“But not enough.” He let out a beleaguered breath. “Come on, Kara, you’ve got four-wheel drive. It’ll be a piece of cake.”
Nothing about this was a “piece of cake.”
“So, let me get this straight: You want me to just leave you there? Even though you were at the murder scene.” She was thinking ahead, certain that what he was doing was illegal, what she was doing was nearly as bad. “I can’t. I’m meeting with the police.”
“Right after you drop me off at Hal’s.”
“They’ll find out.”
“Not if you don’t tell them,” he pointed out.
“It’s just not smart.”
“And talking to the cops is? Think about it, Kara. From my perspective.”
What she thought about was that he had a gun. Would he really use it on her? His own sister? Then she remembered Merritt’s ashen face and the gory red gash across his throat. The horror of the night in the mountains. A jury finding Jonas McIntyre guilty of multiple murders. She swallowed hard, her fingers clenched over the steering wheel, her nerves stretched to the breaking point. What did she know about her half brother? How could she even imagine what he’d been through in the last two decades?
“All the cops are gonna do is railroad me, like they did before? Did they even look at anyone else?”
“I think—”
“No,” he cut her off, nearly spitting he was so angry. “They didn’t. And there were plenty of other suspects, y’know. Marlie disappeared, right? So what about Chad, huh? The ‘love of her life’？ The guy that didn’t seem all that broken up about her going missing. In fact, I’m pretty sure he had another girl, ya know, on the side.”
“Another girl?” Kara couldn’t believe it. “Marlie was so in love with him.”
“Yeah, but that girl who was his ‘friend,’ remember? She was his alibi? He ended up marrying her, right?”
“Right.”
“You think that happened after that night. Come on, Kara. Grow the fuck up!”
“But . . . but she was only a kid then.”
“Fourteen.”
“They didn’t get married for years,” she said, trying to remember.
He let out a disbelieving breath. “Wow, are you naive or what?” And then, “Well, what about this, then?” Jonas went on, ignoring Kara’s argument as he was on a roll. “Maybe Walter Robinson? He hated Dad, y’know, for stealing his wife away? Dad and Zelda had a hot affair behind Walter’s back, and Dad got her pregnant with you. Besides, Walter had been in the military—would have been good with a sword.”
“But you didn’t see him?”
“Not enough to ID him,” he said, using the same defense he had all those years ago, that he’d only caught a glimpse of the intruder in the dark, a masked figure whom he struggled with but couldn’t identify, a fierce attacker who had somehow gotten hold of the sword and left no fingerprints on the weapon, probably because the assailant was wearing gloves at the time.
“And the cops, they didn’t even look at Silas Dean. Dad screwed him over, or at least he swore it. And they fought. I saw them, earlier in the day, screaming at each other.”
So had Kara. Dean had been a short, spark plug of a man, bald aside from a ring of jet-black hair and thick, horn-rimmed glasses covering his eyes. Kara had seen her father, a good six inches taller than Dean, ushering him out the front door. “Leave it alone, Silas. It’s done.”
“And it’s cost us thousands. Me thousands.”
“Ancient history.”
“You’re a fucker, McIntyre. You knew this was how it was going to go down and you’ll live to regret it. I’ll make sure of it,” Silas had said.
“He . . . he left.” The court had heard Silas’s threats, but his alibi had been tight and he’d sworn he’d driven home and cooled off.
“Yeah, right, I know,” Jonas said with a huff of disgust. “But he could’ve come back to the house! And who would be the wiser? His fingerprints were already there.” Jonas was working himself up even further, years of pent-up anger spewing out. “And who’s to say it was a guy. What about Marlie?”
“What?” Now he was grasping at straws.
“Why the hell did she run, huh? Did you ever ask yourself that?”
“No, that’s not possible,” Kara said, one eye on the road, one on the mirror where she saw his darkened silhouette. “Marlie would never—”