Page 78 of Our Daughter's Bones

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 unfair, 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.”