Page 7 of Twelve
As Celine finished shaking the detective’s hand and introduced Lia and me as specialist consultants, we got the thirty-second rundown of the situation. No one knew how Mackenzie had gotten all the way up to the top of the lighthouse. The staircase was typically secure, the lightroom at the top locked and used primarily for storage.
“It’s not big.” The detective paused, and I got the sense that he felt a need to justify his presence on the ground floor to us. “They don’t want to crowd her.”
He didn’t specify whotheywere. It was just as well—I did best when I was left to form impressions for myself.
As we began our ascent of the lighthouse stairs, I let myself imagine Mackenzie doing the same. When Celine, Lia, and I made it to the top, I wondered if Mackenzie had been tired when she’d reached the ninth-story landing—or if she’d been buzzing.
With energy and adrenaline, dread and hope and fear.
Celine nodded to a ladder overhead. “I’ll go in first.”
I waited, then followed, hoisting myself up into the lightroom overhead. Immediately, as I pulled myself to a standing position, I took stock of the space and the people occupying it. There were four of them: two men, two women. Mackenzie’s mother was the easiest to pick out—nurse’s scrubs, dark circles under her eyes, hyperfocused on the window.The other woman—late thirties, early forties, professional dress, hair down—was speaking softly to Mrs. McBride. I pegged her as the psychologist.Even-keeled. Exactly the right degree of empathetic.
I disliked her on instinct.
That left the two men. One of them strode toward us. The other hung back. Based on his apparel, the one who hung back appeared to be a fireman.
An axe dangled from his hand.
My gaze went to the window. It was open, but wooden boards had been nailed across the frame. From where I was standing, I could barely make out the form of Mackenzie’s body through the gaps in the boards.
You climbed out the window, hammer in hand. You barricaded yourself out there.That showed a presence of mind—and forethought—that I wouldn’t have expected.
“If we try to take down the boards, she’ll jump.” The man who’d approached us followed my gaze. He was in his late fifties, the oldest person in the room—and the one in charge.
The crisis negotiator,I thought.
“Quentin Nichols.” He was good enough at reading situations to introduce himself to Celine first and good enough at reading people that his attention then settled almost immediately on me.
“Special Agent Celine Delacroix,” Celine replied before nodding toward Lia and me. “Lia Zhang and Cassie Hobbes will be consulting.”
“Specialists?” Nichols asked. The question embedded underneath was:What kind?
Before we could answer, Mrs. McBride’s thin, reedy voice broke through the air. “We asked for Briggs.” She shook her head, back and forth, whip-fast. “Agent Briggs.Special Agent Tanner Briggs.”
She was panicking out loud.You’re the talker in the family.The scrubs she was wearing suggested that she’d come here straight from work. I recalled from the original case file that she’d gone back to school for nursing when Mackenzie had started kindergarten.
“It has to be Agent Briggs. Oh, God, please. Mackenzie said…”
“Mackenzie said that she wanted to talk to the agent who found her.” I was the one who calmly responded, not Celine, not Lia. “Agent Briggs is now the director of the FBI.”
I wasn’t talking to Mrs. McBride—or to the crisis negotiator. I was talking to the girl outside the window, the one who’d gone still the moment we’d walked into the room.
“Mackenzie, sweetheart, we’ll try again.” Mrs. McBride choked on the words—or possibly on a sob.
She thought Mackenzie was going to jump.
Ithought Mackenzie was listening.
“Agent Briggs isn’t the one who found you.” I addressed my words to her directly, trying not to think about what could happen if I misstepped, or if I’d read the situation wrong. “He’s the one who came for you—but he’s not the one who found you.”
That got a response. Mackenzie turned.
The sharp intake of breath in the room told me that she hadn’t moved this much in a while. Beside me, the crisis negotiator eased forward. The fireman did the same.
I stepped through them, right up to the window’s edge. I would have had to hoist myself up to climb out through it, but the barricade rendered that possibility null and void. Instead, I angled my head up to look at Mackenzie’s legs.
The way she’d angled her head toward the sky earlier.
