All she saw was his hand. It was inches away from her face—large and gaunt. Everything around it and behind it was faded and blurry. It was like looking down the wrong end of a telescope.
Those fingers would wring the life out of her. She knew it. Her vision swam—it was only later that she saw the tearstains on her cheeks. The lights in the elevator began to flicker.
On.
Off.
On.
Off.
Suddenly, the elevator halted and the doors opened.
“Hello? Are you okay?” came a voice.
Mackenzie lolled her head to find one of her neighbors standing at the door with worry etched on her face. When she looked back, the elevator was empty, and the lights were fine.
“Y-yes. Yes, I-I am.”
Twenty-Two
September 17, 2018
Mackenzie entered the wood-paneled elevator. She held the file close to her chest—she had spent her entire Sunday organizing all the evidence and statements collected related to Abby’s disappearance. It had been the perfect reason to postpone dinner with Sterling, but only until tonight. He said he’d cook. A part of her wished that she liked coffee so that she could shake off her lethargy.
Before the doors closed, a hand weaved through.
Nick entered the elevator with his briefcase and a cup of coffee. “Mack.”
“Hello,” she muttered.
They didn’t speak to each other for the first few seconds. It was oddly stifling. Did he feel it too?
“Luna loved the cookies.” He broke the awkward silence.
She smiled. “I’m glad.”
“Finished the whole lot in one sitting.”
“I’d be disappointed if she didn’t.”
“Solved the riddle too. She said she wants to tell you the answer in person.”
Mackenzie eyed him. He sipped his coffee and stared at the light indicating the floors as the elevator glided up. “Yeah, I would love to see her soon.”
“Sure.” He shrugged, but she saw the corner of his mouth turn up.
Was he trying to fix things? Could they ever be fixed?
“Did you know?”
“What are you talking about, Mack?”
“Did you know that Sterling cheated on me?”
The doors opened, and Mackenzie pushed the memory to the back of her mind. They straightened and fixed their jackets, heading to the conference room.
Through the window, she saw the throng of people that had gathered. Angela, the petite and spectacled forensic anthropologist always dressed in striped shirts, sat at the table with Becky. Lieutenant Peck appeared to be in a heated conversation with Sergeant Sully. When Sully yawned and stuffed a cookie in his face, Peck shook his head and gave up. Justin, Clint, and Jenna were huddled in a corner by the snacks, laughing. For the first time, Mackenzie saw Justin smile. It was subtle and controlled, but unmistakably a smile.
What made her curious was the man to whom Captain Murphy was talking. He was about Mackenzie’s height—five feet ten inches—and dressed in a black suit. His dark wavy hair was white on the sides. He laughed at something Murphy said, and the corners of his brown eyes wrinkled. Mackenzie liked his face—it wasn’t spectacular or chiseled like Sterling’s or Nick’s, but it had a reliable and gentle quality.
“Who’s that Mark Ruffalo lookalike? The FBI agent?” Mackenzie asked.
“Daniel St. Clair.” Nick trashed the cup. “From Chicago. Top of his class in Quantico. He requested to be put on this case.”
“Really? How do you know?”
“A buddy of mine’s in the FBI.”
“Why does he care so much about what happens in Lakemore?”
“Who the hell knows,” he muttered as they entered the room.
Mackenzie went on autopilot, greeting the team and making small talk as everyone began to settle down. Once they were seated around the table, she glanced over at St. Clair, sitting across from her. He gave her a polite smile.
“Thank you, everyone, for coming.” Peck stood at the head of the table. “We are here to brief Special Agent Daniel St. Clair from the FBI, who has kindly agreed to act as a consultant.” He cocked a thick eyebrow at Nick and Mackenzie.
Mackenzie saw Nick give Peck a sardonic smile. It was his way of showing the middle finger.
“Let’s go over the case details. Sergeant Sully?”
Sully jerked, in the middle of combing his mustache. Peck sighed, defeated, and sat down.
