“We didn’t grow up together,” I tell him. “We were separated in foster care when we were both really young. We reconnected while I was overseas. Mostly, we just talked on video calls and the phone. She probably annoyed me before we lost our folks, but I don’t really remember that part so well.”
That gets his attention. He pauses with his coffee cup halfway to his mouth. “Your parents died?”
“How about yours? Are they still—”
“No. They’re both gone too.”
We sit there, two orphans, both hurt in different ways. I don’t know that I like the mirror that I’m looking into. But I understand the black, wounded desperation he feels, and that’s enough to make a bond.
I tell him about my sister. I do it slowly, a little haltingly, because I’m afraid it’s going to unleash all the nastiness I’ve buried so deep. But it doesn’t, beyond a couple of uncomfortable twinges. That’s a wonder. I talk about how it felt to come back, to deal with the loss, to fall in with Miranda Tidewell—the mother of another of Melvin’s victims—and go down that unhealthy, entirely destructive spiral.
I talk about Gwen, and how she’s pulled me back out of it, or at least been a signpost on the way. He takes it in silently, eating his waffle with mechanical efficiency and no real sign of pleasure. My coffee sits untouched even after his is empty.
When I finally stop talking, he meets and holds my gaze for long enough it feels uncomfortable. “Thank you,” he says. “I needed to know that.”
I lean forward and rest my elbows on the table. “Point is, Tyler, there is going to be a way up and through this. I found one, and believe me, I was in a very, very dark place. I believe you want to find a way out too. So if you want to keep meeting and talking about it—”
“I don’t think that’ll be necessary,” he says, which sets me back a little. “I mean . . . you’re right, Sam. I should get help. Real help. Like you have.”
“I’d like to help you do that,” I tell him. “How about I call a counseling crisis center and you talk to them? They’re going to have better advice than I do.”
He shakes his head. “I already know where to go,” he says. “There’s a doctor I know who can help me. I just . . . didn’t want to go there, that’s all. But I guess I have to, really.”
“Can I drive you there?”
He blinks, like he didn’t think I’d offer. “That would be nice.”
I pay the check, since he’s done. I walk him out to the truck, and he gives me quiet directions. We pull up in the parking lot of a small hospital; the sign says it serves behavioral health urgent care. That’s exactly what he needs.
“Sam?” He unlocks his seatbelt and turns toward me. “You’ve been real kind to me. Thank you. Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure.”
“Do you trust Gina? I mean, Gwen?”
I don’t know why he’s asking, and it makes me wary again. “Yes.”
“All the time?”
I want to lie, but I know this is some kind of a test for him. “I didn’t always, but now? Yes. I trust her.”
“Do you think she really is innocent?”
“Tyler, I don’t want to talk about Gwen, she really isn’t what we’re about here. This is about you, me, the people we’ve lost. Okay?”
“I know. But . . . I need to understand. Why do you believe her? When other people don’t?”
“I choose to. I think she’s a good person.”
He nods, as if that settles something, and he opens the truck door. Before he closes it, he says, “I wish I could believe that too. About myself, I mean. Maybe someday.”
Then he slams the door, and I watch him walk inside. I wait a little bit, but he doesn’t come back, and I finally put my truck in gear.
I pull my cell from my pocket and realize that in my focus on Tyler, I’ve missed text messages and alerts.
An alert from our security system.
Our home alarm’s been triggered.
“Shit,” I whisper.
I put the truck in gear and leave rubber as I head home, fast as an arrow from a bow.
13
GWEN
I’m sitting tense, watching my phone and waiting for Sam to get home. Long minutes tick by. Half an hour. I tell myself to be patient; he was pretty far out when he texted me from the diner, and maybe he’s hit traffic, a road closure, something like that.
But I’m really starting to worry when it closes in on an hour, and there’s no word. I text him, but I don’t get a response.
It’s well after midnight when the home alarm goes off.
The siren is so loud it’s almost like being punched in the head with sound waves, shocking and nauseating in its intensity. I roll off the couch, fall on my knees, and press my thumb to the sensor on the lockbox. My gun’s in my hand in less than five seconds, and I’m on my feet and heading down the hall, no thought left but for my children. I glance at the alarm panel as I move past it.
The alarm was triggered in Lanny’s bedroom. My whole body is shaking, but I know how to control it, how to use it. Fear is a sharp, metallic taste in my suddenly dry mouth.
I open the door to Connor’s room, and Connor’s right there, bracing himself with the baseball bat in his hand. He’s put himself between danger and his sister, who he’s shoved into the corner, I realize, but she’s backing him right up, and holding her laptop like she intends to smash it into the first skull she sees. Recognition makes them both relax. I mouth, Lock the door, and Connor nods. I shut it, and go across the hall.
I take a breath, a second to get my gun in position, brace, and I ease Lanny’s door open.
Moonlight catches on curtains blowing in the breeze. Her window is up. I see a shadow moving, and for a hot chemical second I feel the twitch go through me, and I almost, almost pull the trigger. But something stops me for just long enough that the lamp next to Lanny’s bed switches on, and spills its light over Vera Crockett, who sees me with the gun and staggers back, holding up both hands. Her face has gone milky pale, a few freckles standing in stark relief. Her eyes are wide and scared, and I quickly lower the gun. I stalk past her, slam the window, and give her a glare that would probably melt steel; she looks appropriately chastened.
Then I go the nearest alarm panel and turn the siren off.
The silence flows over me like cool water, but my ears are still ringing, my nerves still burning from the stress. And I turn that right on Vee as she comes out of Lanny’s room. “Jesus Christ, Vee, what the hell did you think you were doing? I nearly shot you! I could have killed you!”
Before she can answer, I hear the home phone ringing. It’s the alarm company. I get to it and tell them, in clipped tones, that there’s not an emergency, and to call off the police response. They’re likely halfway here already. I don’t like showing up as a false report, especially now.
As I hang up, Vee says, “Ms. P, I am so sorry, I thought—I texted Lanta to ask her to turn off the alarm, I thought for sure she’d do it . . .” She trails off because now my attention is on her again, and it’s not kind. She swallows hard.
“Tell me she didn’t leave her window unlocked.”