Wolfhunter River (Stillhouse Lake #3)(2)

She didn’t know what to do. Daddy had always told her there were bad people, and she shouldn’t go with them if they didn’t know the code word, but he did know the code word, and she couldn’t push “Emergency” if there wasn’t a phone.

“Let me out,” she said. She tried to make it sound like her momma would have: cool and confident. “You can stop up here.”

“Shut up,” the driver said. “Keep quiet. You start making a racket, and I’ll tape your damn mouth shut.”

That scared her even more than being in a strange car and not having her phone, but she wasn’t going to show him that. She wasn’t going to cry. She looked around and tried to think what else to do. The door wouldn’t open. Neither would the window. The SUV had dark-tinted windows, same as Mr. Lou’s car; they were to keep the sun out. But they also made it so people couldn’t see in.

Ellie realized something awful. She was a shadow inside a black car behind tinted windows, no one could see her, and she didn’t know what to do next.

When she started to scream for help at passing cars, the driver took an exit, parked under a bridge among the cool green trees, and put tape over her mouth and around her legs and arms. Then he carried her around to the back of the SUV.

It was empty except for a sleeping bag, one with Disney princesses on it. She was screaming underneath the tape, and wiggling, and trying to get free, but he put her on top of the sleeping bag and shook his head.

“Go to sleep,” he told her, and wiped sweat off his face. “We’ve got a long way to go. You mind your manners and I’ll feed you in a few hours. You’ll be home in a couple of days with a real good story to tell.”

Daddy had always told her, If bad people get you, don’t believe what they tell you.

She didn’t believe they’d take her home at all.

She got really scared when her nose started to get snotty and it was hard to breathe with the tape over her mouth, so she made herself stop and breathe, slow and regular. She was still scared, but she felt exhausted, too, and she finally just closed her eyes and tried to pretend she was somewhere else, back home with her momma.

She pretended so hard that she fell asleep, curled up in her momma’s lap, and when she woke up, she wanted to tell him she needed to pee, really bad, but he was talking on his phone, and they were in the dark, in a forest.

He saw her sit up. He turned around. And she saw through the front windshield the turn ahead and the lights that were coming around it. The lights that were heading straight at them.

She tried to scream at him, to tell him to watch out for the other car, but he just frowned at her and said, “I told you to shut—”

And then the other car hit them, and everything rolled and crashed, and she thought she heard the man screaming.

Help me, Ellie wanted to say, but she was too scared and too hurt, and then the man stopped screaming, and there wasn’t any sound at all.





1

GWEN

The wide, dark eye of the television camera reminds me of bad things. Very bad things. I try really hard to keep in mind why I’m sitting here. I’m here to tell my story, frankly and honestly.

Because other people have been telling it for far too long now, lying about me and my kids.

It’s been all over the news for months now: Escaped serial killer abducts ex! Shootout in murder house! It’s always written for maximum ghoulish effect, and contains at least a passing mention that I was arrested as his accomplice.

Sometimes they remember to say that I was acquitted. Mostly they like to forget that detail. There have been a hundred reporters swamping my email to the point that I just shut it down and ignored it. At least half of them have made the long trip to Stillhouse Lake to try to get me to open the door and tell my side.

But I’m not stupid enough to do it without knowing what I’m getting into first. This television appearance took almost a month of negotiations, of guarantees of what I will and won’t be asked. I chose the Howie Hamlin Show because he has a good reputation; he’s been sympathetic to other crime victims and an advocate for justice.

But as I take my seat in the interview chair, I’m still feeling unready. I didn’t expect this rising level of panic, or to feel burning sweat on the back of my neck. The chair is too deep, and I feel fragile perched on the edge of it. It’s the camera. I thought I was past this, but I’m not. Maybe I never will be.

The camera keeps staring.

Everyone else is so relaxed. The camera operator—just the one—is chatting with someone else, nowhere near the machine and its unblinking eye. The host of the show is conferring with someone offstage in the dimly lit and cable-tangled distance. But I feel pinned in place, and every time I blink, I see that other camera, the one set up on a tripod in a ruined plantation house in Louisiana.

I see my ex and his horrible smile. I see blood.

Ignore it.

This place is smaller than I expected. The stage consists of a short riser and three armchairs spaced around with a small, glossy table for accent. The table holds a couple of books, but I’m too nervous to study them. I wonder why three chairs. Are there always three chairs? I don’t know. I can’t remember, even though I watched this show beforehand to learn what to expect.

You can do this, I tell myself, and practice deep breathing. You faced down not one but two serial killers. This is nothing. It’s just an interview. And you’re doing this for the kids, to make them safer. Because if I let the media tell the story without me, they’re only going to make it worse.