“I don’t know.” Johnson paused and finished the rest of her sandwich. Finally, she said, “A lot of holes that we have to fill in.” Wadding up her napkin, she shook her head. “We may never know. Too bad about Marlie.”
Amen, Thomas thought, and drained his drink. A-effing-men.
“At least Kara survived,” Johnson pointed out, “but come on, do you think she’ll ever be normal again?”
“Was she ever?” He wasn’t being sarcastic. Thomas really felt that she’d never had a chance for a normal life. First the tragedy, then the circus of a trial with her testimony, before being raised by people who were primarily interested in her fortune and exploited her by making money off her story. And then, just about when she came of age, she had to go through another horrific, unimaginable ordeal. His jaw clenched when he thought of all the carnage that one girl had witnessed.
“At least no one else died.”
“Other than her sister and brother.”
“Jonas?” she said as the waitress left the bill and Thomas swept it up. For once Johnson didn’t argue. “The way I figure it, he was dead to her already. Might’ve been planning to kill her and Lacey, at least if one of his cellmates is to be believed.
“The con claimed Jonas McIntyre hadn’t found Jesus at all, and that he didn’t give two cents about all his legions of fans, that all Jonas really was after was his share of the McIntyre fortune, which would be larger without Kara claiming her share, and even more importantly Jonas was out for revenge.
Unfortunately for Jonas, so was Walter Robinson, and Walter had beat Jonas to the punch when it came to killing Merritt Margrove.
“Jonas certainly got payback,” she said. She was talking about the severed head, found in an old record player, slowly spinning, battery powered, compliments of the electrician Walter Robinson. “What goes around comes around.”
“Ooooh. Bad,” he said, but fought a smile.
“I know. Too far,” she said.
Tate remembered the gore, the headless corpse and the money, thousands of dollars—twenty thousand in blood-splattered bills—next to the torso. Cash that had been stashed and stolen and was now evidence. Blood money.
He changed the subject. “What about Faiza Donner? Was she on Jonas’s list of people to get even with?”
“Who knows? The last I heard she and her boyfriend have hired Alex Rousseau to help them get their hands on the rest of the estate. Roger Sweeney has some connections through an old bandmate to the entertainment business. He took a flight to LA on the day Walter Robinson was killed and met with some TV personality who wants to do another movie on the case.” When she gave him a look, he said, “I got a call from a reporter who asked about it.” The reporter, of course, was Sheila Keegan, who was still hounding him, reminding him that he owed her. He smiled as they walked outside, where the wind blew his jacket open and icy snowflakes caught in his bare head. Maybe finally he’d actually pay his debt.
After all, it was Christmas.
And they were both alone.
“What’re you doing for the holiday?” he asked his partner as he slid behind the wheel and she, adjusting her knitted hat, slid into the passenger seat.
“Ooh, it’s complicated. I get together with my ex and his family. For my son’s sake. You know, my boy’s got some issues.” He waited. “They’re emotional mainly and seem to be improving with medication and . . . and it helps when his dad and I get along, so we do. For Jamie’s sake.” She threw Thomas a glance. “What about you?”
“I’m working tonight.”
“And after?”
“We’ll see,” he said. “I’ll get along.”
But he didn’t mention Sheila Keegan as he drove Johnson back to the station to pick up her car.
That was his little secret.
And it was best to keep it that way.
EPILOGUE
Twelve Months Later
December 24th
Kara walked out of the meeting and flipped up the hood of her jacket. Rain was falling from a deep, gunmetal-gray sky. The forecast was for a wet and gloomy holiday. “No white Christmas this year,” the weatherman had said when she’d turned on the news this morning.
Perfect.
Enough with the snow for the holidays. Maybe someday she’d feel differently about it. But not this year.
She climbed into her vehicle, a five-year-old Subaru Outback she’d settled on the year before, and drove through the city streets, strings of lights glowing brightly, storefronts painted with snowmen and Santas or Nativity scenes all the while touting end-of-the-year sales. Christmas and commercialism. Never far apart.