“Where’s Shane?” asked Kara then, looking around like a startled bird. “I want to see her. She said she’d be back to get me.”
Once again, a heavy silence descended.
“Why didn’t Shane come?” Kara repeated. “Where is she now?”
“Shane’s gone,” Jenna said quietly, looking away.
“Gone?” Kara didn’t understand.
Jenna began crying. “Her body was found dead on the beach,” Jenna finally managed.
“Oh my God, my God,” Kara wailed. “I warned her, I told her.” Then Kara started crying hysterically.
Jenna reached out to Kara and the two young women hugged in pain.
“Shane was too good to die.” Kara could not be comforted. “It wasn’t her fault, she was stuck in a trap.”
“I know,” mumbled Jenna, sobbing.
“Kara, I’m here.” Rowley went over, wanting to be close to Kara as well.
“How could Shane be dead?” Kara kept mumbling, as she turned to Rowley. “Shane came here right after they took me and told me that she was going to contact you. She said as soon as you said you’d work with the ring, they’d let me out, just like that.”
Cindy couldn’t help but step in. She wanted everything on record.
“So, Shane definitely knew you were here? Shane was involved in the kidnapping?” Cindy whispered.
“Shane promised me I’d be out soon,” Kara repeated, her eyes flaring as she turned to Rowley head on. “Did Shane contact you after I went missing?”
Rowley was entirely unnerved. “Yes, she did,” he burst forth. “She contacted me again and again and again!”
“What did you say?” Kara’s distress was turning into frenzy. “Did you agree to work with the ring?”
“Of course not,” Rowley replied.
“Not even to save me?” Kara’s eyes grew enormous. “You could have saved me and said no later.”
“You don’t say no to the ring, ever,” said Rowley. “If you do, you end up like you.”
Kara’s eyes grew larger and fiercer. “How did Shane die, Rowley?” she demanded.
“How do I know?” Rowley was both shaken and enraged.
“I know that you know,” said Kara. “You hated my friend, you despised her.”
“That’s right, I did.” Rowley’s face curled into disgust. “Not only did I hate her, but so did your father! We had a reason to hate her, didn’t we? Look what she did to the woman we loved?”
“You told my father about what was going on with Shane?” Kara gasped.
“What else could I do? You went missing. Your father was falling apart,” Rowley breathed. “You think I could keep something like that from him?”
Cindy turned to Mattheus quickly and gave him an odd glance.
“Rod never said a word to me about this,” Mattheus whispered to her.
“What happened to Shane?” Kara stepped closer to Rowley now, practically breathing in his face.
Rowley weaved back away from her.
“If you don’t tell me I’ll never speak to you again,” Kara declared, “never. We’ll be done. Finished!”
Rowley put his head in his hands. “After you disappeared, Shane threatened me. What could I do? I had to get rid of her for everyone’s sake. Our entire lives were at risk, Kara.”
“Oh my God, my God,” Kara started moaning.
“You refused to get rid of her, so we had to!” Rowley’s voice got harsher. “Your dad and I got the name of a guy at the ring who needed money badly. Guys like that aren’t hard to find. We gave him a wad of cash and told him to get the sick bitch off our necks.”
“To get rid of Shane? Get rid of my friend?” Kara was trembling.
“Shane wasn’t your friend. She had you kidnapped, threatened your life! Now she was threatening mine too! When your father heard about it he said I was right. He encouraged me to do it.”
“My father encouraged you to have Shane killed?” Kara wove back and forth, unable to believe what she was hearing.
“We never told him to have her killed,” Rowley started shouting. “We just told him to get her off our necks. It was his business how he did it! He could have had her go missing like you, locked her up in a shack. Anything!”
Mattheus walked over to Rowley then, looking ashen. “It’s okay, calm down, Rowley. You just have to tell us the name of the guy you and Rod contacted at the ring.”
“I can’t do that, I can’t,” Rowley started shouting.
“You have to, Rowley,” Mattheus insisted.
Darrin came and stood beside Mattheus then. “It’s okay,” Darrin interrupted. “If I know how things work down here, the guy at the ring they contacted has been taken care of by now.”
Mattheus looked aghast. “What do you mean, taken care of?”
“Nobody in the ring does anything like this without Santos’s approval,” Darrin went on. “And Santos didn’t say yes to this. If he had we’d never be here at all. And we’d never find Kara alive. Count your blessings, Mattheus.”