything needs to be a dramatic face-off, particularly not with people we’re actively trying to recruit as allies.
In about a minute, Kezia opens the door between the counter and the rest of the police station, and waves us through. She’s a polished young African American woman who’s lately taken to wearing her hair in a thick, natural Afro around her head, and it looks proudly spectacular, especially out here in the sticks. The individuality of hairstyle contrasts sharply with the conventional tan pantsuit she wears; it almost conceals the shoulder holster. Her badge flashes on her hip as she turns, and I hold the door for Gwen as she follows Kez into the detective area.
It isn’t impressive—not surprising, considering the size of Norton. But as in all small, rural towns, this one’s battling drug cooking, addiction, and the associated crimes. It doesn’t prepare her for the discussion we’re about to have.
“I’m guessing this isn’t a social call.” Kezia gestures us to the worn chairs on the far side of her desk. “About the snake?”
Gwen sighs. “Not entirely. You saw the Howie Hamlin Show.”
“Yeah,” Kezia says. “They kneecapped you live on air. I’m sorry.”
“Me too.”
“This documentary they were talking about . . .” Kezia leans back for a moment, considering. “They’ll be coming here. You get that, right? They’ll want town footage, local interest, probably talk to some of the locals who aren’t your biggest fans. And there’s nothing we can really do about that. You might go to the city and try to get some kind of injunction, but I doubt it’ll work.”
“Yeah, we didn’t come about that,” I say when Gwen doesn’t answer.
“I have news about the snake, though. We found a fingerprint, matched it to Jesse Belldene. Jesse’s one of those hillbillies I told you about, good at catching all sorts of critters. The problem is, Jesse says he didn’t do it, and a single fingerprint doesn’t get us where we need to be to charge him even for criminal mischief.” Kezia shakes her head. “The Belldenes are a nasty bunch, and it looks like they’ve taken a dislike to you. Any reason why . . . ?”
Gwen says she doesn’t know. I don’t immediately answer, because . . . I think I do. And I think it’s my own fault.
I clear my throat. Both of them look at me. It feels like two spotlights hitting me at once. “Belldene,” I say. “This Jesse. Does he happen to come to the shooting range much?”
“He did once,” Kezia says. “Then he got banned. He came in drunk a couple of weeks ago, and someone on the range took his gun away and laid him out flat when he tried to get it back. He didn’t file charges, but I heard they had to fix some teeth. Why?”
I slowly raise my hand. “I’m the one who slammed him face-first into the counter,” I tell her. “He was acting crazy and unsafe. Javier was up front or he’d have handled that better. I guess Jesse holds a grudge.”