Heartbreak Bay (Stillhouse Lake #5) - Rachel Caine Page 0,111

coast. A navigational beacon on the coast.

A lighthouse.

My mouth’s gone so dry that my throat clicks when I swallow. My muscles ache from how hard I’m clutching the phone. I type in pharos.

Pharos is Greek for lighthouse.

Tyler Pharos. Leonard Bay. MalusNavis. They’re all the same person.

I have fucking been played, and so has Gwen.

The hell of it is, as enraged as I am, I somehow can’t direct it against the young man standing on that bridge, pressed against the railing. I’d sensed something real there. Something very dark and terrible.

Maybe the person I ought to be angry at is me. I should have put this together. Would have, if I hadn’t been focused on projecting my feelings onto the blank slate of Tyler’s loss . . . if he even has a dead sister at all. That, too, could have been a lie.

My first impulse is to leap into my truck and tear on out of here, find Gwen, and drag her home where she’ll be safe . . . but then I realize that I can’t. She trusted me to watch over our children, and with the threats in those photos, I can’t leave them alone. I can’t.

So I call Javier instead. I’m going to ask him if Gwen is there, but he beats me to the punch. He says, “Please fucking tell me that they’re with you.”

They.

Gwen, and Kez. I feel my heart sink. “They’re not there?”

“Kez left me a goddamn note. She says she and Gwen have to go finish this.”

“Call the station. Tell them that she’s missing and in danger.”

He laughs bitterly. “She is going to be so pissed.”

“Do you care?”

“Not if it saves her life. What is she thinking? Did Gwen talk her into this? I never should’ve left her alone so soon after Prester . . .”

“What happened to Prester?”

“He’s dead.” There’s a long pause on the other end. “Shit. I should have known she wouldn’t let it go. Not even with the baby.”

Kezia Claremont is not the kind of person who can live with letting other people die, and drop it. She was never going to drop this case, but now, with her partner dead, and the fact this asshole already tried to hurt her, put her unborn child in danger—no power on Earth could have forced her to sit back and relax. Just like nothing could keep Gwen from putting herself between her kids and the danger coming for them.

“Call the station,” I tell him.

“We have to go after them.”

“Did Kez take her phone?” He doesn’t answer. “She left it behind, right? We’ve got no way to find them, Javi. Putting out an APB is the best we can do. If we can stop them before they’re too far out . . .”

“Yeah,” he says. “I’ll do it.”

He hangs up. I think about it for a second, and then I text Dr. Dave. He lives in a lighthouse, I say. Or uses one for what he does. Where is it? Give me the state, at least.

I don’t get a response for about ten minutes. I don’t know whether he had a patient or he just likes to keep me waiting, but I’ve already checked the gun safes, and found that at least Gwen’s gone armed, wherever she’s headed. That eases a little bit of my dread. A grain of sand on a beach of trouble.

Dr. Dave doesn’t text. He calls. “Sam,” he says. “Delighted to hear from you. How are you? Not arrested, I see.”

“Fuck you,” I say. Feels good. “What state does MalusNavis call home? It’s somewhere with a lighthouse.”

“I genuinely do not know,” he says. “You finally looked it up, didn’t you? Navigational beacon. Hence, lighthouse. Hence, coastline. Very good. You can’t say he didn’t give you every chance.”

“You worked with him,” I say tightly. “You son of a bitch, you helped him.”

“Well, I gave him the wanted-poster template. And he needed help from a capable friend to make that Loserville forum post. You know the one.”

He’s saying, without admitting, that he either made the post on the message board implicating Connor, or he had it done. I want to wrap my hands around his throat and squeeze until the smugness pops out. But I manage to keep my voice even as I say, “Anything else?”

“I gave him the letter from Melvin Royal. I thought it might be helpful.”

“How did you get it?”

“Friend of a friend. One of Melvin’s little helpers died—natural causes. The friend found it among his personal