Wolfhunter River

by Caine, Rachel

  I can tell she didn’t know, and I admit, I’m surprised. If background checking was an Olympic event, she’d have more gold than Michael Phelps. My brother, the nerd, would definitely be going for the silver. I feel kind of good that I surprised her. And for a change, it isn’t a bad surprise.

  From Easy’s lakeside mini-resort, we kick it hard and race each other the last quarter of the way around the curve; I feel the burn building in my calves and thighs as the road begins to slope and we pull close to home. Mom’s exhausted, I can see it; I wonder if she slept much. She’s so exhausted, in fact, that she forgets the mail, or maybe she expects Sam to get it today, I don’t know.

  When she realizes I’m not coming with, she stops and looks back.

  “Go on,” I tell her. “I want to talk to Dahlia.”

  “Five minutes,” she says.

  I nod. As Mom heads up the incline to the house, I perch on a rock on the other side of the road, next to the lake, and hit FaceTime.

  It rings. And rings.

  Dahlia doesn’t pick up. Again. This is the third time in a row, and it’s killing me. Why isn’t she talking to me? What’s she doing? What did I do wrong? Oh God, is she with somebody else?

  I’m so preoccupied with that, I forget that I’m not supposed to open the mailbox. I’m pulling down the door when I remember, and then it’s too late, and I jump backward in case there’s a snake inside.

  There isn’t. I check with my phone light and everything. Mom’s going to kill me, though. She’d just said not to do this.

  Too late now. I restlessly pick through the mail. Junk, junk, political junk. Some bills. And two other things: a flat manila mailer addressed with a printed label to SAMUEL CADE. It has a return address out of Richmond, Virginia, and a bunch of stamps on it. And a plain white letter, also stamped, no return address, with Mom’s name on it.

  I freeze, because I recognize the handwriting. It’s my father’s.

  Dad’s dead.

  How can he possibly be writing to Mom? I feel sick and dizzy for a second, and I’m in danger of dropping mail all over the place . . . but then I take some deep breaths and shove the letter down the side of my leggings.

  I know I should give it to Mom, but . . . for years, she kept his letters away from us. From me. She took all of that on herself. I’ve seen one of them, just a glance, really. Mom’s trying to forget about Dad, and this will hurt her, I know it will. Whatever’s in this letter, he means it to hurt.

  I’m not letting him keep on abusing her. She took so much and never let us know what it cost her; I do know now.

  I’m old enough. I can do this for her, especially after seeing what that stupid TV show did to her. I hate that people keep hurting her. She wouldn’t like it, but . . . I’m strong enough.

  I’ll just tear it up and throw it away. She’ll never even know.

  I put the rest of the mail on the counter and tell Mom, who’s talking to Connor, that I’m going to hit the shower. She tells me not to hog all the hot water, she’s sweaty too, and Connor says something I don’t pay attention to because the letter I’ve hidden in my leggings feels like it’s burning my skin. I hear the pickup truck outside as I shut and lock my bedroom door. Sam’s back. I take the letter out and put it on my bed, then step back to stare at it.

  I didn’t imagine it. There’s a letter there, an envelope with Dad’s handwriting on it. So either I’m full-on crazy, or my dead serial-killer dad has got writing materials in hell.

  And stamps.

  I pace back and forth. I check my curtains—closed—and strip off my sweaty running clothes and dump them in the laundry basket. I change to soft cotton pants and a sweatshirt. It happens to have skulls on it. Sort of appropriate, I guess.

  I intend to tear it up, and I try, I really do; I grab it in both hands and start to twist it, but the second I feel the paper start to give, I stop.

  What if there’s something important in it?

  I can hear my mom’s voice. Nothing your father has to say is important. It’s just cruel.

  But . . . what if there’s a clue to what he’s planned, and by tearing it up I miss it? No. I have to look. Just quickly. Just to be sure.

  I sit down on the bed and—before I can talk myself out of it—I rip the top open.

  Inside, there’s a letter. Several pages long, folded in half. I remember how my mom used to put on latex gloves before handling his letters, but I don’t have any. I pull the letter out.

