Page 52 of The Lost Bones
“Yes, but it’s related to our case from last year. You mentioned it in your documentary.”
For the next thirty minutes, they waited as the techs put on protective gear and climbed down. Uniform unrolled the yellow crime-scene tape. Investigators placed evidence markers close to the quarry edge, around the disturbed soil.
Finally the body was transferred onto a gurney and lifted slowly so as to not compromise the remains.
Becky removed her skullcap and mask as she approached them. “That’s Debbie all right.”
“Can you tell anything yet? How long has she been dead?” Nick asked.
“There’s lividity, and she’s cold. I’d say around eighteen to twenty hours.” She inspected Mackenzie. “She’s almost as pale as you look right now.”
“Is there a message?” Mackenzie asked, her voice breaking.
Becky nodded. She gestured to the techs carrying the gurney to pause next to her.
When Mackenzie saw Debbie’s face, her breath tore inside her throat. It wasn’t just that it was unnaturally white. There were words written on it in blood. A sentence. The first two words on her forehead. One on each cheek. And the last on her chin.
My. Gift. To. You. Mack.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Mackenzie’s senses were diluted. She had tunnel vision. All she heard was the drumming of her heart in her ears. She had barely registered Nick dropping her off at home or whether any conversation had happened. She entered her home, locked the door behind her, and took off her clothes, still dizzy from the sight of Debbie’s body and the message left on her face in blood.
Everything was hazy and buzzing with tension and unpleasantness. Like the air itself was cinched with something putrid. All she wanted to do was scrub it off, get inside her head and scrape away the parts of her brain that held those memories. She wanted a clean slate.
Steam rose around her. She rubbed her skin, applying soap three times, until she felt clean. She felt like this case and this killer had dirtied her. Each time she blinked, she could see the faces of the CSI and uniformed cops, and how they looked at her and whispered to each other. How Debbie was murdered as agiftto Mackenzie.
Once she was finished, she analyzed her naked body in front of the mirror. The water had been almost boiling hot. Patches of her skin were red. Angry lines ran across from her scratching herself clean. Her reflection reminded her of some tragic sculpture. Underneath all that aggression, there was a frightened woman.
The tears didn’t come. She crawled into bed still naked, hating the feeling of being trapped—in this case, in this body, in this life. For the first time in years, she regretted coming back to Lakemore.
Why hadn’t she stayed away? Those women would still have been alive.
As sleep pulled her in, she found herself in the living room. Stunned, she paced around, then stopped dead in her tracks. Sophie stood in front of her.
Mackenzie wheezed and clutched her throat. Her hands flailed, knocking over the lamp. She turned around to run up the stairs, but almost bumped into Courtney.
“Please… please…” she choked, hot tears streaming down her cheeks.
She made a run for the front door. She didn’t care; she’d run screaming down the street if she had to. But Debbie popped up there, blocking the only way out.
Spinning on her heel again, she realized that Sophie, Courtney, and Debbie had disappeared. She was alone in her living room. But she didn’t feel alone. There was something wrong about this silence.
She wasn’t alone.
Sitting in the armchair was a shadowy figure. Someone whose face was too fuzzy. They were eerily still. And even though Mackenzie could make out nothing about them, she was hypnotized and rendered still. Too scared to move. Too scared to breathe. Completely and utterly at the mercy of this shadow.
She felt like she was floating. Her bones weighed nothing. It wasn’t gravity holding her in place, but the shadow.
She sat across from it and met its stare evenly. Eventually her hammering heart beat to a steady rhythm. Her dashing pulse slowed. The cold numbness tightening her skin evaporated. Finally she was able to move. She stood up and walked away. There was no fear holding her back.
She’d won.
April 19
Mackenzie woke with a jolt. Both the events from last night and the nightmare washed over her. Morning light filtered through the slats of the blinds into her bedroom. She checked her watch. It was already eight o’clock. There was no time to go for a run to clear her mind. Once she was showered and dressed, she came downstairs—and screamed.
“Ah!” She grabbed the railing, almost falling.
