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“He said he had a meeting with Merritt and when he got there, Merritt had already been . . . been killed.” She shivered, remembering the lawyer lying on the old shag carpet. “It was awful.” Her voice had lowered.
Thomas asked, “Did you see anyone else there? When you arrived?”
“No, I didn’t even see Jonas.”
“But you didn’t wait for the police,” Johnson said. Not really a question.
“No,” Kara answered anyway. “I couldn’t stay there.”
“Had you been drinking?” Johnson asked, and Kara flashed back to the airplane-size vodka bottles that they’d no doubt found.
“That morning?” she asked. “No. But the night before? Yeah.”
“And you were driving?”
“While drinking? No.” She shook her head. Her blood was pounding in her eardrums. She needed to get out of here!
Johnson’s eyes narrowed a fraction, but she let it go. “What can you tell us about the night of the massacre?”
Kara had been expecting this. “Nothing more than what I already did. You have my statement and deposition, everything I testified to in court.”
Thomas was nodding, but Johnson said, “You were just a kid. And there were some holes in your memory.”
“That hasn’t changed,” Kara said.
Johnson cocked her head, a friendly gesture intended to say she didn’t quite believe it. “Surely over the years you’ve had time to think about it. And I imagine you did a lot. You’ve read recounts of it, seen the TV movie, even probably trolled chat rooms about it. Something could have jogged your memory.”
“Nothing did,” Kara said firmly. She recounted her memories of that horrid, fateful and savage night, just as she remembered them, from the moment Marlie had locked her into the attic, the horror of finding her family members slain, the intruder in the doorway and running through the forest, hallucinating that her bloodied family was chasing her and ending up falling through the ice into the dark, icy depths of the lake. “Then when I woke up I found out that the guy chasing me was Edmund Tate and that he died saving my life.”
Neither Thomas nor Johnson had interrupted her as she’d gotten lost in thought, the interview room melting away as she was once again a child of seven, witnessing the horror of the night that had altered the course of her life forever. Memories washed over her, some crystal clear, others so foggy as to be opaque, but all so real that, as she narrated her story, she felt goose bumps rise on the back of her arms.
“Some of it is a blur, even afterward,” she admitted. “There were police officers and social workers and . . .” Shivering, she stared straight ahead, blinking to bring herself back to the present.
They asked her more questions, having her repeat her answers, going over every detail until she thought she might go out of her mind. She had to end it. “I think we’re done,” she said, and scraped back her chair. “Really, I can’t tell you anything else.”
Johnson seemed about to argue, but Thomas held up a hand. “Thank you. I think we’ve got what we need.”
“But we might call on you again, and if you think of anything else, please phone.”
I won’t.But she held that in and said, “You have some of my things. I need my purse and phone.”
Thomas nodded. “That we do. And you can have them. Of course.”
Johnson pushed back her chair. “I’ll get them.”
Thomas said, “You’ll need to fill out a release.”
“And my Jeep?”
“We’re not quite done with it,” Thomas said. “But as soon as it’s been completely processed, you can claim it and deal with the towing company and insurance, now that you’ve filled out the accident report. It’ll probably be just a day or two.”
Johnson returned with the release and a clear plastic bag. Her phone and purse were visible, along with a pair of sunglasses, a bottle of hand sanitizer, an umbrella, a flashlight and the two empty vodka bottles. Her stomach clenched at the sight of the tiny blue empties, but she didn’t remark and signed the release after checking the contents of her purse.
She slid her phone from its plastic bag and turned it on as she gathered her coat. “The driver of the semi?” she asked as her phone came to life. “Sven Aaronsen? Do you know how he’s doing?”
“Hanging in there.” Thomas opened the door and walked her down the hallway.
“Thank God.” Kara didn’t realize how worried she’d been until that moment. “He’s going to make it, then?”