Page 84 of The Lost Bones
“That was depressing.” Nick unlocked the car and climbed in. “That’s what a man looks like when a dream dies.”
“Dream?”
“The dream that you’ll always do the right thing.”
A storm was brewing, and the sound of waves crashing below was growing louder. Even inside the car, Mackenzie was rattled by the wind whistling atop the hill. She opened the box, revealing a stash of folded papers. She sifted through them. Newspaper clippings. Surveillance pictures. Statements.
Together they assessed everything, looking for a concrete clue that could tie their investigation with Cameron’s.
“Wait a minute.” Nick’s eyebrows knotted. “Kai.”
“What about it?” she asked.
“Looks like that’s what Cameron and his buddies called this operation. Like a code name.” He compared two sheets of paper. “That reporter friend he mentioned who went missing? He wrote Cameron this letter.”
Mackenzie took it from him, quickly reading and absorbing the information. “It says here that he was asking around and heard that it was someone called Kai who recruited the girls and made sure they behaved. One of the girls he spoke with said they all feared Kai.”
Her nerves crackled. Kai. It was the name Hamilton used to order the key for the storage unit.
FORTY-TWO
“We’re in deep shit.” Nick ran his hands through his hair, then desperately patted his pockets for cigarettes. “Maybe we need to wait to gather more evidence.”
“What evidence?” Mackenzie demanded, spreading her arms. “We need to get those tapes to Clint and have him tell us where they were being recorded. We stepped out of line to get a solid lead, and now we have one.”
They were standing outside the back of the station under a covering. Angry rain lashed around them, rattling on the sidewalks and tops of cars with a loud ferociousness. Bolts of lightning gouged the velvet black sky. Thunder growled so deeply that Mackenzie could feel the vibrations under her feet. It wasn’t supposed to rain. A storm especially. But she felt like this was something more. Like they were being told not to turn back now.
Nick’s face was ashen. “I just can’t believe it. This is beyond Lakemore. This might go beyond Washington.”
“Look, I have no naïve expectations that we’ll resolve everything—”
“We might,” he said suddenly.
“Why do you say that?”
“Whoever killed Sophie, Courtney, and Debbie is a part of this. Sophie was abducted by these people for looking into Aria again, and our killer had access to her. And Debbie was held, but she managed to find that damning memory stick and swallow it. Someone amongst them has risked exposure by becoming fixated on you. Think about it. If they hadn’t developed this obsession with you, we would never have discovered any of this.”
“Yeah. I guess those three didn’t die in vain.” Sarcasm dripped from Mackenzie’s voice.
Nick rolled his eyes. “That’s not what I meant. I’m sorry it had to happen this way. But maybe we have an opportunity that Cameron and his friends didn’t have.You.”
Her heart careened from beat to beat. She hadn’t asked to find herself in the middle of something so big. But she also knew she couldn’t walk away. It wasn’t just Sterling whose life was hanging in the balance. The images of those women lying drugged somewhere was still burning in her head.
Her thoughts were punctured by the sharp, keening sound of an alarm ringing.
“What’s that?” she cried, plugging her ears.
On instinct, and not caring about the rain, they jogged toward the blaring alarm in the parking lot. It came from a black car. The front door was open and the headlights blinked and flashed.
It was Nick’s car.
A prickling sensation tickled down Mackenzie’s spine. She looked around the parking lot as Nick closed the door and turned off the alarm, her view distorted from the rain beating down on her eyelashes. There was nobody around. But someone had clearly tried to break into Nick’s car. When they’d forced the door open, the alarm had gone off and they’d run.
“Now will you for fuck’s sake take this seriously?” she yelled. Nick breathed hard and turned around, and a blood-curdling thought crossed her mind.
What if this was the killer’s process to select their next victim? What if they stalked and studied the target in excruciating detail before snatching them?
They were met with stony silence in the conference room. Sully’s thoughts had carried him far. He was visibly dissociating, while his hands played with slime. Peterson’s fretful eyes glanced around as he rocked back and forth on a chair. Jenna didn’t show any expression—she rarely did, other than that of scorn. Austin’s chest heaved in choppy breaths. Andrew was thoughtful.
