Mackenzie woke at 6:45 the following morning to the sound of an incoming text. She was already awake, dressed in her underwear. She checked the message and her heart dropped to see it was from Ellington.
Heading home. I'll call you later today to check in.
She thought about calling him right then and there. She was well aware that she'd acted like an immature jilted teenager yesterday. Hell, she hadn't really even been rejected. Ellington had simply stayed true to his character, adding faithful husband to his long list of admirable characteristics.
In the end, she let it go. She still felt embarrassed but more than that, she felt defeated. And that was not something she felt very often. The killer was still out there and they were no closer to catching him than they had been three days ago. She'd lost her live-in boyfriend of three years and then found herself infatuated with an FBI agent less than twenty-four hours later. To make matters worse, she'd seen a promise of what her future could be when she was with Ellington; she had seen what her job could be like with someone that respected her and, in a way, was in awe of her. And now that was gone.
She had only Porter and Nelson to look forward to, surrounding her with doubt in the midst of a case that was getting under her skin.
As she slid a shirt on, she sat on the corner of her bed and looked at her cell phone. Suddenly, it was not Ellington that she wanted to call. She was thinking of someone else-someone else who shared the same traumas and sense of failure that she knew so well.
With a sudden pit in her stomach, Mackenzie picked her cell phone up from the dresser and scrolled through her contacts. When she reached the name Steph, she pressed CALL and then nearly ended it right away.
By the time the phone started ringing, she already regretted making the call. It rang twice on the other end before it was answered. The voice of her sister on the other end was familiar, but one she didn't hear nearly enough.
"Mackenzie," Stephanie said. "It's early."
"You never sleep past five," Mackenzie pointed out.
"That's true. But I was just making a point. It's early."
"Sorry," she said. It was a word she used a lot when she spoke to Steph. Not because she actually meant it, but Steph had a way of heaping on the guilt in an effortless way about the smallest of things.
"What did Zack do this time?" Steph asked.
"It's not Zack," Mackenzie said. "Zack is gone."
"Good," Steph said, matter-of-factly. "He was a waste of space."
There was silence on the line for a moment. It was clear that Steph could have gone the rest of her life without speaking to her sister ever again. It was a fact she had made clear multiple times. They did not hate each other-not by a long shot-but interacting with one another brought up the past. And the past was something that Steph had spent most of her thirty-three years of life running hard from.
As always, Steph sounded half-asleep when she spoke on the phone.
"No sense in getting into details. Bills barely paid. Alcoholic boyfriend with a reputation for throwing right hooks at me. Constant migraines. Which would you like to hear about?"
Mackenzie took a deep breath.
"Well, how about starting with the boyfriend that's beating you?" Mackenzie said. "Why don't you report him for abuse?"
Steph said only laughed. "Too much trouble. No thanks."
Mackenzie bit back a stream of responses to the other things. Among them were: How about you go back to college, finish working toward your degree, and get out of that dead-end job? But right now was not the time for such advice. Now, over the phone, things would stay at the surface. They had both learned long ago that it was better that way.
"So spill it," Steph said. "You only ever call when things are going to shit for you. Is it just Zack leaving? Because if it is, let me tell you-that's the best thing that could have happened to you."
"That's part of it," Mackenzie said. "But there's also this case that is getting under my skin in a way that I've never experienced. It's making me feel, I don't know, inadequate. Throw in the fact that I invited a married man into bed yesterday and-"
"Did you get lucky?" Steph interrupted.
"God, Steph. That's all you took away from that?"
"It was the only interesting thing I heard. Who was it?"
"An FBI agent that was sent down to help with the case."
"Oh," Steph said, apparently done with the conversation. Silence fell across the line for about five seconds before she repeated the question: "Well, did he?"
"No."
"Ouch," Steph said.
"Do you not feel like talking?" Mackenzie asked.
"Rarely. I mean, we're strangers, Mackenzie. What do you want from me?"
Mackenzie sighed, overcome with sadness.
"I want my sister," Mackenzie said, surprising even herself. "I want a sister that I can call and that will call me from time to time to tell me about the creep at work that has grab-hands."
Steph sighed. It was a sound that seemed to travel the eight hundred miles that separated them and reach out through the phone to slap her in the face.
"That's not me," Steph said. "You know that every time we talk, Dad will come up. And it all goes downhill from there. Even worse, we start talking about Mom."
The word mom sent another slap through the phone line. "How is she?" Mackenzie asked.
"The same as always. I talked to her last month. She asked me for some money."
"Did you lend it to her?"
"Mackenzie, I don't have the money to lend her."
Another silence filled the phone. Mackenzie had offered to lend Steph money on several occasions but each attempt had been met with scorn, anger, and resentment. So after a while, Mackenzie had simply stopped trying.
"Is that all?" Steph asked.
"One more thing, if you don't mind," Mackenzie said.
"What is it?"
"When you spoke to Mom, did she mention me even once?"
Steph was quiet for a while and then finally answered. When she did, her sleepy voice was back. "You really want to do this to yourself?"
"Did she ask about me?" Mackenzie asked, her voice louder now and more demanding.
"She did. She asked if I thought you would lend her any money. I told her to ask you herself. That was it."
Mackenzie felt overwhelmed with sadness. That was all her mom had ever wanted of her.
She held the phone to her ear, feeling a tear, unsure what to say.
"Look," Steph said. "For real, I have to go."
The phone went dead.
Mackenzie tossed the phone on the bed and stared at it for a moment. The conversation had lasted no more than five minutes but it felt like a lifetime. Still, it had oddly gone much better than their last few phone calls, which had ended with arguments over the family dynamic in regards to who was to blame for their mother's downfall after their father's death. Yet in a way, this call was worse.
She thought about the years that sat like a rotting stretch between the night she found her father dead and the night her mother had been taken to the psychiatric ward of the hospital for the first time. Mackenzie had been seventeen when that had happened; Steph had been in college, working toward a journalism degree. After that, things had gone south for the three of them but Mackenzie was the only one who had managed to endure it all, coming out as on top as possible given the dire circumstances.
She thought of her mother as she finished getting dressed, wondering why the poor woman had chosen to hate her through all of it. It was a question she kept tucked away in the furthest corners of her mind, only bringing it out when she was at her lowest.
Doing everything she could to keep herself from going there, she retrieved her phone, badge, and gun. She then headed out for work, determined. But where did she go from here? What was her next step?
For the first time since being promoted to detective, she felt like she was at a dead end.
Dead end, she thought, the words starting to build an idea in her mind.
She thought about the dirt road the second body had been found alongside. Hadn't it come to a dead end in that field?
And how about the abandoned house? The gravel road that had led to it and the third victim had come to a dead end in a small square of dirt in front the house.
"Dead end," she said out loud as she left her house.
And suddenly, she knew where she had to go.
