Page 128

He braced himself.
“Dinner rolls and appetizers.”
“What?”
“That’s what you’re bringing to Christmas dinner.”
“Wait a minute—”
“Christmas is this weekend, Wesley, and we’re celebrating. As I said, we all need to get on with our lives and Our Lord’s birthday is the perfect time. See you then. Love you, Wesley.”
“Me too, Mom,” he said by rote, but she’d already cut the connection. He leaned back in the car seat and replayed the conversation in his mind. It wasn’t that she wasn’t right. But he couldn’t let it go. Researching and writing the book wasn’t only cathartic, it would provide answers to questions that had been gnawing at him for two decades.
And being close to Kara McIntyre would help.
* * *
“You think your missing sister is calling and texting you?” Johnson asked Kara, obviously skeptical. They were still standing in the hallway outside the interview room, the two detectives staring intently at her.
“No, I don’t think it’s her. I mean . . . no. Why would she say ‘she’s alive’ if Marlie’s calling to tell me she was okay? Wouldn’t she say, ‘I’m alive’?”
“Maybe to hide her identity,” Thomas said as a stern-looking fiftysomething deputy striding in the opposite direction squared his hat over his head as he passed. “Excuse me,” he muttered, and they all shifted to one side of the wide corridor.
“Okay, I know it doesn’t make any sense,” Kara admitted. “But I can’t help but feel that . . .” She let her voice trail off.
“That what?” Johnson prompted.
Kara shook her head and felt the stitches in her head pinch a bit. “I want to believe Marlie’s alive.” There, she’d said it, admitting to the police what was really in her heart, the fantasy she’d held on to for two decades.
“Of course you do,” Thomas said, as if he understood.
“So, I see her, you know?” Kara admitted, and rubbed her arms nervously. “Sometimes I swear I see her and then, of course, it turns out it’s just some stranger. And the truth is, I don’t even know what she would look like.”
Thomas said, “Come with me.” He started walking down the hallway. “I want to show you something.” At the end of the corridor, before they reached the reception area, he turned another couple of corners until he reached a glassed-in office, his office, she guessed, by the way he sat down in a worn chair and fiddled with the computer mouse on his desk. He logged in quickly, his eyes focused on the screen until he located the file he wanted and pulled up an image.
Her breath caught in the back of her throat.
“Marlie,” she whispered, staring at the woman on the monitor. “Oh, God.”
“Computer-enhanced, aged through a program we’ve got.”
She felt the skin at the back of her neck prickle. “I’ve seen her,” she whispered, thinking back to the group that had gathered outside the hospital and the woman in the red scarf and tinted glasses. “She is alive.”