Page 80 of Our Daughter's Bones
“Those were your words. Not mine. Stop making shit up in your mind.”
She stilled like a cadaver. His trunk-like neck was strained. When she didn’t reply, he sighed and shook his head. “Sorry, Mack. Let’s just forget about this.”
She grabbed her laptop and left the kitchen. Sterling called after her, but she never responded. They would only squabble more. Besides, her red-hot rage had molded into a suffocating weight.
It was surrender.
The fight was leaving her.
She shut the bedroom door and entered her credentials to log into the database. She didn’t expect to find any truth in Vincent’s information. But she couldn’t ignore him either. She typed in the key words “September,” “women,” “Lakemore,” and “missing” and filtered for the last four years.
A chill enveloped her body.
Daphne Cho. Seventeen years old. Went missing three years ago, on September 4.
“Damn it!” she growled.
There was another missing girl. Eighteen years old. September 17. Two years ago.
This could not be a coincidence. This year was the fourth September a young girl had gone missing in Lakemore. Lakemore was a small city. All the girls had been seniors at high school.
There was an undeniable pattern.
“There is something much bigger happening, Detective Price.”
But it wasn’t just this discovery that left her white as chalk. It was the name of the second victim.
She picked up her phone and dialed Nick.
“You okay?”
“Yeah, did I disturb you?”
“Not at all. I was just putting Luna to bed.”
“Oh. She okay?”
She heard him close a door. “Stomach bug—hopefully not from diner food, or I’ll get the blame. I’m dropping her at Shelly’s tomorrow. What’s up?”
“Nick, Vincent Hawkins visited me today. He told me that this is the fourth consecutive September a young woman has gone missing in Lakemore.”
He was silent for a few heartbeats. “Did you confirm?”
“He’s right.”
“Shit. How did we miss this? I don’t remember anything.”
“Exactly!” she shrieked. “I keep thinking back, but nothing stands out.”
“Let’s talk to Sully tomorrow.”
“There’s more… the second girl went missing two years ago. Her name is Chloe St. Clair.”
Forty-Two
That night Mackenzie tossed and turned. Thunder clapped. Thick sheets of rain drenched Lakemore. The pitter-patter of rain was white noise. Under the duvet, it was too hot. Without it, it was too cold.
Outside the window, shadows crisscrossed the darkness.
