Page 92 of The Agreement

She was anything but.

“Who is Katee?” he asked instead.

Karine shook her head. “I don’t know.”

“Come on. You need to trust me, and tell me the truth.”

What was he talking about?

Stepping closer, Roman flipped through the pages—his hands a manic frenzy—until he seemed to find the one he was looking for.

“You don’t know who this is?” Roman asked, turning the sketchbook around to force her to look at the image. Karine’s stomach seemed to cave when she had no choice but to face the picture. Someone had drawn a young girl’s face in angry strokes with a lot of different colors. However, there was no mistaking who it was—her. “A self portrait, maybe?”

His burning glare remained locked on her while she found that she couldn’t look away from the drawing.

“That is you,” he added firmly when she didn't reply.

She glanced up at him, water filling her eyes and her lips parting slightly, the urge to cry out for help welling within her. Somehow, she shoved it back down long enough to utter, “I don’t know who drew that.”

“Karine.”

“I don’t!”

Roman shot her another stinging, fleeting look, muttering, “And this?”

He flipped over to the next page, and what she saw there made her wince. It was a picture of a man. Undeniably Dima, but with exaggerated facial features like a caricature from a cartoon, maybe. It was drawn in the same style as the previous portrait with varying colors, except this one had been violently scribbled and scratched over. Possibly with nails and crayons to the point that the page had torn in several places.

The anger and pain radiated from the page—bleeding into the lines and colors, evident in the wear and tear.

“There’s no way you don’t know who drew this, Karine. It was under your bed. You know who Katee is—you can tell me.”

Roman’s voice dripped with bitterness, but he still tried to soften it. He wanted her to trust him with the information he apparently had, except she didn’t have the answers.

“I don’t know,” she insisted.

Again.

Roman sighed harshly, squaring his shoulders as he scrubbed a hand down his jaw. His patience was quickly running out, it seemed.

“What do you think will happen to her when you marry Dima, and you’re no longer here to protect her?” he demanded.

What?

Karine shook her head violently, saying only “Protect who? I don’t know that girl.”

Her denials did nothing.

“Is she here? Do they keep her hidden—like you? Out of view?” Every question slammed into her harder than the last. Roman’s tone grew deeper, and darker, unrelenting in a quest she hadn’t known even started until it was too late. Her soul was stripped and exposed for him under his scrutiny, but she couldn’t get away. He wasn’t anywhere near finished, saying, “You’re gambling with a child’s life. That can’t be who you are.”

Roman wasn’t the only one becoming desperate, though. Karine’s mind raced to find a way to convince him she wasn’t lying—her words spilled out in a rush before she could stop them, or consider what she said.

“No, she’s not here ... I’ve never even heard that name before! I don’t know Katee.”

Yet, as she said the name, images from her past dreams ran through her mind at lightning speed. A movie reel she couldn’t escape. A little girl’s arms wrapped around a tree trunk as she spun and spun. Humming a nursery rhyme she didn’t recognize. Karine continued to shake her head, rubbing at her mouth and face, even her forehead and into her hairline, with her fingertips to rid the sudden itch that seemed to crawl over her nerves.

“You’re saying you’ve never seen these before?”

Karine blinked, not wanting to lie but also ... “Once, maybe twice. But only the drawings, and never—”