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

by Ruhi Choudhary

  “Who else has access to your cabin, Mr. Grayson?” Mackenzie asked.

  “Many people. Over the years, I have entertained friends and family there. They all know about it. I’ve loaned out keys—I can’t say for certain I’ve got them all back.”

  “What about your current team?”

  “Yes. My boys have used the cabin several times before.”

  “Including Quinn Jones?” She raised an eyebrow.

  Bill looked puzzled. “What are you implying?”

  “He’s the only one connected to you and the victim.”

  “Quinn is a good boy, and not just because he’s the captain of the team. Sure, he’s slightly temperamental, but he’s under a lot of pressure to perform. It’s not easy being Nathaniel’s son. There are expectations. I implore you to look past his volatile demeanor.”

  Mackenzie had. She had seen the boy behind the facade. It was unlikely that Quinn would abduct Abby and move her all over the city. Not with his schedule. Certainly not with his personality. But people could surprise you.

  “Where were you on the afternoon of September eleventh?” Nick asked.

  “I was coaching the boys. After school, we have practice. There are witnesses.”

  “We’ll check. It will be helpful to have your schedule for the few days after September eleventh as well.”

  “Of course. I’ll have my assistant send you my calendar.”

  Peck smiled haughtily, like he’d been proven right. There was no need to arrest Bill—a conversation had been enough. For Mackenzie, either Bill was innocent, or he was extremely manipulative.

  She had been convinced that Bill was the culprit.

  Abby mentioning him in her diary wasn’t a coincidence. There was something more to uncover. She was still waiting for Justin and Daniel to dig up more on Magnus Pharma.

  Determined, she pulled out the last resort. A picture of the cocktail napkin with 916 and the logo.

  Before she could ask a question, the blood drained from Grayson’s face. The pink flush crept down his sagging skin like an army retreating from a battlefield. His lips parted, revealing his chattering teeth. Slowly, his fingers snaked toward the picture.

  “Do you recognize this?” Mackenzie asked.

  “I… I… I haven’t seen the napkin before.”

  “But you know what this is?” Nick pressed, circling the logo with his finger.

  “Yes, I do.” Grayson rubbed his forehead. “Club 916.”

  Mackenzie felt her heart spike. Behind Bill, Peck shifted in his seat uneasily and fixed his glasses. “Bill, are you sure you don’t need a lawyer?”

  “I’m sure. I’m sure.”

  “Mr. Grayson, what is ‘916’?” she asked.

  “It was years ago. Please understand. This was fifty years ago. It was different back then.”

  “What does that mean? What is this?”

  “My junior and senior years at Lakemore High, I was on the team. My junior year was the fifth year the Olympic Championship was held. The Sharks hadn’t won a single match in the tournament since its commencement. No one took the Sharks seriously. But on September sixteenth, we won.”

  Nick was right. “916” was a date to honor the first match in the Sharks’ first winning season.

  “Something clicked. We won the Olympic Championship that year. Do you realize how important that was?” His chest swelled in pride. “We didn’t realize it back then, but we wrote history. Football became the heart and soul and pride of this city. The Sharks made that possible. There was so much euphoria.” He paused. “And that led to bad things. We were surrounded by booze and drugs and all kinds of freedoms. We were underage. It was illegal, but we were treated like royalty. And it was the Sixties. Everyone looked the other way. Everyone allowed us to do anything. When we weren’t practicing, we were fooling around with cheerleaders, drinking till we blacked out, doing drugs, partying on the streets and in the woods all night. It was madness. The month of September.”

  “Go on.”

  He wiped his mouth with his palm. “Can I get some water, please?”

  Nick stepped into the corridor, returned and handed him a plastic cup.

  “Thank you. As I was saying, we got carried away, detectives. We were young, impressionable men who were offered the world on a platter. And we took it.”

  “What does that mean?”

