Mackenzie climbed out of the car and headed for the parlor.
It was a dead end. The two tattoo artists didn’t recognize Bella or her tattoos. She left, disappointed, and thought about expanding their search to Seattle.
She was walking back to her car when she spotted a faded sign reading Inkphoria above a cracked window. No light and no activity came from inside. The space was empty—just stained walls and floor—with a little blackboard with instructions written in chalk to go inside and then down a flight of stairs.
She hesitated for a heartbeat but entered the shop and started downstairs. The bottom of the staircase was pitch black, slashed by a sliver of light from underneath a door. The walls and stairs began to rattle with vibrations from some techno music. The door didn’t have a knob. Mackenzie pushed it slightly, and it swung open smoothly.
The room was bathed in red light. It was larger than she had anticipated. Intricate designs adorned the walls—abstract ink patterns churning in water or smoke, a flower birthing a dragon, a woman being held captive by vines and branches. The clinical smell of disinfectants and antibiotics was welcome. Mackenzie could finally feel her lungs expand freely. Shelves housed various tattoo supplies, from sterilization equipment like gloves and rubbing alcohol to products like needle bars, soldering guns, and disposable razors.
On her right side, a woman lay on a chair with her top lifted. A burly man leaned over her with an electric tattoo machine in his hands. “Do you have an appointment?” he asked without looking behind him.
“No,” Mackenzie said.
“Make one and come back.”
The woman on the chair let out a high-pitched giggle.
“Lakemore PD. Got some questions for you.”
The man froze. He put his machine away on a tray and turned around on the stool. His long hair was tied in a bun, and a thick beard obscured his jaw. “This is a licensed shop.”
“Good to know. What’s your name?”
He took off his black gloves. “Liam. What do you want?”
“Do you use non-toxic, vegan ink?”
“Yeah, you want one?”
“I couldn’t find your shop on the internet.”
“I don’t keep a website. Rely on word of mouth.”
Liam was unfazed by her. It wasn’t unusual, considering the dicey neighborhood. The most undaunted witnesses and suspects came from such places. They were desensitized to the police. Even the woman he was inking was on her phone now, disinterested.
Mackenzie pulled out her own phone and showed him a close-up picture of Bella’s tattoos. “Recognize these?”
Liam glanced at them for a mere second. “Yes. The girl in trouble?”
“She’s dead.”
“I see.” His eyebrows dipped low, like it was a mild inconvenience.
“Did you know her?”
“No. Just saw her when she came in. Said traditional ink gave her hives so she was looking for other options.”
“Did she come alone?”
“Yes. What happened to her?”
“How did she pay?” Mackenzie dodged the question.
“Cash.”
“You remember anything about her?”
He scoffed. “Of course I do. That was the worst thing I’ve inked on anyone.”
“Why?”
“Those letters and numbers. I asked her several times if she wanted some kind of design around them, but she was adamant to keep them like that. Said that she wanted it to be taken seriously in case something went wrong.”
Mackenzie became alert. “Did she say what might go wrong?”
“Nah, she was secretive. And honestly, none of my business.” He raised his hands in surrender. “But she paid, so I didn’t say no.”
The tattoo meant something then. Bella had been in danger—and she knew it.
“When did she come in?”
“About two months ago.”
“And did she say anything else? Anything odd?”
He sighed. “Other than that she wanted the tattoo on the back of her knees? I don’t know… Wait, oh yeah. She told me to change the order of the numbers and letters.”
“Do you have the original sequence?” Mackenzie asked, her pulse ticking faster.
Liam picked up a thick book from one of the stands and set it on a table, under a lamp. He flipped through the pages, as Mackenzie looked over. It was a collection of all the designs he had done. “Here it is.” He stopped at one of the pages. A picture of the tattoo alongside a sequence of numbers and letters written by hand.
CBA3759. As opposed to the tattoos—39A on the back of the left knee and B75C on the right.
Mackenzie touched the page. It was obviously important, considering what Bella had said. “Can I take these?”
“Sure.” Liam shrugged and took them from the book. “It’s nothing I’m proud of anyway. Just a habit of documenting everything.”
Mackenzie held the paper—the numbers and letters looking more magnetic in the red glow of the room. She scraped her memory. But this sequence hadn’t turned up anywhere that she could recall. Not in the investigation into the Breslow doppelganger suicide. Not in Kim’s old files from the center. Not in anything related to Alison or Katy.
“Thanks. Let me know if you think of anything else or if anyone contacts you about her.” She gave him her card. He tossed it dismissively on the needle tray and turned back to his client.
Strong winds flapped around her as she walked back to the car.
“It’s not a license plate,” Mackenzie mumbled to herself, staring at the paper, like suddenly it would make sense.
The streets had emptied, making this tiny nook of Kent reminiscent of a ghost town. How had Bella even got here? The fact that she was able to travel so far suggested she hadn’t been held captive, but if these women were free to go, where were they? Where was Alison? Unless… Had Bella had done something to earn their captor’s trust? Something that gave her the freedom to get a tattoo; a clue? If only Mackenzie could decipher it. She thought about Robbie Elfman’s computer. Clint had found something more on it. Something to do with women.
