Our Daughter's Bones: An absolutely gripping crime fiction novel (Detective Mackenzie Price Book 1)

by Ruhi Choudhary

  “Yet he only got community service and nine months when he could have faced up to a year in prison.”

  “I’m as dumbfounded about that as you are. The judge ruled that the first offense was more of a misdemeanor. The second prison term was lenient too.”

  “Do you think it was the judge? Think there was bias there?”

  “No, no. Eddy had great lawyers.”

  “What? How?”

  “No clue.” He jutted out his lower lip. “Both times, it was lawyers from Cromwell and Haskin. They claimed it was pro bono.”

  Mackenzie’s mind surged at full speed. Cromwell and Haskin was the top law firm in Washington state. Every firm had a pro bono quota to fulfill, but why did they choose to represent Eddy twice?

  “A storm is coming. You should go before it gets bad.” Isaac picked up his briefcase and slid into the Camaro. “Eddy could be your guy. He’s one lucky bastard.”

  The wind hoisted her hair and glided its way inside her clothes. Wind swept the dirty pavement, sending litter and stray cats scurrying into corners. An old newspaper plodded in her path, under her heel. Her throat closed when she saw the name “Robert” on it. Gasping, she lifted her heel, and the paper drifted away, directionless. But it left her with jangled nerves.

  Thirty-Nine

  Dear diary

  I want to change my life. I’m so tired. I’m tired of trying to make it in the world I was born in, to play the cards I was dealt. But I want to leave the game. Some days things end up spinning out of control. Things are good with Erica, but she is different. She is sad all the time. She misses Quinn. I think she needs time to get better. But what if it’s always like this? What if she never gets over him? What if everything I worked for falls apart?

  “What do you keep reading?” Troy wheeled next to her.

  “Abby’s private journal.”

  He peeked. “Are some pages missing?”

  “Yep. I don’t know where they are.”

  Troy gnawed the end of his pencil. Mackenzie controlled the urge to gag. She looked over to his desk. All his pens and pencils had chewed ends. “Are random entries missing?”

  “Kind of. All the missing entries are after Erica went missing. She barely wrote after that, but most of it is gone.”

  “Any pattern? Every second day’s entry missing, for example?”

  Mackenzie spun on her chair and flashed him a sardonic smile. “Are you bored, Troy?”

  “How’d you figure?”

  “You’re asking me silly questions. Of course, I’ve checked.”

  “I had an awkward dinner with Ella’s parents last night, and I lost my black widow case.” He groaned and pressed his chin into the back of his chair.

  “What happened?”

  “She flew to Canada. I can’t do anything for now. The Mounties are looking for her. Don’t you want to ask about my dinner?”

  She opened the journal again and pretended to look engrossed. “Absolutely not.”

  “Why did you get married, Mack? Is Sterling as mad as you?”

  “Please go talk to someone else.”

  “What if Ella becomes like her mother? What will I do then?”

  Her cheeks twitched. “Why don’t we do that thing where you vent, and I put my headphones on and listen to music?”

  “Good idea. I feel like you’re one of those who’ll tell me to break it off at the first sign of trouble, considering your lack of patience for nonsense.” He handed her the headphones.

  His words felt like a slap to her face.

  She took the headphones and connected her phone. The pop rhythm never registered in her brain. As expected, Troy went on an animated rant. It was an occasional ritual. He complained that therapy was too expensive.

  Mackenzie felt tears prick the back of her eyes. She was known to go straight for the jugular. But every day for the last two months, she’d let her husband treat her like a doormat.

  Flinching, she focused on the journal instead. She flipped through the pages, curious about Abby’s handwriting. It was sloppy and hurried, like she couldn’t wait to articulate what was spilling out of her. All the entries were in blue ballpoint pen and pushed into the paper hard enough to leave ridges on the backside.

  She was emotional when she wrote this.

  A hand tapped on her shoulder. “Detective Mackenzie Price?”

