Heartbreak Bay (Stillhouse Lake) by Rachel Caine (books to read in your 20s female TXT) 📕

on him. I get myself under control, though my muscles are all tense and twitching, desperate to grab my son and wrap him protectively in my arms. The officer must see that, because he says, “Ma’am, please go outside to the police vehicle and take a seat on the curb. We’ll sort all this out when the detective arrives.” It’s not warm, but at least it’s a little less than aggressive, and I take a breath, then look at my son.

“It’s going to be okay,” I tell him. He’s pale, tense, and I can’t read the expression on his face at all. I’ve never seen him like this before. He’s never been in this place before.

“Don’t worry, Mom. I didn’t—”

“I know,” I tell him, and I believe it to my bones. “Honey, I know.”

“Let’s save it for the detective,” the officer says. “Ma’am. Please go ahead. We’ll be right behind you.”

It’s very hard to turn my back on my son, even though I hear the footsteps following me. I want to look back, turn around, somehow reset the clock to half an hour ago, to peace and safety and love.

I want to protect him, and I can’t. I can’t. It feels like it’s going to end me, this need, but somehow I keep walking through the living room, out the door, down the sidewalk.

Sam and Lanny are seated together on the curb beside the police car, and Sam’s got his arm around Lanny’s shoulders. They both stand up when they see me, and I see them look past me, to Connor.

“Oh hell no, you get your hands off my brother!” Lanny shouts, and lunges forward. Sam catches her from behind, and I step in her way. She rushes right into me, and I throw my arms around her as Sam does the same from the other direction. She struggles. Hard. “Let go! Let me go, you can’t let them do this—”

“I’m not,” I tell her. I sound icily calm. “Lanny. It won’t do anybody any good if you pop off and get arrested. You know better. Sit down. Now.”

I’ve never used that tone with her before, and it gets through. She goes still. Sam doesn’t let go, and I don’t either, until I feel her muscles unclench. “You’d better fix this,” she says. I hear the fury in it. The betrayal.

I let go. Sam takes our daughter back to where they were, but he’s watching me closely as the cop leads Connor past us. I reach out and put my hand on my son’s cheek, very briefly.

He says, “I’m okay, Mom. It’s fine.” Empty words, and I’ve never felt that more than I do right now. He’s putting on a brave face, but he’s scared and I know that. I’m terrified.

I watch my son put into the back seat of the police car, and I force myself to sit down next to Sam. I pull out my phone with trembling fingers and say, “Lanny. What message boards does Connor post on?”

“He—he doesn’t—”

“Don’t bullshit me. Not now.”

She’s quiet for a moment, and turns her head to face the police car. Connor. Then she says, “Some of the crime boards, but not under his own name. Sometimes he posts on a forum that a couple of guys from school set up. It’s called Loserville.”

I search for it, and find it fast. I take in the content quickly—mostly complaints about school, mockery of teachers, some truly horrible harassment—and my heart sinks. I don’t know why my son would post here at all. It’s a cesspool of the darkest impulses of young men. There’s a whole thread on girls at school. I don’t read it. I can’t. I’m afraid what I’m going to find out about my own child.

I feel sick. Sweaty. I blink and focus on the search bar, and ask Lanny what he goes by on the board.

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