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CHAPTER 11
He’d blown it.
His one big chance to nail an interview with Kara McIntyre, and Wesley Tate had flat out blown it. He finished his breakfast burrito in the corner café, scooted his chair back and, slipping on his ski jacket, walked outside into the cold, all the while mentally beating himself up. He should have gone at her another way, he thought as he melded with a thin stream of pedestrians walking briskly under the awnings of the stores lining the street, their breaths mingling in a visible cloud.
As Tate crossed the street, he passed a couple of teenage girls bundled in thick coats, hats and gloves. One was eating a donut, crumbs clinging to her glossed lips, the other was deep into her phone, scanning the small screen as she walked, somehow avoiding people hurrying in the opposite direction. Both girls’ noses were red, their cheeks flushed from the cold, though they seemed unaware of the temperature.
It was freezing. An east wind blasted through the canyon, whipping along the jagged river, creating whitecaps before slicing through the streets of Whimstick and rattling windows of some of the original buildings built upon its shores. The town had been originally erected at the bend in the river, the first buildings circa 1840, huddled around what had been a single-lane bridge built for horses and wagons. Over the course of nearly two centuries, the population of Whimstick had steadily grown, buildings encroaching on the surrounding hills and sprawling around the point where the river curved backward on itself, like a snake that hadn’t quite coiled.
Tate’s family had lived here for four generations. He figured that was long enough and had sworn at his high school graduation that he was moving out and moving on, heading to college in California and from there? Who knew. All he’d been certain of at the time was that he was never returning.
And he’d been wrong.
Dead wrong.
So much for idealistic dreams and teenage declarations, he thought as he rounded a corner near what had once been a mom-and-pop grocery but now sold antiques and “gently used” furniture. He sidestepped a man walking a dog, some kind of beagle mix that nosed every crack and cranny in the building’s façade.
Tate had fantasized that by this age he would be a famous photojournalist who jetted off to all of the hot spots in the world, reporting on wars and military coups and juntas. Or, failing that, a sports reporter.
Instead, he’d settled for crime journalist and returned to Whimstick when his sister had called and informed him that his mother needed help. She’d been in a car accident that had crushed her pelvis and broken both legs while trying to take care of his stepdad. Darvin had been diagnosed with dementia for three years when she had been in the near-fatal accident, so she’d needed help. Badly. His sister, at the time, had two jobs, a kid under two, and had been separated from her loser of a husband.
That had been ten years ago.
Now, he was still here in the converted warehouse with its unique view of the river.
Once inside his loft, he peeled out of his jacket and hung it on the hall tree that served as a closet. The apartment was austere with its concrete walls, tall windows, and exposed pipes. He’d furnished it with a couch, recliner, and an area rug he’d picked up at a garage sale when he’d moved back to Oregon. His table doubled as a desk. He’d bought the old claw-foot at a flea market, along with his filing cabinet, which was really an old TV console, circa 1950, built of sturdy blond wood and now devoid of the television and stereo that had once been the guts of it.
He did have a bed, pushed into one corner, and a flat-screen dominated one wall. But that was it. When he’d rented the loft, he’d thought this place would be temporary. So far, he’d been wrong.
Just like he was about so many things.
Including his attempt to get an interview with Kara McIntyre.
“Idiot,” he said to himself as he dropped into his desk chair and rolled it closer to his monitor, a large screen that connected to his laptop. He pushed aside the various legal pads, newspaper clippings and printed reports that were scattered over the surface.
Tate had foolishly thought that if he could see Kara McIntyre face-to-face, if he could find some way to gain her trust, that he might have a chance for an interview. Not only did he want to find out the truth and expose what had really happened on the night of the massacre, but he also had plans for a book of his own on the subject, told from the unique perspective of the son of one of the victims. Kara’s take on what happened, as she’d been the prime witness, a kid herself, would add to the whole concept of the “kids as survivors” theme.
Of course, she didn’t trust him, but he’d figured he would be able to gain her confidence, if only she’d give him a chance.
So he’d played it for what it was worth.
Feigning being injured.
In that split second when she was backing up, he’d made the decision and thumped the side of her Jeep with his fist before throwing himself down in the pile of snow.
It had been a quickly concocted ruse.
And she’d seen right through it.
Let him know it on the ride back to his parked SUV.
So now, he wasn’t even back to square one. He was at square minus eleven or so. “Idiot,” he said again. The only injury he’d sustained was the serious wound to his male pride. He should have just gone up to her front door. That had been the original plan. And then when he noticed the garage door rolling upward, he’d taken advantage of the situation and the whole thing backfired spectacularly.
He’d have to tread carefully.
And he might need help.
Someone who had military training, someone who was a techno wiz, who had the skills and connections to help him in his attempts to gain information that seemed locked away from him.