  Dear Gina, it starts, and I feel my mouth dry up. My dad tried to kill my mom. He nearly succeeded. She killed him. And here he is calling her by the old name, the name she hates.

  It’s like nothing happened. Only everything did.

  My hands are shaking. I feel cold. I can almost, almost hear his voice, looking at his handwriting. I can picture him sitting in a cell writing this, but I can’t see his face anymore. It’s just a blur, an impression. Mostly it’s just eyes. He always had these eyes that could change from nice to cruel in an instant.

  I put the letter down and wipe my hands on my pants. They feel damp. And I can’t get them to stop trembling. What if it’s poisoned? I think, but that’s dumb, that’s some bullshit you see on TV, poisoned paper that kills you for touching it. But in a way, Dad poisoned everything he touched.

  I’ve been thinking a lot about you lately, as my situation changes, he writes. Does he mean, while he was out of prison? On the run? I don’t know. I want to stop reading now, and I’ve only read one sentence. I’m afraid. Really afraid. I’ve been thinking about how I once thought you could save me from myself. It’s not your fault you didn’t. Nobody could.

  That isn’t so bad. It’s almost like he’s apologizing. Almost.

  No, that’s not what I blame you for, Gina. I don’t even blame you for running away, taking the kids, changing your name. Pretending you never knew me. I understand why you did that.

  But you know what I don’t understand, you faithless bitch?

  I don’t understand why you think you’re special. You’re not. You stopped being special to me even before the accident; you were just a convenient prop in the act. Like the kids.

  It feels like my bed is plunging through the floor. Falling straight down. I’m dizzy. Sick. And I can’t stop reading.

  I was thinking about killing you. Thinking about it every time I took a new one back to our home. Our sanctuary. I fantasized that I’d bring you in there when I had someone on the hook, show you, watch the horror come into you, and then make you take her place.

  It entertained me between guests.

  I stop. I just . . . stop. The paper falls out of my hand and drifts down to the bed. This is your dad. This is who he was. This is what he thought about.

  I want to cry, but I can’t.

  I try looking around my room, fixing on things that make me happy. My fluffy pink unicorn that Connor won for me at a school fair last year. My posters. The paint I chose for the walls of my very own, permanent room.

  But it all feels like a nightmare now. Like nothing is real except the paper sitting in front of me on the bed.

  I pick it up again. I don’t want to, but it feels like I have to get all the way through.

  I don’t understand how you’ve justified whoring yourself out to the brother of that last one I took. I don’t understand how he doesn’t strangle you in your sleep and blow his own brains out. Maybe someday. Maybe if he knew more about how his sister died, how much she suffered, how long she begged me to end it. Something to consider. Maybe I’ll send him something special.

  Sam. He’s talking about Sam, oh my God. I cover my mouth one hand. I keep reading because I can see the end coming, and God I want it to end.

  You don’t know who he is, Gina. You don’t know what he’s capable of doing. I’m laughing at the thought that you only bring monsters into your bed. You deserve that.

  He’s saying that Sam is a monster. That isn’t true. It can’t be.

  Someday you’ll get what’s comin
g to you. Maybe not from me. But one of them, one of them you trust . . . that will be rich.

  Give my love to our children.

  —Yours forever,

  Melvin.

  I realize by the end that I’m gasping, and I have to wipe my burning eyes. It hurts, it hurts, because I can hear him in my head, and now I know I can’t not hear him anymore. Dad. My father. The monster.

  This is who he was. Is. Forever.

  I didn’t think I had any illusions left to break, but sitting there shaking, with that letter spread out in pages in front of me, I know I had so many.

  The thought comes to me then: What if Mom lied? What if he’s still alive?

  And it terrifies me so much I grab my pillow and hug it close and scream into it to try to let that feeling out.

  I gasp out loud when there’s a knock on the door. I’m suddenly, horribly convinced that it’s Dad out there, dead and rotten and grinning. Here to get me and take me back as his guest.

