Page 77 of Heartbreak Bay

A shot of Kezia collapsed and bloody by the wreck of her car.

You can stop all of them from suffering, the next text says.The choice is yours. But you have to leave it all behind and come to me. You have fifteen minutes to decide. If you don’t leave your house at nine o’clock, I will assume your choice is to save yourself. If you come, leave your phone and any electronics. If your SUV has a GPS tracker, disable it. I’m monitoring you. I’ll know if you try to cheat.

“You son of a bitch,” I whisper. “At least let me tell themwhy.” But I don’t respond. I know he won’t care. There’s no bargaining here. No mercy.

I call Kez. I’m doing it to say a kind of goodbye, to ask her to look after my family, but the second she picks up the call, I know something is wrong. Very wrong. I’ve never heard her sound like this. “Kez? What is it?”

“He’s dead,” Kez says. “Prester’s dead. He tried to call me and I was asleep, my phone ran down—” Her voice is shaking. “I got video, they just—they justlet him die, Gwen. Right there in his car. It’s Sheryl and the man in the SUV. I know it is. And I’m fucking going toget them.”

My lips feel numb.Ifeel numb. I know how much Kezia thought of Detective Prester. This has to be a living nightmare for her. “Don’t,” I say. I swallow hard. “He doesn’t want you, Kez. He wants me. I’m the reason this is happening. Not you. He thinks ... he thinks I’m like Sheryl. A killer.”

“Sheryl’s with him,” she says. “He didn’t hunt her. He’s using her.”

“For now,” I agree. “But whatever story he spun for her, he intends to exact some kind of vengeance. On me too. I can’t let him take the people I love, Kez. So I’m going. You stay.”

“Motherfucker sent me a video of Prester while he was dying in that car. Sheryl took it. It was her voice on the recording, had to be. So whether they killed him or not, theylet him die. And I’m not staying. They aregoing. And I don’t mean out of town, out of mind. We find them, and we end this.”

I feel the numbness subside. What’s left is a pure, cold anger. “He told me to leave my house at nine o’clock.” It’s ten minutes to nine. I stare at my clock until my eyes hurt enough to force me to blink. “Not to tell anybody. That must include you too.”

“Hell, he already knows I’ll be coming. If he knows me at all—”

“You’ve got a baby to protect, Kez.”

“And you’ve got kids. You need somebody. I’m going, and he’s going to pay. But we need to make sure the boys don’t follow.”

“How?” I know Javier. I know Sam. They’re not going to let us go without a fight. Not just the two of us, alone.

“Up to you how you do Sam,” she says. “I can take care of Javi.”

She’s right. He wants me. Everyone else is just ... collateral damage.

I just sit. Silent. Thinking about what I’m about to do, and why. About how hard it’s going to be. About why it’s also going to be the easiest thing I’ve ever done, in a strange sort of way; I’ve always known that I needed to protect my kids from whatever threats came at them. I’ve done it over and over again until it’s a well-worn groove in my soul. But they’re growing up.

This may be the last thing they need from me. The last protection I can offer them. They may never understand that, and I can’t leave a record of why I’m doing it ... but I have to believe that they’ll know. They’ll understand.

Sam ... Sam will take it so hard that, in the end, I left him behind. I wish he could know I’m doing that only because of all the people in the world, I trust him—onlyhim—to shelter, love, and protect those precious children we both love so much.

But I can’t leave himnot knowing. I can’t. So I turn on the video on my phone, and I take a deep breath, and I tell him. I tell him how much I love him, how much I value him, how much I trust him. I tell him to protect our kids. I tell him that I will come back if I can, and if I don’t, if I fail this time, that I did it for all of us.

I don’t tell him where I’m going because I just don’t know.

I save the video, lock the phone, and leave it on the coffee table.

Then I leave the house. I shut off the built-in GPS. I back out of the garage onto the street and pause there, making sure the garage closes, making sure the house is safe and warm and protected to the best of my ability. I idle in the street, waiting.

It’s nine o’clock in the morning on Thursday. I don’t know how he’s going to contact me until I hear a musical tone. It’s coming from the glove compartment, and a million thoughts run through my mind.He got in, he could have left a bomb, he could have been inside our house.I swallow my rage and fear and open the glove compartment. There’s a small phone inside, screen glowing. I answer it.

“Hello, Gina,” the voice on the other end says. “I’ve sent you a map of where to go. I’ll expect you tomorrow. Then we can get started.”

It’s that short, that calm, and then he ends the call. The number’s blocked, no way to call it back. I check, and there’s a text message with a link. It leads to a map. To the coast of North Carolina.

He didn’t tell me to go straight there. Just that I have to get there by tomorrow.

I go to Kez.

I drive to Javier’s cabin. It’s a long way, and by the time I park outside his gate, next to his rental, I’m not calm but at least I’m not screaming. I see Boot lying on the front steps; he gets up, panting, watching me. Boot knows me; he knows I’m a friend. But I also know that he’s not my dog, and he can sense the change in me.

He barks, and Javier opens the front door. He’s got his phone in his hand, and he looks exhausted and worried, and he stares at me like I’m a ghost he’s conjured up, then blinks and says, “Come on inside.”

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