Heartbreak Bay (Stillhouse Lake #5) - Rachel Caine Page 0,110

day.

The first hint I have that something isn’t right is that the coffeepot isn’t full. Gwen is a creature of habit; she always puts on coffee, but the machine is cold, the pot is empty. I stare at that for a few seconds, then start it up and head straight for the office.

I fully expect to find her there sitting behind her desk, immersed in work.

The office is dark and empty. I turn on the lights, and I go around to look at her laptop. It’s closed, and when I put a hand on it, it’s ice cold. She hasn’t been working here.

I find the phone lying on the living room coffee table on my way to the garage. It’s just sitting there, exactly in the middle, as if she wanted me to notice.

That’s when I start being afraid. Really afraid.

I know her passcode, and I enter it. I get it wrong twice, force myself to calm the fuck down and do it right one last time.

She’s left it open to a video file. I don’t want to play it. I don’t.

But I press the screen, and Gwen’s face fills it. “Sam,” she says. “I know you’re worried right now. I know you’re wondering where I am and what I’m doing, and I wish to God I could tell you. But I’m doing this for you, and for the kids. I have to. It’s MalusNavis, the one from the boards. He’s going to keep coming after our kids if I don’t do this, and . . . Sam, I can’t let that happen. He hurt Kez already. I can’t let him get to you, or Lanny, or Connor.”

I pause it, because I can’t get my breath against the fury that’s igniting in me. Don’t you dare, Gwen. Don’t you goddamn dare. I’m shaking all over, and I know the anger’s just a cover for what I’m really feeling.

Fear.

I listen to the rest.

“I love you so much, Sam. You—you’ve made me whole, after all this time. You’ve made me realize that I don’t have to be afraid, because you’re here. Because you care. That’s your gift, and I value it so much. I know you want to do this with me, but Sam, please understand . . . there is no one I trust more than you to protect our children. I need you to do that for me. I’m asking you, I’m begging you . . . please keep them safe. For me.” She smiles. There are tears in her eyes, and my anger’s gone now, drowned in those tears. All I have left is fear. “I’ll come back if I can. I love you always.”

She glances at something, and I realize she sat just here in the same spot as she made this video. She was looking at the clock. I check the date and time stamp.

She made it just before nine this morning. She did it while I was asleep, while the kids were asleep. This was a plan. I remember her suggesting the sleep medication last night. She was going to take it herself. Clearly, she didn’t.

She wanted me out of the way because she knew I’d damn well stop her.

I go through the rest of her phone with trembling fingers. I see the texts sent from an unknown number, and it’s like being plunged into a lake in winter; no wonder she looked so strained last night. So closed in. The pictures of us are threats, implicit but very real.

I go through her emails. Nothing there. I open her photos. Pictures of the kids, of me, of us.

And then, suddenly, a picture of a driver’s license, and the face hits me like a punch. It’s Tyler. But the name on the license says Leonard Bay, and he lives on Beacon Street, here in Knoxville. It takes me a second to recall that Gwen said she ran into and chased down a homeless guy who’d mailed Melvin’s letter to her. And had a letter from MalusNavis as well. My stomach clenches even before I put it together.

Leonard Bay is just a false identity. And suddenly I know it’s all connected. Tyler played that part so well I never even thought to put it together with the sad, self-destructive young man I talked off the bridge. The kid who’d needed my help when he was drowning in despair.

A malus navis is Latin for a navigational beacon. Beacon Street. Dr. Dave said that he thought MalusNavis lived on the