The Girl Who Survived(40)

What really was the truth?

She thought about Wesley Tate and his accusation that she didn’t want to know what had really happened on that horrible night, but that wasn’t true. She did. That’s why she was driving through the mountains, determined to find Margrove.

As for Tate, she wanted to dismiss him. She remembered him as a boy, but he no longer looked like the pudgy, freckled-faced kid with wild, untamed hair, glasses, and braces. Nope, he was all grown up now. Dark hair, bladed features and a dimple she hadn’t noticed way back when. His glasses had been replaced with reflective shades, his teeth straight and white, his awkward boy-child innocence having given way to a hard edge evident in the set of his jaw and the tight corners of blade-thin lips.

Stupid that she’d noticed or even remembered leaning across him in her own damned rig, his breath warm against the back of her neck as she’d flung the passenger door open, her heartbeat quickening.

Don’t think about him now. He’s not worth it. You’re just hyped up because Jonas has been released and Tate reminds you of that night. Adrenaline. That’s all it was. Nothing more. And you have more important things on your mind. Remember that night, what happened. Tate’s wrong. So wrong. You do care about digging up the truth, no matter what!

She bit her lip as she took a corner a little too fast, the back end of the Jeep sliding as she hit a spot of ice, then righting as the tires dug in.

Her heart leapt to her throat and she slowed a bit, her mind turning back to Christmas Eve so long ago. What had happened to Marlie? Why did she know to protect her younger sister? Why had her clothes been laid out on the bed as if she intended to leave? Why the hell had she been so scared? Had she somehow been a part of the slaughter?

“No,” Kara whispered out loud, not daring to believe what so many had insinuated in the articles, true crime reconstructions on televisions, and more recently the blogs and Facebook groups dedicated to the murders.

But someone knew.

And she needed to find out.

Her fingers clenched around the steering wheel as the towering firs, needled limbs laden with snow, flashed past.

Kara had always suspected that Jonas or Merritt, or both, knew more about her sister’s disappearance than either admitted, but she had no proof.

There’s that paranoia kicking in again.

“Oh, yeah? Then why haven’t I heard from Jonas?” she asked out loud.

Maybe you already have. Maybe he sent you that text last night suggesting that Marlie’s alive.

“If it was about Marlie,” she said aloud.

Who else?

The Jeep shimmied, tires slipping again, and she realized she was driving across a short, single-lane bridge that spanned a now-frozen creek.

Still the tracks continued.

How far did this road go? She squinted through the shroud of snow.

Around a sharp bend, she spied a single-wide that had seen better days, the mobile home was wedged in a grove of fir trees, needles and snow collecting on the roof, ice cycles pointing like crystal daggers from the edge of the overhang near the front door. Kara might have missed the mobile home altogether except for the fact that she’d seen the recent tire tracks visible beneath the new-fallen snow and had caught a glimpse of a crumpled red fender through the trees.

“Here we go,” she said, recognizing Margrove’s aging BMW. The car was barely visible as it, like the trailer, was partially covered in snow.

Fingers tight over the wheel, she tried to ignore her apprehension, but the place was so isolated, Kara second-guessed herself. She parked next to the old Beemer, then cut the engine and braced herself. Obviously Margrove wouldn’t be all that happy to see her; he’d been avoiding her even though he’d known, according to Celeste, that she was trying to reach him. Feeling her nerve slipping away, she glanced at the glove box, then opened it, dug behind the owner’s manual and a box of tissues, until she found two airplane-size bottles of vodka.

“Liquid courage.”

Pulling off her gloves, she didn’t think twice, just cracked open a bottle, tossed back the alcohol, felt the familiar burn in her throat and the warming sensation in her stomach. She repeated the process, capped the empties, and threw them back into the open compartment and snapped the lid into place.

Eyeing the beat-up mobile home, she set her jaw and pulled on her gloves again. “If the mountain won’t come to Muhammad, then . . .” She opened the door of her Cherokee and stepped into the storm.

The path to the front door was deep in the snow, pounded by footsteps leading directly from Margrove’s BMW, though now several inches of snow covered the tread. She followed it to the stoop, which consisted of two steps and a covered landing, all constructed of rough-hewn graying boards, and the door was shut, but a flickering blue light was visible around the edges of a window shade that wasn’t quite shut.

She pressed the doorbell.

Heard nothing and decided maybe the bell wasn’t operational.

Shivering, she knocked.

Waited, pulled the coat tighter and stomped off some of the snow from her boots. Still she heard no footsteps, no heavy tread from inside.

“Come on,” she muttered, then knocked again, rapping hard. “Merritt?” she called through the rusting metal door. “It’s me. Kara.”

Again, nothing.

Was he asleep? Well, too bad. Time to get up!

“Merritt?” More pounding.