Page 56 of Our Daughter's Bones

“Why would he?” Daniel shrugged. “There was nothing suspicious on it. It seems like she left of her own will. Which also explains why he didn’t try getting it back from the gas station.”

“You’re saying the phone got damaged when Erica was attacked?”

“I think so,” Mackenzie pitched in. “If he had tried destroying the phone on purpose, then it’s careless to just leave it there. Unless he accidentally dropped it.”

“Forensics report says Erica was likely killed in the woods, probably with a rock, right?” Sully said.

Mackenzie nodded. “The particulate analysis and her injuries suggest so, yes. If she was trying to get to Abby through those woods, then what are the chances that she never made it for some reason, encountered the killer somewhere else, and then they also decided to bury her there later?”

“We don’t have any proof that she took that way to go to meet Abby,” Sully said.

“She didn’t take her car keys—or her parents’. The most direct way on foot would involve going through the woods by Hidden Lake.”

Nick flicked his finger over the flame from his lighter. “It’s still possible she was abducted and taken to the woods. But if she went there herself, it implies the killer was following her. She could have been attacked, broken free—remember her torn fingernail—and tried to get back home before the killer caught up with her.”

They all fell silent, the disturbing implication of Nick’s words hanging in the air. Mackenzie imagined Erica running through the woods that held so many secrets. Panting, sweating, her abused body being carried by the sole but strong determination to return to her family. She was close enough to taste her freedom. One more mile. Just one more mile.

Mackenzie shrugged off the image. They were going in circles. “What if Abby knew more about what happened that night?”

“We don’t even know if she saw Erica’s message on time,” Nick said.

“We don’t, but she lied to you and Bruce. What if it was because she suspected something? Something that scared her? If there’s anyone who knew Erica better than anyone else, it was Abby.”

“This is assuming that Erica was killed by someone she knew, and not a stranger,” Daniel said. “A random pervert sees a young woman walking into the woods at night, follows her…”

“Of course that’s possible, but Abby already knew more than what she let on. Her diary is very personal. She doesn’t hold back. The missing pages might have information on what happened that night,” countered Mackenzie.

Sully nodded. “It can’t be a coincidence that pages were ripped out from her diary. Everything that Abby knows about this case could be in there,” he said. “Make it a top priority to find them, along with tracking that pervert from the video.”

“What about the other messages between them from that day, Clint? What do they say?” Mackenzie asked.

“They texted back and forth in the afternoon, between 2 p.m. and 3:15 p.m. They discussed homework and Quinn.”

“Quinn? What about him?”

Clint wiped his smudgy glasses with the hem of his shirt. He read over the text messages exchanged between Abby and Erica just a few hours before the latter was murdered. Mackenzie listened intently. Erica had been reconsidering getting back with Quinn—perhaps there had been heartfelt appeals in person that day, before his late-night texts. But Abby had been discouraging her affections toward him, informing her of his philandering ways and asserting her value in her life.

“That was it?”

“Regarding Quinn, yes.”

“Can you extract all of her texts going back a month before she died and send them to us?” Nick asked.

“Sure.”

“This makes Quinn a possible suspect. He had motive to hurt both,” Mackenzie said.

“Let’s not rush into any assumptions,” Sully warned.

Daniel popped gum into his mouth. Mackenzie could hear the crunch of his jaw as he chewed it. It reminded her of Sterling cracking his knuckles whenever he was stressed. “Sergeant, we’ve seen people murder their exes. Obviously, Abby wasn’t in his good books. If she discovered that he killed Erica, then he could’ve gone after her.”

Mackenzie winced like someone had pinched her. There were more reasons for Abby to be dead than alive.

“What about that man from the video? Why are we forgetting him? He’s a better lead than a seventeen-year-old boy!”

“No one’s ignoring him, Sully. Mack’s following up on that. But you can’t ignore the fact that Quinn’s at least a person of interest,” Nick said.

Sully pursed his lips in a pout. He glanced at the clock. It was twenty minutes to five. “Screw it,” he muttered, and took a sip from one of the glasses. His mouth moved as he rinsed his pallet and took another sip. “Boy, that’s good. Look, Nathaniel Jones is too big a name in this town. He controls the media. I don’t want to piss him off. It’s been bad enough that Samuel Perez has the mayor questioning our competency—”