Sully read from a report in a disinterested tone. “Last year, on September eleventh, Erica Perez went missing. She was last seen alive at eight in the evening when she had dinner with her parents, Samuel and Gabriella Perez. According to their statements, she retreated into her room to sleep at nine o’clock, because she had a headache. The next morning at six o’clock, when Samuel went to wake her up, Erica was missing, and the window to her room was wide open.”
Nick displayed pictures on the table for everyone to view. “The police arrived by seven, and as can be seen in these pictures taken of Erica’s room, everything was in place. There was no sign of a struggle, which leads to three theories—either Erica left of her own will, or she was lured out by someone she knew, or she was abducted at gunpoint.”
Nick distributed copies of the forensic report from the crime lab. Mackenzie looked at a picture of a swatch of cut-up cloth that matched Erica’s bed sheet. “The crime scene investigators found semen on Erica’s bed, which was visible under ultraviolet light. The samples were sent to the Washington State Patrol Crime Lab. They performed PCR to compare—”
“PCR?” Captain Murphy grumbled.
“Polymerase chain reaction, Captain. A technique that amplifies the amount of DNA without changing it,” Becky said.
“What are these bands on this thing? What does all this mean?” He squinted at the paper and then patted at his pockets to look for his reading glasses.
“These are the results of RFLPs—restriction fragment length polymorphisms,” St. Clair pitched in, and traced his finger on the paper Murphy was holding. “They use special enzymes that cut DNA into different lengths, leading to a unique pattern for every person. This column is the pattern generated by the semen they found and the other is that of a person of interest. Since they are the same, it’s a match.”
Mackenzie liked Daniel’s voice and tone; it was soothing, like she could be lulled into sleep just listening to it.
“You know your biology, Agent St. Clair.” Becky raised a brow.
“Daniel, please. It was my major in undergrad.”
Murphy guffawed. “Unique like fingerprints. I never really understood all this fancy tech. I liked to rely on my charm and fists.”
Daniel pressed his lips into a thin line. Sully rolled his eyes. Captain Murphy was ancient and needed to retire. But Mackenzie knew that the old man wouldn’t leave his seat without a fight. He was the most stubborn presence in Lakemore PD, like set caramel stuck to a pan that hadn’t been buttered enough.
“That’s very impressive, Captain. Good to know,” Becky quipped.
Nick drank water to hide his smile.
Classic Becky.
“Anyway, Agent St. Clair—Daniel—is correct,” Sully intercepted. “The semen belongs to Quinn Jones, her ex-boyfriend. He told us that Erica had broken up with him four days before she disappeared.”
Mackenzie flipped open her file and fished out the photograph she had discovered in Abby’s locker. She glanced at the torn picture that had Abby and Erica smiling—and the thick arm around Erica’s waist.
That must be Quinn.
“Quinn Jones! Nathaniel Jones’s boy,” Peck said.
“Yes, sir,” Jenna grinned. “Starting quarterback for the Sharks too.”
Murphy cackled. “The boy’s a hero. It’s in his blood!”
“I’m sorry, but who is Nathaniel Jones?” Daniel asked.
“One of Lakemore’s heroes. Former football player. He was the star quarterback twenty years ago,” Peck said. “H
e led us to our first Olympic Championship win in over seven years and brought a lot of sponsors and business to town. His first year at USC, the Seahawks were already trading draft picks so they could bring him home, but he got injured. It was a dark day.”
“What a tragedy,” Murphy shook his head. “Watching that man on the field was a vision. His quarterback sneaks were as good as Brady’s. I never missed a game!”
“Did Quinn mention why Erica broke up with him?” Mackenzie asked, irritated at the change of topic.
“He told Bruce Stephens that Erica had heard stories of him hitting on other girls and accused him of being unfaithful,” Nick read from his file. “Quinn denied everything, but Erica still left him. He was considered a suspect, but he volunteered to provide his DNA sample, and he had an alibi. He was at home. His parents confirmed it.”
“Erica’s phone was never found,” Sully continued. “She didn’t pack a suitcase, no cash or expensive belongings were missing from the house, and her debit card was at home. That made it immediately unlikely that she’d run away.”
