They left Quantico immediately after lunch. As Bryers drove, headed southwest, Mackenzie felt like she was being rescued from boredom, only to be brought to certain danger.
"So what can you tell me about this case?" she finally asked.
"A body has been discovered in Strasburg, Virginia. The body was found in a state park, in a condition that resembled a body that was discovered very close to the same area about two years ago."
"You think they're linked?"
"Has to be, if you want my opinion. Same location, same brutal style of murder. The files are in my bag in the back seat if you want to have a look."
She reached into the back seat and grabbed the portfolio-style case Bryers usually carried with him when there was going to be research involved. She slid a single folder out of it, continuing to ask questions as she did.
"When was this second body discovered?" she asked.
"Sunday. So far we haven't a trace of anything to point us in any direction. This is not a trail, like last time. We need you."
"Why me?" she asked, curious.
He looked back, curious himself.
"You're an agent now-and a damned good one at that," he said. "People are already whispering about you, people that didn't quite know who you were when you first came to Quantico. While it's atypical for a new agent to land a case like this, well, you aren't exactly a typical agent, now are you?"
"Is that a good thing or a bad thing?" Mackenzie asked.
"That depends on how you perform, I guess," he said.
She let things rest there, turning her attention to the folder. Bryers snuck a few peeks as she made her way through the contents-either to gauge her reaction or to see what she was currently looking at. As she made her way through the folder, he narrated the case.
"It took only a few hours before we were pretty sure the murder was linked to another body that was discovered about thirty-five miles away nearly two years ago. The pictures you see in the folder are from that body."
"Two years ago," Mackenzie said suspiciously. In the picture, she saw a body that had been badly mutilated. It was so bad, she had to look away for a moment. "How would you so easily link the two murders with such a huge expanse of time between them?"
"Because both bodies were found in the same state park and in the same very butchered condition. And you know what we say about coincidences in the bureau, right?"
"That they don't exist?"
"Exactly."
"Strasburg," Mackenzie said. "I'm not familiar with it all. Small town, right?"
"Eh, close to medium-sized. Population of around six thousand. One of those southern towns that's still clinging hard to the Civil War."
"And there's a state park out there?"
"Oh yeah," Bryers said. "That was news to me, too. Pretty big one, too. Little Hill State Park. About seventy miles of land all told. It damn near creeps in to Kentucky. It's popular for fishing, camping, and hiking. A lot of unexplored forest. That kind of state park."
"How were the bodies discovered?" Mackenzie asked.
"A camper found the latest one on Saturday night," Bryers said. "The body that was discovered two years ago was a pretty gruesome scene. The body was discovered weeks after the murder. There were rotting factors and some of the wildlife had taken some nibbles, as you see in the pictures."
"Any clear indication of how they were murdered?"
"Not that we can identify. The bodies were mutilated pretty badly. The first one two years ago-the head had been mostly severed, all ten fingers were cut off and never found, and the right leg was missing from the knee down. This most recent one was sort of spread all over the place. The left leg was discovered two hundred feet away from the rest of the body. The right hand was severed and has yet to be found."
Mackenzie sighed, overwhelmed for a moment by the evil in the world.
"That's brutal," she said softly.
He nodded.
"It is."
"You're right," she said. "The similarities are too eerie to ignore."
He stopped here and let out a huge cough, which he covered with the inside of his elbow. It was a deep cough, one of the long and dry ones that often come directly following a nasty cold.
"You okay?" she asked.
"Yeah, I'm fine. Fall is on the way. My stupid allergies flare up every year at this time. But how about you? Are you okay? Graduation is over, you're now officially an agent, and the world is your proverbial oyster. Does that excite or terrify you?"
"A bit of both," she said honestly.
"Any family come up to see you on Saturday?"
"No," she said. And before he even had time to make a sad face or to express his regrets, she added: "But that's fine. My family was never really very close."
"I hear that," he said. "Same thing here. My folks were good people but I became a teenager and started acting like a teenager and then they sort of shrugged me off. I wasn't Christian enough for them. Liked girls a little too much. That sort of thing."
Mackenzie said nothing because she was in a bit of shock. It was the most he had said about himself since she had known him-and it had all come in a sudden, unexpected, twelve-second burst.
Then, before she was aware that she was even doing it, she spoke up again. And when the words were out of her mouth, she almost felt like she had vomited.
"My mom sort of did that to me," she said. "I got older and she saw that she wasn't really in control of me anymore. And if she couldn't control me, then she didn't want much to do with me. But when she lost that control over me, she lost control over just about everything else, too."
"Ah, aren't parents grand?" Bryers said.
"In their own special way."
"How about your father?" Bryers asked.
The question was like a sting to the heart but she again surprised herself by answering. "He's dead," she said with a crisp tone to her voice. Still, a part of her wanted to tell him about her father's death and how she had discovered the body.
While their time apart had seemed to improve their working relationship, she still wasn't quite ready to share those wounds with Bryers. Still, despite her cold answer, Bryers now seemed much more open, talkative, and willing to engage. She wondered if it was because he was now working with her with the assurance and blessing of those that supervised him.
"Sorry to hear it," he said, passing over it in a way that let her know he'd picked up on her unwillingness to talk about it. "My folks…they didn't understand why I wanted this for a job. Of course, they were very strict Christians. When I told them that I did not believe in God when I was seventeen, they basically gave up on me. Since then, I've seen both of my parents to the grave. Dad hung in there for about six years after mom passed. Dad and I made some unstable sort of peace after mom died. We were friendly again before he died of lung cancer in 2013."
"At least you got a chance to patch things up," Mackenzie said.
"True," he said.
"Did you ever get married? Any kids?"
"I was married for seven years. I got two daughters out of it. One is in college in Texas right now. The other is somewhere in California. She stopped talking to me ten years ago, right after she left high school, got knocked up and engaged to a twenty-six-year-old."
She nodded, finding the conversation too awkward to continue. It was odd that he was opening up to her in such a way, but she appreciated it. Some of what he had told her made some sense, though. Bryers was a fairly solitary man, and that lined up with having had a strained relationship with his parents.
The information about two daughters that he rarely spoke to, though-that had been a huge revelation. It made some sort of sense as to why he was so open with her and why he seemed to enjoy working with her.
The next two hours were filled with scant conversation, mostly about the case at hand and Mackenzie's time in the academy. It was nice to have someone to talk to about such things and it made her feel a little guilty for shutting him down he had asked about her father.
It was another hour and fifteen minutes before Mackenzie started seeing signs announcing the exit for Strasburg. Mackenzie could practically feel the air within the car shifting as they both switched gears, tucking personal matters away and focusing solely on the job at hand.
Six minutes later, Bryers turned the sedan onto the Strasburg exit. When they entered the town, Mackenzie felt herself tense up. But it was a good sort of tension-the same kind she had felt as she had stepped into the parking lot the night before graduation with the paintball gun in her hand.
She had arrived. Not just in Strasburg, but into a stage of her life she had dreamed about ever since taking her first demeaning desk job back in Nebraska before she'd been given a proper chance.
My God, she thought. Was that only five and a half years ago?
Yes, it was. And now that she was literally being driven toward the realization of all of those dreams, the five years that separated that desk job from the current moment in the passenger seat of Bryers's car seemed like a barricade of sorts that kept those two sides of her apart. And that was just as well as far as Mackenzie was concerned. Her past had never done anything but hold her back, and now that she had finally seemed to outrun it, she was glad to leave it dead and rotting in the past.
She saw the sign for Little Hill State Park, and as he slowed the car, her heart quickened. Here she was. Her first case while officially on the job. All eyes would be on her, she knew.
The time had come.
