“I’m okay. Really.”
Tell him you’d like a beer or a glass of wine.
“Hungry?” As if he’d read her earlier thoughts.
“Is it that obvious?”
He grinned. “Maybe. Anyway, I’m starved. So let’s do it!”
“Well, yeah, I could eat, but more importantly, I need to get a phone, at least a temporary one, one of those burners, I guess, until I get mine back from the police. And then there’s the whole rental car thing.”
“Through the insurance company.”
She’d already thought of that. “Eventually, but I need wheels ASAP.”
“You’ve got ID? You’ll need it.”
She groaned. “Again—”
“With the police?”
“Right.”
“Okay.” He frowned. “Well, first things first. I’ve already called for delivery. From a mom-and-pop deli just up the street.”
“Great.”
“And we can stop at a store to pick up a phone, but I’m pretty sure you’ll need ID.”
“Shit.”
He stood. “The police should release your cell back to you but like it or not, you’re gonna have to talk to the cops sooner or later and get your stuff back. Driver’s license? Keys?”
“I vote for later.” She buried her nose in her cup and took a long swallow. She didn’t want to think about being grilled by the police, having to answer question upon question about Merritt. About the past. About anything.
“If you want your belongings and to start dealing with getting a new car, that’s the fastest way possible.”
“I know, I know.” She’d already told herself the same as she’d washed her hair in the shower. “I just need a little time.”
“Emphasis on ‘little,’ ” he said as a buzzer sounded, and he hurried down the stairs.
The second he’d disappeared she made her way over to his computer to take a peek. She tapped a key so that the display appeared—a screen saver requiring a password. Of course. As for the scribbles on his legal pad, the only words that leapt out at her were names:
Marlie
Donner
Samuel
Zelda
Jonas
Sam Junior
Kara
But not just the names of family members.
Others associated with the family and that brutal, hideous night were included. Skimming the list, she saw notes about her mother’s sister, Faiza, and her musician boyfriend. Both of her parents’ exes and, of course, Lacey Higgins and Chad Atwater, with whom Marlie had supposedly been in love.
And she had been.
Head over heels.
Kara remembered.
“He’s just so . . . so awesome, Kara-Bear,” Marlie had confided on Thanksgiving night at their home in the city. Located in the West Hills of Portland, the McIntyre estate was composed of nearly two sprawling acres cut into the forested slopes. Their huge, rambling home that Mama was forever redecorating was positioned so that the back of the three-story home with its bank of windows had what Daddy had called “a million-dollar view” overlooking the city sprawled upon the banks of the Willamette River far below. Beyond the city, far in the distance, stood Mount Hood, a jagged peak that towered on a ridge of mountains and, on bright summer mornings, was backlit by the rising sun.
This Thanksgiving night was clear, a million stars winking overhead, the glittering lights of the city visible through the trees surrounding the grounds.
The sisters had slipped outside, escaping the noise of the house: a raucous game of Risk the boys had been playing and the argument between Mama and her sister that had escalated through the evening fueled by after-dinner drinks.
Unannounced, Auntie Fai had brought her latest boyfriend to the family dinner. Mama hadn’t been happy with Faiza’s “ingratitude and arrogance” and had let her sister know it. Faiza, defiant and “bullheaded,” had been unfazed, even smug as she’d introduced Roger Sweeney, a struggling guitar player in a local band, as they’d arrived. Mama’s small chin had become rock hard, her smile fixed, her eyes glittering with indignation. For his part, Roger hadn’t said much but taken in everything with his deep-set, pale eyes above a hooked nose and thin lips surrounded by a neat little beard and moustache. An earring had sparkled from one of his earlobes, his hair was turning gray and had been clipped back into a thin ponytail, and both of his middle fingers had been tattooed with images of a wolf’s heads. Though he’d been quiet, Kara had felt that Roger, too, had enjoyed seeing Mama seethe and Daddy try to smooth her ruffled feathers by smiling tightly and mixing drinks.