She doesn’t want to say, that much is obvious.
She’s crying. Silent tears running down her cheeks. Angry at herself, disappointed in him, I don’t know. Then she says, “Ripperkid.”
I can’t move for a few seconds. My muscles simply won’t respond. The name drops into me and just . . . sinks. I shut my eyes and let the awful, sickening ripples of it go through me, then take a breath and type it in. I want to ask her why he’d choose that hellish moniker. I don’t. I think, like me, he’s choosing to stand and fight, and this . . . this is part of that.
He hasn’t posted that much. Most of it isn’t noteworthy. He’s mocked a few teachers, insulted a few people, but thank God, he’s never joined the pack of hellhounds in outright harassment.
But he’s been talking about his father. About Melvin Royal. He’s answered questions. Detailed the crimes. He knows far, far more than I ever thought he did. He’s only fifteen. He shouldn’t know these things.
But it’s the message from today that catches my full attention, finally. I take a screen capture of it, and only then focus on the words frozen on the screen. I’m so sick of my fucking so-called family. Liars and hypocrites, just like my dad. I’m going to make it happen. One, two, three bullets to the head. By tomorrow I’ll be an orphan.
I freeze as my gaze skims over the IP address that posted the message.
Because it’s ours.
The post came from our house. But it couldn’t have. I know Connor didn’t do it.
My phone buzzes in my numb hand. It’s a blocked number. I swallow, taste ashes, and say, “I need to take this.”
“Now?” Sam’s annoyed. “Really?”
I don’t answer. I just get up and walk away, over near the corner of the house. I can still smell the fresh paint where we blocked out the vandals. I slide to accept the call and put it to my ear.
“What did you do?” I ask it with real ferocity. If I could reach through this phone and grab something, I’d rip it off. “What did you do to my son?”
“I didn’t do anything,” the man says. Bland tones. Calm. I’m anything but. “I provided his login information to a friend I know. He’s very, very good at faking originating IP data. Your son will be inconvenienced. He’s not in any danger. Yet.”
“Not in any danger? He’s being arrested!”
“He’s a juvenile. He’ll get the benefit of the doubt, and they’ll eventually work out he didn’t post the message. But this isn’t about him, Gina Royal. It’s about you. And I’m sure by now you’ve figured that out.”
“You son of a—”
“It’s time to start making choices. Tomorrow morning at nine o’clock sharp, you will either walk out your door, get in your car, and drive . . . or you’ll stay home, fight a losing battle to protect your family, and everything will be gone. Everyone that matters to you. Besides . . . I think you want to find me. Don’t you?”
“Yes.” I hiss it, and I can hear the venom in the sound. “You came after Kez.”
“I didn’t. She came after me. I only wanted to stop her. I did stop her.”
If you think that, you don’t know Kezia. I think it, but I don’t say it. I want his attention firmly on me now. “What do you want from me?”
“The truth,” he says. “The truth about who you really are, deep down. People always reveal themselves eventually. All their darkness and damage. And you will too.”
There’s something so horribly serene about him. He thinks he’s right. He knows it. And I know none of what he just said is empty threat; he’s shown me that he has the ability, and the will, to come after me, my family, my son.
“I just get in my car in the morning and drive. Just like that. And where am I supposed to go?”
“I’ll tell you once I see you go. And if you value the lives of Sam and the kids, you won’t tell them where you’re heading once you know. You can bring your guns, it won’t matter. This will be over on Friday, one way or another. I promise. Think of it as . . . a retrial.”
He hangs up. I stand frozen, listening to the sudden silence after the disconnection, and then I slowly put the phone back in my pocket and turn to look. A detective’s sedan is pulling into our street now, lights flashing. All our neighbors are awake. Watching on their porches, or through their windows.
This isn’t a refuge anymore. Everything we’ve built has become a noose, and it’s tightening slowly around our necks.
I go back to Sam and Lanny. My daughter glares at me, and I feel the force of it like hot irons. Sam’s looking at me too. He’s gone unreadable. “Everything okay?” he asks me.
“Yes,” I lie. I sit down on the cold concrete curb next to him as the police detectives come toward us. “Sam? I need you to be there for Connor. Really be there. Will you do it?”
He gives me a strange look. “Of course I will. Why? Where are you going to be?”
I manage a smile. “Here, of course. With you. But . . . if anything goes wrong . . .”
He puts his arm around me. Not wary or annoyed any longer. I lean against him and stare at my son, who sits quietly in the police car, not looking at anything in particular. Connor’s a strong kid, but my God. My God.
MalusNavis will destroy him to get to me. And Lanny too. He’ll find her cracks and break her apart. Sam too. I can already see the reality of it stretching out before me, and it’s devastating. Horrifying.
He wants to see who I am.
Then I will show him. And it’ll be the last damn thing he ever sees.
18
SAM
I shouldn’t be surprised when the detectives separate us, but it still stings; I don’t know what’s going on with Gwen, but I find myself watching her at a distance, trying to read her stiff body language, wishing I’d had time to get her to tell me what the hell just happened. I’m missing half the questions the detective talking to me is asking. I don’t know him, he doesn’t know me, and he’s not patient with my distraction.
“Hey!” I blink and focus on his face instead of over his shoulder, because he’s snapping his fingers in my face. “You with me, Mr. Cade? Because the faster we get through this, the better for both of us.”
The last thing I want is an express train to Connor being arrested. But I focus. “Sorry, what did you say?”
“Does Connor have access to guns in the house?”
“No. We keep them locked and secure.”
“In gun safes.”
“Yes.”
“And do these safes have codes?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. Does Connor know any of those codes?”
“No.” I say it firmly, and I don’t expand on that; embroidering is where people get into trouble. Fact is, I don’t know that for certain. Connor’s a smart kid; I have every reason to think that if he wanted into the gun safe, he’d find a way. But this? This is bullshit. Connor is not out to kill us. I’m not about to entertain the idea that he is.
“How often do you change them?”
“Every couple of months.”
He’s frustrated, I can tell; he’s not getting the long-winded responses he’d like, where he can drive a wedge into a crack. He changes tack. “So, Connor has a history of violent outbursts—”