Page 27 of Twelve
She answered, and I stopped running, just long enough to catch my breath—long enough to ask: “Mackenzie?”
“Everything is fine here.” Celine’s response was measured—unnaturally so. “The rain is a problem, but Mackenzie knows that, and we’re discussing next steps.”
I was soaked. Mackenzie must have been, too.And the ledge…
“You need to get her in,” I told Celine. “And if you can’t, you need to get her psychologist out of the room. Now.”
As I reached the lighthouse, I could hear a voice ringing in my mind.You can trust them, Mackenzie. We’ve talked about trust, haven’t we?
I’d thought the woman treating Mackenzie was incompetent. She’d said exactly the wrong thing at precisely the right moment to throw a kink in the works. If she’d kept her mouth shut, I could have talked Mackenzie down.
Maybe that was the point.
Thunder crashed, loud enough to jar my bones, but all I could think about was getting to Mackenzie.
Celine and our suspect met me halfway up the lighthouse stairs.
“Agent Delacroix said you needed a consult?” The psychologist didn’t sound annoyed, but her tone was brisk. “Something about adolescent depression?”
I glanced over at Celine. Apparently, she’d had to think on her feet to get the woman out of the room without causing a scene.
Point, Agent Delacroix.
“You should get back to Mackenzie,” I told Celine. “Let her know that Lia and I held up our end of the deal. She can come in.”
Tell her,I didn’t say,that I know who killed Kelley.
The psychologist stiffened. “If you’re going to be talking to Mackenzie,” she told Celine, “I should really be there.”
I stepped up, coming even with the woman. “Please,” I said. “This won’t take long, and it’s urgent.”
I could feel Celine looking at me. I was asking her to leave me alone with a woman I believed to be a killer. Under normal circumstances, she would have refused. Based on protocol, she should have.
But with the storm—with Mackenzie still out there—protocol was the least of our worries.
“Don’t worry,” Celine told me, even as her eyes saidBe careful. “We’ll bring Mackenzie in.”
Celine returned the way she’d come, leaving me alone with the suspect. Now I just had to keep the suspect occupied long enough for Celine and the others to talk Mackenzie down.
Withoutinterference this time.
Also,I thought, hyperaware of the space between my body and the killer’s next to me,I have to keep you talking long enough for my backup to arrive.
“We’re trying to get a handle on the motive behind the first two suicides,” I said, wishing Lia were here to sell the lie for me. “Is your practice focused on children Mackenzie’s age and younger, or do you treat older adolescents as well?”
“I primarily work with teenagers,” came the impatient response. “Mackenzie was referred to me by a colleague several months back. I’m afraid that without an in-depth look at your files I cannot comment on the specific cases you’re interested in. Icansay, however, that children and adolescents have emotional lives every bit as complex as that of adults. Teenagers are individuals, not statistics. I could no more talk to you about a unified motive behind adolescent suicide than I could were we discussing adults.”
“I understand,” I said, also comprehending that unless I wanted to turn this into a confrontation, sans backup, I needed to give her something to stay for.
You’re drawn to pain. People with scars that run deep. The vulnerable ones, in need of your mercy.
“It wasn’t that long ago,” I said, laying the trap, “that I was a teenager myself.”
There was a moment’s pause, during which I registered exactly how narrow the stairs we were standing on were.
How easy it would be for her to push me.
“I have to confess, when you said you’d been working with the FBI since you were seventeen, I looked for the signs.”
