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