Could the codes be related that? Perhaps Bella wasn’t the only woman Robbie had supplied.
Forty-Seven
Wearing her gardening overalls, Mackenzie stepped out into her front yard. The sky was bathed in copper hues and streaks of peach. A mellow breeze kissed her skin. The snow had mostly melted away now, the clusters of blizzards a thing of the past. Mackenzie looked around her garden. She had at least found time in the last few days to tend to it, and it was looking far healthier despite the winter season. Her favorite tree, the weeping willow, stood firm and unyielding. A solid presence in her life.
Robert was kneeling with his back to her. He grunted, pulling out weeds from the soil. She closed her eyes. The image of her father—a young man—kneeling and planting seeds in the soil flashed in her mind. His strong hands were covered in mud. Wind played in his hair. The corners of his cheeks lifted.
He had looked so different back then.
“Micky!” her father said.
“Yeah, I wanted to clean up a bit.” She grabbed a bow rake.
Robert paused briefly before continuing. “Yesterday was fun.”
She began gathering the loose debris around her garden. They worked in comfortable silence against the birds chirping and leaves flapping. Occasionally, she looked over at her father. She was so used to seeing a sneer on his face. He looked at peace now; often he was almost nervous that he’d unnerve her.
Darkness loomed over their heads, and she looked up. Vivid gray clouds churned overhead. Humidity cinched the air. The sky looked thick and imposing, ready to pop. A thunderstorm was coming.
Her phone rang. “Hello?”
“Is this Detective Mackenzie Price?”
“Yes?” she answered, unable to recognize the voice.
“This is Alan Blackwood. Nick gave me your number. I hope I didn’t disturb you.”
�
�Oh, of course not.” She kneeled down and looked closely at the soil. “How can I help you, Senator Blackwood?”
“I don’t know how to say this…”
Mackenzie froze. “Is everything okay?”
“Yes, yes. I didn’t want to say anything yesterday evening and cause a scene. But it’s very important for you to know this.”
Her skin crawled. Her next breath got lodged in her throat. She knew this had something to do with her father.
“What is it?” she whispered.
Alan spoke after a beat. “The man with you is not Robert Price.”
Leaves flapped.
The wind hissed.
Weeds scrunched as they were yanked out by their roots.
Numbness spread over her body like wildfire. The only part of her that had any sensation was her heart, which was tearing at the seams. Her brain hadn’t absorbed the meaning of his words. But her body had reacted to them. It had reacted to them like they were the truth.
“A-are you s-sure?” Her voice was breathy.
“One hundred percent certain. I’m so sorry, Mackenzie. But I remember your parents very well. That man isn’t your father. Nick told me he’s living with you. You should know this. I don’t know who that man is. He might be dangerous.”
The phone fell from her limp grip. Her brain had been turned to mush. She didn’t know what to think, what to do. DNA testing had proven that he was her father. She had remembered his face and his voice. He had called her Micky and known things about her childhood.
You have to help me bury him.
Her father leaned down next to her. His face inches away. He looked up at the sky with a look of wonderment, like he was savoring the air. A straitjacket of terror immobilized her when he spoke the words he often said to her when she was a child.
“Can you smell the thunder, Micky?”
Lightning forked the sky. Blackness swirled, visceral and hungry. The entire town of Lakemore had become a shadow. The thunderstorm had arrived with a vengeance, the overwhelmed ground already heavy with thawing snow. Power lines had come down and flash flooding had swamped the supply, leaving large areas of the town in darkness. Ankle-deep water collected on the roads. The sound of pouring rain was deafening.
Still, Mackenzie could hear the faint scrape of the shovel against the soil.
Three hundred and fourteen.
Three hundred and fifteen.
Three hundred and sixteen.
Three hundred and seventeen.
She halted and looked down at her boots, covered in dirt and twigs. A shiver travelled up from her toes, rattling the vertebrae in her spine, to the back of her neck. Despite the near pitch-blackness, she knew she was in the right spot. She had counted right and taken the measured steps from the backyard of a house that didn’t belong to her anymore. Lightning flashed, and she caught a glimpse of herself as a twelve-year-old, sitting on the ground.
She was alone in the haunting woods behind Hidden Lake. But fear couldn’t latch on to her. Nothing could.
A strange sensation filled Mackenzie’s mouth—like it was stuffed with cotton. Water droplets fell heavy on her eyelashes, forcing her to keep her eyelids down. She picked up the shovel and started digging.
You have to help me bury him.
The man with you is not Robert Price.
Someone was here. Someone’s bones were here. Someone had lied. Was it her mother or her memory? Had she fabricated what had happened that night? Had she misplaced important details over the years?
Nothing stopped her. Not the cold making her teeth chatter. Not the spasm in her tender shoulder. Not the rainwater swallowing her feet. Not the frightening reality of being alone in the woods.
She kept digging deeper and deeper. She didn’t know how many hours went by—or maybe time had frozen still. All her feelings and thoughts were muffled.
She had plowed far deeper than she remembered Melody digging. A wider hole too, not the narrow strip her mother had tunneled into the ground. There was no evidence of a body there. No bones. No white cloth.
