The Girl Who Survived(23)

After slicing off and discarding a bit that showed mold, she cut herself three wedges and took twice that many crackers on a plate into the dining area, where her laptop lay open. Now that the wine had kicked in and she’d mellowed out a bit, she googled herself and found dozens of pictures of her as a child and a handful of her as an adult. Her infamy was fading. Or had been. Until now.

She’d gone from a coltish girl of seven with teeth too big for her mouth and a halo of messy blond curls to a thinner teenager with light brown hair that she’d spent hours straightening. There were even pictures of her dressed in black, her hair dyed a dark ebony, her thick eyeliner and heavy mascara at odds with her pale complexion made more so with the ivory-colored makeup she’d so feverishly applied. Her clothes had been black rags, one layer upon another. Fortunately, she’d outgrown her whole hiding-from-the-world-in-plain-sight Goth stage.

Now, though she holed up in her small home—a cottage in the suburbs—often with the shades drawn and the blinds snapped shut, she at least blended in, her brown hair usually piled in a messy bun, her only makeup a touch of lipstick and a bit of mascara. Good enough.

She glanced over her shoulder to the windows, saw that the shades were half open and quickly crossed the living room to snap all three of them shut. Tight.

It was a phobia, she knew, the thought that someone was always watching her, observing her from the shadows, ready to pounce on her the second she turned her back. “Stupid,” she said aloud, but then shrugged, as if physically shucking off the unseen gaze. “Get it together.”

She nibbled at the cheese and crackers and placed a call to Merritt Margrove, the lawyer who had defended Jonas for the murders. At the time he’d been a famous defense attorney and he’d taken the case to bolster his already impressive career, but he’d lost and Jonas, hands cuffed behind him, had been escorted out of the courtroom and to prison and, despite all of Margrove’s promises and appeals, had remained there. The case had been a turning point for the attorney, the first of a string of losses and a downward spiral from which he’d never recovered. Married three times, scandal-riddled himself, he was a shell of the bright young lawyer with a keen mind, quick tongue and a swagger to match.

Nonetheless, Kara waited, listening to the voice message and leaving one asking Merritt to return her call.

She shouldn’t think about the tragedy; it was best to let it go. But she couldn’t. Never had been able to forget or forgive. And now that Jonas was once again a free man, she couldn’t resist looking backward.

To that night.

That horrid, deadly, and oh-so-bloody night.

She saw the photos online, even black and white photos of the crime scene, bodies draped, Christmas tree tilted, fireplace yawning, and all the bloodstains, on every surface.

The murder weapon had been located, of course, the sword that had been mounted over Jonas’s bed, a relic from the Spanish–American War, one, she knew now, had been carried by one of her relatives, a great-great-great uncle or something. She couldn’t remember the right number of greats and the wine didn’t help. At that thought, she poured herself “one last glass” and sipped it slowly as she read through the articles about the Christmas Eve her family was so mercilessly destroyed.

The sword, it now seemed, was the reason Jonas was getting out of prison. Margrove had never given up on his client, even after losing the initial case.

The prosecution had been ruthless, certain that Jonas, the second and rebellious son of Samuel McIntyre Senior, was the killer. Jonas certainly had fit the profile: a teen who had always been at odds with his family, a loner who had been in and out of trouble with the law. An eighteen-year-old who’d had girlfriend and anger issues. Jonas McIntyre had “flipped out,” the assistant DA had said before explaining what that meant in professional terms, a psychotic break that had turned tragically violent. Jonas had killed his family not by intentional premeditated murder, but because of a violent burst of anger where he was totally out of control. And the wounds he’d sustained? Either because one of the victims had fought back or they’d been self-inflicted. The DA had gone to great lengths and detail, showing how Jonas, an athlete and gymnast, had been able to contort and slice himself.

Even so, the jury might not have been convicted except that Jonas’s fingerprints had been discovered all over a sword that was not only over a hundred years old but also the murder weapon.

But now, that key piece of evidence was in dispute.

A cop who had worked the scene, Randall Isley, had admitted that there was a screwup that night, that the sword in question had been lost for a bit, that in all of the hubbub of the scene, there had been a crucial forty-five minutes when the sword had been misplaced, and as such the chain of custody of a valuable piece of evidence broken, and that little fact had been covered up by the department.

Isley, now retired, had given a sworn affidavit to Merritt Margrove, who had taken it to a judge.

The end result was that after serving only a portion of his sentence, Jonas had been released.

Kara felt a headache starting to form. She rubbed her temples and from her chair in the kitchen noticed Rhapsody staring at the back door. Not moving, just looking as if she could see through the panels.

“What?”

The dog gave a low growl.

Kara’s heart clutched. “Oh, Jesus.”

Throat suddenly dry, she scraped her chair back and walked into the kitchen. “Stop it,” she said.