The Girl Who Survived(98)

“Merritt Margrove was murdered. I don’t think God had anything to do with it.” Tate started the engine and cranked up the heat in the defroster as the windows had begun to fog.

“But that’s not what this is about,” his mother reminded him. “Haven’t you spent enough time on this? Give it up, son.”

“I’ve got a new angle,” he said, glancing away from his phone and watching through the condensation as two deputies walked out a side door and climbed into a department-issue SUV.

“Look, if I can leave the past behind where it belongs, you can.”

“I can’t.” And that was the God’s honest truth. The tragedy had been haunting him for almost half his life.

“You’re as stubborn as your father was. He wouldn’t listen to me either.” She let out a long-suffering sigh. “Don’t you think this whole thing has done enough damage to our family? And it’s been so long. It doesn’t matter if Jonas McIntyre is out of prison or not, you need to find a life beyond it.”

“So you’ve said, Mom.”

“Okay, okay. Now, there’s something else.”

He braced himself.

“Dinner rolls and appetizers.”

“What?”

“That’s what you’re bringing to Christmas dinner.”

“Wait a minute—”

“Christmas is this weekend, Wesley, and we’re celebrating. As I said, we all need to get on with our lives and Our Lord’s birthday is the perfect time. See you then. Love you, Wesley.”

“Me too, Mom,” he said by rote, but she’d already cut the connection. He leaned back in the car seat and replayed the conversation in his mind. It wasn’t that she wasn’t right. But he couldn’t let it go. Researching and writing the book wasn’t only cathartic, it would provide answers to questions that had been gnawing at him for two decades.

And being close to Kara McIntyre would help.

*

“You think your missing sister is calling and texting you?” Johnson asked Kara, obviously skeptical. They were still standing in the hallway outside the interview room, the two officers staring intently at her.

“No, I don’t think it’s her. I mean . . . no. Why would she say ‘she’s alive’ if Marlie’s calling to tell me she was okay? Wouldn’t she say, ‘I’m alive’?”

“Maybe to hide her identity,” Thomas said as a stern-looking fiftysomething deputy striding in the opposite direction squared his hat over his head as he passed. “Excuse me,” he muttered, and they all shifted to one side of the wide corridor.

“Okay, I know it doesn’t make any sense,” Kara admitted. “But I can’t help but feel that . . .” She let her voice trail off.

“That what?” Johnson prompted.

Kara shook her head and felt the stitches in her head pinch a bit. “I want to believe Marlie’s alive.” There, she’d said it, admitting to the police what was really in her heart, the fantasy she’d held on to for two decades.

“Of course you do,” Thomas said, as if he understood.

“So, I see her, you know?” Kara admitted, and rubbed her arms nervously. “Sometimes I swear I see her and then, of course, it turns out it’s just some stranger. And the truth is, I don’t even know what she would look like.”

Thomas said, “Come with me.” He started walking down the hallway. “I want to show you something.” At the end of the corridor, before they reached the reception area, he turned another couple of corners until he reached a glassed-in office, his office, she guessed, by the way he sat down in a worn chair and fiddled with the computer mouse on his desk. He logged in quickly, his eyes focused on the screen until he located the file he wanted and pulled up an image.

Her breath caught in the back of her throat.

“Marlie,” she whispered, staring at the woman on the monitor. “Oh, God.”

“Computer-enhanced, aged through a program we’ve got.”

She felt the skin at the back her neck prickle. “I’ve seen her,” she whispered, thinking back to the group that had gathered outside the hospital and the woman in the red scarf and tinted glasses. “She is alive.”





CHAPTER 28


Alex Rousseau wasn’t happy as she drove her Lexus into the truck stop parking area, away from the brightly lit canopy and mini-mart to park in the shadow of the big rigs lined to one side.

In fact, when she thought about it, she was pretty damned pissed.

“This isn’t a good idea,” she said to Jonas, who had pushed the passenger seat in to a near-reclining position and had sulked all the way from the hospital.

“So you’ve said. Like maybe . . . oh, I don’t know . . . a million times.”

“As your attorney—”

“You do what I say!”

“No,” she snapped back. “I advise you on the best course of action. Legally.”

“Oh, get over yourself!” He pushed a button on the electric seat and with a soft whirr it began to elevate his back to a sitting position again as traffic on the interstate barreled past Hal’s Get and Go. Semis, pickups, vans, SUV and sedans, all racing on the freeway that hugged the edge of the Columbia. It had been closed earlier for inclement weather.