Page 26 of Darkwater Lane (Stillhouse Lake #7)

GWEN

We stop by a convenience store to pick up a few essentials, then find a relatively cheap but safe motel. The minute the door closes behind us, and I’ve thrown the lock, I turn to face Sam.

He stands waiting, knowing what’s coming. “I’m sorry,” he tells me, preempting my attack.

While I appreciate the apology, it’s not enough. “How could you arrange to meet up with Leo without telling me?”

“I had to, Gwen. It was the only way I was going to be able to clear my name. I needed proof that he was alive. Something I could take to the cops in Norton.”

“We swore we’d tell each other everything,” I remind him, struggling to keep my voice low and calm when what I really want to do is shout and rail.

“Remember Salah Point?” I’d taken off with Kez to hunt down a killer without telling Sam.

Eventually, he figured out where we were going and came after us, but he was too late.

By the time he reached us, I’d already suffered serious injuries and nearly died.

After that, we promised we wouldn’t try to face challenges like that on our own .

At least Sam has the decency to act chastened. “I was afraid you’d try to talk me out of meeting with him if I told you.”

I shake my head. “I wouldn’t have.”

“Then you’d have demanded to go with me.”

“Damn straight I would have!” I realize my voice has grown too loud, so I lower it to a hiss. “And I would have been right. What if he tried to kill you? What if it was a setup? Jesus, Sam, I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.”

“I didn’t trust Varrus, and I didn’t want to put you at risk.” His expression is earnest, and I know he’s telling the truth. But that doesn’t matter.

I jab a finger against his chest. “You don’t get to make that decision for me. Or for this family.”

“You’re right,” he says simply. “I’m sorry.”

His apology takes some of the wind out of my sails. It’s difficult to be mad at someone who agrees with you. Plus, anger won’t solve the very real-world problems we’re facing.

I sink onto the bed. There are so many questions spinning through my head that it’s difficult to know where to begin. “I want to know everything you haven’t told me. No holding anything back this time.”

He leans a hip against the desk on the wall opposite the bed. “Leo texted me earlier today. He said he wanted to meet but it had to just be the two of us. No one else could know.”

Another wave of anger surges through me at the risk Sam had been willing to take.

“I agreed and told him to name the time and place. He suggested our house. That’s when I told him that if he came near my home or my family, I would gut him.

He sent back a laughing emoji. Then we agreed to meet at a park about half a mile away.

He told me exactly where he’d be waiting.

When I got there, he wasn’t there. I waited, but he never showed. ”

“That’s it?” I ask .

He nods. “That’s it.”

The detective said the last text on Leo’s phone was the one of you threatening to gut him.”

“Cops lie, Gwen. It’s a common tactic to get people to confess.”

I grind my teeth at how unfair it is that the police can try to trap people by lying to them. But now isn’t the time for that discussion.

“What about the alarm?” I ask. “I took a closer look after you were arrested. Any recordings from after I left and the kids got home have been completely and permanently scrubbed. I sent the log to Taylor, hoping she can maybe pull something, but I’m not optimistic.

It shows you were the one to shut off the system and then turn it back on. ”

“It wasn’t me. I never turned the system off. Someone must have discovered my code.”

It’s the obvious answer. Except it doesn’t make sense. “But how?” I demand. “Unless you shared it with someone.” Which we both know didn’t happen. He would never compromise our personal safety that way.

“I don’t know, Gwen.” He sounds equally exasperated. “All I know is that I didn’t do this despite the evidence against me.” He lets his head fall back against the wall. “It’s fucking Stillhouse Lake all over again.” I can hear the exhaustion in his voice.

Being falsely accused was hard on him. There was a constant threat hanging over his head.

“Except this time, Leo is really dead,” I point out. “I asked the detective if there was any way it was self-inflicted, and he said no.”

“They showed me photos from the crime scene when they were trying to get me to talk,” Sam says solemnly. “He’s right. There’s no question Varrus was murdered.”

It just doesn’t make any sense. It’s obvious Sam is being targeted, but why? “Who hates you that much?”

His smile is rueful. “A few hours ago, that answer would have been easy: Leo Varrus. But now…?” He holds out his hands in surrender.

