Heartbreak Bay (Stillhouse Lake #5) - Rachel Caine Page 0,99
slowly around our necks.
I go back to Sam and Lanny. My daughter glares at me, and I feel the force of it like hot irons. Sam’s looking at me too. He’s gone unreadable. “Everything okay?” he asks me.
“Yes,” I lie. I sit down on the cold concrete curb next to him as the police detectives come toward us. “Sam? I need you to be there for Connor. Really be there. Will you do it?”
He gives me a strange look. “Of course I will. Why? Where are you going to be?”
I manage a smile. “Here, of course. With you. But . . . if anything goes wrong . . .”
He puts his arm around me. Not wary or annoyed any longer. I lean against him and stare at my son, who sits quietly in the police car, not looking at anything in particular. Connor’s a strong kid, but my God. My God.
MalusNavis will destroy him to get to me. And Lanny too. He’ll find her cracks and break her apart. Sam too. I can already see the reality of it stretching out before me, and it’s devastating. Horrifying.
He wants to see who I am.
Then I will show him. And it’ll be the last damn thing he ever sees.
18
SAM
I shouldn’t be surprised when the detectives separate us, but it still stings; I don’t know what’s going on with Gwen, but I find myself watching her at a distance, trying to read her stiff body language, wishing I’d had time to get her to tell me what the hell just happened. I’m missing half the questions the detective talking to me is asking. I don’t know him, he doesn’t know me, and he’s not patient with my distraction.
“Hey!” I blink and focus on his face instead of over his shoulder, because he’s snapping his fingers in my face. “You with me, Mr. Cade? Because the faster we get through this, the better for both of us.”
The last thing I want is an express train to Connor being arrested. But I focus. “Sorry, what did you say?”
“Does Connor have access to guns in the house?”
“No. We keep them locked and secure.”
“In gun safes.”
“Yes.”
“And do these safes have codes?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. Does Connor know any of those codes?”
“No.” I say it firmly, and I don’t expand on that; embroidering is where people get into trouble. Fact is, I don’t know that for certain. Connor’s a smart kid; I have every reason to think that if he wanted into the gun safe, he’d find a way. But this? This is bullshit. Connor is not out to kill us. I’m not about to entertain the idea that he is.
“How often do you change them?”
“Every couple of months.”
He’s frustrated, I can tell; he’s not getting the long-winded responses he’d like, where he can drive a wedge into a crack. He changes tack. “So, Connor has a history of violent outbursts—”
“Connor had one post-traumatic stress incident that he’s gotten counseling to deal with.” I stop there. I badly want to shout, Do you know what this kid has survived? Do you? But it won’t do any good. He doesn’t want to know.
“He was also involved with a cult—”
“He wasn’t involved. He was kidnapped. Along with me.” That’s it. I’m done being cooperative. “Look, I’ve answered your questions. That’s enough. I will take you in, we’ll open the gun safes, I’ll inventory everything against our records, and we are done.”
“Sir,” the detective says. “We’re done when I say we’re done. And Connor needs to come to the station to answer some questions.”
“Not without his parents he’s not.”
“You’re welcome to attend the questioning.” He says that like it’s a favor. It’s not. It’s the law that he can’t question the kid without us present. “You know, you’re not doing the boy any favors being uncooperative.”
“I’ve been nothing but cooperative. Now let’s go look at the safes and move it along. It’s been a long damn day.”
Gwen casts me a look as we pass; I give her a nod and a smile, trying to let her know it’s all okay. She doesn’t look okay, though. She looks like she is one thin nerve away from hijacking that police cruiser and driving her son away. That’s the thing Gwen fights every day: the urge to run, the urge to protect her kids even when doing it isn’t productive or smart. She doesn’t think I see it, but I do.