  A tall, lanky man stood with a shoulder bag hanging next to his narrow hips. He was easily in his sixties, but he dressed like a college student—a ratty old sweatshirt, faded blue jeans, and a pen tucked between his ear and temple.

  Mackenzie recognized him instantly. His was one of the most notorious faces around town.

  “Mr. Vincent Hawkins.”

  “Ah, you know me?” He smiled, and lines dug into the sides of his face. The baritone of his voice reverberated in her bones.

  “No one is going to talk to you here, Mr. Hawkins.”

  He pressed a hand to his chest. “Oh, please. Call me Vincent.”

  Troy shook Vincent’s hand, giddy. “Big fan. The only journalist with balls.”

  “Troy!” she warned.

  But Vincent let out a grating laugh. “Thank you! Don’t worry about it, Detective Price. I’m a friendly guy.”

  “As I said, Mr. Hawkins, the only thing I can offer you is a tour.”

  “I think your computer getting hacked and making your sources public was part of a huge conspiracy!” Troy said. “There’s a whole community on Reddit still supporting you.”

  “Didn’t you have to go to the washroom, Troy?”

  “What? No.”

  “I think you do.”

  Troy rolled his eyes before leaving them alone in the office.

  “Nice guy.” Hawkins jutted out his thumb behind him. “You don’t seem too happy to see me.”

  “I have no information to offer you. I do respect you for calling out the media bias. But I do not appreciate the police slandering.”

  “I’ll never apologize for being honest. I’m here because I want to give you some information.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Every September for the last four years, a young woman has gone missing in Lakemore. No one cared until the third victim, Erica Perez. There is something much bigger happening, Detective Price.”

  Forty

  Mackenzie’s brain stuttered. It coughed like the grinding engine of an old train. A hen-pecked look crossed her face.

  Footsteps scuffled.

  A phone vibrated.

  Keys clanged.

  A car honked.

  “Are you okay, Detective? Detective Price?” He waved a hand and yanked her out of her thoughts.

  “Yes. Sorry. I was thinking.”

  “About what I said, hopefully?”

  She wavered. “I don’t believe in speculation and gossip, Mr. Hawkins. And I highly doubt you have hard evidence.”

  “You can look, and you will find the hard evidence to support my information.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “It’s not hard to notice if you’re looking for it. But that’s the problem. No one had been looking till now.”

  A lump formed in her throat. Questions clamored at the back of her skull. Could it be true? Vincent Hawkins had once been a respected journalist. Now he was tainted, admired only by the rebels and conspiracy theorists. Why would he lie? Why would he send her on a wild goose chase?

  She cleared her throat. “Do you know anything else, Mr. Hawkins?”

  “Nope. I think you should look into this. I know my credibility has been hit. But you have my number. I would appreciate you doing me a solid in return.” He winked.

  “I’ll think about it. Thank you for the tip. Have a good evening.” Her voice sounded far away.

  He hesitated, like he was expecting more. Then he left her alone with her thoughts.

  She stared at a picture of Abby and Erica. It was a snapshot of them smiling into the camera—a close-up of their faces. It was almost unfai
r, the conclusions one could draw from a second captured in frame. Erica was transparent. Her gleaming teeth and winged eyeliner flaunted her upbringing. If it weren’t for her earthy smile, it would be easy to call her plastic. Abby, on the other hand, had a plainness to her. It was appealing, in the way the coffee down the street was: approachable, tried and tested, but nothing you would save for a special occasion.

  It squeezed her heart—the obvious difference between the two friends in terms of wealth and perception. She recalled words from Abby’s diary. It was a testament to both of them, how they’d stayed friends despite the forbidding and petty world conspiring against them.

  Vincent’s words loitered in her head the entire evening. What he said was intriguing. But what he implied was preposterous. A woman goes missing every September for the last four years and no one paid attention? It implied either gross negligence or perverse conspiracy. Neither bode well for Mackenzie. She thought back, trying to remember if she’d heard something. But nothing stood out. She had worked on disappearances before. Three cases. None of them happened in September, and two of the victims were boys. Why wouldn’t she know about this?