“Did her cell phone provider give any information on when the phone was last active?” Daniel asked.
“It was turned off at 1:43 a.m. within a three-mile radius around her house. The carrier doesn’t have the best technology for triangulation,” Nick said. “She kept her GPS turned off.”
“1:43 a.m. That’s the approximate time of abduction or death. Any calls or texts?”
Nick shook his head. “Her provider doesn’t save the contents of messages, and Erica used a third-party app to make calls, so they don’t have that information. We’ll need to crack into the phone. But she was messaging Quinn around midnight and her last text was to Abigail Correia at 12:38 a.m.”
“Did Abigail say what it was about?” Mackenzie asked.
“Homework. But Abby was asleep by then. She saw it the next morning.”
“Five days ago, Erica’s body was discovered in the woods behind Hidden Lake—around a mile from her house,” Angela said. “If you look at the map, X marks the spot. The grave was shallow, as expected. The glacial till in the Pacific Northwest is hard, making digging a grave very difficult. The remains have been disturbed by coyotes and animal activity, which have made analysis hard. A lot of evidence has been lost. The wide pubic arch and short back sacrum indicate a female victim. The rounded maxilla indicates Mongoloid ancestry. The wisdom teeth had not erupted yet. The tibia plate was sealed but not the clavicle, which puts the age between sixteen and twenty-five. These markers made it highly likely that the victim is Erica Perez. We were able to salvage some DNA off the remains to compare to the samples provided by Samuel and Gabriella Perez to conclude that the victim is Erica Perez. Based on the rate of decomposition, she died ten to twelve months ago. Insect activity narrows it down to the months of September and November. There were no signs that she was held captive—no micro fractures indicating she was bound, or other signs. It is safe to assume that she was killed almost immediately after being taken.”
“Hidden Lake isn’t that far from her house in Forest Hill. Wasn’t that area searched?” Peck asked.
“The Sheriff’s Office was dispatched there five days after Erica went missing but they didn’t find anything,” Nick said. “The rainstorm last week extended the lake’s perimeter, and the area ended up flooding, disturbing the soil.”
“But didn’t Detective Stephens get a cadaver dog?” Daniel asked.
“Two weeks later, he got one. It picked up the scent of a recently dead animal around fifty yards away from the site of burial.”
“So that masked the scent from Erica’s remains?” Peck asked, incredulous. “Those dogs can pick up a smell from fifteen feet underground! Why did we spend two grand on that?”
“Either the dog wasn’t well trained, or the handler was new. From Bruce’s reports, it seems to be the latter,” Nick said.
“What was the cause of death?” Daniel asked, flipping through the pages.
“Asphyxia. She was buried alive following craniocerebral trauma,” Angela answered, her voice level.
A phone trilled.
The clock ticked.
Troy walked past the conference room whistling.
Papers grazed against each other.
The air was brittle enough to snap. Mackenzie’s stomach rolled and tossed as they all sat in knee-deep silence. She knew the crime had been brutal; crime always was. But “buried alive” had the effect of a needle jamming into an open, raw wound.
“There was a fracture on her parietal bone, implying a blow to the head. Based on the fragmentation pattern and force, it was enough to knock her out,” Becky chipped in. “We believe she was unconscious and then buried.”
“It’s possible that the perpetrator assumed that she was dead when he buried her,” Mackenzie pointed out. “Erica gets into a fight with someone. Things escalate. He hits her on the head, and when she collapses, he gets scared and buries her. We might be looking at manslaughter.”
Daniel scratched his jaw, deep in thought. “It also explains why she didn’t fight her way out of a shallow grave. Any signs of sexual assault?”
“Inconclusive. There is one odd thing. She has an avulsion fracture on the superior aspect of the distal phalanx on her ring finger,” Angela said.
“Her nail was ripped off,” Nick translated.
“It could indicate a struggle,” Peck said. “Let’s keep this fact hidden from everyone outside this room.”
