Page 34 of Darkwater Lane (Stillhouse Lake #7)

GWEN

It’s sunrise by the time we leave the police station.

Once our attorney, Claudia, arrived from Knoxville and started mentioning body cameras and explaining in exquisite detail the lawsuit she planned to file against the officers involved in beating Sam, the department decided it would just be best if they dropped the pending charges.

“Look, as much as I like clients who pay their bills on time, if you could manage to stay out of trouble, it would make all our lives much easier,” Claudia said as she got into her car for the drive back to Knoxville. It didn’t sound like a joke.

As if it were that easy.

A medic tended to Sam’s wounds while he was in custody, but he still looks pretty terrible.

His nose has a cut across the bridge, and one of his eyes is swelled half-shut.

Several of his ribs are bruised, and while he tries to hide it, it’s clear he’s in pain.

He winces as he slides into the passenger seat of my SUV.

When we reach the house, I sigh as I pull into the driveway. Half my winter garden is chewed up from where the police cars haphazardly parked last night, and the remnants of our front door lie scattered across the porch.

Because of the damage, I couldn’t set the alarm before we left, which means the house has been completely open and vulnerable for hours.

I grab my gun from the safe in the back of the SUV as Sam gets his from his truck.

He takes the lead, crouching low and staying alert as we approach the front door from the side.

He catches my eye and holds up three fingers.

I wait until all are down before following him inside.

We sweep the house quickly and methodically, checking under every bed, through every closet, and even in the attic.

Once we’re sure no one else has snuck in and is waiting to ambush us, Sam rummages through a crate in the panic room until he finds our debugger.

He uses it in every room, slowly checking the floors, walls, ceilings, and shelves.

Once he’s done, he gives me a thumbs-up.

No hidden cameras or mics, thank goodness.

It’s only at that point that I allow myself to slump into one of the kitchen chairs.

I lean my elbows on the table and thrust my fingers through my hair.

“Why does it always have to be so damn hard?” I ask, thoroughly exhausted.

“Would it be worth it if it was easy?”

“Yes, absolutely.”

I notice his smile, then, and realize he was joking. I’m glad for that little moment of levity. My heart needed a break from the crushing strain of it all.

“We need to reprogram the alarm,” I tell him. “The cops know the old code, and who knows who they’ve shared it with.”

Sam winces as he slides into the chair across from me. “I guess I should head down to the hardware store and pick up a new door before whoever swatted us decides to get more creative or aggressive.”

“It was the Belldenes,” I tell him. “Kez is pretty sure of it. She saw one of their trucks parked off to the side of the road on her way to the house.”

Sam’s expression turns stormy. “They’ve gone too far. It was one thing with the viper in the mailbox and shooting out my truck window. The cops fired shots last night. Connor could have been hit.”

I feel physically sick at the thought. “Kez said she’d talk to Jasper again. We could file charges since swatting is illegal, but who knows if anyone will care that much.”

“They won’t. If the Belldenes cared about the law, they wouldn’t flout it like they do.” He shakes his head. “We’re just going to have to get creative, that’s all.”

“Like what?” While I’m all for waging war against the Belldenes for our right to live in Stillhouse Lake, we’re already fighting enough battles. We don’t need to add more.

Before he can answer, my phone pings with a text.

Taylor

Looks like you’ve been busy.

It’s followed by a link to a news site. I click on it, already bracing for what I’ll find.

It’s a picture of Sam from the night before, hands cuffed behind his back and head down as a cop guides him into a patrol car.

Above it in bold is the headline: Murder Suspect Implicated in Child Sex Trafficking Ring .

My stomach starts to ache.

“What is it?” Sam asks.

I don’t want to show him, but I also don’t want him to be blindsided if he comes across it on his own. Feeling sick, I turn my phone to face him.

He takes it from me and begins to read. I slide from my seat and move to the coffeemaker.

I need caffeine badly. Once I’ve brewed a pot, I push a mug onto the table in front of Sam.

He’s still staring at the phone screen, the muscle in his jaw working overtime.

His body is tense, ready to lash out, but there’s nothing to hit, no way to expel the anger boiling inside him.

“We’ll get Kez or someone at the station to make a statement,” I tell him. “Send it to the news and demand a retraction. Threaten them with a defamation suit if they don’t.”

