Page 22 of Fight or Flight

Karrie

Neither email made sense. She checked the time. They’d been sent hours apart. Only one bore Karrie’s signature, if you could even call spelling out one’s name on the bottom of an email a signature, though she always added TTYL. Suspicious, Katherine read through them again and clicked on the blue arrow to expand the details. There was nothing other than their email addresses and the timestamps.

Katherine concluded that someone on her fan page knew she was K.C. Winston. That had to be why she received the sinister-sounding emails. It wasn’t a huge problem. All she had to do was deny it, writing, “I wish,” or something equally juvenile.

She clicked out of the email, logging onto her Friendlink fan page. The usual members were online. She scanned the page for a reference to her being someone else, but there was nothing. But she did see that Karrie was online.

Bigfan216: Hi, Karrie. Any new warnings???

klcLUV/007: What are you talking about???

Bigfan216: Puh—leeeze!

klcLUV/007: I don’t know what you want. Why are you saying these things to me?

HotandCool: What’s with you two? Having a lovers spat??? LOL

SKRfan4evr: Y’all are gay?

klcLUV/007: No way!

Blondebookbabe: I think you’re lying!!!

Bigfan216: We aren’t gay! Do you ever think about something besides sex???

HotandCool: You’ve hit a nerve, SKRfan4evr!!!!

Bigfan216: No nerve hit, just pissed.

klcLUV/007: I did not do what you accused me of! Call me. 281-555-8702!!! Please!

Bigfan216: I don’t have a cell.

SKRfan4evr: Right. Everybody has a freaking cell phone!

Katherine didn’t dare call her on her own cell, but what if she had one of those disposable phones? She knew the Apple Blossom Market sold them, because she’d seen them on their website. Unsure why a so-called gourmet market sold disposable phones, she decided she’d order a couple and hoped it wasn’t too late to have them delivered that evening. She could only imagine the gossip this would add to Blowing Rock’s community webpage. Quickly, before she changed her mind, she minimized Friendlink, pulled up her account at the market, and placed an order for two phones. She added laundry detergent, Advil, and tampons. Might as well give them something to talk about, so she added a bottle of cheap wine and a box of chocolates. A few seconds later, her order was confirmed, with delivery in ninety minutes. When she had a safe cell number to share, she would send Karrie an email with her number to call. In the meantime, she posted:

Bigfan216: I’ll see if my foster dad will let me use his. I’ll call if he does. Later.

Logging off before the girls could get nastier, she had to admit she was even more curious about Karrie and the emails she claimed she’d sent and those she hadn’t. It could be that she was nothing more than a drama queen. Or some bored person who had nothing better to do. Numerous scenarios came to mind, none of which would explain the cry for help or who knew that Darby was, in fact, K.C. Winston.

Katherine returned to the fan page, using her moderator handle so no one would bother her. Checking Karrie’s profile again, Katherine noticed she’d added her last name and the same cell phone number she’d given her earlier. Had Karrie wanted Darby to have this information? It wasn’t required. Honestly, Katherine thought giving out too much information was a bad idea. She read the profile carefully. Karrie Collins. Lived in Dallas, Texas, with her father, though that wasn’t on the updated profile. Had Karrie’s mother passed away? Katherine had lots of questions that she didn’t have answers for. She’d have to be careful about speaking if she decided to call her. Katherine still had a Southern accent, which didn’t exactly fit her story of living in Utah. She could tell Karrie she’d lived in the South and moved when she started high school. More lies. She had become quite proficient at lying. Not a skill she was proud of.

Closing the app, she pulled up her Google account and typed in the search engine:Karrie Collins, Dallas, Texas.There were hundreds of hits, as she’d expected. It was a pretty common name, and spelling the name with a K rather than a C wasn’t unheard of. As she scrolled through the dozens of names, she stopped when she saw an obituary inThe Dallas Morning News. She clicked on the link, then read through the obituary:

Tracie Denise Collins, age 34, born August 7, 1984, left this earth on February 8, 2005, to join Our Heavenly Father. She is survived by her husband, Jameson Ray Thurman, age 30, and daughter, age 12, Karrie Lynn Collins, and mother, Audrey Ann Collins. Services are to be held at Restland Chapel in Dallas.

Tracie.

Katherine’s heart began its usual pounding, a surefire precursor to a panic attack. Hands trembling, her vision diminishing to a mere pinpoint of light, she took a deep breath. Her head fell forward, sending her laptop crashing to the floor.

Chapter Six

Katherine wasn’t sure how much time had passed when she came to. Both dogs were all over her, Sam’s paws digging into her shoulders, his breath warm on her face. Sophie nudged her arm with her nose. Katherine gently pushed the dogs aside, leaning her head down to get the blood flowing to her brain.

Had she fainted? Shifting into an upright position, the lightheadedness easing, she stood, carefully keeping one hand on her desk to steady herself as she bent down to pick up her computer. The webpage she’d been reading was still up. She glanced at the time in the upper right corner of her screen. Barely five minutes had passed. Though she was hesitant to read through the obituary again, she knew she had to.

The names were too close to those in her memory for this to be a coincidence. Her hands shook once more, and she squeezed them together, trying to still them. Reading the obit once more, she acknowledged the possibilities. The odds were so high that anyone who knew of her situation would agree something strange was happening. This was not a coincidence. Nor was it a coincidence that Karrie had just added her last name to her profile. Wishing she had a friend who wasn’t on her fan page or who hid their identity behind a computer, Katherine needed to share this with someone she trusted. The only person she knew she could trust was Doc Baker. Without hesitating, she took her phone out of her pocket, its usual home when she wasn’t charging it, and texted him.

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