“But you could have left anytime you wanted?”
“In the last few years? Yeah.” She nodded, then her features grew hard, her scar more pronounced. “But where would I go? My family other than Dad was gone, and I couldn’t risk contacting Chad or you without telling the police and turning in my own father. I know it sounds lame,” she admitted, a tear tracking down her cheek, “but I was laid up for a while when I was healing and Dad took care of me.”
“He locked you away!”
“He . . . he was all I had,” she said, her voice cracking.
Kara let go of Tate’s hand. Grabbed her sister’s shoulder. “Damn it, Marlie. You could have contacted me!”
She sniffed. “Don’t swear,” she said, shaking her head, fighting against a wash of tears that spilled from her eyes.
“But—”
“You were a child, Kara!” Marlie snapped. “I couldn’t.” With trembling fingers, she brushed the tears and snowflakes from her face. “In my mind Marlie Robinson is dead.” She gave a sad little laugh and pushed Kara’s hand from her shoulder. Then added coldly, “And so is Hailey Brown.”
“But you’ll always be Marlie to me,” Kara argued.
“Good. Remember me the way I was.”
There was something in her voice, a warning. With dawning horror, Kara asked, “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I can’t go back,” Marlie whispered, scooting away from Kara. “I can’t. I just can’t. I’m not Marlie anymore. She died long ago and I’m not Hailey.”
“Don’t!” Tate warned, as if he, too, suddenly understood.
“Marlie, please—”
But it was too late.
Marlie extracted her handgun from her pocket and before she said a word, placed it to her temple.
“No!” Kara struggled forward.
Tate lunged.
Blam!
The gun went off, blasting loudly, echoing through the frigid forest.
Marlie collapsed, the bullet exploding through her skull.
Kara screamed. Threw herself forward.
Tate’s arms surrounded her, holding her close against the snowpacked and bloodstained ground. “Shhhh. It’ll be all right,” he said, cradling her head against the crook of his neck, his fingers splayed in her hair as he forced her face away from the gore and she shook; from the inside out, she trembled.
“It’ll be okay. Shhh. Shhh. Shhh,” he intoned.
But he was lying. She knew that now, staring at her sister’s motionless body. There was no chance Marlie had survived. None.
He rocked her slowly, holding her tight as lights flashed, people shouted, the sirens shrieked.
Help had finally come.
Far too late.
Kara was cold inside, a part of her—hope, she supposed—now dead, because tonight in this snowstorm, she’d finally found her sister, only to lose her again.
And this time it was forever.
CHAPTER 36
Kara popped four Altoids, gathered her courage and stepped into Tate’s hospital room. The past few days had been a nightmare that she’d gone through numb and zombie-like. Her nightmares had returned and this time she was with Marlie, in the snowy forest, reliving those last shattering moments of her sister’s life.
Now, she had to work through it. Find an inner strength. Even pretend if she had to. She plastered a smile onto her face and hoped it didn’t seem as fake as it felt, that it wasn’t a garish grin forced onto a haunted face.
You can do this.
Tate’s near-black hair was mussed, falling over his forehead, his beard shadow dark over his jaw. However, when he glanced her way, his blue eyes were sharp and clear. He smiled, crookedly, as if they shared a private joke.
If not a joke, she thought, then they had shared a twisted, painful lifetime heretofore. “Hey,” she said, and pulled the door shut behind her, leaving her demons outside. “Turnabout’s fair play?”
“Yeah, meeting in the hospital, not the best plan to keep a relationship going.”
“Is that what we have now, a ‘relationship’？”
“We’ve always had one. Maybe not what it is now, but, yeah, we’ve always been connected.”
She let that slide. “How do you feel?”
“Not like a million bucks, but not bad. They’re releasing me today.”
“I noticed there was no guard at your door,” she said, surprised that she felt the need to tease him. To flirt a bit.
“No one to keep my hoard of fans at bay?”