He nods. “There’s a motel next door.”
We drive the SUV over to the parking lot. This chain isn’t as anonymous as the French Inn, and I have to use a prepaid card as a guarantee, even though we’re paying cash.
“One room?” the clerk asks, and it isn’t really a question until Sam says, “Two.” That earns us both a curious look, and she books us in that way. It’s twice the expense, but I understand. Space is better now.
In the silence of the anonymous room, I sit on the bed and stare at nothing, and I wonder when this emptiness will start to fill. All my panic and pain is gone now, but all that’s left is . . . nothing. Nothing but a desire to find Melvin.
My room shares a connecting door with Sam’s. I take off my shoes and wrap up in the covers, and I’m still staring at that silent closed door when sleep drags me away.
I come awake in the dark, heart pounding, and I don’t know why until I feel the phone buzzing next to me. My eyes are tired, and it takes me a second to focus on the number. It’s familiar.
It’s the same one Melvin used to call me before.
I press the button. I don’t say anything.
“Rough day?” Melvin’s voice.
“Yes,” I say. “You meant it to be.” I slip out of the covers and turn on the light beside the bed; for a heart-stopping second I’m sure I’ll see him there, sitting in the corner, but there’s no one here. I move quickly to the connecting door and open my side, muting the phone as I tap lightly on the wood.
“You brought this on yourself, Gina. You keep pushing and pushing, and pretty soon you’re going to end up somewhere you don’t want to be. Or . . . I don’t know. Maybe it’s exactly where you want to be. Maybe you’ve got a taste for it now, too.”
Sam isn’t answering, and for a hollow second I think he’s left me behind, changed his mind and driven off into the night . . . but then I hear the lock turn, and he opens the door. Like me, he’s fully dressed. He doesn’t look like he’s slept, from the bruised circles under his eyes, and light silvers the rough stubble on his chin and cheeks.
“You want to end this?” I ask Melvin. I see Sam get it, and he shifts his weight, as if he’s bracing for a fight. It helps, having him standing here. It pushes the gut-deep horror of Melvin’s voice to arm’s length, even if it’s a temporary kind of relief. “Fine, let’s end it. You come get me. I won’t fight you. We can finish this right now. All you have to do is agree to leave our kids alone.”
He’s tempted. I can feel he is; it quivers in the air between us, a horrible attraction so perverse it makes me feel sick and faint. I recognize the deeper pitch of his voice when he speaks next. This is foreplay to him. “We will finish this between us,” he says. “But not until I’m ready. You get to wait for it, honey. You get to wait, and watch, and worry when I’m going to come for you.” There’s double meanings in all of that, sexualizing and fetishizing my fear. “I want you to wait. I want you to imagine it, over and over. When you can’t stand it anymore . . . that’s when it’ll be time.”
“I’ll tell you where I am right now. All you have to do is show up.”
Melvin says, in a dismissive tone, “I’m not hunting you. Not yet.”
“Do it or I’ll find you.”
“You know why I married you, Gina? Because you’re the perfect wife. You’re blind, deaf, and dumb to anything that doesn’t concern you, and you have the spine of a worm. You’re never going to come after me.”
“That’s Gina you’re talking about,” I say, low in my aching throat. “I’m Gwen. Gwen will find you, and she will put a bullet in your diseased brain. That’s a promise.”
“Brave when you’re on the phone and Mr. Cade is nearby. But maybe I’ll just pay him a visit, and leave you to clean up the mess.”
“You don’t kill men,” I say. “And you don’t have the guts to try anyone who might be a fair fight. Including me.”
He’s silent. I think I’ve made him angry, but when he finally replies, it’s quiet and controlled. “First time for everything. And the firsts are exciting.”
He hangs up before I can think of some other way to taunt him and keep him pointed at me, only at me. I feel like it’s a failure, and that shakes me hard. I can’t let him find the kids.
Sam silently takes the phone from my hand. Gets his keys.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m dumping this,” he says. “A long way from here. I’ll get you another one on the way back. Lock up. Shoot anybody but me who comes in.”
“No! If I can keep him talking—”
Sam grabs my arm as I reach for the phone. He’s gentle about it, which is at odds with the emotion I can feel rising off him like smoke. “If you keep him talking, you’ll get yourself fucking killed,” he says. “And me, too. We’re hunting him. Not the other way around.”
Then he’s gone, and I have no choice but to lock the doors and go back to sit, and wait, for what comes next.
17
SAM
I can’t help but wonder how Melvin Royal keeps finding her, keeps getting her phone number. It doesn’t make sense. These are disposable phones, and the number has to be shared out. He can’t search through records to find her; not even Absalom is that good, that fast. So how the hell is he finding her? Maybe she wants him to find her. Maybe she texted him the goddamn number and you’re the biggest fool in the world for even starting to believe her.
I can believe a lot of things about Gwen. I can even believe that, once upon a time, a terrified wife might have done things that she wants to block out from her memory.
But I know she’s totally sincere about wanting this man dead. So I have to write off the possibility that she’s working with him.
The first time he called, that had to be Absalom providing him with the intel. But somewhere, somehow, someone else has cherry-picked her number, and it’s ended up in Melvin Royal’s hands again. How?
I can’t solve the puzzle. I drive carefully, well aware of the slippery road conditions, the cars spun off in ditches, the hazy glitter of ice still drifting down in the glow of streetlights. I’d like to drive a hundred miles to ditch this phone, but it’s too dangerous. I settle for twenty-five miles, which takes nearly two hours of tense effort. I wipe the contacts and history and texts, destroy the SIM card, pull the battery, and pitch the shell as far out into an empty field as I can throw it. It’s useless junk now, and if by some weird sorcery he can still track it, let him dig for it under the ice.
I’m on my way back when my own cell phone rings, and I pause a second, then pull off into a gas station parking lot and answer. “Yeah.” No name, no friendliness.
“Shut up and listen.” It’s a distorted electronic voice, and when I look at the number, it’s blocked. “We can help you get revenge on the one responsible for your sister’s death, once and for all.”
I wait a second before I say, “I’m guessing this is Absalom I’m talking to.”
“Yes.”