“Maybe you’re right,” she admitted, “but it’s something we can’t just ignore.”
“We have to,” he said, and she saw the struggle in his eyes, the strain of his emotions in the tightness of his muscles. “Besides, I have something I want to discuss with you.”
“Okay. Shoot.”
“While you were high on painkillers, I’ve been busy.”
“With what?”
“Trying to find out what the hell’s going on around here.” He withdrew a large envelope from his inside jacket pocket and handed it to Marla. “This is a start.” She opened the flap and found herself staring at copies of snapshots of Pam Delacroix, i
f the heading on the paper was to be believed. Her insides twisted and she bit hard on her lip as she was finally able to put a face to the name.
So this was the woman.
And she was dead. Marla studied the laughing face, clear skin, arched eyebrows and green eyes.
“She looks a lot like you, don’t you think?” Nick asked.
“I suppose,” Marla whispered, her gaze moving from one shot to another, studying each photo that had been copied onto the paper. “There’s kind of a resemblance.” Her head twisted when she saw Pam with a fresh-faced girl of about eighteen. The girl, dressed in a graduation gown, was radiant, one arm linked with Pam’s. “Her daughter?” Marla guessed.
“Yeah. Julie.”
“She’s in college now, right?”
“Was. She dropped out.”
“Because of her mother’s death,” Marla said, feeling responsible. Dear God, would this nightmare never end?
“Nope. That’s the strange part. Julie had already quit school a few weeks before you and Pam headed south.”
“Is that right?” How odd. “Then why were we going to Santa Cruz?”
“That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it?” he said, folding his arms over his chest and straining the seams of his jacket. “Maybe you had another destination,” he prodded, recalling his conversation with Walt Haaga.
“Where?”
“I was hoping you’d remember.”
“Not much chance of that,” she said sarcastically. “At least not yet.”
“But don’t you think it’s odd that you left your children and Alex without saying a word?”
“Very.”
“Then you drove off to God-only-knows-where with a woman who looked enough like you to be your sister?”
“But I don’t have a sister . . .” she began, then held her tongue. Sister. She felt something deep inside, the niggle of a memory that hadn’t quite surfaced yet. “No one’s mentioned a sister. Just a brother.”
“Rory.”
“Yes.” Still holding the pages, she dropped into the chair she’d so recently vacated. “He’s in a home of some sort because of an accident, right?”
“Yes.”
“But there’s more to the story. I have a feeling, because of the way everyone reacts whenever his name is brought up, that people are keeping something from me.”
Nick’s lips folded over his teeth. He knew. She could read it in his eyes.