“Agreed. It could help us nail the perpetrator later. No pun intended,” Sully blurted. “Did you find anything out of place on her remains?”
“Not really,” Becky said. “Trace amounts of blue-and-pink fabric on her body. The material was cotton. They came from the clothes she was wearing that night.”
“Same color as her pajamas?”
“Gabriella said that Erica had multiple pairs of pajamas,” Nick chimed in. “She doesn’t know which ones Erica was wearing that night.”
“We also found a thin strap of leather around her left wrist.” Becky showed a picture of Erica wearing a band around her wrist. It was formed of two strips of leather connected by two beads with her initials engraved on them. “We think it’s part of this item.”
“Did you run a tox screen? Anything there?” Peck asked.
“We sent samples from bone and some tissue we were able to salvage to the Washington State Toxicology Laboratory,” Angela explained. “No traces of any drugs. Though I should point out that drug detection and measurement is challenging in human remains with respect to sampling and deposition gradient.”
Daniel raised his eyebrows. “You got all this in just five days? Crime labs have so much backlog usually, the turnaround time is ridiculous.”
“It can take up to thirty days, but the Perez case gets immediate priority over all the other cases.” Becky gave him a meaningful look.
Daniel nodded gingerly. Samuel Perez ran Lakemore and had important friends all over Washington. Mayor Rathbone was just one of them.
“Alright,” Peck cleared his throat. “Thanks Becky, Angela, and Nick. And where are we on the disappearance of Abigail Correia?”
Twenty-Three
Mackenzie passed along copies of the file to everyone at the table and filled them in on the details about the money missing from Hannah’s account, placebo prescription pills, statements about Abby’s unusual behavior, the man in the brown jacket, and—the kicker—Erica’s missing phone.
“There was a possibility that Abby had ditched her phone and taken the money and took off. But we have confirmed that the phone she left in the washroom at the gas station belongs to Erica Perez. Clint is working on retrieving any deleted files,” Sully said.
Daniel frowned. “I doubt that this girl would run away. Her grades are perfect. She’s on track to full scholarship at UW. She wasn’t involved with the wrong crowd. Any luck on finding the man she was talking to at the gas station?”
“Clint couldn’t get any hits
on any major retailers with that logo, but he’s going to render the image and run it again. He’s been busy breaking into Erica’s phone,” Mackenzie said.
“Yeah, okay. Do we know anything else about him?”
“He made a call almost immediately after Abby walked away. Zooming in, we could only make out that the handset was an iPhone. We are assuming he is a Caucasian man based on the color of his hand. And he has a mark on his hand that could be used to identify him.”
“Whoever this man is didn’t come forward. That alone makes me suspicious.”
“Someone switched out her pills,” Nick sat back on his chair and wrapped his fingers behind his head. “Someone who had access to her house. But her mother said that she rarely had anyone over. Could it be this guy?”
Mackenzie nodded. “It’s possible that someone snuck in while Hannah was at work. She works odd shifts at Remington’s. If this man went after her, then what’s up with dropping off the money and the phone at the gas station?”
“We’re treating these pieces of evidence as linked,” Peck offered. “What if they aren’t?”
“Why would a teenager need that much money?” Mackenzie wondered. “She started writing those checks six months ago. Around that time she started acting strange, according to the student counselor, Ian Coleman. He described her as jumpy, nervous, and almost paranoid.”
“Why she didn’t hand over Erica’s phone to the police all this time is what baffles me,” Nick muttered.
Daniel pulled out a pack of gum and popped a piece in his mouth. “Why are we assuming that she’s had the phone since the beginning?”
Mackenzie straightened and leaned forward. “What do you mean?”
“You said that she waited at the gas station for a few minutes before going into the washroom to leave the phone. She was waiting for someone.” He stood up and paced around the table. “Abby Correia—ambitious, go-getter, fiercely loyal and protective of Erica just sits after Erica goes missing?”
“You think she did her own investigation?” Nick said uncertainly.
Our Daughter's Bones: An absolutely gripping crime fiction novel (Detective Mackenzie Price Book 1) Page 10