The Girl Who Survived(46)

“Stepbrother.”

“Right.” Tate scratched at the beard beginning to shadow his jaw. “What was that all about?” He remembered how she’d almost demurely admitted that her boyfriend would take an axe to her lover before killing her. “Check her out.”

“Haven’t you?”

“Working on it. But I’ve come up dry,” Tate admitted, not bothering to hide his frustration. “Lacey Higgins is married now. Has a couple of kids. It all seems on the up-and-up, but dig a little deeper if you can.”

“Do you really think you can learn more after all this time?” Connell walked to the railing, gloved fingers working as he thought. “Books have been written, true crime episodes aired about what happened in that mansion on the mountain. I even heard that someone’s working on a podcast now that it’s the twentieth anniversary of the crime, along with a revisiting of the event by the production company that first aired the story.”

“So maybe that will help. Now that McIntyre is a free man, people who were involved, witnesses who testified and those that didn’t, they might be thinking about the case and might remember something they’d forgotten or weren’t asked about in their depositions or at the trial.”

“A long shot.”

“My shot to take.”

Connell nodded. “Okay, so you want what? Me to chase these people down? Ask them questions, or just observe and maybe tail them. GPS tracker? That kind of thing?”

“Whatever you’ve got.” Tate rested his hips on the railing. “Poke around. See what you can dig up. See if you find anything irregular.”

“Like what happened to Marlie Robinson?”

“Especially what happened to her,” Tate said, remembering the older sister who had flat out disappeared. “I figure she’s the key.”

Wayne Connell frowned as snowflakes piled onto the bill of his Padre’s cap. “Irregular how? In the phone records, bank statements? Computer records? Emails?”

“I said you do it your way. Nothing illegal or anything you’re uncomfortable with, okay? But come on. Wouldn’t you like to be a part of this? Maybe break a twenty-year-old case wide open?”

Connell snorted. “Don’t try to con me, Wes. I get it.” He turned away from the view to face his friend again. “You want justice for your father. That’s normal. I’ll work on it, okay, but I’m not making any promises and as I said before, I’m not breaking any laws. Got it?”

“Got it.” Tate figured he could handle the illegal stuff himself. “One last thing.”

“Yeah?” he paused.

“See if you can locate a woman named Hailey Brown from Modesto, California. Could be a fake. Or her maiden name. It’s used online on a fan website for Jonas. You’ll see it. I think she’s a phony.”

“Talk about a needle in a haystack. Common first names and surname.”

“I know, but if you can locate her, that might help.”

“Why?”

“Just a feeling.”

Connell snorted. “Great. Anything else?”

“Not that I can think of. That’s it for now.”

“Good.” Squaring his hat on his head, Connell turned toward the parking lot, but stopped after taking a couple of steps, as if he’d had a sudden thought. “And, Tate?” he called over his shoulder.

“Yeah?”

“Take care of yourself.” His eyes held Tate’s for a second. “Revenge or obsession, or whatever you want to call it, can eat you alive. Don’t let it.”

“If you say so.”

“And don’t do anything stupid.”

Too late, Tate thought. Too damned late.

He watched Connell disappear through the snowfall, slipping like a ghost through the veil of icy flakes.

Tate smiled to himself. Slipped his sunglasses over the bridge of his nose.

Despite his objections, Connell had taken the bait.

Could be that Connell had wrapped his acquiescence in all kinds of do-gooding rhetoric, but the truth of the matter was that Connell was intrigued. Mystified. And there was nothing more he liked than figuring out a puzzle—through legitimate means or not. Yeah, he was definitely on the side of justice, which was just fine, but he was intrigued.

Stuffing his hands deep into his pockets, Tate stared at the water as it tumbled and fell over the time-worn stones below the surface.

Whether he knew it or not, Wayne Connell was in.





CHAPTER 14


“Jonas?” Kara whispered, fear nearly strangling her.

Her heart knocked frantically against her rib cage, her lungs tight. Fear sliding down her spine as she drove ever downward, the steep cliffs rising on the passenger side of the car, a sheer canyon on the other, two narrow lanes carved into the packed ice and snow.

Her brother was in the Jeep with her? Her ex-con of a brother?

Hiding in the back seat like they do in all those stupid horror flicks?

For a split second she wondered if he had a weapon. A gun or a knife or . . . or . . . God, whatever it was that sliced Merritt’s throat.

Trying not to freak out, Kara kept one eye on the road, the other on Jonas, lurking in the seat behind her.

“Drive, Kara,” he commanded.