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

windows as we turn off into our neighborhood. It’s calm, well lit, quiet, totally normal. Our house sits at the far end of the block, and we glide past glowing houses and neatly kept yards, and I make the turn into the driveway.

There’s something taped to our door. I focus on that sheet of paper and feel the hair raise on my arms, pull tight at the back of my neck. No. Oh God. Then I get hold of my anxiety and push it down, hard. Maybe it’s a pizza delivery ad. Or a note from a neighbor. Or . . .

It isn’t. I know it isn’t.

I pull the SUV into the garage and take the alarm off as everybody crowds into the house after me. Relocking the garage door is second nature, and so is scanning the place to be sure everything’s just as we left it.

Nobody mentions the note on the front door, but when I look around, they’re all staring that direction. Connor says, “Should I get it?” His tone is so calm and adult that it almost scares me. He is facing things head-on.

Lanny doesn’t wait for anyone to give permission; she just stalks straight ahead, unlocks the door, opens it, and grabs the flyer as she kicks the door shut again. Even as she’s studying it, she’s turning deadbolts and setting the alarm. My girl.

“Anybody want to guess?” she asks. “Because this is a super easy one.”

“Wanted poster,” Connor and I say at the same time. Sam doesn’t speak.

“You win the awesome prize of even more harassment!” She brings the flyer over and puts it into my hand. “So. What do we do?”

“We check the video and see who thought they were being clever,” Sam says. “Doorbell camera.” He’s already walking down the hall, and the rest of us follow.

Sam pulls up the feed and scrolls back. It happened about an hour ago, just after dark; the front door camera shows two people in black hoodies with bandannas over their faces. From their build, I’d say teens, maybe a little older. One has the piece of paper, tape already applied. They’re both wearing gloves. Once the paper’s on the door, they both back up and flip off the camera.

“And another country asshole heard from,” Lanny says. I don’t try to police her language, not now. Maybe not ever again. I like the dismissive, pissed-off way she says it. “Where are they going now?”

They run to the right, toward the garage. Sam switches cameras to follow the progress. They bypass the garage and go around to the side of the house. The fence meets the house halfway down the length, and I keep the gate padlocked from the inside.

They don’t get that far. They take out cans of spray paint. From the camera’s angle, I can’t see what they’re doing, but it’s pretty obvious it’s not Banksy creating a masterpiece on our south wall.

“Great. So original,” Connor says. “They must be freshmen at Troll School.” He doesn’t sound shaken either. Or scared. He just sounds . . . normal. I spare a second to mourn for the fact that this is normal for them, that they have a connoisseur’s appreciation for the finer points of vandalism, but honestly, in the next second I’m completely okay with that. They’re steady. They’re ready.

All of us are. I wait for the panic to grow inside me, but this time, I’m actually okay. Angry, but—like my kids—grounded.

“Any guesses about their identities?” I ask, and freeze the picture at the best moment to get a view of their clothes, the bandannas they’re wearing.

“Well, for a start, they’re from our high school,” Lanny says, and points to the taller one on the right. “See his sweatpants?”

I’d missed it. Her eyes are better, but when I grab my glasses, I make out a logo—black on dark gray—of a small stylized Viking’s head. Her school’s mascot.

“That could be a brand mark,” I say, but she shakes her head, grabs my laptop, and quickly navigates to the school’s website. She finds a shot of the boys’ track team.

Same logo. Same sweatpants. She’s absolutely right.

On-screen, the vandals finish up and run off into the dark, fleeing through a neighbor’s yard, and then out of sight.

“Well,” Connor says, “we know for sure they’re not on the track team.” We all look at him. He raises his eyebrows. “Come on. You saw them run. I could beat that time, and I’m kind of a nerd. But anyway, all the athletic teams get the same basic workout gear. We can find them, though. These idiots will be sharing this like crazy.”

“Go find them,” I tell him. “Just get their names. Let Sam and I take care of the rest. Clear?”

He and Lanny both nod, and they head off together. Little soldiers on a shared mission.

“They’re so strong,” I whisper. “Aren’t they?”

“Yeah,” Sam says, and gets up to put his arm around me. “I was hoping you’d start to recognize that. Come on. We’ve got work to do too.”

We go outside, around to the side of the house, and Sam turns on the flashlight.

Bloodred paint in wobbly letters. From the difference in sizes and slants, one teen did the first word, the other did the last two.

PSYCHO’S LIVES HERD. I can only assume the writer meant here, but his graffiti penmanship is as bad as his grammar.

“Well,” I say, “we know they’re not on the honor roll.”

Before we start, I take photos, and a sample of the red spray paint—which, thankfully, has already dried. Then we silently, methodically, paint out the evidence. It takes four coats of thick masking paint and then two more topcoats. When we’re done, it’s a decent job. A little trim work, and we’ll be back to normal. It takes most of the evening, and by the time we’re done, I’m feeling every inch of the day that’s rolled over me hard.

We finish, put the paint and rollers away, and head to the bedroom to dump our sweaty, paint-stained clothes.