  And where did Erica and Abby fit in? If there was a chance Hawkins was telling the truth, perhaps Abby had discovered the same thing. Perhaps that’s why she’d been taken too.

  Forty-One

  Sterling swayed his hips to the rhythm of “Madness” by Muse. Mackenzie stared at his taut butt waving in her face. He was shirtless. His dark skin stretched tight over rippling muscles.

  The aroma of meatballs wafted through the kitchen air. Sterling flattened dough and fed it into a roller that spat out strings of pasta—long and thin.

  “I have some interesting news.”

  She placed her laptop and a glass of smoothie on the kitchen counter. “I figured, since you’re making fresh pasta.”

  He flashed her a blinding smile. “Did you miss my fresh pasta?”

  “I did.”

  “You know you can just give me the order, and I’ll do it. The slave I am to my wife’s desires.”

  “The slave you are? You couldn’t even unload the dishwasher this morning!”

  “You didn’t ask me to!”

  “I did, Sterling.”

  He cocked an eyebrow. “You did not, Mackenzie.”

  She knew she didn’t. “The slave that you are, you should agree with your wife.”

  He chuckled, “I agree with my wife. The slave that I am.” He leaned forward and kissed her on the lips.

  The kiss lingered. His fingers unbuttoned her blouse. Moments moved quickly. One kiss bled into another. The next thing she knew, her clothes had been peeled off, and she was spread-eagled on the counter. She turned off her brain and surrendered to her desire. She knew she would hate herself later. But old habits were easy to fall into. Making love to your husband was one of them. But as they moved against each other, she knew that their kisses were not steeped in promise or love. They were steeped in denial.

  When they were finished, Mackenzie lay, spent, catching her breath.

  “Haven’t done it in here in a while.”

  She forced herself not to think about what just happened and why. “What was the interesting news you had?”

  “Oh, yeah! Totally forgot about that. I heard from Ron that Lieutenant Peck is retiring.”

  “What? Seriously?”

  He placed a long finger over his lips. “It’s very premature, Mack. Don’t tell anyone.”

  “Who would I tell?”

  “I don’t know. Nick, maybe?” he said, guarded.

  “Yeah. No, I won’t.”

  “I thought Murphy would retire first.”

  “I almost feel bad for him.”

  “You do?” he asked, amused. “Baby, you rant about Murphy all the time.”

  “Sure, I do. He doesn’t want to retire because he doesn’t have a life outside of work. It’s sad.”

  “Really? You are saying that?”

  She buttoned her blouse, deftly. “Yeah, what are you talking about?”

  “Nothing,” he muttered.

  “No, tell me. What?”

  He put aside the spoon and shrugged. “Kind of like you?”

  “I have no life outside of work?” she repeated, feeling her stomach burn like gasoline.

  “What do you do besides work?”

  She fluctuated between the urge to scream and to whack him. It was irrational, but her fuse fizzed. There were sharp words she wanted to throw at him, which would blow their relationship to smithereens in an instant. “What do you do besides work?”

  Samantha Walker. She wanted him to say the name.

  “Okay, you’re overreacting. I didn’t mean––”

  “You said those exact words, Sterling. Why would you say something without meaning them?”

  “Mack, please. Let’s not fight. I just meant you are obviously the workaholic between us. But you know that about yourself.”

  “Workaholic? We work the same amount!” Her face was mottled crimson. “Do you remember the Dane case two years ago? We didn’t talk for weeks. I never complained––”

  “I’m not complaining! I was just stating a fact. You’re more obsessed with your work than I am. There’s nothing wrong with it.”

  “Sounded a lot like an accusation, Sterling. Considering I called Murphy sad for being like that.”

  “Those were your words. Not mine. Stop making shit up in your mind.”