  Mom says, “Hey, I thought you were taking a shower. Are you done?”

  I’m not sure I can even answer her. I hear her try the door. I manage to clear my throat and say, “Changing!” I hope my voice doesn’t shake. I hope she hasn’t heard me screaming into the pillow.

  “Okay,” she says. I know her Mom radar is kicking in. “Lanny? Are you okay?”

  “Go away!” I shout, and make myself be angry, because it’s the only way I can deal with this right now.

  She doesn’t go away. I imagine her standing there, concerned, hand pressed against my door. Not understanding what brought this on.

  Then she says, “Is it Dahlia?”

  Oh, thank God. I choke back a sob and gather up the pages and shove them back in the envelope. “Yeah,” I lie. Is Dad really alive? I want to ask, but if I do, how do I know if she’s telling the truth?

  “Can we talk about it?”

  “No!” I put the envelope in my top drawer, underneath the liner paper, and slam it hard. “Leave me alone!”

  She finally does. I hear her footsteps as she leaves.

  I huddle into as tight a ball as I can, pull the covers up, and scream into my pillow again and again and again until my head hurts and my whole body aches like I’m running a fever. He’s made me sick.

  I tell myself that Sam wouldn’t have lied about Dad being dead even if Mom would. No, Dad’s dead. For sure.

  I still imagine him standing by my bed when I close my eyes.

  And he’s smiling.

  I have to give this to Mom, I know that. I have to confess to her that I read it. But I can’t, not right now. It’s taking everything I have just to . . . just to breathe.

  When Mom comes to tell me dinner’s ready, it takes even more to pretend like the world’s still normal.

  Like I’m normal.

  But like my dad . . . I’m good at pretending.

  5

  GWEN

  I’ve been expecting a fracture in the all-too-close Dahlia/Lanny love affair; they’ve been burning too hot, and that doesn’t last. But at her age, what crush does? I’m afraid that a breakup on top of the stress we’re about to be put under may trigger some real problems in my daughter. She’s tough, but she’s not invulnerable, any more than I am.

  If this documentary bullshit is real, if they’re here, then I need to think very seriously about our future in Stillhouse Lake. It’d be nice if our neighbors banded together in a united front against them, but I can’t see that happening; too many of them didn’t like me from the beginning, and more of them didn’t like how the thing with local cop Lancel Graham ended, though he definitely deserved it. Having microphones in their faces might just give them the chance to vent their grudges.

  I can’t have my kids in the cross fire, not again.

  Teriyaki chicken’s well underway, and Connor, Sam, and I enjoy the kitchen time together, even though it’s close quarters. Sam manages to steal a kiss when I slide by him to put the rice on, and I return the favor on the way back.

  My son just rolls his eyes as he finishes chopping cabbage for the sweet-and-sour salad.

  “Lanny should be doing this,” he gripes.

  “She’s having a hard time,” I tell him. “You don’t mind, right?”

  He says he doesn’t, but he does.

  Sam says, “I checked with Javier. No new faces at the range over the past couple of months, other than the usual day-trippers. Nobody asking for long-range practice other than the hunters he already knows.” He means there’s no evidence that a sniper’s come to town and is training to take us out. Of course, if there is, there’s also no reason a sniper would have to go to Javier’s range if he’s a hired gun; he could practice somewhere else, far from here, come in and do the job, and drive away. There’s not much comfort we can take from a negative, and we both know that.

  While the chicken cooks, Sam leaves the kitchen, spots the mail that Lanny left on the counter, and shuffles through it. He takes out a large manila envelope and opens it up, peers inside, and pulls out a slim black-bound journal. He opens the first page.

  Then he just . . . stops. It’s his utter stillness that draws my gaze, and when he shifts, I see something in his eyes. Something I don’t want Connor to see. So I force a smile and say, “Hey, Connor? Five more minutes on the rice. Sam?” I gesture to him, and he unfreezes enough to follow. He’s still holding the manila envelope and journal.

  I shut the office door once he’s inside, and lean against it.

  “What is it?”

