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CHAPTER 33
Kara’s heart was in her throat as she stared at the splash of light from the Toyota’s headlights against the rusting gate. They were parked on the turnoff to the lane leading to the house—her house—where all of the horror had begun.
On the short drive from the cottage where Tate had spent his summers as a child, he’d told her that he was certain his father had been trying to convey something about what he’d seen that night. Tate thought that Edmund Tate had whispered, “Semper fi,” in his dying breath. “It’s got to be someone he knew in the Marine Corps. Someone he saw,” Wes had said, gripping the steering wheel tightly, his face a mask of steel as the wheels turned in his mind. “I’ve got someone checking, but we’re close, Kara,” he’d said. “We’re closer than we’ve ever been.”
And now they were here, at the very gates of hell, she thought, and felt a grave sense of foreboding, a feeling that what they were about to uncover would be as disturbing as the past.
Some secrets are best left undisturbed.
Her hands clenched, her stomach was in knots and she had trouble drawing a breath as the beams of Tate’s RAV4’s headlights bathed the old, rusted gates with an eerie glow. Kara shrank into the passenger seat. What had seemed like a good idea earlier in the day now felt wrong. So very wrong.
“You okay?” Tate asked, cutting the engine, the night closing in on them as snowflakes fell and she heard the wind sweeping through the surrounding forest.
“Am I ever?” she replied as another warning chill slid down her spine. “No, I’m definitely not okay.”
“We don’t have to do this.”
“Don’t we?” Ignoring the mounting trepidations, she grabbed hold of the passenger door handle. “We didn’t come all the way up here for me to wimp out now.” Mentally bracing herself for whatever was to come, she forced herself to push the door open. Air as bitter and cold as the Arctic whooshed inside the Toyota. “We’re here now. Let’s get this over with.” She stepped out of the SUV, her boots sinking deep into the snow, and gritted her teeth.Enough,she told herself. She’d been through enough. It was time to end this.
Slamming the door behind her, she walked to the gates. Staring through the grimy bars, she heard Tate get out of the RAV4, then the beep of the remote lock that seemed out of place and jarring in this hushed, frozen forest.
What the hell had she been thinking?
This is a mistake, Kara! Go back to Tate’s loft. Forget this. Have another drink. Have five. You don’t have to go back in. Tate said so.
No, she had to go through with it.Hadto.
A faded real estate sign was still attached to the steel bars, and obviously the electronic lock had given way long ago as a thick chain now held the gates closed.
Tate had come prepared, bringing a backpack full of tools. He snipped the chain with a bolt cutter and pulled one side of the gate open, dragging it through a foot of snow until the opening was wide enough for Kara to slip through.
Once inside the grounds, she started walking along the curved lane that cut through the towering icy evergreens. In an instant she remembered how her mother had strung clear lights from one thick trunk to another, winding hundreds of tiny bulbs between the branches and illuminating the approach to the old house.
No lights now.
None for a long, long time.
“You’re sure about this?” Tate asked, catching up with her.
“I told you: I’m not sure about anything. But we’re here now. So let’s just do it.”
Dr. Zhou’s advice, “Face your fears,” came to mind, though Kara wondered what her shrink would make of this, because being here at the scene of the McIntyre Massacre was definitely her worst and darkest fear. As they rounded a final curve, the trees parted and the house came into view.
Three stories of time-darkened cedar rose in a clearing surrounded by towering hemlocks and long-needled pines. A wide front porch skirted the lower level, where the windows had been boarded, some tagged with spray paint.
Kara squinted upward to the second story and the corner bedroom she’d shared with Marlie. Her stomach dropped as she took in the sight of the once-stately, almost glorious mansion. Even in the surrounding darkness she saw that the roof of the porch sagged slightly, weighted as it was with snow, and the siding was rotting in spots, evidence of rodent habitation visible. Most of the lower windows had been boarded, some of the weathered plywood, too, showing evidence of spray paint.
“Before . . . before what happened that night,” she whispered, “I used to love this place. We spent summers up here and everyone seemed . . . happier. The boys were always out in the woods, hunting or playing war or whatever or swimming in the lake and boating and fishing or waterskiing. Marlie too.” She bit her lip, remembering. “I was too young for that, but I could ride in the boat with Daddy. And then . . . that year we came up for Christmas. We always did, but it was different,” she said, remembering the hostilities, the simmering anger, how everyone was on edge. “Jonas and Donner were at each other and Sam Junior was quieter than he had been, as if he’d retreated within himself. “Marlie was sulking because Chad hadn’t been included. Mom and Dad had laid down the law, ‘No one but family,’ that was the rule at Christmas and it included people who hadn’t married in, so Auntie Faiza boycotted as she couldn’t bring Roger.”
Kara cast Tate another glance. “Really pissed Faiza off. She kept saying, ‘Blood is thicker than water, Zelda,’ in the weeks before Christmas, but Mama wouldn’t budge. At least not for Roger. But that wasn’t quite right, because,” she struggled to remember, “I think Merritt was here, too. I didn’t see him—at least I don’t remember seeing him, and he definitely didn’t stay for dinner—but . . . but I think I remember catching sight of his car.” But was that right? She struggled with the memory, a headache forming as she kept walking toward the house, across the area where everyone had parked, the broad, flat space that butted up to the steps.
“Why would Margrove come up here on Christmas? He had his own family.”
“Right.” She nodded. “He was married to Helen then,” she said, remembering the woman who had helped raise her. “That was his second wife. She was . . . she was great but couldn’t put up with his gambling and other women. But I don’t know why he was here. Maybe for drinks or maybe because of Jonas, he was always in trouble with the law, getting in fights.”
“Including that one with Donner?” They reached the house and Kara paused, staring at the massive double doors, trying to find the will to enter.
“That was bad,” she admitted. “So bad that Walter Robinson was threatening to sue for full custody even though they were nearly adults. It was all probably just a stupid bluff, just to get back at her and make trouble. Nonetheless, Mama was beside herself.”