  A haunted look pinched his face. “It started off as harmless fun the first few nights. To try to sleep with drunk girls at parties. It was sleazy in hindsight. It became… wrong. We picked up girls with or without their consent.”

  “Bill…” Peck said, but this time Mackenzie raised her hand to silence him.

  “Go on, Mr. Grayson.”

  “Sometimes we drugged them. Sometimes we lied to them. Sometimes we just grabbed them. Some of the girls were willing. But a lot of them weren’t. That’s how we spent the month of September. We spent days with them. Wake up, hit the gym, practice, party, and go to the girls we had decided to keep for the month. It became routine. It was how we celebrated the start of football season. Unofficially, we called ourselves Club 916.”

  Nausea swilled in Mackenzie’s belly and rose up the back of her throat. “How long did this celebration continue?”

  “Three years. My two years at Lakemore High and one more year after that.”

  “Who participated in this club?”

  “Everyone. Everyone on the team. The junior team. Including the coach and the training staff. Also, the Sharks alumni who were in town.”

  “There were never any complaints? None of the women you preyed on ever went to the police?” Nick asked.

  “I wouldn’t know. Things were taken care of for us. Even if some did, they were swept under the rug.”

  “Why did the club dissolve after three years?”

  “I wasn’t here. I was at college, en route to the NFL. But I heard that there was a new principal. A woman. She found out what was happening and threatened to expel the entire team if they continued. She ran a tight ship during her tenure. But it was long enough for the culture to change and people to forget that ‘916’ was ever a thing. Over the years, the knowledge diluted. The new kids didn’t know anything. Things changed for the better.”

  “This napkin is from your club? This is your logo?”

  “No,” he said sharply. “I have never seen this napkin or this logo in my entire life. All I recognized was the number.”

  Mackenzie pulled out a spare sheet of paper and pen. “I want you to write down the name of every person you can remember who was a part of this club.”

  “It was fifty years ago.”

  “I bet all the exercise has kept your brain sharp.”

  “Most of them are dead or almost dead. The youngest ones would be sixty-five years old.”

  “The names, Mr. Grayson.”

  He nodded and scribbled the names on the paper. When he was done, he set the pen down. “I want you to know how ashamed I am for what I did. I can have all the excuses in the world about how the times were different and how young I was, but it doesn’t negate the wrongness of my actions. It took years of introspection and maturity to realize the truth of what I did.” He cleared his throat and wiped a tear spilling down his cheek. “I didn’t hurt Abigail. I haven’t hurt anyone since my time with Club 916. I have tried to give more than I took.”

  Mackenzie closed her file and notes and stood up. “Thank you, Mr. Grayson. If we have any questions, we’ll be in touch.”

  Bill frowned like he was expecting sympathy after his confession, but recovered quickly. Weakly, he nodded and was escorted out by Peck. The second the door to the conference room shut, Mackenzie turned to Nick.

  “Do you believe him?”

  “I hate him. But I buy his story,” Nick admitted. “I think his alibi’s going to be airtight.”

  “Abby was mistaken? She thought it was Bill behind the disappearances.”

  “He could still be. A bit cocky, isn’t it? To s
how up without a lawyer. Smells like entitlement to me. Like he knows he’ll still be protected.”

  “He won’t be wrong. Didn’t you watch Peck cosset him?”

  “Do you think it’s the team?” he huffed. “They’ve started the tradition again?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think they would do anything to risk their futures in today’s age of technology—it’s easier to get caught, for rumors to spread widely. I want to believe kids are smarter these days. I think it’s either an ex-member of the club or a fanatical fan of the Sharks who discovered what they did and honors them in his own sick way.”

  “Unless those kids think they’re too smart. I’ll take this list to Jenna and ask her to track everyone on it and look for more members.”

  Mackenzie picked up her file and headed to the office to grab a bite to eat. The pangs of hunger grew stronger now that the interview was over. She was out of distractions. She knew if she didn’t find food now the grinding pain would cripple her. Her phone vibrated with a message from Justin.

