Page 16 of Twelve
She deserved to be told something other than to calm down and breathe.
If someone pushed Kelley…My brain snaked its way to the obvious conclusion.We’re not just looking at suicide contagion.
We were looking at an UNSUB who’d used a duo of tragic deaths in an attempt to disguise a third.
YOU
You are the witness. The power, the painkiller, the peace.
Strangers have no right to take that—not from you and not from those you bless.
How dare they talk about your work? Outsiders. The thought crawls beneath your skin. What do they know about this town? About its history?
About you.
“What are you going to do?” Mackenzie demanded. She was squatting outside the window now. Her neck was bent, her forehead nearly touching the barricade.
“We’ll open an investigation.” Celine kept her answer to Mackenzie short and to the point. “A murder investigation. Technically, the case won’t be federal, but I have a feeling that the local police department will welcome our involvement.”
Briggs would make sure of it.
As I approached the window—and Mackenzie—I wished Michael was here to tell me exactly what to read into the way Mackenzie finally allowed her forehead to rest against the barricade. Was she tired? Relieved? Now that someone believed her, was the magnitude of what she’d done to get our attention sinking in?
I stopped inches away from her. The room was silent enough that I could hear her breathing. Outside, the sky was still painted in shades of gray, but there was no thunder, no sound at all except for Mackenzie’s breathing and the barest whistling of the wind.
“You’ll find out who pushed her,” Mackenzie said quietly. That wasn’t a question—or a request. I’d expected something like hope in her tone, but I couldn’t hear much emotion in it at all.
“We will.” Lia stepped forward. Of the three of us, she’d interacted with Mackenzie the least, but she was also capable of speaking with a level of conviction with which an unsuspecting listener simply could not argue. “Cassie will start crawling into people’s heads. I’ll interrogate—witnesses, suspects, anyone who gets on my bad side.”
That got a very small smile out of Mackenzie.
“Agent Delacroix will flash her badge around and put the fear of God and the FBI in this whole town,” Lia promised. “It will be a sight to behold.”
If Mackenzie’s only reason for crawling out on that ledge had been to make someone listen, the fact that I’d confirmed her belief, and Lia’s assurances of action, would have been enough to bring her in. But thinking back on my conversation with her father, I had to wonder if that was all there was to this.
You survived. You danced. And you’ve been dancing ever since.
“Mackenzie, baby…” Mrs. McBride had been remarkably silent the past few minutes. “Please.” Mackenzie’s mother was the talker in the family. “I’m sorry I didn’t believe you about Kelley. We should have listened. I’m so sorry, but can’t you—”
“Don’t apologize,” Mackenzie interrupted tersely. “It’s okay.”
Beside me, Lia’s gaze darted almost imperceptibly toward mine. Mackenzie was lying. It wasn’t okay.
A lot of things in Mackenzie’s life weren’t.
“Before we can leave,” I said carefully, “before we can find the person who killed Kelley…”
I waited for her to fill in the blank. She had to say it herself.
“You need me to come in.” Mackenzie didn’t sound angry or sad, but there was something in her tone that I recognized. Something deep and cavernous, something I’dfelt.
“You’re going to be okay,” I told our newest Natural, my voice catching in my throat. “Lots of things in your life—things that have happened, things that are going to happen—won’t be, but you will.” I let that register. No kid gloves, no sugarcoating. “You won’t ever be normal, Mackenzie, but you’ll be okay.”
“Personally,” Lia commented, “I find normal overrated.”
I willed Mackenzie to hear us.We see you. You can come down now. You can come in.
“What if you don’t catch him?” Mackenzie turned the full force of her attention back to Celine. She looked younger all of a sudden. Vulnerable. “The person who pushed Kelley. What if he gets away with it?”
