Killman Creek (Stillhouse Lake #2)

“Probably the same for both of us,” he says. “When I was in the marines, we were lucky to get coffee. Almost never got it with anything else. You only have so much room in a pack, and when you’re carrying everything you need on your back . . . you skip the luxuries.”

“I got used to black coffee at the station.” Kezia nods. “You grab it quick to go. Creamer’s always out, and mostly the sugar is, too. After a while, you just adjust your taste.”

That sounds grown up. Maybe someday I’ll be drinking it black, too.

After waffles, there’s washing up, and then I take my bath. When I come out, Javier is gone to the range for the day. Kezia’s staying with us. Good thing Norton is a low-crime area, I guess. She gets two calls in the next hour, but neither of them is important enough for her to change plans.

Lanny’s busy making some kind of braided bracelet. She’s been trying all day to pretend like everything’s fine, it’s all cool, and this is the latest thing. She doesn’t even look up. “Stop staring at me.”

“I’m not staring.”

“Yes, you are. God, go do something else already.”

“I hate just sitting around here.”

“Just be patient.”

I laugh, not very happily. “Really? When did you become Saint Patience? Because if you have to wait thirty seconds for the microwave, it’s a national crisis.”

“About the same time you became Sassy McQuipperson,” she says.

“Who’s the bracelet for?”

Her fingers miss the next braid, and she hisses under her breath and unravels the knot. “For me,” she says, which has to be a lie. Lanny’s never worn a braided bracelet in her life. Especially not one in black and pink. Black, maybe. But pink?

“No, it’s not.”

She doesn’t say anything for a few seconds, then says, “A friend.”

I’m only asking about it because it’s making her uncomfortable. She’s shifting around, shooting me burning Drop it looks. “Look, it’s cool if it’s Dahlia you’re making it for, you know.”

She looks up and gives me a long, weird look. Then she says, “It is.”

“Isn’t she the one you hit in the nose?”

“She’s been my friend for . . . for a long time.”

I shrug. “You still punched her in the nose when you met her. And it wasn’t a long time. Wasn’t even a year ago.” I pretend to read, but I’m watching my sister. She keeps retying that one twist, over and over, and then she growls and shreds the whole bracelet into separate pieces of yarn and gets up to look out the window. “So. You really like her?”

“Maybe,” she says, which means yes. She crosses her arms. “Yes. None of your business.”

“As long as you don’t tell her where we are.” I see her straighten, and I put a bookmark in and close the cover. “Don’t tell me you told her! You’re not supposed to tell anybody, you know that!” I lower my voice so that Kezia can’t tell what we’re talking about.

Lanny just shrugs. Her jaw’s gone stiff, like she’s expecting me to hit it. “That was Mom’s rule, and Mom’s gone. Besides—she won’t tell anybody.”

“She’s going to tell everybody!” I’m angry now. I haven’t called any of my friends. Or gone to look for them. I’ve been doing exactly what Mom said I was supposed to do. Well . . . except for the phone. Except that. “Is that where you went when you were over the fence?”

“No, I went—” She catches her breath and bites her lip, and I see tears in her eyes, but she wipes them away. “I went to go look at our house. That’s all. I met her there.” She glares at me with such sudden venom that I feel like she’s hit me. “Why don’t you go read your stupid book!”

I’m so mad by then that I slam it down on the table, and I say, “It’s your stupid book, didn’t you even notice?” Because it is. It’s the book that she was reading on the day that our lives went wrong. She was reading it, and she didn’t look up even when Mom stopped the car for the police, and all I could think about was what was so great about that book, because she was reading it the day Mom got arrested, the day our house and our dad got taken away from us. She was reading this book on the last day when there were no monsters, and parents could still protect us. I rescued it when she threw it away. I wanted to hold on to something, something from home. Something from before.

I’ve kept it.

I’m shaking now. And I’m breathing really fast, so fast my stomach hurts. I’ve been reading and rereading this book for so long that pages are falling out of it, and two of them have broken loose and are sticking out like broken teeth now.

Lanny reaches over and draws her fingers over the cover, like touching the face of someone dead. Then she takes the book and she walks over to the fireplace, and I realize she’s going to burn it, and I charge over and rescue it and hold it close to my chest.

We don’t say anything. We just look at each other. And then she slumps down on the floor and starts to cry. I’m her brother. I should try to make her feel better. But I don’t.

I go into my bedroom and slam the door and lock it. I can still hear Lanny crying. I pace back and forth, and then I grab my coat from the closet, and my gloves and hat.

Kezia’s been watching the fight from the kitchen table, not interfering, and when I walk out in my winter gear, she says, “It’s freezing out there, Connor.”

I don’t feel like Connor right now. I just want something warm.

I want my dad.

“I won’t be long,” I tell her. Boot has come up out of his lazy sprawl by the crackling fireplace, and he’s bouncing around my legs. “Boot needs to go out.”

She doesn’t like it, but she nods finally. “All right. Inside the fence only.” She stares at me for a few long seconds, and I don’t dare look away. “Connor? Can I trust you?”

“Yes,” I tell her. I mean it. She can trust Connor. Just not Brady.

“Okay.” I can tell by the way she looks toward Lanny now that she believes me.

As I open the door, she’s already putting her arm around my sister, who’s crying like her heart has broken.

I go outside, and she’s right, it’s freezing—the kind of dense, damp cold that feels like snow is falling even though it isn’t. The clouds overhead are deep gray, so heavy they seem ready to crash down on top of us. Mist hangs in the top of the trees. It’d probably be foggy on the lake today, too, and starting to freeze over.