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

FBI, anyone—he could know. And he could be a ghost before we get anybody to move on him for real.”

“So it’s just us, or nothing.”

“I think so,” she says. “Until we have proof. Unless you want to bet the lives of your kids that he won’t follow through on his threats.”

I don’t answer that. I just get to work.

When I’m done, I’ve filled pieces of notepaper with details. A paper version of the online map, just in case. A rough sketch of the map of Salah Point, including the bay.

I find more about the Watson family. The cannery’s abandoned and locked up, rusting away. The Watson house looks to be located nearby, and both sit on the bay—Cully Bay, according to the map.

The lighthouse still stands, but it’s a grim-looking place, regardless.

I buy a new burner phone from the racks and activate it before getting back on the road. We’re going to need something that Jonathan Watson can’t control. Some way of summoning help if we need it.

I hope it’ll be enough.

I don’t ask Kez. I just bury the phone Jonathan gave us in the industrial dumpster on the side of the gas station. He’ll know we’re headed that way. And I don’t intend to give him any more advantage than that.

The drive to Salah Point is relentless after the efficient transport of the freeway. The only signs tell me I’m on the right state road, but if you judged by condition, it’s long disused. The trees are thick for a while, gloomy, and once they give way to low, swampy growth, it looks even gloomier. Gators sun themselves in muddy ponds, and I watch out for any crossing the road.

It feels like we’re going nowhere, and then there’s a turnoff and a weathered, shotgun-pocked sign announcing SALAH POINT. I take the turn down a road that isn’t better than the state road, and is arguably worse. The landscape looks wild and dangerous. It’s probably a wildlife preserve area, or else developers just took one look and decided that swampy wetlands without a single industry to support it wouldn’t work out. The animals won. For once.

We’re here.

You need to get ahead of him, Gwen. You’re prepared. You have weapons and knowledge of the area now. Think like the hunter you are. If you play defense, you will lose. I expect the whisper in my head to be Melvin; it’s always Melvin. But that voice just called me Gwen.

The voice in my head, the warm and quiet and loving voice . . . that’s Sam. My eyes fill with tears . . . not pain this time. Gratitude that it’s Sam who’s with me now.

Gratitude that Melvin’s gone quiet at last.

Kez wakes up as I slow down. She hasn’t slept long, or well, but when she swipes at her eyes and says, “Are we close?” she sounds fully alert. And tense.

“A couple of miles until we get to town.”

“Damn. Should have ditched the phone once we got everything we could.”

“I did,” I tell her. “Gas station about a hundred and fifty miles back. But there’s only one way into town. And he’ll have eyes on it.”

The little town comes up on us suddenly, like a stalker from the shadows. We round a curve on the bumpy, crumbling road, and suddenly there are buildings. Not many of them, though—maybe a dozen clustered around the main road. Two or three intersections with no lights, just rusted stop signs. The first block we cruise through, driving slowly, is deserted; there’s an old gas station, long since shuttered, the islands where pumps once stood completely bare. A useless FOR RENT sign hangs crookedly in the window. A couple of anonymous square stone buildings look like they could date back to American-style antiquity—1800s, at least. Empty shells, no windows or doors. Waiting to fall.

And then, suddenly, there’s a shockingly bright red building, neon, drive-in slots. The Sonic serving tater tots, burgers, shakes . . . but it’s deserted too. Closed. I check my watch; it’s coming up on nine in the morning, so I suppose they’ll open up soon.

The next block has an open diner that looks as if it’s been there for generations, and it’s—for Salah Point, at least—doing good business, with three tables filled that I can see, and a couple of old pickups parked outside on the street. The antique shop that I saw in website pictures is empty, though the painted name survives on the window with a PERMANENTLY CLOSED sign on it.

There’s something else, I realize—a fluorescent orange poster taped to the door of that empty store, and there’s something printed on it in huge, heavy block letters.

WELCOME GINA

I hit the brakes hard enough to jerk us both, and Kez casts me a look before she spots the sign. “Shit,” she says. “Gwen . . . there’s something else on it. I think it’s an envelope.”

I back up and park the Honda at the curb. There’s not a soul on these streets. The only life is across the street at the diner, and I don’t look that way. I feel very exposed. It would be so easy to hit us right here. Rifle shots from a low rooftop, and our brains are on the walls. I have a powerful urge to jam the car in reverse, pull a U-turn, and get the hell out. Because whatever is waiting for us here . . . it’s going to be hard.

I take a deep breath and get out of the car.

The rank smell of the place hits me hard. There’s something rotten here, sulfurous; maybe it’s the distant reek from the old cannery, blowing in from the sea. Humidity clings like wet wool on my skin. I hear Kez open her door, but I don’t look back. I walk steadily across to the orange poster and the white envelope taped on there. I rip it off the sign and open it. Bold cursive writing. No mistakes.

It was your choice to come here. Everything that happens from this point on