“What about Rowan?” It’s the next logical person, especially now that she’s head of the Lost Angels.

We both know she’s committed to continuing Leo’s quest against Sam and me.

She all but threatened us when Sam talked to her the other day.

Plus, she was the one to re-edit the podcast to make Sam look guilty of killing Leo the first time around.

“She works in IT. Maybe she hacked our alarm system.”

His expression turns pained. “I know she hates me, but still…murder? She’s Callie’s sister. They grew up together, and I know Callie thought the world of her. I just don’t want to believe Callie could be so wrong about her.”

I understand where he’s coming from and I appreciate the emotional complexity of their relationship. “Still, we should consider her.”

He blows out a breath. “I know. Just because I don’t want to believe she could be capable of this doesn’t mean she isn’t.”

We both sit with that for a moment, neither of us saying anything. The weight of the day’s events settles heavily around us.

“I’m worried, Gwen,” Sam eventually says. His voice is soft and low, almost defeated. “It’s already obvious the cops think I did this. They’ll be looking for evidence to confirm their suspicions instead of searching for the person who really did it.”

I take his hand in mine and squeeze it tightly. “If they won’t look for the killer, then we will,” I promise him.

“And if we can’t find them?”

I don’t want to consider that possibility, but that would only be burying my head in the sand. “Whoever is behind this is going to make mistakes,” I tell him. “Just like the preservatives in the blood at the Stillhouse Lake house.”

“Which we only figured out because it came up in Lanny’s biology class. ”

“But we did figure it out, and we were able to clear your name because of it. We’ll do it again.”

I wake early, as usual, and for a moment, everything is unfamiliar: the scratchiness of the sheets, the smell of the room, the sound of the traffic outside. The only thing that grounds me is the warmth radiating from the other side of the bed, accompanied by deep, steady breaths.

It’s Sam. Always my anchor. I want to slide back under the sheets and curl against him, but I decide to let him sleep and take a moment to let my eyes travel over him.

I realize it’s been a while since I’ve seen him like this, with his face relaxed, the tension around his mouth eased, and the wrinkles in his forehead smooth.

He’s aged since we met, and not just the normal kind of aging: the flecks of gray in his five o’clock shadow and the lines by his eyes. It’s also the kind that comes from the weight of stress. There’s a heaviness to him when he’s awake—a perennial sense of near exhaustion.

I wonder when that started or if it’s always been that way.

I try to think back to a time when life might have been easier for him.

Certainly not since he met me. Since we’ve been together, he’s been shot at, kidnapped twice, and nearly drowned.

Though it’s not like life before then was much better.

Those were the years after Callie was murdered, and he was roiling in grief and rage.

Before that, he’d been a soldier in Afghanistan.

I thought earlier this year that we’d made a breakthrough of sorts.

It felt like we’d turned a corner and come out of the tunnel and into the sunshine.

I’d stopped Sicko Patrol (mostly) and drilling my kids on exit strategies every time we went someplace new.

We’d started thinking about booking a family vacation.

All the things that felt so out of reach while running from our past but suddenly felt possible.

Now, it feels like that’s crumbling. It just seems like we’re always lurching from one crisis to the next, with only brief bouts of peace in between. It’s exhausting. Eventually, the weight of it all will become too much.

“I promise we’ll find a way through this,” I whisper to his sleeping back. “We’ll figure out a way to end this cycle for good.”

I watch him for a while longer, appreciating the peace of the moment, until the screen of my cell phone flashes with a notice. It’s a text from Kez.

Kez

All good here. Both kids asleep. Not in labor. Call when you have a chance.

I let out a breath, some of the weight easing from my shoulders.

I can handle almost anything as long as I know my kids are safe.

Though that doesn’t erase the ache that takes root in my chest every time we’re separated.

I know it’s something I need to get used to, especially with Lanny planning for college next year.

My brain knows that, but my heart doesn’t tend to listen.

I decide that now is as good a time as any to call Kez and slip out of bed, quietly pulling on my clothes from the day before. I quickly splash water on my face and brush my teeth before grabbing my coat and sneaking out of the room.