Melvin says, in a dismissive tone, “I’m not hunting you. Not yet.”

“Do it or I’ll find you.”

“You know why I married you, Gina? Because you’re the perfect wife. You’re blind, deaf, and dumb to anything that doesn’t concern you, and you have the spine of a worm. You’re never going to come after me.”

“That’s Gina you’re talking about,” I say, low in my aching throat. “I’m Gwen. Gwen will find you, and she will put a bullet in your diseased brain. That’s a promise.”

“Brave when you’re on the phone and Mr. Cade is nearby. But maybe I’ll just pay him a visit, and leave you to clean up the mess.”

“You don’t kill men,” I say. “And you don’t have the guts to try anyone who might be a fair fight. Including me.”

He’s silent. I think I’ve made him angry, but when he finally replies, it’s quiet and controlled. “First time for everything. And the firsts are exciting.”

He hangs up before I can think of some other way to taunt him and keep him pointed at me, only at me. I feel like it’s a failure, and that shakes me hard. I can’t let him find the kids.

Sam silently takes the phone from my hand. Gets his keys.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m dumping this,” he says. “A long way from here. I’ll get you another one on the way back. Lock up. Shoot anybody but me who comes in.”

“No! If I can keep him talking—”

Sam grabs my arm as I reach for the phone. He’s gentle about it, which is at odds with the emotion I can feel rising off him like smoke. “If you keep him talking, you’ll get yourself fucking killed,” he says. “And me, too. We’re hunting him. Not the other way around.”

Then he’s gone, and I have no choice but to lock the doors and go back to sit, and wait, for what comes next.

 

 

17

SAM

I can’t help but wonder how Melvin Royal keeps finding her, keeps getting her phone number. It doesn’t make sense. These are disposable phones, and the number has to be shared out. He can’t search through records to find her; not even Absalom is that good, that fast. So how the hell is he finding her? Maybe she wants him to find her. Maybe she texted him the goddamn number and you’re the biggest fool in the world for even starting to believe her.

I can believe a lot of things about Gwen. I can even believe that, once upon a time, a terrified wife might have done things that she wants to block out from her memory.

But I know she’s totally sincere about wanting this man dead. So I have to write off the possibility that she’s working with him.

The first time he called, that had to be Absalom providing him with the intel. But somewhere, somehow, someone else has cherry-picked her number, and it’s ended up in Melvin Royal’s hands again. How?

I can’t solve the puzzle. I drive carefully, well aware of the slippery road conditions, the cars spun off in ditches, the hazy glitter of ice still drifting down in the glow of streetlights. I’d like to drive a hundred miles to ditch this phone, but it’s too dangerous. I settle for twenty-five miles, which takes nearly two hours of tense effort. I wipe the contacts and history and texts, destroy the SIM card, pull the battery, and pitch the shell as far out into an empty field as I can throw it. It’s useless junk now, and if by some weird sorcery he can still track it, let him dig for it under the ice.

I’m on my way back when my own cell phone rings, and I pause a second, then pull off into a gas station parking lot and answer. “Yeah.” No name, no friendliness.

“Shut up and listen.” It’s a distorted electronic voice, and when I look at the number, it’s blocked. “We can help you get revenge on the one responsible for your sister’s death, once and for all.”

I wait a second before I say, “I’m guessing this is Absalom I’m talking to.”

“Yes.”

“I’m not interested in anything you’ve got for sale. Not your porn, or your torture, or whatever other sick garbage you have—”

“We’re not selling anything. Not to you. We want to offer you something for free.”

I think about hanging up, but having Absalom talking seems like a victory of some kind. They’re scared enough to reach out. The least I can do is keep them on the line. The longer they’re engaging with me, the less they’re spending protecting Gwen’s ex. “Not sure I want anything from you, free or not.”

“What if we offer you Melvin Royal?”

“You think I can’t get him without you?”

“We know you can’t.” This Absalom motherfucker is coldly smug, and I want to reach through the phone and pull his guts out through his mouth. “He’s always going to be faster and smarter than you. Without us, you won’t get close.”

I watch traffic move past on the highway. Nobody’s going full speed, especially big trucks; they’re all aware of the ice, the danger. “And why are you turning on him now? You were helping him before.”

“He was making us money before. Now he’s costing us.”

That makes a weird, cold sense. “So what do you want from me?”

“Fair trade,” the voice says. Flat, modulated, inhuman. “You give us the wife, we give you the husband.”

“Why do you want her? Don’t give me any bullshit about good deeds and punishing the wicked. We both know that’s not who you are.”

The voice of Absalom—and I’m eerily convinced that I’d know this voice without that digital filter—says, “You don’t need to know why we want her. All you need to know is that she’ll get what’s coming to her. You’ve seen the videos. You know she earned it.”

I’m silent. When I blink, I can see that terrible, normal smile on Gina Royal’s face in the video as she’s handing her husband a knife to cut his victim. I can imagine that same smile when it’s my sister hanging there, helpless. Those videos might be fake, and God, I pray they are, but they feel true, and that’s hard to fight. They appeal to all my buried hate and rage, the same anger that pushed me into online harassment, into stalking, into planning Gwen’s death. I never acted on any of it.

But I can’t deny that those feelings are still there, still bubbling under the surface.