The Girl Who Survived(82)

Tate had definitely grown into himself in his thirties. Filled out. His blue eyes appeared more intense, his hair had darkened to almost black, and peach fuzz had turned to serious beard shadow. He was more good-looking than she’d ever expected. Not that it mattered at all.

“So,” he said, “you know you have to talk to the cops.”

She’d come to the same conclusion. “Yeah. But tomorrow. I can’t face them or Aunt Faiza tonight.”

“Your aunt, too.”

“Otherwise she’ll worry. If she can’t find me in the hospital.” She sighed. “It’s complicated with her.” She thought of how Jonas had suggested that Auntie Fai was interested in her sister’s kids only because of the money attached to them. She didn’t want to think about all the difficult relationships she had with her family, so she changed the subject. “You live here alone?”

“Yeah.” He leaned back in his chair. “Just me. Considered a dog once and a cat a couple of times, but I’m gone too much.”

“Ever married?”

One side of his mouth lifted. “Thought about it once, but no.” He shook his head, dark hair glinting under the lights high overhead. “Never seemed to be the right time or the right woman.” Wadding the paper that had wrapped his sandwich, he asked, “You?”

“I figure you know all about me.” She motioned to the computer and his scribbled notes, noticed that the room, with its soaring ceilings and wall of glass, had a warmth to it she hadn’t noticed at first glance. Despite the loft’s austere walls and mishmash of furniture, there was a lived-in comfort to it, an ambiance that she found strangely inviting.

Don’t go there, Kara. Do not. It’s trouble, pure and simple.

“I only know what court records show,” Tate was saying as he opened a small bag of chips. “Most of the stuff I found on the Internet.”

“Most of the stuff on the Internet is garbage. Rumors. Opinions. Even the made-for-TV movie about that night wasn’t all that factual, just a lot of hype and innuendo.”

“You watched it?”

“Yeah.” Like once a year just to keep it real. To never forget.

As if she could.

“So you googled me?”

“And then some, but I found no marriage licenses and hence no divorce decrees. No engagement announcements.”

“That about sums it up,” she said, not elaborating about her love life, though Brad’s arrogant face sliced through her mind for just an instant.

Brad had left angrily, disbelieving that she would have the nerve to throw him out. “You’re a freak, you know that, right?” he’d said when she’d insisted he leave. He’d been gathering his faded jeans, polo shirts and hoodies, along with his much-loved bong and trophies from being a standout soccer player in high school and college. “A fuckin’ freak!”

“At least I don’t cheat,” she’d thrown back at him, along with a pair of soccer cleats, as he’d scrambled out the front door.

“Maybe you should,” he’d screamed. “Maybe it would help.” He’d climbed into his aging hatchback and roared out the drive, nearly backing over a kid on a bike.

Good riddance!

Now, Tate was staring at her.

She felt the need to explain as she plucked a chip from her own opened bag. “I’m different from you.”

He frowned. “Really?”

“Yup. You thought about marriage and decided against it.”

Interested, he leaned across the table. “That’s right.”

“I thought about a dog once,” she said, and swallowed a smile, surprised at herself that she was actually teasing him. What was wrong with her?

“Yeah?”

“Unlike you, I committed. Went to a shelter, saw Rhapsody and, as they say, it was love at first sight.”

“Ever experienced that before?” His turn to banter with her, the corners of his lips lifting almost imperceptibly in his beard shadow. God, was he flirting with her? Is that what was happening here?

If so, she had to close it down. Break this too-comfortable mood.

“Never,” she said, almost icily. “So . . . are we working together, or what?”

“I thought this was already decided.”

“Good.”

“Then let’s make it official. Seal the deal.” He walked to the kitchen, opened a cupboard over the refrigerator and retrieved a bottle of red wine, a Cabernet from a winery in Washington. She recognized the label.

Within seconds he’d opened the bottle and set it along with two stemmed glasses on the table. “I think it should breathe a bit.”

“Or not.”

“Okay.” He poured them each a glass, then touched the rim of his to hers with a soft clink. The bouquet was heady and as she swirled the stem in her fingers, she watched eagerly as the legs of the wine appeared, red drips sliding down the inside of the glass.

Then despite all of the warning bells clanging loudly in her head, it was done. Wondering if she’d just made a deal with the devil, Kara took a long swallow of wine and found that, at least for the moment, she didn’t care.

She didn’t care at all.





CHAPTER 23


“So now she’s MIA,” Johnson said as they waited on the front step of Kara McIntyre’s home. Johnson was on tiptoe, trying to peer through a sidelight, but the seeded glass was nearly opaque.