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She told herself she had nothing to fear from him, but she remembered her testimony all too clearly, how the female attorney with the pinned-up blond hair and bright blue eyes had asked her questions, twisting her words, making it seem like Kara thought Jonas had actually killed the family. And she remembered the way he had stared at her throughout her time on the witness stand, his eyes focused on her, his jaw tight. She’d shredded a tissue as she’d answered the questions, twisting the fragile paper until it disintegrated in her sweaty hands as she described how she’d come down the stairs and into the living room and her parents’ bedroom, the horror she’d discovered and the bodies, only Jonas surviving.
Worse yet, the man sitting beside Jonas, Merritt Margrove, had tried to change her story, to suggest that someone else, possibly even Marlie, had hacked the family to pieces, to level questions to push the jury to a little doubt, enough to clear his client.
It all came rushing back again, the horror movie in her head replaying over and over. “Stop it!” She stomped a foot and balled her fists.
Rhapsody lifted her head and gave off a worried “Woof.” Bright eyes focused on Kara.
“Sorry.”Calm down. Just calm the hell down!Taking a long breath, she stopped to pet the dog, who thumped her tail and yawned, showing a pink tongue, black lips, and sharp white teeth before closing her eyes again. “It’s okay,” she said, but didn’t believe it for a second.
Scooping up her phone, she flopped back onto the bed again and speed-dialed Merritt Margrove, only to have the call go directly to voice mail. So, what did she expect? That he was bent over his computer, working, phone nearby? It was 3:36 in the morning for God’s sake.
Great.
“It’s Kara,” she said when prompted. “Is Jonas with you? Do you know where he is? Call me.” She disconnected, then, carrying her cell, walked through the house again, counting the doors again to make certain they were still locked and slamming the dead bolt of her bedroom.
* * *
Click!
Merritt Margrove opened a bleary eye.
What the hell was that?
A sound out of the ordinary.
He blinked twice to the eerie, undulating light cast from the television across the small room. His head pounded and his neck ached from his unnatural position on the futon. With a groan, he sat up and then paused as the late-night movie,Fallen Angel,a 1940s film noir, resumed after a commercial.
Rubbing his eyes, he focused on the near-empty glass of scotch sitting by a messy pile of his notes, his glowing iMac, his cell, and an overflowing ash tray. A half-eaten pepperoni pizza was on the counter separating the kitchen from the living area, still smelling of spicy tomato sauce and nearly burned cheese. Here, in the trailer, he could partake of all his vices without his watchful wife remarking on lung cancer, emphysema, or cholesterol. No doubt Celeste knew what he was up to. How many times had he heard her singsong, “When the cat’s away, the mice will play”?
“Too damned many,” he said, and twisted his neck until it popped and loosened. He should go to bed. He’d lost track of the movie’s plot as he’d dozed, and he couldn’t work any longer. And the storm outside had become a rager. Wind tearing down the canyon and rushing through the pines. He glanced at his notes, the pages he’d printed off of his laptop, worth, he hoped, a fortune. His insight into the McIntyre Massacre and the fact that, even after all these years, he’d gotten Jonas McIntyre off should be worth a small fortune. Maybe even a large fortune. He envisioned a book deal and maybe a movie or series about what was a horrific crime. Oh, yeah, a couple of books had already been published, but not with his insight, not with interviews from the man falsely accused, not with the secrets Margrove knew.
He felt a zip in his bloodstream that he hadn’t experienced in years. The book was destined to be a best-seller, the movie a goddamned blockbuster. And his career would be back on track.
Merritt V. Margrove was back, baby.
Or would be soon. Very soon.
The first stumbling block of getting Jonas out had been accomplished, even if it had taken two damned decades.
He reached for his lighter and pack of Camels on the coffee table. Lighting up, Margrove let his thoughts spin to the future. He could see it all now—the book tour and television and newspaper interviews. In the interviews he’d talk about the legal ins and outs of the case, how he’d worked the court system and discovered the damning mistake in the evidence chain regarding the murder weapon. It would lead to how he, through perseverance and hard work, had sprung his client. Yes, it had taken nearly twenty years, but Jonas was still a young man, on the good side of forty, and he had dozens, no, hundreds of fans. Jonas knew. He’d been the one to keep the websites and social media accounts active, made sure Jonas was never far from the public eye, and it didn’t hurt that he’d grown into an Adonis. Well, maybe that was a stretch, but he was good-looking in a brooding, bad-boy way that kept the girls and women interested.
Oh, yeah, things were going to be fabulous.
He took a drag on his cigarette, leaned back, and blew smoke rings at the ceiling of this used, dilapidated single-wide. All that was going to change. No more hiding up here from Celeste. Nope. As a matter of fact, maybe no more Celeste. His wife was getting under his skin and not in a good way. She was into health food—something called “clean eating” that didn’t include any of the foods he liked. No beef. No nachos. No pizza. And booze? Forget it! Cigarettes? Tantamount to poison! Celeste couldn’t abide the smell of them, though when he’d met her, she smoked like a chimney. What was it his mother had said, “There’s nothing worse than a reformed sinner.” Well, amen to that. Celeste was his third and, he vowed, last wife, twenty years younger than he, a hairdresser, and much too serious these days with her interest in yoga, green tea, and fake hamburger. How “clean” was faux meat?
Another advertisement flashed onto the television screen, this one for Cialis—boner medication—and he paid a little more attention. Lately his dick wasn’t what it had been, not as super sensitive and hard as it was in his heyday. But he blamed Celeste for that, too. She was just impatient, or tired or . . . whatever.
Click.
He heard the sound again. Over the announcer telling him how to put a little juice in his love life and the whistle of the wind cutting through the woods.
So what the hell was it?
No one knew he was here.
Hell, no one even knew about this place.
Just Celeste.