The Girl Who Survived(123)

But he’d never been in serious trouble with the law. There was nothing on his record but parking tickets and a fine for poaching, hunting deer out of season.

“He’s our guy!” Johnson insisted.

“Yeah, but it’s not all adding up.”

“We’ll bring him in for questioning, put on some pressure, give him a chance to tell his side of the story again. See what he has to say.”

“Let’s see what we find in his place, once we get the warrant.” They were close, but a big part of the case didn’t make sense. He studied the pictures that Johnson had left on his desk of the crowd, to Walter Robinson and to the girl who could be his daughter. Where the hell was she?

“Fine. I’ll double-check with the Seaside PD,” she said, and left him to study the footage of Walter Robinson in front of the television cameras, asking for information on his missing daughter. He’d seemed shell-shocked, but he’d just lost his son. Was it all an act? Was he a stone-cold killer just trying to cover his own tracks? Thomas picked up a pencil and tapped the eraser end on his desk. He was missing something, something vital, but what was it?

His cell phone rang, jarring his thoughts.

He picked up. “Cole Thomas.”

“Yeah . . . um, this is Mia Long. We met at the hospital.”

“I remember.”

“I, um, oh, God.” She hesitated. “I, um, I think . . .”

“Is something wrong?” His senses heightened as he waited.

“I don’t know,” she said, and her voice was tight. “I mean, I probably shouldn’t even be calling you, but Jonas . . . he took my car. I don’t mean he stole it. I loaned it to him and he’s been gone a few hours and he’s not answering my calls or texts and . . . oh, shit. I’m worried.”

“You think something happened to him?” So at least they knew now where he’d been.

“I don’t know. But he just got out of the hospital and he’s not used to driving anymore and . . . Oh, forget it. Forget I called. This was a mistake. I’m sorry. He’s fine. Everything’s fine!” She cut the connection and when he tried to call her back, she didn’t pick up.

Within seconds he’d pulled up her driver’s license information and found the make and model and plate numbers of her car, then put out a BOLO, Be On the Look Out, for Mia Long’s fifteen-year-old Honda Accord. Then he grabbed his jacket and sidearm. He’d been looking for a reason to get up and move, and Mia Long’s call seemed like the perfect excuse; her apartment seemed like the perfect place to start. Until they heard back from the Seaside Police Department.

When he reached Johnson’s desk, he found her on the phone and staring at her computer screen. She must’ve heard him approach because she held up a hand, listening to whoever was on the other end of the call while he was on one foot, then the other.

“Yeah, thanks,” she was saying, nodding and looking over her shoulder. “Tell me what you find when you get in.” She disconnected and spun her chair around. “That was my ex-brother-in law,” she explained. “Walter Robinson isn’t at his house and not answering his phone, the only one listed in his name or his company’s name: Robinson Electric. It’s odd because that phone is his businesses lifeline, you know, to schedule jobs and such. Voice mail is full. They’re gonna go inside. The guys watching the place. Probable cause.” When he was about to ask, she said, “No time for a warrant.”

“As long as it doesn’t screw the case against him.”

“It won’t.” She eyed his jacket. “You going somewhere?”

“To Mia Long’s apartment, and I’m going to call Alex Rousseau on the way.”

“Because . . . ?”

“Jonas McIntyre was there.”

“Oh, wait.” She let out a long breath. “Let me guess. He’s MIA again.”

“Yeah, but this time he’s in Mia Long’s car. Already got a BOLO for him.”

*

Kara shivered as she stepped into her parents’ master bedroom and heard the wind rattling the panes of the windows. An empty bed frame had been pushed against one wall. Water had seeped through a crack in the window, running down the wall and causing the paint to peel and the floorboards to buckle.

This is where Mama and Daddy had been found, lying in their bed, both dead. Whoever had killed them had moved quickly, able to slice each throat quickly, without a struggle. Thankfully. She silently hoped that the sleeping pills they’d downed had been powerful enough so that they had been out of it, totally unaware that they were being attacked and killed.

Her stomach roiled again.

She wanted to run, to get as far away from this old house with all its secrets, all its horrors, as she could. Instead, she leaned against the doorframe and said to Tate, “This isn’t working.” A few new fragments, bits of recollection had come to mind, but the images she saw behind her mind’s eye, those burned into her memory forever, were of the dead. She thought of them as her dead. The family that she’d lost.

No, not lost.

The family that had been violently stolen from her.

Tate placed a hand on her shoulder. “If you want—”

“Stop! Don’t say it, Tate. Don’t even think it. I don’t want to leave any more than I don’t want to be here, but let’s just get through it.”