The Girl Who Survived(42)

“Oh . . . oh . . . no . . . no!”

Get a grip. For God’s sake, Kara, pull yourself together!

But she couldn’t.

She was shaking and hyperventilating and out of her mind. Tree branches scraped at the sides of her SUV, screeching along the glass as the tires slid and she twisted on the wheel, the entire Jeep bucking over a ridge of ice.

Calm down. Calm the hell down.

Get control of yourself!

Frantic, the horror she’d witnessed screaming through her mind, she drove by rote, pressing on the gas where the rutted tracks ran straight, braking around curves and trees, feeling the entire chassis shimmy as she hit potholes, keeping her foot pressed hard to the gas.

She thought of Celeste at the salon, believing her husband was ignoring her. Not dead. Not murdered! “No . . .” She blinked. Tears were running from her eyes. She took a corner too fast and slid onto the bridge, the back wheels fishtailing. She didn’t care, just drove as if Satan himself were chasing her.

You have to call someone. The police. Let them know. Or Celeste. Dear God, Kara, the killer could still be in that mobile home. Didn’t you think you heard someone?

“Oh, God, oh, God . . .” Did she have Wi-Fi up here? A connection. She reached for her phone, still on the passenger seat. A tree loomed in front of the Jeep and she cranked hard on the wheel. The phone skittered onto the floor! Out of reach.

Shit.

Then she got her head together. “Call nine-one-one,” she yelled at the dashboard, and prayed for a connection as the snow came down faster and she increased the speed of her wipers.

She heard the phone ring at the other end of the connection.

Thank God.

“Nine-one-one. What is your emergen—”

“He’s dead. I think . . . I know he’s dead. There’s blood everywhere.” Just like before! “Oh, Jesus!” she murmured under her breath, then, getting a grip, becoming a little calmer, “Just listen. I want . . . I want to report a murder. It looks like a damned murder! Merritt Margrove, the attorney. He’s the victim. Someone killed him. I mean, it looks like it. Send someone!”

“Ma’am? Can I get your name and your location?”

“What? No. I mean, I’m driving.”

“Your name?”

“Kara McIntyre and I’m on Sawtooth Road and—oh, crap!” The road turned back on itself and she swerved to hit a branch that had snapped and fallen partially in the roadway.

“So you are reporting a murder on Sawtooth Road.”

“Yes! Yes!” Was the woman dense? “I don’t have the address, but it happened in his house. Margrove’s home. It’s . . . it’s located on, oh, what—?” She had no idea of the direction with snow continuing to fall. “Maybe the east end of Sawtooth Road, Merritt Margrove, the dead guy, the victim, he owns the place I think.”

“If you’ll just stay on the line at the scene.”

“I’m not there! Okay? Didn’t you hear me? I’m driving and I’m not going back there. No way!”

“Ms. McIntyre—”

Kara’s mind was racing as she squinted past the windshield that was fogging, wipers on overdrive. “Send help! Just send help!”

“If you’ll please—”

“No!” With that she cut the connection and trod on the accelerator, her tires spinning around the corner, the rumble of the Jeep’s engine barely audible over the jackhammering of her heart. No way would she sit here in the snow, waiting for the cops and EMTs and whomever else to arrive while a dead guy lay in his own blood and a murderer was on the loose. Not again. Not ever!

She thought again of her brother.

This had to be because of Jonas. Had to be.

Because he was now a free man.

Otherwise it was just too damned much of a coincidence.

And where the hell was he? Her fingers tightened over the steering wheel as her pulse pounded.

Why hadn’t he contacted her?

Was he hiding, avoiding the press, or . . . ?

For a split second she thought of the possibility that maybe he’d met with Margrove and somehow things had gone wrong and . . .

“No!” Her denial rang through the interior of her Jeep. She’d always believed in Jonas and wouldn’t stop now. Even though Merritt, like her family, had been murdered with a blade. Someone had gotten close enough to him to slice his throat open.

She swallowed hard.

Someone he knew?

Or . . . someone connected with the murders of her family. Someone who was triggered by Jonas’s release and all of the new publicity, the renewed interest of the press.

Her thoughts tumbled to Marlie.

What had she known that night?

How was she involved?

Why in the world had she spirited Kara up to the attic that night?

The same old questions that had plagued Kara all of her life spun wildly through her mind. She remembered being awakened. Marlie’s clothes folded on her bed. The sound of Christmas music and the grandfather clock chiming off the last seconds of their lives.

Marlie’s words replayed through her mind: “I just have to make sure it’s safe . . . There’s something . . . something really bad, Kara.”

“Where are you?” Kara asked aloud, as if her sister were in the passenger seat. “What happened?” She swallowed the lump in her throat as she remembered the late-night text. Two simple words: She’s alive.