“I’m about ten minutes away from the field office. Set things up on your end and I’ll call as soon as I can.”

  She ended the call, pressed the gas harder, and sped toward what she hoped would be one of many forthcoming answers.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  When she arrived on the third floor, it just so happened that Ellington and Penbrook were walking by the elevators, headed somewhere further down the hallway. When Ellington saw her, he gave Penbrook his apologies and turned back toward her. By the time he had done this, she was already headed for the conference room at the end of the hall.

  He hurried to catch up to her. When he was by her side and keeping stride with her, he chuckled. “You’re moving fast. I take it you have something?”

  “Maybe. You remember the business card on my windshield?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It was a fake. Someone back in DC was screwing with me.”

  “What?”

  She caught him up as they made their way into the vacant conference room. As she came to the end of it, telling him about Harrison’s call ten minutes ago, he worked quickly to sync her phone to the laptop and projector on the table. It made her happy to realize that even with a little tension between them they worked fluidly together—both during and after work hours. She hadn’t even told him what she had planned to do with the projector and the live-stream, but he had just known.

  With the projector up and running and the conference room door locked, Mackenzie made the FaceTime call. Harrison answered it right away. It did Mackenzie a bit of good to see the excitement in his face.

  “You good to go?” he asked.

  “Yeah. Ellington is here, too.”

  “Okay. There will be a little blip while I connect you to the interrogation room. But just hang on a second.”

  Harrison put the phone down, pressed a button, and the blip made the screen appear to vibrate. Then, two seconds later, she saw the interrogation room. Agent Yardley was sitting at the table in the center of the room. Across from her was a face she had seen several times but didn’t know well. It was a Hispanic male, about her age. He had close-cropped hair and looked to be very nervous.

  A voice spoke out from the back of the room. Mackenzie was pretty sure it was McGrath, standing just out of the camera’s frame. He was telling her that they were good to go, indicating that Mackenzie was now on the feed.

  “Agent Fernandez, you’ve been a field agent for how long now?” Yardley asked.

  “Three months,” the man said.

  “So when you came into the academy, Agent Mackenzie White was not in your recruitment class, is that correct?”

  “That’s right.”

  “But you knew who she was?”

  “Yeah, most of us did. She was like this story we were told…an example of how even someone just starting out could rise quickly.”

  “And had you followed her career at all?”

  “Not really. She just has this reputation for being a badass. I’d heard about some cases she wrapped, but I was only interested because she was so young. Hearing those stories is a great source of motivation for anyone in the academy.”

  “Of course. But that’s because she worked her ass off,” Yardley said. “That, and she’s good at what she does.”

  Yardley leaned back and looked toward McGrath, still off-screen. She was apparently seeing if he wanted to add anything. Apparently, he did not.

  “You know why you’re here, correct?” Yardley asked Fernandez.

  “I am. And I’m sorry—”

  “I don’t want apologies,” Yardley said. “I want to know how you even knew about the card in the first place. How did you know about the Barker Antiques business cards?”

  “Someone else told me about them.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t remember. Honestly. There were a bunch of us drinking one night, out at a bar. Someone was talking about this case out in Nebraska that might be linked to the murder of White’s father. I found it interesting.”

  “The murder?”

  “No. The case. Like why it reached so far back. So I asked what else they knew.”

  “And they knew about the business cards?”

  Fernandez nodded. While Mackenzie found it irritating that her past had been discussed and dissected by members of the academy at a bar, she also knew that there was no real harm in it. Besides, the bigger details of the case weren’t even classified. Anyone without a moral compass and a penchant for digging up dirt within the bureau could have figured it out. And apparently, they had.

  “Yeah. They said the killer was leaving behind business cards at the scene. Said there might have even been one there when White’s father was murdered.”

  “And who was telling you all of this?” McGrath asked, his voice coming like some invisible deity from off-screen.

  Fernandez looked away, finding his hands suddenly interesting. Mackenzie felt confident that he would not give up a name. There was a sense of camaraderie among those in the academy that, from time to time, rivaled that of men in the military. Oddly, she respected him for it. She knew that despite the lack of cooperation, McGrath would appreciate it, too.

  “So why the prank?” Yardley asked.

  “Jealousy,” Fernandez said. “Word gets around, you know? Sure, we were all sort of looking to White as a beacon almost…hey, this can happen to you, too. That sort of thing. But it was also pretty apparent that she’d been primed and hand-picked for her quick rise from the start.”

  “How so?” Yardley asked.

  Fernandez shrugged. “She was teamed up with Agent Ellington. People started seeing her going up to Director McGrath’s office. It was…God, it sounds so juvenile but it didn’t seem fair. And it didn’t take long for this person we looked up to, to become this symbol of how sometimes people just get ahead because of their situation.”

  “You mean to tell me,” McGrath said, “that you thought the case involving her father somehow gave her privilege in the cases and partners she was assigned to?”

  “I know now that it wasn’t the case. But it seemed that way. The business card…we had a few made up. We thought it would be funny.”

