Stillhouse Lake (Stillhouse Lake #1)(7)

Lanny must remember the hate mail that poured into my mom’s mailbox.

But what I worry about most is how she remembers her father, because like it or not, believe it or not, he had been a good father to his kids, and they had loved him with their entire hearts.

He’d never been that man, not really. Being a good father was just a mask he’d worn to hide the monster underneath. But that didn’t mean the kids have forgotten how it felt to be loved by Melvin Royal. Without meaning to, I remember how warm he could seem, how safe. When he gave his attention, he gave it completely. He’d loved them, and me, and it had felt real.

But it couldn’t have been real. Not considering what he was. I must not have known the difference, and it makes me sick when I realize all that I got wrong.

I slow the Jeep as another big vehicle swings around a sharp curve ahead—the Johansens. They are car-proud people; the SUV’s black finish glints perfection, and there isn’t even a fine film of dust. So much for off-roading. I wave, and the older couple wave back.

I’d made a point of meeting our closest neighbors the first week we moved in, because it seemed like a good precaution to assess them early for threats, or as possible resources in an emergency. I don’t count the Johansens as either. They are just . . . there. Most people just take up space anyway. The whisper comes and goes in my head, and it frightens me, because I hate remembering Melvin Royal’s voice. That was nothing he’d ever said at home, ever said to me, but I’d seen the video of him saying it at the trial. He’d said it utterly casually about the women he’d torn apart.

Mel infected me like a virus, and I have an unhealthy surety deep down that I’ll never get completely well again.

It takes a solid fifteen minutes to navigate the steep road down to the main highway, which slips in ribbon waves through the trees. Trees thin, grow shorter and sparser, and then the Jeep rolls past the rustic, sun-blighted sign that announces Norton. The top right corner of the sign is obliterated by a cluster of shotgun pellet strikes. Of course. It wouldn’t be the country if drunks weren’t shooting signs.

Norton’s a typical small Southern town, with old family establishments clinging on grimly next to repurposed antique stores, everyone hanging by a fragile economic thread. Chain outfits are slowly taking over. Old Navy. Starbucks. The yellow-arch scourge of McDonald’s.

The school is a single complex of three buildings built in a tight little triangle, with a shared space for athletic and arts between. I check in with the single guard on duty—armed, as is customary around here, with a handgun—in his little shack, and score a faded visitor pass before proceeding.

The lunch bell has already sounded, and all over the grounds young people eat, laugh, and engage in flirting, bullying, teasing. Normal life. Lanny won’t be among them, and if I know my son, Connor won’t be, either. I have to use the intercom to state my name and business before the secretary buzzes me inside, where the smell of stale sneakers, Pine-Sol, and cafeteria food hits me in a familiar puff.

Funny how all schools smell the same. I’m instantly thirteen again, and guilty of something.

As I walk into the junior high’s administration office, I find Connor slouched in one of the hard-plastic chairs, staring at his shoes.

Called it.

He looks up when the door opens, and I see the relief spread over his sun-browned face. “It wasn’t her fault,” he says, before I can even say hello. “Mom, it wasn’t.” He’s an earnest eleven now, and his sister is fourteen—tough ages even at the best of times. He looks pale and shaken and worried, which bothers me. I can see that he’s been biting his fingernails again. His index finger is bleeding. His voice seems hoarse, as if he’s been crying, though his eyes look clear enough. He needs more counseling, I think, but counseling means more in-depth records, and records mean complications we can’t afford, not yet. But if he really needs it, if I see signs he’s regressing to the state he was in three years ago . . . I’ll risk it. Even if that means we are found, and the cycle of names and addresses starts all over again.

“It’s going to be okay,” I say, and then I draw him into a hug. He lets me, which is unusual, but there are no witnesses here. Even so, he feels tense and solid in my arms, and I let him go quicker than I intended. “You should go on to lunch. I’ll take care of your sister now.”

“I will,” he says. “But I couldn’t—” He doesn’t finish, but I understand. I couldn’t leave her alone, he means. One thing about my kids: they stick together. Always, even while they bicker and fight. They haven’t let each other down since the day of The Event. That’s how I try to think of it, in capitals and italics: The Event, like it’s a scary movie, something removed from our lives that we can forget. Fictional and distant.

Sometimes, it even helps.

“Go on,” I tell him gently. “We’ll see you tonight.”

Connor goes, though not without a glance back over his shoulder. I’m biased, maybe, but I think he’s a handsome kid—sparkling amber eyes, brown hair that needs a trim. A sharp, clever face. He’s made some friends here at Norton Junior High, which is a relief. They share typical eleven-year-old interests in video games and movies and TV shows and books, and if they’re a little nerdy, it’s a good kind of nerdy, the kind that comes from rabid enthusiasm and imagination.