Mackenzie fell to her knees. Her eyes stayed hooked to the dark hole in the ground. Her body swayed like she was on rocking waves. She had never felt this unmoored. Something had snatched her away from her body, her senses. She was floating like a fading memory.
“There’s no body here, Micky.”
Mackenzie didn’t even flinch at the sound. She merely looked up at her father, who had clearly followed her. His face was illuminated by the lantern he carried.
“What’s your name?”
“Charles.”
Forty-Eight
Charles. The same name he had given at the garage where he worked part-time.
The hole she had dug separated her from the man who was her father, and a stranger. The light from the lantern cast a glow around them.
“Micky… let’s go back home.”
“No.” She sucked in a sharp breath through her teeth. Her hands scooped mud into her fists, squeezing the earth. “Tell me everything. I knew you were hiding something since the day you showed up.”
Charles licked his lips and looked around. “It’s not safe here.”
“Tell me everything. Now.” She instinctively reached for the shovel again. As though hitting him would be a wise idea. He didn’t even wince, but watched her with pity. How pathetic she must look in his eyes; a prisoner of her past, a puppet of her mother.
“I am your father,” Charles said warily.
“She was married to Robert Price.”
“Yes. Not to me. Robert and Melody separated when you were four years old.”
A ray of light trickled its way through the thick darkness surrounding them. Mackenzie saw the back of a man kneeling. His hair fluttering in the wind. His hands in the soil. His back was broad and muscular. It was the first memory she had of her father. But something changed. She heard a voice.
“Daddy!”
He turned around. A different face. It was a little blurry. But the basic features were visible, like seeing a face through a fogged mirror. A handsome face—strong jawline, long nose, and thick eyebrows. A little red-haired girl rammed into him. He picked her up effortlessly and kissed the top of her head.
“Melody ran away with you.” Charles’s voice disrupted the image. It cracked into pieces, and the darkness swallowed them. “Robert wouldn’t give Melody a divorce when their problems started. There were custody issues to work out. But he was in the navy. He spent months away every year, so he would never get custody of you.”
“This can’t be possible,” she cried. “I don’t remember him.”
Charles crouched across from her. “You were just four years old when you last saw him, Micky. You were so young. Melody never even kept a picture of Robert. You didn’t see his face once when Melody took you and left.”
It shouldn’t have mattered. How could she forget an entire person in her life? But had she forgotten him?
“I’m sure you’ll have some memories, if you think hard.”
She felt like someone was using a cheese grater on her brain. Whenever she blinked, she caught something faint but tangible. She was in bed and a man was reading her a story. A man hoisted her up in the air and then caught her again. It was like trying to grab ashes.
“Micky, you were four,” he implored her to understand. “When your mother moved to Lakemore, I moved too. We decided to be a family. After all, I was your biological father. Melody and I had been together for a while behind Robert’s back.”
“N-no. It can’t be like this.”
His nostrils flared. “Melody and Robert lived in Salem. Almost two hundred miles away from Lakemore. She decided to move here because she had some old friends. She had spent a few years here when she was a child. She thought it would be nice to go to a familiar place with a support system.”
Mackenzie remembered a touch on her forehead. Like someone was checking if she had a fever. Absentmindedly, she pressed her palm there now, as if the han
d would still be there.
“But she called you Robert.”
“Because her friends here had known that she had married a Robert Price and had a child with him. As did her mother, Eleanor. But they’d never met Robert. Nobody had. They had eloped, didn’t even have a wedding. She wanted to avoid a scandal. Lakemore is a small town. Back then it was very conservative, too. She didn’t want people to gossip that she was with another man. She thought it’d be easier if people here just believed that I was Robert. I didn’t care about anything as long as I got my booze. No one here knew what he looked like. It was also for you. You forgot over the years, but the first year away from Robert was difficult for you. She believed if she forced me into his place, the transition would be easier.” His face looked haunted. “Melody was not who you thought she was. She was a far more complicated woman. And I was so lost in my drinking, Micky, I never really gave much thought to what she was doing to you.”
Charles’s words danced around her head. They made her want to shed her tingling skin. All this time, she thought her mother had been an innocent victim, but what had she done? What had Melody made her do?
“Did Robert know about you?”
“He didn’t. Whenever he was back from the ship, he searched for you and Melody. A year before he died, he resigned from the navy so that he could focus his efforts on finding you. That night… that night… he tracked us down. He was livid that she had run away with you, that he hadn’t seen his child in eight years. She had left a note for him, so even the police didn’t help him look for you. Things got out of hand, and Melody ended up killing him. She didn’t mean to. But then you came home earlier than expected. We didn’t know what to do. Melody told me to hide.”
The shoes behind the curtain—a little detail wiped over the years and overshadowed by everything else that had happened that night.
You have to help me bury him.
Realizing that she hadn’t buried an abusive husband but a stranger sent Mackenzie into a downward spiral. But she hadn’t buried a stranger, even. She had buried a good man, a father who wanted her.
Their Frozen Graves: A completely addictive crime thriller and mystery novel Page 23