The Dying Hour by Rick Mofina Read Free Book Online

like some mystery man was rifling through her place. That was me in her apartment.”
    “Excuse me?”
    “That was me in her apartment that morning. I went there looking for her when I couldn’t reach her on the phone.”
    “But how did—”
    “I have a key to Karen’s place. She has a key to mine.”
    “I see.”
    “Police know I was there. I answered Karen’s phone that morning when a deputy called saying he’d found her car near Laurel but no trace of Karen. I told the deputy that, given the car’s location, Karen had likely been on her way to see her sister, Marlene Clark, in Vancouver. The deputy told me to call her sister in Vancouver and check. That’s how it got started.”
    “Have the police given you any theories?”
    “No. I’ve told them all I know, but they’re not telling me anything.”
    “What about the possibility that someone from the college may’ve had something to do with it?”
    “Like who?”
    “Like anybody.”
    “I don’t know anything about that.”
    “Why do you think Karen left Seattle without alerting anyone?”
    Luke glanced at the movie posters as if for the answer, then looked back at Jason and swallowed. “I wish I knew. I don’t understand it.”
    Jason let Luke’s answer hang in the air long enough to signal that he doubted him.
    “When was the last time you talked to her?”
    “The night she left, just before her car was found. I work part-time tending bar at the Well and called her on my break to talk.”
    “How was she? Was she sad? Happy? Angry about something?”
    “All right. I’d say she was fine.”
    “Really? A neighbor who saw her leaving said Karen looked upset.”
    “She was fine when we talked.”
    “What’d you talk about?”
    “We just talked a bit about her upcoming trip to Africa.”
    “She’s going to Africa?”
    “For a year.”
    “First time I heard that. Tell me about Karen and how you met. I could profile her. Maybe someone will read a detail that might help.”
    Luke took a moment to consider the request. Jason thought it a little strange that he seemed reluctant. In his shoes anyone else would be calling a press conference every ten minutes asking for people to help find his girlfriend. Maybe he was exhausted with anguish and not thinking clearly.
    “I’m sure the more people know of Karen,” Jason said, “the more they’d be inclined to come forward with information, or help locate her.”
    Luke agreed.
    “We met a few years back at a campus rally for Third World relief. She’s studying African history. I’m taking software design. I told her I was concerned about globalization, poverty. I want to create advanced programs to bring remote regions of the poorest countries online.”
    “What’d she think?”
    “She was cool with that. Her parents are missionaries in Central America. She said her mother’s time in the peace corps had inspired her to devote a year in Ethiopia as an aid worker. One of Karen’s professors in religious studies told her about an African fellowship. I told her to do it.”
    “You hit it off.”
    “We’re unofficially engaged. After graduation I’m going to work here to establish things while Karen does her year in Africa. When she returns, we’ll get married. She wants a small ceremony by the Pacific.”
    “When was she supposed to leave?”
    “In a few months.”
    “The last time you talked to Karen on the phone, did you disagree on anything that would upset her?”
    Terrell shook his head.
    “What went through your mind when you picked up the phone in her apartment that morning and the deputy said they’d found her car on the side of the road not far from the border?”
    “I thought it wasn’t true.”
    “So she wasn’t upset after you talked. You didn’t argue?”
    “No.”
    Jason was uneasy with Luke’s account. It contradicted Trudy Moore’s account. Was he lying? Jason had to confirm it with the investigators.
    “So what do you think happened to her?”
    “I think