“Talked to her.” She was loosening up but still irritated as she, sipping from her cup, returned to the sofa.
“Tell me about the interview with the police,” he suggested, handing her back her phone.
Tucking the cell into her pocket, she sat on the edge of the couch, sipped her drink and told him everything she could remember, forcing herself to dismiss any lingering doubts about confiding in him. She needed an ally—even one who might not be the most trustworthy, one who openly admitted his own agenda for seeking the truth. What did she care what his motives were? Was he going to write a tell-all that would expose more of her to the world, strip her of . . . what? Her privacy? Her anonymity? Her pride? Hell, it had all been said before and now, now there was a chance Marlie was alive.
So she told him everything she could remember, about her life and what she’d said in the interview. There were holes of course, those empty spots in her memory that she couldn’t retrieve, but she bared as much of her soul as she could. Kara explained that Detective Thomas had shown her a computer-enhanced image of an older Marlie, a picture of what Marlie would look like today. “That’s when I knew for certain that I’d seen her. At the hospital.” Kara stared hard at Tate, hoping to make him believe her. “I tried to get to her, but she disappeared before I could get to her.”
“Again,” he said. “She disappeared again.”
“Yes.” She took another swallow of coffee.
“And you’re sure it was Marlie?” He was skeptical.
“Of course!” she said so loudly that Rhapsody lifted her head and gave off a startled “woof.”
Reality settled in. “I mean, I thought I was . . . seeing that picture of what Marlie would look like now, but . . . no, I’m not sure. Not a hundred percent. I’m not sure of anything right now. The woman looked like her, I mean really looked like her, but she was all bundled up and wearing tinted glasses and I thought, afterward, maybe I was imagining things. I mean, why would she be there? After all this time? Had she been in hiding just to wait to see Jonas? It didn’t make any sense and sometimes I imagine things, you know.”
“Such as?”
“That I’m being followed, or someone’s watching the house or whatever. I’m never not on edge, you know?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “Anyway, after seeing Marlie at the hospital, I’d told myself to file it the Just-Another-Kara McIntyre-Freak-out file, but then Detective Thomas showed me the computerized picture. Now . . . now, I don’t know what to think. Just that this has to end. Before I go completely insane.
“You’re not going insane,” he said, his voice calming.
“No?” She raised an eyebrow.
“No.”
“Tell that to my frayed nerves and my messed-up memory.” She finished her coffee and carried her empty cup to the sink. Ignoring the need of another drink, she walked to the window and wrapped her arms around her middle. Outside, the river rushed past the seawall on the edge of town. Dark and foreboding, it seemed to mirror her thoughts.
So many unanswered questions, so many regrets.
What was it Dr. Zhou had said? Something about needing need to acknowledge fear before facing it? Not so easy to do. She was scared of the past; scared to death, afraid of what she might ultimately find out.
However, she couldn’t live this way a second longer.
*
Mia’s heart was soaring.
She’d brought Jonas back to her apartment, a one-bedroom unit in Gresham that wasn’t too far from the freeway and only twenty-six minutes to downtown Portland. Mia had timed it. She felt a little giddy and a lot nervous as Jonas surveyed the tight space, though to him, she thought, considering that he’d been in a tiny prison cell for half his life, her crammed living room, tight kitchen, single bath and standard apartment bedroom might seem spacious, even airy despite her cluttered counters and bistro table covered in piles of papers, all of which were dedicated to him and his release.
Except he might view her small unit from the eyes of the super-rich as he’d grown up with his family having two mansions, each of which could swallow this tiny unit whole.
“So this is what you’ve been doing,” he said, eyeing the papers and newspaper articles before picking up her iPad and scrolling down the Facebook page she’d dedicated to him, where tons of fans had made posts and comments.
“This is only part of it. We’ve got loads of platforms, not just Facebook. We’re on Twitter and YouTube and WhatsApp and Instagram and . . . well, you know. All the sites. Anyplace we can get the word out, you know.” She smiled and hoped he didn’t hear the baby crying in the next unit. The kid screamed all the time, his colic or whatever so loud through these paper-thin walls that sometimes Mia had to turn her TV or music up to the max, just to hear herself think. She motioned to the screen. “It’s all about you,” she said, pride tinging her voice. “About the injustice you’ve suffered.”