Page 13

“Merry Christmas,” Dr. Zhou said.
“Merry Christmas to you, too.” Kara’s voice caught and she felt she might break down, so she gathered her coat and scarf and left rapidly before the stupid tears fell. As she hurried down the carpeted hallway, past a few other doors with nameplates for a variety of medical offices, she slipped her arms through the sleeves of her long coat and wrapped her scarf quickly around her neck.
She pushed her way through the glass doors of this building, originally a three-story house, and crossed a small parking lot, where her dirty Jeep was waiting near an ice-crusted pothole, and unlocked her SUV remotely.
The snow had been shoveled and salted away, but now the sky was threatening again, the clouds overhead turning steely and dark, night fast approaching. She checked the interior.
No one hiding.
Once inside, she fired up the engine. By habit, she locked her doors, then checked her mirrors. No one appeared in the reflection, no deranged killer out to get her, but she did catch sight of her own worried eyes, a hazel color that threatened to fill again with tears. “Stop it!” she said, then turned her iPhone off of silent mode, set it in her cup holder and hit the gas. The Jeep squirreled backward before she rammed the gearshift into drive.
Her cell beeped and she glanced at the screen.
Aunt Faiza’s name popped up on the screen.
“Nope,” she muttered, “definitely not now. Maybe not ever.” She wasn’t going to deal with the woman who had so eagerly agreed to raise her only to tap into her inheritance—an inheritance that she would finally be able to claim when she turned twenty-eight in two weeks’ time. Nor did she want to hear any of Faiza’s nosy questions or her wearisome recriminations. That part of Kara’s life was over. The fact that Auntie Fai still lived in the family home, a mansion in the West Hills overlooking the city of Portland, should have bothered her; by rights Kara would inherit it. But she didn’t care. The grand home with its seven bedrooms, sweeping staircase and breathtaking views was only a painful reminder of a life of which she’d been robbed. Aunt Faiza had been her appointed guardian, and she and her musician boyfriend had taken over the place to care for Kara, but their lack of attention had been palpable, and Kara had spent most of her growing-up years with Merritt Margrove and his second wife, Helen. Their small home on the east side of the river, a bungalow tucked into the narrow streets of Sellwood, had been more of a home than the big house on the forested hills.
Hitting the gas, she sped into the flow of traffic and cut off a lumbering pickup. For her efforts she earned an angry shake of the red-capped driver’s fist and an angry blast of his horn, but she didn’t care, just kept driving. The phone rang again. Aunt Faiza wasn’t giving up.
“Great.” She took the next corner at the last minute, backtracking slightly to wheel into the crowded parking lot of the liquor store. “Bad idea,” Kara said under her breath, but cut the engine, stepped out, locked the car and pocketed her keys as she walked inside.
The territory was familiar, the transaction easy.
Two bottles of Merlot and, for good measure, a fifth of vodka.
After all, the holidays were fast approaching. And her brother was being released from the big house. Time to celebrate, and God knew Kara needed a little Christmas cheer. Well, make thata lotof Christmas cheer.
The woman at the register was in her fifties and smelled of cigarettes and breath mints. Her face was lined prematurely, and her orange-tinged hair was partially covered by a jaunty elf’s cap complete with a bell that jingled as she moved her head.
Merry Christmas.
Kara paid in cash and ignored the curious look the cashier cast as she handed back change and bagged the bottles.
Damn. The woman was trying to place her.
Kara loved her anonymity.
Which, she knew, was about to be shattered.
As if to reinforce her thoughts, she noticed a newspaper on a nearby rack. The headline screamed: KILLER IN COLD LAKE MASSACRE TO BE RELEASED. And in smaller letters:JONAS MCINTYRE TO BE SET FREE.
Kara’s stomach soured. Bile rose up her throat.
As the next customer, a sixtysomething woman in a long red coat and matching beret, set her bottles of wine on the counter, Kara grabbed the top copy in the stack of papers and said, “I’ll take this, too.” She dropped a five on the counter.
“Wait a second,” the patron said in a snooty, put-upon voice, her lips, the exact shade of her coat, turning into a tight frown. “I was next.”
“You were. But I was here first. Merry Christmas.” As the woman gaped at her insolence, Kara told the cashier, “Put the change in there,” and pointed to a jar for donations to a local dog rescue.
“Well, I never!” the customer said.
“I’m sure you never did.” Kara tucked the newspaper under her arm, leaving the woman in the beret glaring after her.
Not smart, Kara. Remember: You want to blend into the shadows. Remain anonymous.“Yeah, right.”
Bottles clinking in the bag, she hurried outside, where night had fallen, darkness settling in, streetlamps glowing while snow began to fall again.
She checked the back, then dropped the bag on the passenger seat and pulled out of the lot, the woman in the beret sending her a dark look as she slipped behind the wheel of a white Mercedes.