Killman Creek (Stillhouse Lake #2)

I call the kids from a pay phone that is sticky with sweat and other things and smells like spilled beer. Connor is as tight-lipped as ever, and Lanny adopts a cool, distant attitude that tells me how angry she is about me being gone. I hate it. I hate that I’ve had to leave them. It won’t be long. This might be the break we need.

Maybe I’ll let Sam go on without me, I think as I hang up. But though it makes me ache with guilt, I also know I probably won’t. I need to stop Melvin.

Just a few more days.

It takes us another full day to get near the GPS coordinates Arden’s provided, and I hope they’re not random numbers she scribbled down to get rid of us . . . but she’s right, they do lead us to the ass end of nowhere in Georgia, which is as remote as it gets. After some discussion, Sam calls in to his friend Agent Lustig, and we tell him what we know from Arden; Lustig says he’ll check it out when he has the manpower.

We decide that might be never, and that we don’t care to wait.

We sleep in the SUV for a few hours down on a logging road, and when Sam finally wakes me up, it’s night. Chilly, too, and damp. There’s a light freeze in delicate crystal lace over our windshield.

“We should get moving,” Sam says. “See if this guy’s home.”

“Tell Lustig we’re going in,” I say.

“Mike will tell us not to.”

“Well, then he can get his ass out here and stop us.”

Sam smiles, dials the phone, and gets voice mail. He gives Lustig a brisk account of where we are and what we plan to do, and then he turns the phone off and puts it in his pocket. I silence mine, too.

“Ready?” he asks me. I nod.

And we go.

It’s a hard hike up a steep, difficult slope, and if we hadn’t known where we were heading, we’d have missed it entirely.

I kneel behind a screen of Georgia underbrush, in the shadow of a looming pine tree. It’s a small cabin, two rooms at most, and it’s well kept up. Gingham curtains in the windows. A neat stack of firewood waiting to make the place warm and cozy. Nobody’s burning a fire tonight. No smoke coming from the chimney.

A light flickers on in the main room. Someone’s home. Sam’s made me agree to observe and report, and only go in if we’re sure no one’s inside; after Arden’s warning, neither of us wants to be in a violent confrontation with a sociopath. So we’re going to have to wait for him to leave . . . or come back later. As cold as I am, I’m in favor of the latter option, because it’s murderously dark already, and there’s a wind with a viciously icy edge to it that brings tears to my eyes. Every breath burns like a paper cut. And I’m sore and stiff, and I want to go home and hug my kids forever.

But I focus during the long hours that follow as lights flicker on and off inside the cabin, as the TV comes on and switches off. Leave, I beg the man inside, but that doesn’t happen. In my mind, I run through what we’d like to get out of this. A handwritten list of the real names of other Absalom hackers would be nice. Never happen, of course. But I’d settle for online handles, which we might be able to get the FBI to track. Sam’s friend in the Bureau could get us useful information. But at the very least, we’ve identified a suspect for Mike Lustig to grill. That has to count for something.

In the cabin, a radio is playing. Something low and quiet. Jazz, I think. Maybe it’s stereotypical, but I expected thrash metal for a hacker. Coltrane seems out of character, somehow. I only really notice because the music shuts off, and about a minute after, the light goes out in the front window. From where I kneel, I can’t see the side, but I can see the light that’s being cast out over the ground in a golden spray. I see when it, too, cuts out.

Our mark is going to bed. Finally. I check my phone for the time. It’s nearly two in the morning.

Sam is noiselessly rising to his feet, and I try to do the same. I’m athletic and strong, but creeping around in the dark forest isn’t among my particular skill sets. I just try not to do anything obviously stupid. He makes a throat-cutting gesture; he wants to punt this and try again tomorrow. We have to find a time when our man isn’t at home, to avoid any confrontations. I understand why, but it’s so frustrating to be so close and not get answers. Any answers.

You don’t want to hurt anyone, Gwen, I tell myself. That’s my better angels talking. My demons are telling me that I absolutely do, that I want to put a gun to this man’s head and demand to know what right he thinks he has to make my life, and the lives of my innocent children, a living hell. What kind of sick bastard takes the side of a cold-blooded psychopath who tortures and kills innocent young women? And gets paid for it?

I don’t want to leave. I want to go in there and ask. But I know that Sam is right, and I’m fiercely and terribly emotional about all this. I want my ex-husband dead, because every moment he’s out in the world is another moment he’s hurting people. And coming for my kids, and for me.

I force myself to agree with a nod to Sam that, yes, we will break off our approach and come back tomorrow.

A blur of movement catches my eye, and I snap my head to the right, in time to see a small rabbit break cover and race across the open space in front of the cabin. Behind it comes a black cat intent on its prey. Neither of them makes a sound. Life and death, happening right in front of us.

The fleeing rabbit is about a quarter of the way across the clearing when suddenly a light flares on, blindingly bright, aimed to illuminate the entire semicircle at the front of the house. Motion light. I drop back into my crouch, and I can see Sam doing the same. I’m mentally kicking myself for missing the fixture, but it was hard to see until it ignited like a ball of white fire; it’s set far back under the peak of the eaves, and when I raise a hand to try to block the glare, I think I can see that it’s contained behind some kind of wire mesh.

Won’t be easy to reach, disable, or fool.

The rabbit loses the race halfway across the yard. The cat pounces, and the rabbit makes a sound that’s eerily like a scream as it’s seized by the back of the neck. The little shriek cuts off when the cat viciously shakes it, biting down. Good, efficient murderers, cats.

Having killed it, the cat drops the limp bag of fur on the ground, bats it with a paw for a while, then strolls off. Leaves it where it lies.

I think of my ex.

The motion light clicks off again in another thirty seconds after the cat is gone, and I look over at Sam. He seems grim, studying the scene, and finally shakes his head. He’s thinking this cabin is a very bad place. It has an aura of—I don’t know how else to say it—darkness. I can imagine bad things being done here. I can almost feel the ghosts crowding around me. What has this faceless man done? Arden sure seemed terrified of him.