I’d expected a lot of responses from him. Not that one. “Sorry?” I say blankly.
“I made a color chart once, of how they look at different stages without skin. Was she more of a raw-chicken color, or was it more of a slimy brown?”
“Shut up.”
“Make me, Gina. Hang up on me. But wait, if you do, if you do, you’ll never find out who’s coming for you.”
“I’m going to kill you.”
“Absolutely, you should do that. But you won’t have time. I promise you that.”
I’m colder than I think I’ve ever been. His voice still sounds so like him . . . reasonable, calm, measured. Rational. Except nothing he’s saying is rational at all. “Then tell me. You’re wasting time.”
“I guess you found out about your new friend Sam. You just can’t catch a break with men, can you? I’ll bet he was thinking about all the things he was going to do to you. Got him off every night, that anticipation.”
“Is that what gets you off, Mel? Because it’s all you’ll ever get. You’re never seeing me again. Never touching me. And I’m going to get through this.”
“You don’t even know what’s happening. You can’t see it.”
“Then tell me,” I say. “Tell me what I’m missing. I know you’re dying to tell me how stupid I am!”
“I will,” he says, and suddenly his tone shifts. The mask shreds loose, and I hear the monster talking. It’s very, very different. It doesn’t even sound human. “I want you to know that when it comes, when it all falls down, it’s your fault, you worthless, stupid bitch. I should have started with you. But I’ll finish with you, one of these days. You think I won’t touch you? I will. From the inside out.”
It raises my skin into goose bumps, makes me back into a corner, as if somehow he can reach out and grab me even through the phone. He isn’t here. He won’t be here. But that voice . . .
“You’re never leaving that cell,” I manage to say. I know I no longer sound like Gwen. I sound like Gina now. I am Gina now.
“Oh, didn’t you hear? My new lawyer thinks I have a rights violation case. Might get some evidence thrown out. Might be a new trial, Gina. What do you think, you want to go through it all again? Do you want to testify this time?”
The idea makes me physically sick, and I feel acid scorch the back of my throat in a bitter wave. I don’t answer him. Hang up. I’m screaming it at myself, as if I’m standing outside of my body. Hang up hang up hang up! It’s like being trapped in a nightmare, and I can’t seem to move . . . and then I take a breath and the paralysis breaks, and I move my thumb to the “Disconnect” button.
“I’ve changed my mind,” he says, but I’m already pressing. “I’ll tell you—”
Click. I did it. He’s gone. It feels like I won a point . . . did I? Or did I just run away?
Oh God. If they got into my phone, they might have more from it. The kids’ numbers. Absalom’s. What else did I have in there?
I sink down to a crouch with my back wedged in the corner between the sink and the hinges of the door, and I put the phone carefully on the floor and stare at it as if it might change into rotting meat, or burst into a flood of scorpions. I reach up and take down the hand towel and I bite into it hard, so hard my jaw muscles ache, and I scream into the muffling comfort of it.
I do that until my mind is clear again. It takes a couple of minutes. Finally, I start to close in on the questions. How? Someone at the prison must have ganked my number from the phone while I was there. But how did he call? Melvin’s phone privileges are strictly reserved for his lawyer; he’s not allowed contact with anyone else, and I am specifically on his do-not-call list. But even on death row, I imagine it’s possible to buy time with a smuggled cell phone.
I hope it cost him plenty, the bastard.
I can’t stay in the house. I feel suffocated, desperate, angry. I pace the living room for a while, and then I call Kezia Claremont at the number she’s left to ask her to please, for the love of God, keep an eye on my kids.
“Look out your window,” she says. I do, pulling the living room curtain aside, and I see her car is still sitting in the driveway. She waves. “What’s up?”
I tell her about Mel’s call, and she gets cool, all business, noting down the number as I read it off—he didn’t bother to block it—and saying she’ll check into it. I have no doubt it’ll be a dead end. Even if they find the phone, it doesn’t matter. He’s proven he can reach out from behind those bars whenever he wants. Next time it won’t be him. It’ll be someone else doing his bidding.
“Kezia . . .” I’m vibrating with tension, sick with it. “Can you stay here and watch the house for about an hour?”
“Sure,” she says. “It’s my free time. Nice day and all. Why? He give you some specific threat?”
“No. But—I need to go. Just for a little while.” I feel trapped in here. I’m on the verge of a meltdown, and I know it. I need to get some space, enforce some control. “Hour at the most.” I need to flush the confrontation with Mel out of my system before it turns toxic.
“No problem,” she tells me. “I’m making phone calls anyway. I’ll be right here.”
I tell the kids I’ll be back and that Kezia is right outside, and I make them swear they won’t open the door while I’m gone. We go over emergency procedures. The kids are quiet and watchful; they know something’s wrong with me, and it scares them. I can see that.
“It’ll be okay,” I tell them. I kiss Lanny on the head, then Connor, and they both let me without wiggling out of the embrace. That’s how I know they’re worried.
I grab a plastic locking gun case and put my weapon in, clip removed and chamber cleared. I leave the shoulder holster on, but empty. I put a zip-up hoodie on to cover it and stash the case in a small backpack.
“Mom?” It’s Lanny. I pause with my hand on the alarm pad, ready to deactivate. “I love you.” She says it quietly, but it hits me like a tsunami, and I’m knocked down inside, drowned in a storm of emotion so violent I can’t even breathe. My fingers tremble on the buttons of the keypad, and for a second I’m blinded with tears.
I blink them away, turn, and manage to smile at her. “I love you, too, honey.”
“Come back soon,” she says. I watch as she goes to the knife block and takes one. She turns and goes back to her room.
I want to scream. I know I can’t do it here. I punch in the code, get it wrong, try again, and deactivate. The door’s open almost before it’s safe, but I’ve timed it right, just barely, and I reset the alarm as I exit, then lock the door. There. My kids are secure. Protected. Kezia is on the phone as I pass, and she nods to me as she makes notes in a spiral book.
I kick it into a run. Not a jog, a flat-out sprint down the drive, every step just on the edge of balance, the edge of control. One wrong move will send me sprawling, probably break a bone, but I don’t care, I don’t care, I need to drive the poison of Melvin Royal out of my system.
I run like I’m on fire.
I hit the road and keep running clockwise, up the incline. With the hood up, I’m just another anonymous runner at the lake. I pass a few other people, some walking, some at the docks, and I get a few glances for my speed, but nothing else. I pass Sam Cade’s cabin on the right but I don’t pause; I pour more energy into my muscles, grinding off the tension, and make it all the way to the top of the ridge, where the range parking lot provides a welcome, flat, easy surface. I slow down and walk to let my muscles slow their burn. I walk in circles. My hoodie is soaked with sweat, heavy with it, and I still feel the rage screaming inside me.