Page 59 of The Lost Bones

Her blood ran cold.

Sticking out of the disturbed soil was a finger bone. There was a body buried here.

Everything happened in a blur.

“Peterson, call dispatch,” Nick ordered. “We need CSU here.”

Mackenzie stared at the white bone without a shred of tissue or skin. Nick helped her up and pulled her away. “Mack, you need to move. You can’t compromise the remains.”

The remains.

In no time at all, it seemed, the crime-scene investigators arrived, along with a group of deputies. All of a sudden, they weren’t alone in the woods. Lights were erected around the clearing. The perimeter was marked by tape. Technicians in gear gathered around the finger in the soil.

Mackenzie looked at the ring in her palm and then at the spot in the woods where she had seen Mallory standing. But there was nobody there. It had probably just been her imagination.

Officials roamed the clearing and the edge of the woods carrying portable scene lights. One of the technicians brought out ground-penetrating radar and scanned the entire area. And then the technicians weren’t just centered around that one spot. They broke into groups and soon they were spread all around.

“What the hell is going on?” Mackenzie couldn’t shake off a terrible feeling.

“No fucking clue,” Nick muttered.

Anthony removed his skullcap and goggles and ducked under the tape, heading toward them wearing a haunted expression. Mackenzie had never seen him like this. The tall, lanky man was usually wry and bored.

“Now I know where the name Tombstone came from,” he said somberly. “There are nine bodies buried here. This is a mass grave.”

THIRTY-TWO

APRIL 20

“This house will never be good, Mackenzie.” Melody scrubbed at the hardened caramel on the bowl. She scrubbed so hard that Mackenzie was concerned her skin would peel off.

“Why?” Mackenzie sat at the table in the kitchen, watching her mother slog by the sink.

“There’s something about violence, sweetheart.” Melody turned on the faucet and rinsed the dish. “It leaves a mark. Not just on people, but also on places. It changes something in the air.”

Mackenzie emerged from the water in her bathtub and blinked away the memory. The water was now lukewarm. The bubbles sizzled against her breasts. She thought about what her mother had said all those years ago. How violence always lingered, leaving something behind. Her own house had seen violence. Someone had died here after they tried to kill her.

Should she move?

When her phone pinged, she answered, “Hello?”

“Mack, can you pick me up?” It was Nick.

“What’s wrong with your car?”

“Long story. I need to change the tire and don’t have a spare. When can you get here?” Sounds of keys clanging and drawers opening and closing filtered through.

Mackenzie propped herself up, leaning forward to begin draining the tub. “Give me twenty minutes. We have a meeting with the mayor, don’t we?”

“Yeah.” He paused as the water started to drain. “What’s that?”

“Oh yeah, I was taking a bath. Just getting out now,” she replied without thinking.

He cleared his throat. “Yeah. Okay. Cool. See you later.” He hung up before she could utter another word.

By the time Mackenzie rolled the car into Nick’s driveway, she felt more centered. Last night, after the discovery of the mass grave, she had returned home and showered vigorously. When she’d woken this morning, though, something fetid still clung to her skin. It had sharpened her soul.

She noticed Nick’s car standing ahead of hers and climbed out to check the tires. One of them was completely flat, making the car lean to one side. She knelt and spotted a tiny hole drilled into it.