  She stilled like a cadaver. His trunk-like neck was strained. When she didn’t reply, he sighed and shook his head. “Sorry, Mack. Let’s just forget about this.”

  She grabbed her laptop and left the kitchen. Sterling called after her, but she never responded. They would only squabble more. Besides, her red-hot rage had molded into a suffocating weight.

  It was surrender.

  The fight was leaving her.

  She shut the bedroom door and entered her credentials to log into the database. She didn’t expect to find any truth in Vincent’s information. But she couldn’t ignore him either. She typed in the key words “September,” “women,” “Lakemore,” and “missing” and filtered for the last four years.

  A chill enveloped her body.

  Daphne Cho. Seventeen years old. Went missing three years ago, on September 4.

  “Damn it!” she growled.

  There was another missing girl. Eighteen years old. September 17. Two years ago.

  This could not be a coincidence. This year was the fourth September a young girl had gone missing in Lakemore. Lakemore was a small city. All the girls had been seniors at high school.

  There was an undeniable pattern.

  “There is something much bigger happening, Detective Price.”

  But it wasn’t just this discovery that left her white as chalk. It was the name of the second victim.

  She picked up her phone and dialed Nick.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah, did I disturb you?”

  “Not at all. I was just putting Luna to bed.”

  “Oh. She okay?”

  She heard him close a door. “Stomach bug—hopefully not from diner food, or I’ll get the blame. I’m dropping her at Shelly’s tomorrow. What’s up?”

  “Nick, Vincent Hawkins visited me today. He told me that this is the fourth consecutive September a young woman has gone missing in Lakemore.”

  He was silent for a few heartbeats. “Did you confirm?”

  “He’s right.”

  “Shit. How did we miss this? I don’t remember anything.”

  “Exactly!” she shrieked. “I keep thinking back, but nothing stands out.”

  “Let’s talk to Sully tomorrow.”

  “There’s more… the second girl went missing two years ago. Her name is Chloe St. Clair.”

  Forty-Two

  That night Mackenzie tossed and turned. Thunder clapped. Thick sheets of rain drenched Lakemore. The pitter-patter of rain was white noise. Under the duvet, it was too hot. W
ithout it, it was too cold.

  Outside the window, shadows crisscrossed the darkness.

  She looked over at her husband, sound asleep. His naked back faced her. It had been a long time since Sterling had slept without draping his arm over her waist. No matter the fights they had gotten into, he would always seek her out in the dark.

  She waited for sleep to catch her. She felt the slumber in her bones. It was her mind that betrayed her.

  Daphne. Chloe. Erica. Abby.

  She felt spray on her face. What was that? She looked over her shoulder. Sterling hadn’t moved.

  She closed her eyes.

  It happened again. Her eyes flew open. She touched her face. She felt something there. She rubbed it into a paste between her fingers.

  Smelly and icky, like manure.

  More mud flung into her face. She tried to move but her muscles wouldn’t so much as twitch. Her heart galloped. She urged her legs to move. But they were bound to the bed. Tight. Unyielding. Unforgiving.

  Adrenaline surged through her. It filled her and replaced the blood in her veins. Tears welled in her eyes. Mud covered her face. It kept showering down on her, suffocating her. She opened her mouth to scream.

  Big mistake.

  No sound came out. Her vocal cords worked tirelessly, scratching against each other brutally.

  Mud poured into her open mouth. It scraped the back of her throat and got lodged in the crevices of her tonsils. She couldn’t close her mouth. It was too late. Her lungs cried for scraps of air. But they were scarce. She felt the weight of mud pushing her and gravity pulling her. This was it.

  Death was close.

  Mackenzie’s eyes flew open, and she wheezed for air like someone half-drowned emerging from the water.

  She was in bed. Alive. There was no mud. It took her a few minutes to get her bearings. Sweat clung to her skin. She registered Sterling’s arm, now over her waist. She wondered what the dream was about—Erica, or Robert?

  Forty-Three