He tosses the phone across the table toward me. “Except everything in that headline is technically true. I am a murder suspect. And I was implicated in sex trafficking. Even though it’s all bullshit. It doesn’t matter what the truth is. People believe what they want to.”

“Unless you make them believe differently,” I counter.

He shrugs. I can see some of the fight leaving him. I can’t let that happen. I need him to stay strong.

I think back to what Madison said at the police station in Knoxville, about how our story is written by others because we remain silent. I hate to admit it, but she had a point. “Maybe we need to reconsider talking to the press,” I suggest.

He snorts. “No thanks.”

I’m not surprised he dismisses the possibility so easily. In the past, I would have as well. Something needs to change, though. My therapist is fond of reciting the Henry Ford quote, “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you always got.”

The reality is, what we’ve been doing hasn’t been working. We face more online hate now than we ever have. It isn’t abating. If anything, it’s getting worse.

“I’m serious. We need more than just a statement. We need something that people will pay attention to.”

“If you haven’t noticed, no one cares about alleged criminals. Everyone assumes that where there’s smoke, there’s fire. I’ve got smoke billowing out of me everywhere. Besides, are you forgetting Howie Hamlin? ”

I shudder at the memory. Of course I haven’t forgotten him. More than a dozen news outlets had reached out to interview me after I killed Melvin and we’d agreed to go on Howie Hamlin’s show after receiving numerous assurances that he wouldn’t deviate from the topics we’d approved.

Within moments of beginning the interview, he ambushed me. He brought Miranda Tidewell in to essentially accuse me of being Melvin’s accomplice. I’d stormed out. That was my last attempt at playing nice with the media. I swore I would never put myself through that again.

Now, nearly three years later, I’m reconsidering.

“People don’t want to hear from me, Gwen,” Sam adds. “They want to believe the worst about people. Let them.”

I can’t accept that. Not when it’s not just us we have to consider.

I slowly spin the coffee cup, watching the steam seep into the air. The ceramic is warm in my hands—uncomfortably so. I think about Madison’s argument at the police station in Knoxville. I hate parroting her words, but she has a point. “It isn’t fair to the kids.”

He winces at the statement, but I continue. “I found a shoebox full of acceptance letters in Lanny’s room the other day. Stanford, Berkeley, Smith, Princeton. Top colleges all over the country. She applied to all of them in secret. She even got a private mailbox so we wouldn’t know about it.”

Sam looks as bewildered as I felt at the time. Hell, I still feel that way. “Why?”

I shrug. “I don’t know. And I don’t know how to talk to her about it.

But a part of me can’t help but wonder if it’s because of Melvin.

Because of us—all of this.” I wave my hand around the broken house, the splintered door to her room, and the clothes strewn on the floor from her closet when they dragged her out.

“Remember when she visited Reyne U? She was so excited. She used your last name and, for the first time, she could be a normal kid. And then she had to leave early, and word got out who she was, and that was the end of her anonymity. Once again, she became Melvin Royal’s daughter.

“I think she’s worried she can’t be her own person. And the thing is, she’s right. With The Royal Murders , wherever she goes to school, everyone’s going to know who she is. It’s not like there are a million Lannys in the world. It’s a pretty distinctive and recognizable name.”

“But she had to have started applying to these schools before the podcast launched. I’m not even sure it was on our radar back then,” he points out.

It’s true, but the point remains the same. “Consider it from her point of view. Imagine going away to one of these schools, and it’s parents’ weekend. If you were Lanny, would you want us there?”

He stares down at his coffee, his expression resigned. “And you think going public will change that?”

“I don’t know,” I tell him honestly. “But I don’t see how it could make things worse.”

The corner of his lip twitches. “You should know better than to say something like that by now. You’re only tempting fate.”

“Maybe I’m tired of playing it safe.”

This time, his smile is genuine. “Gwen Proctor, I don’t know a human in this world who would say that you’re the type to play it safe.”

Except that I have been these last few years. I’ve felt like if I lay low, if I followed the rules, if I didn’t engage with the constant stream of hate, somehow my patience would be rewarded, and we’d be allowed to move on from Melvin’s mess.

Perhaps it’s time to take a different approach. Maybe it’s time to be loud. Angry. To speak up.