Heartbreak Bay (Stillhouse Lake) by Rachel Caine (red white royal blue TXT) 📗

PRAISE FOR STILLHOUSE LAKE

“In this rapid-fire thriller . . . Caine spins a powerful story of maternal love and individual self-realization.”

—Publishers Weekly

“Amazing.”

—Night Owl Reviews (Top Pick)

“A chilling thriller . . . Stillhouse Lake is a great summer read.”

—Criminal Element

“Stillhouse Lake is a true nail-biter right up to the end.”

—Fresh Fiction

“Highly entertaining and super intense!”

—Novel Gossip

“What a fantastic book!”

—Seattle Book Review

OTHER TITLES BY RACHEL CAINE

Stillhouse Lake Series

Bitter Falls

Wolfhunter River

Killman Creek

Stillhouse Lake

The Great Library

Paper and Fire

Ink and Bone

Ash and Quill

Smoke and Iron

Sword and Pen

Weather Warden

Ill Wind

Heat Stroke

Chill Factor

Windfall

Firestorm

Thin Air

Gale Force

Cape Storm

Total Eclipse

Outcast Season

Undone

Unknown

Unseen

Unbroken

Revivalist

Working Stiff

Two Weeks’ Notice

Terminated

Red Letter Days

Devil’s Bargain

Devil’s Due

Morganville Vampires

Glass Houses

The Dead Girls’ Dance

Midnight Alley

Feast of Fools

Lord of Misrule

Carpe Corpus

Fade Out

Kiss of Death

Ghost Town

Bite Club

Last Breath

Black Dawn

Bitter Blood

Fall of Night

Daylighters

The Honors (with Ann Aguirre)

Honor Among Thieves

Honor Bound

Honor Lost

Stand-Alone Titles

Prince of Shadows

Dead Air (with Gwenda Bond and Carrie Ryan)

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Text copyright © 2021 by Rachel Caine, LLC

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

Published by Thomas & Mercer, Seattle

www.apub.com

Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Thomas & Mercer are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

ISBN-13: 9781542093675

ISBN-10: 1542093678

Cover design by Shasti O’Leary Soudant

To the amazing Dr. Reese, Dr. Lamont, Dr. Potter, and especially miracle workers Gracie Rosenberry and Faith Newsome.

Much love to the amazing Mary Crowley Cancer Research Center’s work into rare cancer.

To Sarah, Lucienne, Tez, and Gemma—always first to cheer.

This book would not be possible without the kind support of Liz Pearsons, who has always understood Stillhouse Lake and all its players, and believed in the impossible.

Finally, to my beloved husband, Cat: Thank you. Always.

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

1 GWEN

2 GWEN

3 KEZIA

4 GWEN

5 KEZIA

6 SAM

7 GWEN

8 KEZIA

9 GWEN

10 KEZIA

11 GWEN

12 SAM

13 GWEN

14 KEZIA

15 GWEN

16 KEZIA

17 GWEN

18 SAM

19 KEZIA

20 GWEN

21 SAM

22 GWEN

23 GWEN

24 KEZIA

25 GWEN

26 SAM

27 GWEN

28 KEZIA

29 GWEN

EPILOGUE

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

PLAYLIST

AUTHOR’S NOTE

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

PROLOGUE

There was something eerily hypnotic about driving at night. The wheel felt warm and almost alive under her hands. She felt alive, for the first time in a long time. Energy jittered through her veins, anticipation like metal pressing on her tongue—so sharp she could taste it. The night was dark, but in the morning everything, everything would be new and wonderful. She could imagine the sunrise washing everything pink and yellow and perfect.

She just had to make it through to the other side. And she could. Morning was within reach, and she was ready.

Thinking of that gave her real peace, for the first time in a long while.

Peace cracked in half when she heard a rustle from the back seat, then a fretful cough, then an intake of breath. She felt a surge of raw, tired fury.

Don’t cry, don’t you dare cry . . .

The first wail was loud enough to shatter glass, and just an instant later came the out-of-tune chorus of the second child. She felt her whole chest collapse under the weight of sheer, brutal frustration. Her eyes blurred with tears, and she wiped them away as she thought, It’s okay, it’s okay, it will all be okay, you know what to do. She reached out with a trembling hand and switched on the radio, turned it up, and forced herself to keep breathing, breathing as the children shrieked. Hush, sweeties, she mouthed, but didn’t say because she couldn’t be heard anyway, and they wouldn’t understand.

Morning was on the way. She tried to imagine the dawn glowing on that black horizon, guiding her into the future. The music would help. It had to help.

She drove into the long, cold tunnel of the night, listening to screams until screams turned to hiccups, then slowly died to fretful, mewling cries, and finally back to silence. She turned the music down and took a left turn from the narrow, lightless road onto another, watching the GPS on her cell phone; it was the only way to navigate out here in the wilderness. Rural Tennessee was as black as the bottom of a well this time of night. No communities to speak of anywhere close; she could just make out a faint glow on her left that would be Norton, most likely. She was up in the sparsely populated foothills—some paranoid compound types hoarding guns, maybe a few old family cabins that hung on by hunting their own food. Nobody to note her passing by.

She’d made this drive a solid, patient routine. Nights and nights and nights like this, always the same schedule. Plenty of rural roads, less-traveled paths. She didn’t mind. The girls were always so difficult to settle, all her neighbors knew that. She’d seen them giving her that look, that can’t you keep them kids quiet look, so many times.

She stared in the rearview mirror at the babies, and felt tears come. Hopeless, helpless, angry tears. I love my kids. I do. This is for the best. Tomorrow would be different. Tomorrow, everything would be right. She just had to hang on to that.

She coasted the car to a gentle stop and rolled the window down. The sound of frogs hit her first: a chorus so loud it felt like a drill in her ear. The road she was on was paved, but only just, and fraying at the edges into sediment and mud. No way to turn around.

It stank out here, in the pit of the night. Murky water