  “White’s father is dead,” Yardley said. “Do you get that? How in the hell do you think a prank along those lines is funny?”

  Mackenzie felt a rush of anger swirling through her. Before she could let it get the best of her she ended the FaceTime call. She then used her phone to text Harrison. They can do whatever they want with him, she texted. But I won’t be pressing charges.

  “You didn’t want to hear the rest?” Ellington asked.

  “No. I heard enough, and I know how it’s going to end.”

  “You okay?”

  She nodded, leaning against the wall with her arms crossed. “I’m better than I should be. In the past day or so, I’ve had to face my mother, found out that I was pranked with the business card in DC, and now I also think I need to go see my sister.”

  “About the case…or personal?”

  “Both.”

  “Want me to come with you?” Ellington asked. But he asked in a way that made her think he already knew what her answer would be—and it disappointed him.

  “No thanks. She’s just in Kansas City. If I leave now, I can be back by midnight or so. If things go well.”

  “Mac…look, I don’t know what’s going on with you—with us—but…”

  “Me neither. And now is not the time to figure it out. Do you mind hanging back here while I check in with my sister?”

  “Is there even a lead worth looking into?”

  She shot him an annoyed look but figured she did owe him an update. So she spent the next five minutes filling him in on her late lunch with Peterson. It was clear that he did not like that she’d met with him, but he said nothing. In the end, he seemed much more excited about the possible connection than the lunch itself.

  “And after all that, you still don’t want me to go with you? At the risk of pulling rank, this is my case, too.”

  “If it was anyone other than my sister, then it wouldn’t even be a question. But you don’t understand how it is between the two of us. If I go in as an agent with a partner at my side, she’ll be useless. If it’s just me, I’ll at least stand some sort of chance.”

  He nodded, resigning himself to the fact that she was right. But that did not mean that he was happy about it.

  “Fine,” he said. He then headed for the door and Mackenzie couldn’t remember a time when she had seen him so pissed off. “Just be sure to fill me in on the details when you have the time.”

  He left the room before Mackenzie could even try to get another word out. And that was fine with her…because she had nothing to say anyway. She remained leaning against the wall, arms crossed in a defensive posture.

  Even when she removed herself from the wall and sat down at the conference room table, she felt rigid and tense, still in a defensive posture. It came from the fact that she knew she’d have to talk to her sister. To that end, she pulled her phone back out, pulled up Stephanie’s number for the first time in over a year, and stared at it for a while before finally acting.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Before making her decision to contact Stephanie before simply driving out to Kansas City, Mackenzie decided on two things. One: she would FaceTime her; despite her pig-headedness, she knew that Stephanie was an emotional mess at heart and seeing her sister’s face on the other end of a screen might make communicating with her a little easier. Two: she was not going to tell Stephanie that she was in Nebraska. That would only make matters stranger and set Stephanie’s internal alarms off.

  She placed the FaceTime call and when the line started ringing, Mackenzie didn’t even try to pretend that she wasn’t nervous as hell. After several seconds, she was sure that Stephanie wouldn’t answer her call. But just as she was expecting the ringing to stop, Stephanie answered.

  Neither of them spoke right away. They simply stared at one another for the first three seconds, their eyes getting reacquainted with one another. It took Mackenzie to break the silence, and in a very juvenile way it made her feel as if she was instantly on the losing end of the argument.

  “Hey, Steph,” she said. “Did I catch you at a bad time?”

  “Um, not really. I need to get out of here soon to head out to work. What’s up?”

  “Look, I don’t even know how to ease into this, so I’m just going to jump right in. Have you had any sort of relationship with a guy named Trevor Black?”

  Right away, any hope of a meaningful conversation went out the window. Mackenzie could see it in Stephanie’s eyes. She had gone from surprised and curious to annoyed in less than a second.

  “Have you been talking to that detective?” Stephanie asked. “Peters or Peterson or something?”

  “Yes, I have. And when he called you, did you listen to him?”

  “No. When he said he was calling about a case linked to Dad’s death, I refused to speak to him.”

  “Why?” Mackenzie asked, fully prepared to take part in a full-on argument if it came to that.

  “The same reason I never wanted to get into it with you. Because it’s in the past and no amount of digging up old stories and facts will bring him back. And it won’t fix things between you and me or either of us and Mom, either.”

  “That’s true,” Mackenzie said. “But that’s an extremely selfish position to take. There are other people being killed, Stephanie. Maybe by the same man that killed Dad. And if—”

  “You know what would be great?” Stephanie said. “It would be great if just once, you’d call to say hello. Just to catch up. That’s the only reason I answered this call. I thought to myself: Surely she isn’t calling about the case again after the way the last conversation about it went down. But you proved me wrong right away.”

  “My apologies,” Mackenzie snapped. “Let me start over. How have you been, Steph?”

  “I was great until my rude bitch of a sister called me up about two minutes ago,” Stephanie said.

  And then she hung up.

