“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.
Now clouds were burgeoning, dark and threatening, snow starting to fall, but it was just a precursor to worse weather. Another blizzard was predicted to slam the Columbia Gorge within twelve hours. But now, at least for a few hours, the vital road was open.
“I don’t know how you and Merritt Margrove got along,” she told her new client, “but you need to treat me with more than a modicum of respect.”
“Modicum,” he repeated, mocking her. “Wow, there’s a twelve-dollar word for you.”
“Is it?” God, he was a dick. If there hadn’t been so much exposure and notoriety attached to Jonas McIntyre, she would have told him to go jump in a lake. Considering what had happened years ago, it seemed appropriate. “As your attorney, I’m advising against this—whatever you’ve got planned.” All he’d told her was that he needed a ride to this spot. To meet “a friend.”
Jonas nodded and threw her a glance. “Gotcha.” Then he reached for the handle of the passenger door.
She tried one more time. “I didn’t pull all the strings I did with the hospital just so you could walk away.”
“I know.” He threw her a cocky grin, opened the door and winced slightly, but seemed to ignore the pain. The sound of engines and wheels on pavement echoed over the quiet ding of the car’s alarm reminding her that the car was still idling as the door opened.
“Let’s be honest with each other,” he said, his face illuminated by the Lexus’s dome light and the reflection of the neon lights from the mini-mart.
“We are,” she snapped as the odors of exhaust and diesel blew inside on a blast of bitter wind. “At least I am.”
“Yeah, sure.” He didn’t bother hiding the doubts in his eyes, the skepticism. “We both know you’re in this for the money, Alex, and the fame. So whether I get out here or do exactly what you want or pretend to be the perfect patient under some prick of a doc’s care, it really doesn’t matter. Either way you win. No matter what, you get what you want. Airtime. Media attention. This might, I mean probably will go national, don’t you think? So cut the crap. Let this go. I’ve got things I’ve got to do.”
“You’re not a hundred percent.”