“You tell me. She talked to you.”
Vince gave him a pained expression. “It doesn’t look good.”
The barest hint of a sad smile creased Steve Morgan’s mouth. “I make a living persuading people to see things my way.”
On the face of it, that sounded as if he meant to try to win Sara back. But Vince had a feeling it meant he had already succeeded in convincing Sara she should leave him.
“You scared her pretty bad last night,” Vince said. “What was that? The coup de grace? Really drive it home what an asshole you are? Or do you really want her to think you might have killed that woman?”
“She already thinks it.”
“Might as well be true?” Vince asked.
Morgan said nothing, but poured himself a little more to drink.
“You were supposedly in Sacramento when it happened,” Vince said. “But you weren’t, were you? And don’t bother lying about it because Cal Dixon has a guy who can track that shit down like a freaking bloodhound.”
“I wasn’t where I said I would be.”
“You were with a woman.”
“I plead the fifth.”
“You’d rather get charged with a murder than admit you’re an adulterer when everybody who matters already knows you fuck around? That doesn’t make any sense.”
“It might to the person I was with.”
“It does if that person was Marissa Fordham.”
“It wasn’t.”
“ ‘Do you think I was stabbing her forty-seven times and cutting her throat?’ That’s what you said. How did you pick that number, Steve?”
“Why? Was I right?”
“Damn close. Close enough to raise an eyebrow,” Vince said. “Not that most killers keep count when they’re going at it with a knife like that. But I can tell you, stranger things have happened.”
“If I did, I’d be crazy to say so,” Morgan said.
“Yeah,” Vince said. “Like a fox.”
Morgan slowly drank the last of his whiskey and set the glass down without making a sound. He looked Vince right in eye and said, “You have no evidence linking me to Marissa’s death because there is no evidence linking me to Marissa’s death because I didn’t kill her. I’d like you to go now, Vince. Thanks for stopping by.”
65
Crawl, G. Don’t just lie there. Crawl!
Marissa was on her hands and knees in the mud, bending down in her face.
Crawl! Damn it, Gina! You can’t give up now!
But I’m so tired, and it’s so nice right here.
No, it isn’t. Are you stupid? It’s raining. You’re facedown in the mud!
I’m so warm. I’m hot. Why do I have all these clothes on?
Oh my God. You’re not hot. You’re cold. Do you hear me? Do you hear me?
Shut up, Marissa. I hear something.
A very distant whup, whup, whup, whup.
It’s a helicopter, stupid.
Don’t call me stupid. This was all your idea.
I was trying to do good. We did something good!
You’re dead.
Then how can you see me? How can you hear me? Gina? Gina!
All she wanted to do was go to sleep, but Marissa grabbed her good arm and pulled it straight out in front of her, and tried to drag her.
Crawl! You have to do this for Haley! You have to get to the fire road. If you get to the fire road they’ll find you!
The fire road. She remembered being driven onto the fire road and marched up it with a gun in her back in the dead of night.
Who?
Who what?
Who will find me?
I don’t know! Firemen. Big, hunky firemen.
I love firemen. My dad was a fireman.
No, he wasn’t. Your dad sold insurance.
It’s my hallucination.
Oh, for God’s sake! Crawl, Gina! You’re going to die if you don’t start crawling! You don’t want to die. You can’t die! You’re the only one who knows the truth. You have to do this for Haley! Crawl, Gina!
For Haley. Gina gathered her strength to try. She tried to dig into the rocky ground with her good hand, feeling fingernails break. She had to gain some kind of purchase. She pulled her good leg into position and pushed off, shoving herself forward.
She expected to feel pain, terrible, blinding pain. She felt nothing. It was as if her brain had become unplugged from her body. She was so weak, so very weak, but she was free of the pain.
Marissa grabbed her arm again and pulled. Gina moved her good leg and pushed. She gained maybe a foot.
How far is the fire road?
Not far. Keep going. Keep pushing.
The process was repeated again and again with rest breaks in between. With each effort she felt weaker and weaker until she couldn’t pull her good leg up more than a few inches, and she couldn’t move herself any farther than that.
I can’t, Marissa. It’s too far. It’s too late.
What else have you got to do with your time? You might as well go until you die.
I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die.
She didn’t want to die. She couldn’t die. She was the only one who knew the story.
66
“I don’t know what more I can tell you guys,” Mark Foster said, following Mendez and Hicks back to the interview rooms. “I don’t feel like I can be that much of a help.”
“It’s like I told you over the phone, Mr. Foster,” Hicks said. “We’re trying to establish a really detailed outline of Ms. Fordham’s life in the week or so leading up to her murder.”
“Things that might seem insignificant to you could fill in the puzzle for us,” Mendez said. He opened the door to room two and motioned Foster in.
Everyone took a seat at the small table. Foster looked around, seeming a little uneasy.
“I’ve never been in this situation,” he admitted. “All I know is what I’ve seen on television.”
“We’re not going to shine a light in your face or bring in a big dude with brass knuckles,” Mendez assured him. “Unless we don’t like your answers.”
They all laughed politely.
Foster was in his uniform of khaki pants and blue oxford shirt, but had added a sweater vest to the ensemble, and a blue blazer to ward off the chill of the day. He looked too warm now.
“Would you like a cup of coffee?” Mendez asked. “It’s a rotten day out there.”
“No, I’m fine, thanks,” Foster said, drying the raindrops off his wire-rimmed glasses with a handkerchief. “I saw on the news you’re looking for Gina Kemmer. Have you found her yet?”
“No. Nothing yet. You were friends with her, right?”
“Yes.”
“You spoke with her the day she went missing,” Hicks said.
Foster’s eyes opened and widened. “What? When?”
“Wednesday. Late afternoon.”
“Uh ...” Foster’s wheels were spinning as he searched his memory—a little frantically, Mendez thought. “Wednesday ... Oh, yeah. I was really busy that day. Gina called. She wanted to talk about a memorial for Marissa. I didn’t have time to get into it.”
“When did you last see her?”
“Sunday night. She had some friends over. You don’t think anything has happened to her, do you?”
“We don’t know,” Mendez said. “I spoke with her the afternoon she went missing. She seemed extremely upset.”