The Girl Who Survived(76)

It was an act.

According to the staff, Jonas McIntyre had conversed with the nurses and, it seemed, his sister. The reports were that Kara McIntyre left AMA, against medical advice, in a hurry, and a couple of the nurses on this floor had seen her duck into an elevator, presumably after speaking to her brother while the guard on duty had been called away to deal with the commotion downstairs.

It all seemed fishy, and Thomas had the uncomfortable feeling that he’d been set up somehow. He just hadn’t figured out how.

He tried one last time. “Listen, McIntyre, we just need to know what you were doing up at Margrove’s trailer. What you saw. Who you saw? Why you were up there in the first place. A simple statement.”

No reaction.

Not so much as a flicker in his eyes.

He barely blinked.

Thomas’s back teeth gnashed in frustration. Jonas could hear him. He knew it, but the guy even in pain, in a hospital room wasn’t budging. Twenty years in a prison had taught him how to hide any emotion, to keep his emotions in check.

Thomas glanced across the bed to Johnson, who gave a quick shake of her head indicating they were fighting a losing battle. She was right. He knew it, but it pissed him off.

“Okay, let’s go,” he said, and started for the door. In the hallway the guard was arguing with a petite woman in her thirties with two-toned hair that fell to the middle of her back, pouty lips and pale blue eyes that were flashing fire. “I told you, I’m his girlfriend!” she said, tossing the hair over her shoulder. “I need to see him.”

But the guard, who had been reprimanded for leaving his post earlier, wasn’t standing down. “No one sees him.”

“I’m practically next of kin!”

A nurse was on her way. “We can’t have this,” she said, “the patient needs his rest.”

“The ‘patient’ is my boyfriend and he’s not under arrest or anything, so I need to see him. He’s a free man the last I heard.” She was wearing black tights, heavy military-style boots, a sweater that just covered her rear, jean jacket and a huge looping necklace comprised of wooden beads and a dangling wooden cross that resembled a rosary. Maybe it really was a rosary. He couldn’t tell.

Thomas stepped in and introduced himself. “You say you’re Jonas’s girlfriend?” he said. “What’s your name?”

“Mia.” She folded her arms over her chest and jutted her chin, defiance emanating from her in waves. “Mia Long. I want to see Jonas.”

“Not possible.”

“Under what law?” she demanded.

“Hospital regulations,” the nurse supplied.

Thomas interjected, “And jurisdiction of the county.”

“Sooooo what?” Her eyes laden with liner and mascara thinned, Mia pointed a black-tipped finger at Thomas. “You’re arresting him again? But he’s out. A free man. You can’t arrest him again. Not for, well, you know, what happened twenty years ago.”

“We’re just trying to talk to him,” Thomas said. “He’s not under arrest.”

“But there’s a guard here and you’re not allowing anyone to see him. Even me.” Her chin jutted out and she took a step forward, again pointing accusing fingers. “You people are the ones who set him up, who arrested him and convicted him, so he spent twenty years of his life, twenty-fucking years, like half his life, behind bars with murderers and rapists and thugs.” So livid she was shaking, she said, “He was brutalized in there. Did you know that? Huh?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “Jonas McIntyre was a kid when he went in. He suffered. Like really suffered. For years. And now . . . now you’re trying to railroad him again on some trumped-up charge so that he has to go back! Well, I won’t stand for it. Thousands of people know this was all a big sham because the police were too lazy, too determined to blame him for crimes he didn’t commit. We won’t stand for it, and we won’t rest until he’s vindicated.”

“Just hold on a second,” Johnson said. “No one’s charging Jonas with anything. We’re just trying to find out what happened at Merritt Margrove’s place in the woods.”

“You were there,” Thomas reminded her, staring back into her blazing eyes.

She blinked. Surprised. “No, I just dropped him off.”

“And then?”

“He told me to wait until he called, and I did, and then . . . and then he said he got a ride and I could meet him at a truck stop on 84. Hal’s Get and Go, just outside of The Dalles.”

“And you did?” Johnson asked. To Thomas she said, “That section of the road is shut down.”

“Yeah! Hey—what is this?” Mia said, a little less sure of herself. “It was before the road was shut down, and I don’t know anything about what happened in that mobile home. I took Jonas up there, he got out of the car, and I left. End of story.”

Thomas asked, “Did Jonas say anything? About Margrove? About why he was going up to the mobile home?”

“No, he just said they were meeting.” She suddenly looked worried.

Johnson eyed the girl. “What about when he called you to say he had a ride? That he didn’t need you to pick him up?”

“I called him,” she clarified. “I was starting to get worried. I was at Kreb’s Corners, at the truck stop, and there was talk that the road was going to be closed, so I wanted to check with him.