“I love your charms,” she said.
Faith smiled. “Thanks. My mom gave me the chain when I turned thirteen, and a new charm every year for my birthday. Some I bought myself.” Her voice trailed off.
“It’s a nice tradition.”
Max walked halfway across the living room and saw a James Bond movie on the coffee table. “I’ve seen every Bond movie at least twice,” Max said. “I love Daniel Craig as the new Bond, but Connery will always have my heart.”
Faith smiled. “Craig is definitely at the top of my list. Do you want something to drink? Eat?”
“No—I should have called first.”
“It’s fine, really. It’s been a long week, I usually don’t—”
Max said, “Faith, this is your home, don’t apologize. I came to talk to you about your sister.”
Faith blinked. “Carrie?”
“Yes.”
Faith frowned and sat down. “Why?”
Max sat in the chair across from her. She didn’t want to lie to Faith, but at the same time she couldn’t very well say she thought that Carrie might have been dead for the last thirteen years. Yet … if the body in the grave was Carrie, Faith most certainly would have had to have been involved. Otherwise, why would she create a farce that Carrie was in Europe? And why did no one call her on it?
Their parents were gone, could they truly have not had any other friends and family who would notice that Carrie was missing all this time?
“When was the last time you heard from Carrie?” Max asked.
“Um, six years ago?” She nodded. “Yes. Six years. Carrie—I try not to think about her too much. She didn’t even come home for Mom’s funeral, just sent a postcard months later saying she didn’t have the money to fly home. I thought that was her way of telling me she needed money to come home.” She played with her hair. “Except, she never called or gave me an address.”
Faith sounded more sad than bitter. “Why the questions about Carrie? You and her were never close friends.”
This was going to get tricky. If Carrie was alive six years ago, maybe she had returned home and Faith was the only one who knew. That meant she might be a danger to Max—except she was so petite and frail-looking Max could knock her over with a feather.
Of course, she could have a gun.
“I started looking for her online. You’d be amazed at what is available on the Internet. It’s very hard to completely unplug. Yet, there’s nothing on your sister anywhere.”
“She’s been living in Europe.”
But her voice caught, and she didn’t look Max in the eye.
“Faith, when was the last time you actually saw Carrie?”
“Why are you asking all these questions?” Her voice rose and cracked. Max had spoken to enough survivors to know that Faith was in deep denial about something.
“Faith—”
“Look, after our mom died, I did everything I could to find Carrie. And then I get this postcard out of the blue, months later, from France, saying she didn’t have the money to come home for the funeral and she was sorry. I just—washed my hands of her. When she didn’t answer my e-mails, I said no more. So why do you care? You weren’t friends with her.”
“Do you know for a fact that she went to Europe?”
Faith stared at her like she was an idiot. “I told you—she sent me postcards. I’ll show you.”
Faith left the room. If she was guilty, now was the time she’d get a gun and try to kill Max.
INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER SHOT DEAD IN HOME OF CHILDHOOD FRIEND
Or, INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER CONFRONTS KILLER IN HOME; MURDERED
Headlines weren’t her strength. She left titles and teasers to her producer, Ben. He had the gift.
Still, she kept her eye on the hall. A few minutes later Faith returned with a shoe box and handed it to Max. “These are all the postcards Carrie sent me. From Europe.”
Max opened the box. There were maybe a dozen inside. “May I?”
“Go ahead.” Faith sat back down. Her hand was shaking. “Do you think something happened to her? Is that why you’re here? Because this is what you do, right? Investigate cold cases? Do you have friends in France? Did someone find a body and you think it’s Carrie?” Her voice cracked on the word body.
“Faith, I’m here because I don’t know if Carrie ever went to Europe.”
“Of course she did!” Faith pointed to the box.
Max started going through the postcards. France. Italy. Australia. “I don’t see any pictures of Carrie.”
“She didn’t send any.”
“I have a hard time believing a girl who went to live in Europe didn’t take pictures of herself and send them. She didn’t have a cell phone?”
“No, she said it was too expensive…”
Max laid the postcards in chronological order on the table.
Faith pointed to the first one. “See? That was dated six months after she left. From England.”
“You took her to the airport?”
“No—Carrie had a bad breakup. I thought, maybe, it had been one of her professors. Carrie wasn’t bad, but she made some really bad choices about men, and she came home crying one night, saying she was dropping out of school, she needed to get her life together. I told her to sleep on it, that she shouldn’t drop out of school, but maybe just take some time off. Mom and her got in a huge fight about it—asked her if she’d gotten herself pregnant. Carrie said no, but Mom wouldn’t let it go and they just—well, they were oil and water. She left the next day, said she was going to get her life together and she’d call when she had answers. Then six months later we got the postcard from England.”
“You saw her leave?”
“Well, no, but that isn’t important. She left a note on the table. You don’t know what it was like trying to mediate between Carrie and my mom.”
“I have an idea.”
“Tell me—right now—what you’re thinking. Because you’re scaring me.”