  Out of spite, Mackenzie nearly called her right back. But she allowed herself a few moments to cool down before finally standing up from the table and calmly leaving the room. She did not hesitate or even stop to think as she headed back toward the elevators. She texted Harrison yet again with another request.

  I need the address of the workplace of Stephanie White. Somewhere in Kansas City.

  Harrison responded back that he’d hop right on it. And with that assurance tucked away, Mackenzie headed out to her car and was pointed in the direction of Kansas City within five minutes.

  ***

  Harrison called her back forty minutes later, while she was well into her nearly three-hour drive to Kansas City. Evening was slowly giving way to night, casting an eerie sort of dark orange glow to the highway. It was mesmerizing and, in a strange way, calming. It was exactly what she needed to gear herself up for the confrontation to come.

  “What have you got for me?” Mackenzie asked.

  “Well, it was harder than I thought. And, well…maybe a little awkward. Her last reported place of employment was a small shipping plant for a retail chain. But there are no records of her working there for more than sixteen months. However, I dug a bit more and saw that she was listed as a witness to a lethal bar brawl at a strip club. In the report, she’s listed as being an employee there.”

  Yes…sounds about right, Mackenzie thought. “Dare I ask what this place is called?”

  “Pinky’s Dream.”

  “My God,” she sighed. “Thanks, Harrison.”

  She then typed in the poorly chosen name of Pinky’s Dream into her GPS and set her phone down again. She headed east, aware that the last two days had been nothing more than traveling, constant motion moving toward…where? She wasn’t even sure. She was starting to feel like she was running in circles, somehow always coming back to this one case—to this one point in her life that had been clutching at her from an early age.

  But maybe, just maybe, she was coming to the end of it. Something about visiting her mother and currently on the trail of her sister made her feel like she was coming full circle.

  The question, though, was how her life might change when that circle came to a close.

  ***

  Night had fully fallen by the time Mackenzie pulled her car into the lot of Pinky’s Dream. It wasn’t even nine o’clock yet and being a Wednesday night, the lot was pretty much empty. As she got out of the car, it occurred to her that by walking inside, there was a very good chance that she’d have to see Stephanie in the midst of an act. It only made her anxiety worse, causing her stomach to tremble to the point where she thought she might actually be sick.

  When she walked in, it also occurred to her that she had never been in a strip club. However, the depictions she had seen in movies were pretty accurate. Dim lighting everywhere other than on the stage, which was adorned in flashing blue and white lights. Three women were currently on stage in various stages of undress, one swinging around a pole while the other two danced suggestively together.

  One of the dancers was Stephanie. She was playing the part well, writhing against the other woman in a way that Mackenzie found almost comical but in a way she also knew would appeal to just about any male with a pulse. The music over the PA was unfamiliar to her but had a sort of groove-infused industrial feel straight out of the early nineties.

  Not knowing what else to do, Mackenzie walked to the right-hand side of the place and got a seat at the bar. It, too, was pretty dead. The handful of patrons were out near the stage. A few were sitting in darker corners, getting private dances.

  “Can I get you a drink?” the bartender asked.

  “God yes,” she said. “Rum and Coke, but not too strong.”

  The bartender went off about his business and as Mackenzie did her best to look at anything other than the stage, she hoped that Stephanie would be free after the song ended.

  The bartender came back with her drink and she downed nearly half of it in one swallow. He gave her an amused look before turning his attention to a customer at the other end of the bar. With the song still going, Mackenzie couldn’t help herself. She turned her attention back to her sister. Stephanie had always been gorgeous—by far the prettier of them. She’d also been crazy smart but had ended up with the wrong crowd and making some bad decisions: a pregnancy that ended up in a miscarriage at seventeen, a few misdemeanors before she was eighteen, and, of course, her current occupation.

  She was also a very good actress, apparently. She legitimately seemed to enjoy what she was doing onstage. The fact that her breasts were bare and her midsection was covered by the thinnest of G-strings apparently did not bother her. Her blonde hair caught the lights and her body moved in sync with the music.

  Maybe she is happy with this life, Mackenzie thought. Meanwhile, I’m a bit of a wreck. So who the hell am I to judge?

  The song came to a close and Mackenzie was glad to see that the three women on stage were indeed taking their leave. As they made their exit, though, a few men sitting by the stage came closer and offered a few dollars, shoving them into the lacy bands of the underwear of the three women. She watched as Stephanie lovingly ran one of her hands along one of the men’s arm, her smile looking to be genuine.

  As Stephanie and the other dancers came down off of the stage, Mackenzie saw that they were heading toward the bar. One of them stopped at the other end of the bar to flirt with the man sitting there. The other two approached the bartender. Mackenzie watched as Stephanie took a bottled water from him. As she took a sip from it, she took a look around the place, maybe trying to eye her next target.

  When she saw Mackenzie sitting there, she nearly dropped the water. And for just a fleeting moment, Mackenzie saw a smile on her sister’s face. Maybe it was from shock, or maybe surprise. Whatever the cause, it looked quite real.

 

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