In the morning, I call the prison where Melvin is being held, and I make an appointment for the next visiting day.

5

I have to get someone to stay with the kids.

I think about it. I agonize about it for hours, staring into space, gnawing the inside of my lip raw. I have a few people I could ask, but few . . . so few. I could put the kids on a plane to their grandmother, I think, but when I check with her I find she’s out of town on a trip. I need to make a decision. I can’t leave Lanny and Connor alone, and I can’t take them where I’m going.

It’s an enormous step to take, a gigantic step for someone who doesn’t trust anymore. I want to ask Sam. I question that very desire, because Mel has taught me I can’t trust my own judgment, and the last thing I want, the very last, is to risk my kids.

I wish I knew more women, but the only ones I’ve become acquainted with in Norton or around the lake so far are chilly and unlikable, or outright hostile toward strangers.

I don’t know what to do, and it paralyzes me for a long, long time until finally Lanny throws herself into the chair in my office and stares at me for so long that I have to engage. “What, honey?”

“That was my question, Mom. What the hell?”

“I don’t understand.”

“Yes, you do,” she says, staring harder. Narrows her eyes, in a way I know she got from me. “You’re sitting in here chewing your thumbnail off. You hardly slept. What’s wrong? And don’t tell me I’m too young to know. Flush that noise.”

Flush that is her newest phrase, and it makes me laugh. I imagine that will change to something much more direct by the time she’s sixteen, but for now, it’s a funny, useful phrase. “I need to go out of town,” I tell her. “Just for the day. You’ll mostly both be in school, but . . . but I need to leave super early, and I’m back very late. I need someone to be here for you.” I take a deep breath. “Who would you suggest?”

She blinks, because she probably can’t remember the last time I asked. And she won’t, because that’s not a normal question from me. “Where are you going?”

“Not important. Stay on topic, please.”

“Okay, are you going to see Dad?”

I hate to hear her say that, like he’s still Dad, with that hopeful upward curl in her tone. I makes me shudder, and I know she sees that, too. “No,” I lie, with as bland and even a tone as I can. “Just business.”

“Uh-huh.” I can’t tell if my own daughter believes me. “Okay. Well . . . I guess Sam would be okay. I mean, he’s over here anyway, fixing stuff. He and Connor are still working on the deck, you know.”

Hearing her say Sam’s name is a huge relief. And besides, she’s right; Sam would normally be here anyway. The deck project has taken on a leisurely pace, a little here, a little there. “I’m just—honey, I won’t be here to watch out for you. If you feel at all uncomfortable . . .”

“Mom. Please.” I get the full eye roll this time. “If I’d thought he was a creeper, wouldn’t I have said so to his face? And to yours? Loudly?”

She would have. Lily was shy. Lanny is not. Something in me eases, though I know I can’t afford to rely on a fourteen-year-old’s judgment, however good I think it is.

In this, I can only rely on myself. I have to take a risk, and I flinch at the very idea. I take risks for myself. But with them? With them?

“Mom.” Lanny is leaning forward now, and I see the earnest stillness in her. I see a ghost of the woman she will become. “Mom, Sam’s fine. He’s good. We’re good. Just do it.”

Just do it. I take in a deep, slow breath and sit back and nod. Lanny smiles slowly and crosses her arms. She does love to win.

“I’ll watch him like a hawk,” she tells me. “And I’ve got Javier and Officer Graham on speed dial. NBD, Mom.”

NBD, I know, stands for no big deal. It is. But I need a leap of faith, and this time I take it. I pick up my cell phone and lock eyes with Lanny again as I dial the phone number.

He picks up on the second ring. “Hey, Gwen.”

The normality and welcome of it steadies me, and my voice sounds almost normal when I say, “I need a favor.”

I hear water running. I hear him shut it off and put something down to give me his full attention. “Tell me,” he says. “I’ll do it.”

It’s that simple.

“I’m only going to be gone for about twelve hours,” I tell Sam on Sunday night, the night before I have to get on the plane, “but I appreciate you staying over. Lanny’s responsible, but—”

“Yeah, but she’s fourteen,” he says. He takes a drink from the beer I’ve given him—a pecan porter, which he seems to prefer. Craft beers are a gift from God. I’m sipping a Samuel Adams Organic Chocolate Stout, creamy and smooth. It soothes the jitters in my stomach. “You don’t want to come home to a trashed house and a mountain of beer cans, right?”

“Right,” I say, though I doubt Lanny would even consider throwing a party. With me gone, she won’t feel free, like most girls her age would. She’ll feel vulnerable—and she is vulnerable. If her father knows where we are, if someone’s really watching us on his behalf . . . I try not to think about it. I’m well aware that someone out there could be watching now. There are a couple of watercraft out on the lake in the sunset, making for shore. Maybe one of them has a camera trained on my porch. It makes me itchy. Mel will destroy this. He destroys everything.

But that is why I am going to visit him. To be absolutely sure he understands the stakes we are playing for now.

I haven’t told Sam where I’m going. I wouldn’t know how to even start that conversation. I also don’t tell him I’ve set up wireless cameras. There’s one focused on the front door, one on the back, one set back from the property on a tree to give a wide view, and one up high in an air-conditioning grille in the living and kitchen area. I can easily flip from one view to another on the tablet that came with them. In an emergency, I can e-mail the link to the Norton PD.

Not that I don’t trust him. Just that I need some kind of reassurance.

I do say this: “Sam? Do you have a gun?”

I catch him in midgulp, and he turns to look at me with a curious expression as he coughs. I cock an eyebrow at him, and he turns it into a rueful laugh. “Sorry,” he says. “Caught me off guard there. Yeah, I’ve got a gun, sure. Why?”

“Would you mind making sure you have it with you while you’re here? I’m just—”

“Worried about leaving your kids? Yeah. Okay. No problem.” Still, he continues to watch me, and his voice drops a little. “Any specific threats I need to know about, Gwen?”

“Specific? No. But—” I hesitate, thinking how to put it. “I feel like we’re being watched. Does that sound crazy?”

“Around Killhouse Lake? Nope.”

“Killhouse?”

“Don’t blame me for that one. Blame your daughter. I think one of her goth buddies came up with it. Catchy, isn’t it?”

I hated it. Stillhouse was plenty creepy enough for me. “Well, just—take care of them, that’s all I ask. I’ll be gone less than twenty-four hours.”

He nods. “I might work on that deck some, if that’s all right.”

“Sure. Thanks.”

On impulse, I reach out to him, and he takes my hand and holds it for a moment. That’s all. It isn’t a kiss. Isn’t even a hug. But it’s something strong, and it makes both of us sit for a moment savoring it.

He gets up eventually, draining the last of his pecan porter, and says, “I’ll be back early morning before you leave, yeah?”

“Yeah,” I agree. “I leave for Knoxville at four a.m. The kids will be off to school by eight, and they can get themselves up and on the bus. You’ll have the place to yourself until they’re back at three. I’ll be in sometime after dark.”

“Sounds good. I’ll be sure to eat all your food and watch only the highest-dollar pay-per-view. Mind if I buy a bunch of stuff on your account on the shopping channels?”