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“No,” she whispered aloud, and clicked off the phone. Lying on the bed, her head propped by pillows, she stared vacantly to the wall where the picture hung, a photograph of her entire family, caught in a moment in time. They had all been gathered at the cabin, and Mama had insisted they sit for a family picture, outside near the lake, a professional photographer hired.
It was supposed to show the blended family as happy. Normal.
But it hadn’t been. Nor would it ever.
She blinked against a spate of tears and studied the photo that she knew by heart.
Backdropped by the lake in summer, the entire family was strung out on a log.
Mama standing behind Donner and Marlie, who sat next to each other on the mossy downed tree. Daddy had his hand on his two sons’ shoulders, a relaxed left hand over Sam Junior’s, while the fingers of his right were tight over Jonas’s upper arm. Kara was seated in the middle between Jonas and Marlie, and everyone smiled at the camera while the sun set. Everyone but Jonas. Even then, he was somber, his eyes, beneath the shag of dark hair, narrowed, his lips compressed, his arms crossed over his chest. He looked as if he would rather be anywhere else in the world.
Her eyes returned to her only sister. What had Marlie known? Why had her clothes been folded neatly on the edge of her bed when she’d never been particularly tidy? Why had she spirited Kara up to the attic? She’d been scared. Frightened out of her mind. And yet she hadn’t hidden with Kara up in that dark garret. Instead, she’d insisted she’d return.
But she hadn’t.
Not ever.
A lump filled Kara’s throat and she felt the sting of tears behind her eyes. What had happened to her sister? And could it be worse than what had happened to her brothers? She remembered inching down the stairs, the dread pounding in her brain, her fingers trailing along the railing as the Christmas carol whispered up the stairs—
“Stop it!” she screamed, and felt her heartbeat pounding in her skull. This was insane! She couldn’t do it anymore. “You arenota victim. You survived. Remember. You arenota victim.”
Shaking inside, Kara climbed off the bed, pulled the picture from the wall, and shoved it facedown in her bottom drawer, stuffing it beneath her seldom-worn sweatshirts. She’d never liked the picture in the first place. It had always served as a painful reminder of her life before the tragedy, but Aunt Faiza had insisted she keep it.
“Someday, you’ll be glad you have it,” Auntie Fai had said.
“Not today,” Kara said out loud, and thought silently,not ever,as her cell, left precisely where she’d dropped it on the bed earlier, began to ring.
Across the room in an instant, Kara scooped up the phone. The same unknown number. “Who is this?” she demanded as she clicked it on.
Again the sounds of wind rushing.
“Who are you?” More loudly and she realized she was shaking. Head to toe.
“She’s alive,” came the same whispered reply.
“Who? Who’s alive?” Marlie? Was the person talking about Marlie? Who else?
No response.
“Marlie? Are you talking about Marlie?” Kara demanded of the silent connection.
“Who the hell are you?” she demanded, unable to keep the panic from her voice.
Nothing.
“Why are you doing this? Who—?”
The phone went dead in her hand.
“Oh, God,” she murmured, backing up, staring at the screen. Who had been on the other end of the call?
Jonas.
It wasn’t a coincidence that the texts and calls started tonight, less than twenty-four hours since he was released.
Her throat was dry as cotton.
Her hands shook.