Page 18 of Twelve
Your choice.
“I’ll stay.”
I’d been on the verge of saying those words, but Celine beat me to them.
“I’ll stay with you,” she repeated, her focus solely on Mackenzie. “And Lia and Cassie will work the case.”
“Fine.” Mackenzie’s voice was like steel, as a gust of wind whipped her tawny brown hair against her face. She stared at Celine for a moment longer, then turned to Lia and me. “You do your jobs,” she promised, “you find Kelley’s killer—and I’ll come down.”
YOU
There are names for what you do. Mercy is one. But another? Another is art.
“Ithought that went well.”
From the passenger seat of our government-issued SUV, I glared at Lia. I knew she was just pushing my buttons—because the more she pushed them, the less mental space I could devote to how I could have played things differently with Mackenzie.
Why we’d failed.
Walking away, leaving her out on that ledge, was hard, bordering on impossible. I could still see the way Mackenzie had looked from the base of the lighthouse.Small. Still.She was little more than a silhouette against the darkening sky. Down below, the ocean churned, angry and haphazard as it bore into the jagged shore.
The storm was getting closer. We didn’t have long.
“Are you ignoring your phone on purpose, or is it just a side effect of the brooding?” Lia managed to sound genuinely curious about the answer to that question.
I looked down at my phone. Three new text messages—all from Celine.
“Agent Delacroix keeping busy?” Lia asked archly.
“Apparently, she’s been making some calls.” It didn’t surprise me that Celine was still coordinating the investigation, even though she was the one who’d volunteered to stay behind. Objectively, Lia and I had skill sets that were more useful when it came to talking to witnesses, but Agent Delacroix was the one with the badge.
She was the one that Mackenzie was currently watching and listening to. Showing the little Natural that the case was moving would be more effective than anything anyone in that room could say to keep Mackenzie calm.
“Celine was able to get in touch with Kelley’s parents,” I told Lia. “They’re anxious to speak with us.” I rattled off the address Celine had sent, then turned my attention back to my phone—not to the texts, to my in-box—and the files. I had the length of this drive to read through Kelley’s. Before we talked to our victim’s parents, I needed to get acquainted with her.
Her last name was Peterson. That was one of the many things I learned en route, as I skimmed the file once and read it again.You were a senior at Cape Roane High School. Straight-A student, doctor parents, no siblings.A quick perusal of her social media accounts told me that she had a propensity for standing in the middle of every picture. Based on the photographs her many public mourners were posting, she also had a tendency to come to school wearing workout clothes, like she simply couldn’t have been bothered to change after she hit the gym.
Her face was fully made up in every single picture.
But the thing at the forefront of my mind as Lia and I climbed the steps to the Petersons’ front porch wasn’t the way Kelley had looked in those pictures.
It was the way she’d looked in the autopsy photos.
“Thank you for meeting with us.” I sat opposite Kelley’s parents in their formal living room. The walls were tastefully decorated with a mix of abstract art and high-quality portraits—some of the whole family, some just of Kelley. Now that their daughter was dead, the moments captured in time were haunting, but the impression that I couldn’t shake was the association between the portraits and the paintings.
Kelley as decoration.
Kelley as art.
“Of course.” Kelley’s father was the one who replied, but the way his hand was woven through his wife’s made it seem like the words were a joint effort. The doctors Peterson were Type A, good-looking, driven—but whatever else they were or were not, I was certain that they’d loved their daughter.
“The agent on the phone said that there was a development in Kelley’s…” Isaac Peterson didn’t seem the type to stumble over words, but he hesitated just long enough for his wife to fill in.
“…case.”
Not Kelley’sdeath. Notsuicide—or evenmurder. Hercase. It felt like a euphemism, as pristine as the formal white couches on which the four of us sat.
Lia leaned forward slightly. “We have reason to believe that your daughter didn’t jump.” Lia knew Celine had told the parents that much. It was why they’d agreed to meet with us—but it was also our strongest entry to what would doubtlessly be a difficult conversation.
