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CHAPTER 12
Her gloved fingers scraping the door handle of her Jeep, Kara bit back a scream and scrambled inside.
As the engine fired, she hit the gas, reversed crazily, then rammed the Cherokee into drive and took off. Freaked, her insides quivering, the image of Merritt lying in his own blood kaleidoscoping with vibrant pictures of her own slaughtered family. Mama. Daddy. Donner. Sam Junior. All dead. Blood surrounding them. Red spray on the walls. Staining the carpet. Smeared on the handrail of the stairs. And now Merritt . . .
“Oh . . . oh . . . no . . . no!”
Get a grip. For God’s sake, Kara, pull yourself together!
But she couldn’t.
She was shaking and hyperventilating and out of her mind. Tree branches scraped at the sides of her SUV, screeching along the glass as the tires slid and she twisted the wheel, the entire Jeep bucking over a ridge of ice.
Calm down. Calm the hell down.
Get control of yourself!
Frantic, the horror she’d witnessed screaming through her mind, she drove by rote, pressing on the gas where the rutted tracks ran straight, braking around curves and trees, feeling the entire chassis shimmy as she hit potholes, keeping her foot pressed hard to the gas.
She thought of Celeste at the salon, believing her husband was ignoring her. Not dead. Notmurdered!“No . . .” She blinked. Tears were running from her eyes. She took a corner too fast and slid onto the bridge, the back wheels fishtailing. She didn’t care, just drove as if Satan himself were chasing her.
You have to call someone. The police. Let them know. Or Celeste. Dear God, Kara, the killer could still be in that mobile home. Didn’t you think you heard someone?
“Oh, God, oh, God . . .” Did she have Wi-Fi up here? A connection? She reached for her phone, still on the passenger seat. A tree loomed in front of the Jeep and she cranked hard on the wheel. The phone skittered onto the floor! Out of reach.
Shit.
Then she got her head together. “Call nine-one-one,” she yelled at the dashboard, and prayed for a connection as the snow came down faster and she increased the speed of her wipers.
She heard the phone ring at the other end of the connection.
Thank God.
“Nine-one-one. What is your emergen—”
“He’s dead. I think . . . I know he’s dead. There’s blood everywhere.” Just likebefore!“Oh, Jesus!” she murmured under her breath, then, getting a grip, becoming a little calmer, “Just listen. I want . . . I want to report a murder. It looks like a damned murder! Merritt Margrove, the attorney. He’s the victim. Someone killed him. I mean, it looks like it. Send someone!”
“Ma’am? Can I get your name and your location?”
“What? No. I mean, I’m driving.”
“Your name?”
“Kara McIntyre and I’m on Sawtooth Road and—oh, crap!” The road turned back on itself and she swerved to avoid hitting a branch that had snapped and fallen partially in the roadway.
“So you are reporting a murder on Sawtooth Road.”
“Yes! Yes!” Was the woman dense? “I don’t have the address, but it happened in his house. Margrove’s home. It’s . . . it’s located on, oh, what—?” She had no idea of the direction with snow continuing to fall. “Maybe the east end of Sawtooth Road, Merritt Margrove, the dead guy, the victim, he owns the place I think.”
“If you’ll just stay on the line at the scene.”
“I’m not there! Okay? Didn’t you hear me? I’m driving and I’m not going back there. No way!”
“Ms. McIntyre—”
Kara’s mind was racing as she squinted past the windshield that was fogging, wipers on overdrive. “Send help! Just send help!”
“If you’ll please—”
