Page 40 of The Lost Bones
“Then where is she?” he challenged. “This person wants us to find the bodies and the messages for you. So they’re not dumping them in a lake or burying them in the woods. And with the massive ongoing search, I think we would have come across her by now.”
“Why would they kill Courtney immediately afterwards, but not Debbie?”
“I think there are two possibilities,” Andrew interrupted them. “From what I’ve seen, Debbie is a resourceful and shrewd person. She may have found a way to keep herself alive longer, by humanizing herself or perhaps trying to negotiate her survival.”
“And what do you think is the other possibility?” Nick asked.
Andrew cast a reluctant glance at Mackenzie. “She’s being tortured as we speak.”
Mackenzie’s stomach contracted. “Courtney wasn’t tortured. Neither was Sophie. Why would Debbie be? That’s not the MO.”
“Because Debbie has targeted you recently,” Andrew said. “Courtney was only a kid when she bullied you all those years ago. It’s possible that the killer… cut her some slack.”
“How generous,” Nick muttered under his breath.
When Mackenzie’s computer pinged with a notification, she steeled herself, hoping for new information. “Oh, I think Peterson tracked down the vendor for the wristband.”
“He did?” Nick couldn’t hide his surprise.
“It didn’t match any club in Lakemore or neighboring towns,” she read aloud from the email. “But there’s a shop in Lakemore that sells these wristbands.”
Nick was already picking up his jacket. “If we couldn’t find the owner of that muskrat jacket, then maybe we can find where the wristband came from.”
“Can I come along?” Andrew asked brightly. “It’d be fun to be out in the field.”
The tires hissed on the hot tarmac before coming to a halt. “What is this place?” Andrew asked from the back seat.
Mackenzie’s skin prickled as she looked out the window. This was Tombstone—a nickname given to a small neighborhood in Lakemore because local legend said it was haunted. Every child in Lakemore grew up listening to the old folktale about a handsome man who lured a woman there every year, promising her riches, only for the woman to never be seen again. But even as the years went by and more and more women went missing, the man never aged. Some said he feasted on the flesh of beautiful women to nourish his youth.
Over time, the stories about this place had changed, twisted, and blurred into one another. Pieces were lost and new pieces were added. The truth was long forgotten and unrecognizable, that line between fact and fiction too fuzzy. Not even the truth stood the test of time. But one thing stayed the same in Tombstone.
Fear. It permeated everything about this place. From the sharp texture of the air to the eerie way light fell on the shapes here. As Mackenzie stepped out of the car and her boots landed on the asphalt, she felt it in the air. A heaviness and haze. Like invisible ropes had reached out to render her motionless. Like she had stepped into a place that didn’t exist in the normal world.
Box-shaped stores surrounded them in a semicircle. They were all shut down. Some were boarded up. There were no other cars around. Overflowing dumpsters were filled with cats scavenging for scraps of food. Rumpled newspapers glided on the rough concrete in the wind. It was just the three of them.
“Lakemore is like a hidden treasure,” Andrew exclaimed, straining his neck to look at the hill extending behind the shops. “This neighborhood must experience a lot of crime.”
“No.” Nick removed his sunglasses and jolted when the dumpster next to him shook.
“No?” Andrew was surprised.
“No one comes here. They’re too afraid,” Mackenzie said, noting her own apprehension.
“Fear is like a ghost in a children’s story—an illusion,” Andrew declared.
“An illusion that holds so much power that it has vanquished empires and minds,” she countered, but then her words died on the tip of her tongue and her thoughts flew out of her head.
Another memory conjured up. It was around nine years ago when she had returned to Lakemore from New York. Her throat had closed. Her mind had flooded with memories of that wretched night that led to her being sent away. And for some reason, she had found herself here. In Tombstone. If she could tolerate being here, she would be fine in any corner of Lakemore.
“Have you been here before?” Andrew picked up on her expressions.
“Yes.” Nick answered for her, trying to hold back his laughter. “This is where Mack and I met. She hit me with a pipe.”
“Ow! Fuck!” Nick roared, falling to his knees.
Mackenzie stood behind him, panting, holding the pipe in a deathly grip. The adrenaline pounding more wildly than the rain.
“He was wearing a hoodie, and it’s a scary place. I thought he was going to mug me,” Mackenzie said defensively.
