Killman Creek (Stillhouse Lake #2)

I expect new hatred to come at us, but for now, at least, this house is our fortress again.

Today, it’ll be finished.

“Mom!” Connor holds up something I can’t see from across the room. “Is this trash?”

“Does it look like trash?” I call back, and I manage a smile. He smiles back. It’s hesitant, and stutters a little in the middle, but it’s a start. We have work to do, Connor and I. Miles to go. He blames himself for too much, and now he’s grieving his father. I know Melvin doesn’t deserve that, but this isn’t about him. It’s about Connor, and letting him go through all the stages of grief for a man who never truly loved him. “Thanks, baby. Why don’t you take a break?”

“Why don’t you take a break?” Sam says, then takes the trash bag from my good right hand. My left is wrapped and splinted, and it hurts too damn much, but the doctor says it’ll heal. Eventually. “Because you need to sit. Stop pushing.”

He’s right. It’s done. Sam and Lanny have teamed up to repaint the damaged kitchen walls, while Kezia and Javier installed the new front window. Connor and I have picked up the last remnants of garbage. The front curtains stay down for now. I want to look out at the snow and the lightly frozen lake. It seems clean out there, in a way I don’t think it ever has before.

Lanny is sitting with her girlfriend—maybe they’re not quite calling it that yet, but I can see the looks—and they’re wearing matching braided bracelets. When she thinks we’re not looking, I know Lanny’s holding Dahlia’s hand. She needs this. She needs to be loved. I’ll do everything I can; I’ll love her more fiercely than any lioness, but I can’t give her gentleness, and sweetness, and Dahlia seems to have that for her, at least for now. I stop to hug my daughter, because I can’t not, and she lets me cling for a long, long moment before she pushes back and rolls her dark-rimmed eyes. I kiss her dark hair and try not to think about the girl in the noose. The one who got away, I think. I keep asking. They haven’t found her, but she wasn’t dead at the plantation, either.

Maybe she’s found safety. Maybe something good came out of it for her.

Sam’s waiting with a beer for me, and I gratefully take it and sink down next to him on the new couch. The old one was filthy, and anyway, it’s time. It’s time for new things. Fresh starts.

“Mike called,” Sam says, then takes a deep pull of the beer. Connor settles in on the other side of him, and when Sam puts an arm around his shoulders, he doesn’t flinch. He takes out a book and starts reading, but that’s expected. It’s a new book, I realize. One I haven’t seen before. That seems significant, but I don’t know why. “He’s going to be tied up in DC for a while, but he says hi. Rivard’s executive assistant rolled hard the second he knew the old man was locked up. He gave Mike the keys to the kingdom.”

“Everything?” I ask, giving him a look. The trauma of Baton Rouge sometimes seems like a nightmare, a month out, but suddenly it’s vivid again. Memories of empty, hungry eyes. The gun kicking in my hand. I can still feel the shock traveling through my arm, up my body. Feel the blood on my face. I take a breath. “You’re sure? Everything?”

“Almost a thousand arrests just this week,” he says. “All over the world. Including the ones who bought tickets to the show that night.”

That’s code, and I understand it. The show. The one where I was to be tortured to death. I shiver a little and huddle closer to his warmth. “That sounds good.”

“They’re going to get all of them. Rivard was a businessman; he kept excellent records. Even the trolls are getting hauled in and booked.” Sam laughs a little bitterly. “Not that it’s put a dent in your hate mail, but give it time.”

“So Mike’s okay?”

“Mike,” Sam says, “is the new golden boy of the Bureau, and I think he likes it. Oh, one more thing. The forensic work on the videos finally came in: faked, of course. Not that you had anything to prove to us about that. Any of us.” He looks over at Kezia, at Javier, at the kids, and I feel gratitude well up inside. Over this past month, each of them has come to me and told me when and where they’d come to the realization that they were wrong. Predictably, maybe, my daughter was the last.

Sam apologized first. Not that he had anything to be sorry for. Oh, the kids believed me first, I think, but it took an adult admitting it before they were comfortable saying so. I think they get that reluctance to show vulnerability from me. I hope that I can show them something else, now.

I tip my head up and look at him. He kisses my forehead, a quick brush of lips that leaves me warmer. This is sweet. And I’m so grateful for that. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” he says, offering me his bottle. We clink glass. “The FBI’s putting out a public statement tomorrow that completely clears you. The end.”

I sigh a little. It was a minor issue, given everything else that’s happened, but I’m glad it’s settled now. “You and I both know that isn’t true,” I tell him. “There will always be some people out there who don’t believe it. Any of it.”

“In a fight between some Infowars-swilling neckbeard and you, I know who to put my money on,” he says. He takes another drink, and I can tell that he’s trying to make it casual when he says, “About my cabin. Seems like the owner wants me to sign another lease starting next month. Rent’s going up, too.”

“I see.”

“So I might be homeless pretty soon.” There’s a slight, teasing question in his voice. I smile, but I don’t look up.

“That would be sad.”

“So sad.”

“And I suppose you might need a place.”

“Now that you mention it. Got any leads?”

Lanny and Dahlia are whispering together. Giggling now. “Oh, just get it out there,” Dahlia says. “We all know.”

“Yeah,” Connor says, turning a page. “It’s pretty obvious.”

“Okay, okay, fine. Mr. Cade, you’re welcome to move in here.” I feel a tremor, though I mean it. This is a huge step for me. An expression of trust I wasn’t sure I could ever give anyone again.

“You sure?”

This time I do glance up. His eyes are steady and kind, and I catch my breath, because there’s a look there I’ve never quite seen before. Intense, as if he’s seeing me for the first time, all over again.