  Traced the company to the Caribbean. It’s a long trail. Will take more time.

  She clicked her tongue and replied.

  Okay. Keep at it.

  In the office, Troy stood by her cubicle with his arms crossed and shoulders taut.

  “Troy? Everything okay?”

  He turned around to reveal a scraggy boy sitting in her chair.

  “Who are you?” she asked him. He looked familiar but she couldn’t place him.

  “I’m Max.”

  Mackenzie remembered him now—the boy Quinn had hit at the funeral.

  “Oh! Right! Sorry. How can I help you?”

  Max wrapped his arms around his school bag. “Where is she? D-did you find her?”

  “What are you talking about?” Her chest tightened.

  Max’s face was flushed. His Adam’s apple bobbed like a bouncing ball. Finally, he broke down.

  “Abby! She was supposed to be at Coach Grayson’s cabin! We planned this entire thing!”

  Sixty

  A fluorescent light hummed

  Her stomach growled.

  A stapler clicked.

  Mackenzie’s brain turned on and off, like a flickering light bulb. The file slipped from her hands and landed on the floor. Her mind had wandered into the past. She went over every word written in Abby’s journal, every missing clue she had uncovered.

  “Detective Price!” Daniel approached from behind. “I just saw Nick, he updated me on Bill––” He paused and followed Mackenzie’s eyes to Max. “Is everything okay?”

  Just like that, she snapped.

  She chucked the file on her desk. “In the interrogation room. Follow me now.”

  “What’s going on?” Daniel asked.

  But she didn’t reply. She didn’t falter at Max’s pleading face, just raised a sharp eyebrow. Max stood up slowly and nodded.

  Spinning on her heel, she marched toward the interrogation room.

  “Damn teenagers,” she muttered, and then raised her voice. “Daniel! Get Nick and come to Room C!”

  She knew Max was on her heels. She saw his shadow trailing behind her, heard his loud breaths. Pangs of hunger forgotten, the vein in her forehead popped and pounded.

  Reaching the interrogation room, she kicked it open. “Get in.”

  Max staggered inside. She considered closing the door behind her, but Max’s face turned green. She left the door ajar.

  It was the smallest interrogation room in the building—the size of two broom closets combined. It was strategic to interrogate in a room with musky smell, lack of fresh air, and little space.

  It was designed to break anyone.

  Mackenzie gestured for Max to take a seat. His bag dropped to the floor like a pile of bricks.

  Once seated across from each other, she stapled her eyes to him in a hard stare. He visibly wilted.

  Sterling always said to her, That look can stop hearts, baby. And not in a good way.

  Max shrunk into the chair, looking younger than he was and weaker than when Quinn had beaten him.

  “I don’t have a lot of patience left, Max. If you are uncomfortable at any point, you can leave. You do not have to talk to me. This is purely voluntary. For now. But an obstruction charge is right around the corner. Is that clear?”

  He nodded.

  “What’s going on?” Nick asked, walking into the room with Daniel.

  Mackenzie sucked in a sharp breath. “Start from the beginning. Tell us everything.”

  “Abby and I got close after Erica disappeared. We were friends before, but it was very superficial.” He sniffed. “The first six months were bad. But then something changed.”

  “She was acting scared and paranoid?”

  “Yes! One time she didn’t show up to school. I went to visit her, thinking she was sick. She said she didn’t come in because she felt uncomfortable, like she was being followed. She kicked me out.”

  Mackenzie searched his face. What else was there to this harmless-seeming, gaunt boy? “Continue.”

  “She told me she was looking into Erica’s disappearance. I begged her to let me help, but she wouldn’t. She just kept getting worse. I knew she had dug something up. After weeks of being on her case, she confided in me about a club. Of football players. They had hurt girls in the past. They would take them and use them. They called themselves ‘Club 916.’”

  “Did she give any details? Did she know any names?”

