Heartbreak Bay (Stillhouse Lake) Rachel Caine (best e book reader for android .txt) 📖

close it. I need to take my own advice. I don’t look at Connor. I stare straight at the detective, and he stares back, and then finally he scoots his chair back. “I’ll let you know when your lawyer gets here,” he says.

The door shuts behind him, and I hear the lock click. We’re not going anywhere.

Connor says, “Sam, I didn’t—”

“Don’t,” I say. “They have cameras in the room, and they can hear anything we say. Tell me once your lawyer gets here because they’ll have to turn them off, but not until then. Okay?”

He looks miserable, pale, absolutely wretched. But he nods. I put my arm around him, and we lean together in silence. I’m scared for him. It’s hard to read Holland. He might be telling the truth about a witness, and about having more than one. I don’t know. I still believe Connor, but . . . this isn’t looking good.

It takes an eternity—well, two and a half hours—for our attorney to arrive and the police to decide they won’t try to charge Connor. Which tells me that if they do have witnesses, they’re not confident about them. Not yet.

We drive home. I’m so tired I feel lightheaded, and I have to focus hard on the road, but I say, “Ripperkid?”

Connor winces. “I know,” he says. “That—doesn’t look great.”

“Want to tell me why you picked it?”

“It’s what they call me at school,” he says. “Once word got around. And word always gets around. I figured I probably should own it. I talked to Lanny about it. She thought it was cool.”

Oh, Lanny. Of course she did. And the fact that neither of them told us . . . shouldn’t surprise me, really. They’re both at an age where what they tell their folks and what they actually do are two divergent courses. “That’s why you answered questions about Melvin,” I say. “To own it?”

“Yeah. I mean . . . better they think I’m kind of edgy than somebody they can kick around.”

As coping strategies go, it actually isn’t terrible. I know Gwen won’t like it, but I see the point very clearly. “Hey, kid? I love you. You know that, don’t you?”

“Thanks, Dad,” he says. “I love you too.” He doesn’t often say it. I don’t either. It’s a guy thing. But it seemed right, in this quiet moment, and I feel better for it. I hope he does too. “Mom’s going to kick my ass.”

“I’ll talk to her,” I tell him. “She’s just scared for you. Hell, I am too. So be a little patient, okay? We’re trying to handle this the best way we can.”

“I know,” he says. “But I really didn’t do anything. That makes me want to break something.”

“I know the feeling. Hardly ever helps. You still feel pretty bad, and then you have to clean up the stuff you broke. Not great.”

“I still want to try it.”

“I’ll hand you some ugly mugs we don’t use anymore. But you’ll be on broom duty.”

He laughs, and it eases the knot in my stomach a little. I reach over and ruffle his hair. He squirms away.

When we pull into the garage, Gwen’s already standing there, spotlighted by my headlights. I kill the engine and close the garage door. Her body language is stiff, but not angry. She’s worried.

“Everything’s okay,” I tell her, which is not quite the truth, but close. “They let him go.”

Gwen silently embraces our son, and looks at me over his shoulder. When did the kid get that tall? He’s nearly her height now. I hadn’t noticed, but in a few years, he’ll make her look small. She says, “Thank you, Sam. God, thank you. I couldn’t have done that.” She lets out a shaky laugh. “I’d have launched myself like a rocket and ended up under arrest. One hundred percent chance.” She pushes Connor back and studies him with that unmistakable tenderness mothers have. Puts her hand on his cheek. “Are you all right? Really?”

“I’m sorry, Mom,” he says. His voice sounds choked and tight. “I—I know I shouldn’t have gone on that board. I just wanted . . .”

“To belong,” she finishes for him when he can’t. “I know. I’m not angry. I’m just worried.” She straightens up and looks at me, then back at Connor. “I called my boss. It took her crack IT guys ten minutes to locate the fake IP redirection and track it back. Guess where it ended up?”

I shake my head. So does Connor.

Gwen smiles slowly. It’s a wicked kind of smile, with an edge that cuts, and I love it. “Remember our two brothers that you and your sister came up with on social media? The vandals?”

“They did it?” Connor sounds shocked, but I suspect he’s just surprised that they were smart enough to pull it off.

“I’m not sure, but Lanny and I gave the cops their names as somebody to look into. Apparently they also called in tips that said you had a gun at school last week. Let’s just say they’re not having a very good night.”

I know it wasn’t them. I’m absolutely certain it wasn’t; they aren’t bright enough to pull this off, by all indications, or one of them wouldn’t have worn school athletic gear to tag our house. What was it Lanny said? They got C grades in a class that should have been a walkthrough A. But I don’t want to raise that right now, not when there’s real relief on Gwen’s and Connor’s faces. Later.

I’m bone tired. But I feel like we’re okay.

And I sleep the sleep of the dead.

19

KEZIA

The nurse was right; I feel horrible the next time I wake up on Thursday morning. Bruised, aching, cranky as hell. But finally my head is clear, and when I groan and squint against the morning light and hit the control to raise my bed back up to a sitting position, I see that Javier’s getting my clothes out of the closet. They’re nasty and bloody, but at least they’re mine.

“I