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

“You worked with him,” I say tightly. “You son of a bitch, you helped him.”

“Well, I gave him the wanted-poster template. And he needed help from a capable friend to make that Loserville forum post. You know the one.”

He’s saying, without admitting, that he either made the post on the message board implicating Connor, or he had it done. I want to wrap my hands around his throat and squeeze until the smugness pops out. But I manage to keep my voice even as I say, “Anything else?”

“I gave him the letter from Melvin Royal. I thought it might be helpful.”

“How did you get it?”

“Friend of a friend. One of Melvin’s little helpers died—natural causes. The friend found it among his personal effects. A police friend, I might add. I didn’t steal anything.”

Dr. Dave, covering his tracks. But he gave that letter to MalusNavis knowing it would be used against Gwen. Knowing it would make her unsteady, vulnerable, paranoid.

I don’t answer. My mind is churning, and so is my stomach. It’s not like Dave to talk to me on the phone. He’s being careful, but still.

It occurs to me he’s talking to me because he’s enjoying hearing me flail for answers. He’s not listening to my words. He’s drinking in my pain.

“Sam?” I can hear the pleasure in his voice. “Still there?” He loves the taste of this. And I know I should hang up. But I can’t. Not yet.

“Where is he? Just tell me, Dave.”

“In return for what?”

“Money.”

“I don’t need your pathetic little attempt at payoff. I make far more than you do. No, I need something else. Something better.”

“Like what?” The taste of death in my mouth. The knowledge that I’m making a deal with the fucking devil.

“You provide the documentation you have on me. We’ll be even then. And I’ll let it go.”

Once I have no hold on Dr. Dave, I have no idea what he’ll do. What he’s capable of doing. But I don’t have a choice. “I give you my word.”

“Oh, your word isn’t good enough—why would you think it would be? I need you to bring it to me, Sam. In person. And I need to destroy it myself. Do I need to explain the consequences if you keep copies?”

He doesn’t, because I’m sure he’ll come after the kids. Connor, in particular. He knew exactly how to hit the kid where it hurt, and he’ll take great pleasure in doing it again, over and over and over, and seeing my son, my son, crumble.

Gwen and I are alike in this: neither one of us will let that happen. So I say, “Tell me where and when, and I’ll bring it to you. All of it. But you tell me right now where he is.”

“You can’t save her.” Dave suddenly sounds very serious. Very calm. “You don’t know who you’re dealing with. She’s dangerous, I give her that. But he will rip her to pieces. When I tell you I know that, believe me.”

It’s incredibly chilling, hearing that. But I can’t believe it. I can’t. “Just tell me.”

There’s a long pause. I want to shake the answer out of the phone. Then Dave says, “Virginia.” He hangs up. I let out a long breath and lower the phone. I stare at it, then I look at maps of the Virginia coastline. There are a lot of possibilities. Nine, at least, and that doesn’t count abandoned, nonfunctional lighthouses. If I’m even right about that much.

To make things worse . . . I’m almost sure he’s just lied to me. Dave doesn’t want me to stop this. Not at all. He wants me pinned and helpless and suffering. Dave always lies. I should have expected that.

But he’ll still require me to carry through with the bargain. He did, after all, give me an answer. He’ll just claim he was wrong.

I have nothing. Nothing but grief and rage and the very real fear that Gwen and Kez have vanished into the dark. Together, at least. But very, very alone.

I watch Gwen’s message again. And again.

But in the end, there’s nothing I can do now but wait.

I think that might kill me. I need to think of something. Anything.

I hear one of the bedroom doors open. It’s Lanny, coming out in her pajamas, yawning and shuffling and squinting against the morning. “Hey, Dad,” she says. “Is breakfast ready?”

I didn’t think about this moment. About what I was going to say to her, or to Connor. But I don’t have any choice.

I say, “Sit down, Lanny. I need to tell you about your mom.”

I know full well it’s going to be a hellish day, but truth is all I can offer them now.

Truth, and love, and trust.

That’s what Gwen gave me.

22

GWEN

The impulse to check on the kids, check on Sam—it’s so strong and painful that holding it back is like touching a live wire. But Kez is right: we can’t take the risk. This man is a killer, we’ve seen that. And Sam can’t be part of this now, not if my kids are going to be safe and have at least one of us left to love and guide and protect them. But I don’t intend on dying, and neither does Kez.

We’re hunters.

Kez, of course, has thought ahead; she knows that Javier will do something to find us, and probably something like file a missing persons report. So she pulls off the highway an hour into our trip and takes a detour to an area I don’t know. It’s dark, rural, completely anonymous. There, in a beat-up, half-destroyed barn, we meet a tall, thin African American man in a Che Guevara T-shirt who trades my SUV for a small, hard-used Honda. “Can’t stay in your car,” she tells me. “They’ll put out a BOLO for the plate number. We need something completely different if we’re going to pull this off.”

No words are exchanged between her and the man in