  “A diary,” he says. “I recognize the handwriting. It’s Callie’s.”

  It’s his sister’s. I catch my breath and ask, “Did the prosecutor’s office release it?” I pick up the envelope from him and check the return address. It’s a post office box. No name. I feel gooseflesh start to rise on the back of my neck. Something’s wrong here.

  “I never heard of them even finding one,” he says. “I suppose someone must have found it and sent it to me as next of kin?” He opens it and flips pages. Stops. “Here’s where she talks about tracking me down and finding out I was on deployment. I have her first letter somewhere. I kept all of them.” I can hear how this unmoors him. I can’t imagine, seeing these glimpses into a life that was full of bright promise, and so brutally and suddenly gone.

  “Sam . . .” I don’t know whether to tell him I’m sorry or not. I don’t know if he’s sorry. Maybe this is a good thing. Maybe it’s something that will help him deal with old wounds. “Sam, maybe you should stop. We don’t know who sent this.”

  He’s not listening to me. He’s reading, and he laughs a little. “God, she’s bad at this. She skips weeks at a time, then writes a long thing about her dinner. Two more weeks, and she talks about a job interview.” He turns more pages, reads, looks up at me. Tears in his eyes. “She writes about the first time we did the video call. I was such an idiot. I acted like it was no big deal, finding her. I should have—”

  “Please don’t, Sam.”

  “But it hurt her,” he says. He sits down in the nearest office chair: mine. “Jesus. I didn’t realize how much it hurt her to think I didn’t care. I made her cry, Gwen. Over nothing. Because I wanted to play it cool.”

  I go to him. Put my hands on his shoulders. Kiss the top of his head. “But you both got past that. Didn’t you?” I feel awful inside, listening to this. He’s thinking at the moment only of his sister, and her life. I’m already thinking about her death, and how it happened in my house. How my husband was to blame. These two dead people are always between us.

  He takes a deep breath and lets it out, then turns more pages. He reads in silence, and I stay with him, because I know this is something he doesn’t want to do alone. “Yeah,” he eventually says. “We got past it. We were friends.” He stops on a page. It’s written in a looping, feminine hand in purple ink. Bold, confident, happy writing. “Shit. This . . . this is the last time we talked. She was going to write me a letter. I never got one. Gwen . . . he took her away just four
days after she wrote this.”

  I have a premonition suddenly, and I want to grab the book out of his hands. I want to stop him here, in this place, sad as it is.

  But I don’t, and he turns to the next page.

  Same purple ink.

  Very different handwriting.

  Sam’s whole body jerks, a shock like someone has hooked him up to electrodes, and I recognize the writing in the same instant.

  One second too late.

  “It’s him,” he says. I know that. I’ve just understood what’s happening, whose writing this is. Sam’s voice is different now. Low. Harsh. Blank of emotion, but that’s coming—it’s coming in a horrible, violent wave next because I can already feel the shock running through him. And through myself. “Oh Jesus. He wrote this. In her diary.”

  “Don’t,” I tell him, and I grab for the book like I should have before. He turns away, staring at the pages. “Sam! You can’t! He meant for you to do this!”

  Melvin loved gaslighting. Loved games. I don’t know how he’s doing this, but I can guess: he had accomplices hold things for him, and gave them orders on which to mail out, to whom, and when.

  That is what he was like; he’d have planned ways to hurt and control us even from his grave.

  The only way to win this game is to walk away. But I know Sam can’t help himself. He needs this. He hasn’t been through this. He thinks he needs to know.

  It’s self-inflicted torture.

  “Go,” he tells me.

  “No. I want to stay with you.”

  “I know. But . . . I can’t do this with you here. Please. Go.”

  “I’m asking you not to read it,” I tell him. “Sam . . . you’ll only let him hurt you. You understand that.”

  “I know,” he says, and turns to look at me. I want to take this pain away from him. But I can’t. “Please go.”

  So I do. I leave the office. I shut the door behind me. I leave him to suffer in the hell that Melvin has created in that journal, because I can’t follow.