  “I don’t know! I asked her how she found out. She said the less I knew, the safer it was. But what she did know was that Bill Grayson was behind it.”

  “She didn’t tell you how she figured that out?”

  “No. She told me nothing!” he cried. “I begged her to. Then, about a month ago, she came up with a plan. She said she needed proof that Bill hurt Erica. She couldn’t live with herself not doing anything. No one was going to believe her theory without any evidence. Especially when she was accusing the Pride of Lakemore. She knew he had a cabin—football players bragged about using it in the summer. She found out where it was.”

  “Then what happened?”

  His voice trembled, like he knew the more he talked the more trouble he was in. “She said that whatever Bill had to hide, it must be there. Deep in the woods. I told her it was a bad idea. She didn’t even know what exactly to look for. But she said she had to try to do something. She said if there was anything even suspicious, then it would help us. The police wouldn’t listen to something this ridiculous without proof.”

  “So, she planned her disappearance?”

  “Not exactly. She told me she was being threatened. Someone would leave her notes, text messages, or follow her on her way home from school. She saw shadows outside her window. One time someone tried to break into her house too when her mom was at work. She wasn’t safe. But no one was going to believe her. It would just be dismissed as someone playing pranks on her.” He held his face in his hands. “Why did I agree to this? I had a bad feeling. I knew something would go wrong!”

  “Max. What happened next? Focus.”

  He took a shaky breath. “She decided to go after Bill Grayson alone. I warned her something might go wrong. But she didn’t listen. She said she would be safer if she disappeared. That way, she could be the one to follow Bill instead of the other way around. She believed it would be easier to collect evidence against him. She had some leads she wanted to follow up on. But she couldn’t do anything when she was being watched the entire time.”

  “But if she disappeared, she could get around. Hunt, instead of being hunted,” Nick said.

  “Exactly. I didn’t like it, but I understood. Still, we needed a backup plan. In case something went wrong, and Bill caught her. She gave me some pages from her diary.”

  “Her personal journal? You had them?”

  “She was always writing in her diary. She said she had written about Bill when she realized what he’d done. She obviously always wrote in code. In case
it fell into the wrong hands. She… she gave me some of her entries and told me to hide them in the secret drawer in her woodshop station.” He blew his nose into his sleeve. A string of snot hung between his nose and his T-shirt. Cringing, he wiped his nose again. “She told me that if she didn’t return in fourteen days, then I should make sure that the police found the pages. She was certain that the police would crack the code in her diary, and they would be led to Bill.”

  “How were you planning on making sure we got the pages?” Daniel asked.

  “I was supposed to send in an anonymous tip today. But I found out you were at school two days ago, going through the woodshop. You got there first, and I figured that Abby would be back sooner than planned.”

  “Abby was supposed to be at the cabin?”

  “Yes! She was! She said that if she didn’t return by today then that meant Bill had got her. That she was in trouble. And the only place we thought he could keep her was in that cabin. But I don’t know what happened. Where did he take her to?”

  “Did Abby ever mention anything about Erica’s phone?” Mackenzie asked.

  “No. Why?”

  “Anything about needing money?”

  “I lent her two hundred. She didn’t even want it.” A dreamy look crossed his face. “She wanted to do everything by herself. Too stubborn to ask for help. I doubt she would have included me at all if it weren’t for my persistence. It kills me that no one sees how much she cares, how much she is ready to sacrifice.”

  Mackenzie’s vision began to swim. She wasn’t blinking, but the sight of Max talking kept collapsing into blackness repeatedly. The edges began to blur. The shape of his head and shoulders merged with the blue of the room. His voice grew soundless even though his lips moved. She pushed herself off the chair and wobbled out of the room.

  Blindly, she tried to grab the wall and keep her eyes open. The white lights from bulbs above cast a halo that quickly expanded until her vision was a bright explosion.

  Then everything went black.

  Sixty-One