Their Frozen Graves: A completely addictive crime thriller and mystery novel

by Choudhary, Ruhi

  Forty-Three

  December 6

  The spoon slightly wobbled in Sterling’s hand. The tip of his tongue poked out, resting on his upper lip. Mackenzie opened her mouth, and he shoved in a spoonful of soup.

  She swallowed the burning liquid. The tangy taste coated her tongue. “Did you make this?”

  He nodded silently and pouted at the bowl. Sterling was in an introspective mood. He had shown up frantic at the hospital, his tie askew and his eyes bloodshot. The only news he’d received was that Mackenzie had been shot.

  “Is it okay?” he asked.

  “Yeah. But I can eat soup myself. My elbow moves just fine.”

  His eyebrows dipped. “No, let me.”

  They were seated on the couch in the living room. Her father paced in the kitchen with a ticking jaw. His hands were balled into fists and trembling. “Is someone after you, Micky?” he asked suddenly.

  Her head jerked in his direction. “No. Why would you say that?”

  “You were shot.”

  “By a suspect. I’m a police officer.”

  He licked his lips. “Right. Of course.”

  It was Mackenzie’s first day “off-duty,” and she was already close to losing her mind. She had texted Nick for updates. He’d reminded her that it was nine in the morning.

  Four hours later, her mind was buzzing with the events of yesterday. She couldn’t sit still, couldn’t stop tucking her hair behind her ears, and couldn’t stop wiping her hands on her jeans.

  Robert accidentally dropped a fork on the floor when emptying the dishwasher. To Mackenzie it sounded like the bullet barreling out of Ben’s gun and into Kim’s stomach. She jumped at the sound and cowered into Sterling.

  “Mack!” Sterling’s voice sounded far-off, like it was coming from the end of a tunnel.

  She recoiled away from him. “Sterling, I’m fine.”

  “You have a bad concussion. There’s swelling on the back of your head.”

  “I’m functional. And it’s not like I’m living alone.”

  He opened his mouth to argue but closed it, his eyes flickering over to Robert in the kitchen. As if Robert sensed they needed privacy, he mumbled some excuse and left the room. She tucked her hand under her chin and shook her head.

  “Mack, I’m ready to spend the rest of my life earning back your trust. I’ll do anything.”

  “That’ll be a sad marriage,” she commented dryly. His face fell at her words. “Sorry.”

  “Mack,” he clasped her hand in his. “I love you. Please.”

  He hadn’t said those words to her since she asked him to leave their house. And those simple words messed with her head. She looked up at her husband, who had taken a backseat at a big trial he’d been preparing for months. He was supposed to be first chair. Instead, he was here, taking care of her. He never hesitated in giving, without her ever having to ask.

  “I don’t know, Sterling.”

  “We can take this slow. Maybe I could spend some nights here. Just don’t close the door on us. I can’t imagine my life without you.”

  Mackenzie was exhausted. Her body had gone through a wringer—head mildly pounding and arm sore and stiff. She couldn’t tuck away the image of Kim being shot. And she was living with her father, who was back from the dead and possibly harboring secrets.

  Deflated, she rested her head on his shoulder. For one moment, she wanted to forget that her life was a shambles. She just wanted security. Sterling kept stroking her hand, quietly, while she wrestled with the idea of giving him another chance.

  “I need to rest,” she said after a few minutes, and stood up. “I’ll think about it. About you moving back in.”

  “Thank you.”

  Mackenzie locked the bedroom door behind her and slumped down. She’d never felt so confused in her life. Sterling had felt like the one thing she had going for her. She could take him back, but at what cost? Could she ever trust him again?

  A sluggish roll crept up her body, starting in her toes and making its way up to her eyelids. Seconds later, her head was on the pillow, and she was snoring away.

  Minutes after that, she was running wildly through the woods behind Hidden Lake. She was panting and puffing—her lungs squeezing painfully in her chest.

  Speckles of light guided her through the dark woods. She ran around the thick trees, hopped over the bulging roots and thickets.

  Suddenly, she saw Sterling on her left, watching her with dead eyes. “I’m sorry, Mack. We can make this work.”

  Then she saw her father. He was old but wore his flowery shirt from back in the day. “Micky, give me a chance. Haven’t I proven myself to you? We can move on together.”

  She turned in the opposite direction, away from his looming presence that cut into her soul.

  In her peripheral vision, she saw Kim Harris. A bullet wound in her abdomen. Her entire torso was red—a jarring color against the black and blue of the woods. “You owe me.”

  Mackenzie stopped dead in her tracks. In front of her, Katy appeared. Her face was invisible behind a thick cloud of leaves. “All I did my entire life was help people. I just wanted to do right by Kim.”

  Alison appeared in another corner. “I would never leave my son. Please, give him back his mother.”

  Mackenzie dragged her fingers through her soiled hair. They surrounded her. She decided to run back but something held her ankle.

  A man’s hand had extended out of the ground. It held Mackenzie and immobilized her.

  A scream was stuck in her throat.

  “Ignorance is bliss, Mackenzie.”

  She looked up and found Melody standing on the other side of the grave, holding the same shovel from that night. She swung the shovel against Mackenzie’s head.

  A crack.

  Black.

  Mackenzie woke up with a stir, her nightmare fading like smoke. The doctor had prescribed her a mild painkiller to get through the first night, but now she was wide awake and restless to get some work done.

  Even though Nick was on top of it, the more heads and hands, the better for Alison.

  Clint and Andrea were monitoring that shady website to check for more ads, but nothing new had popped up. They were still trying to hunt down who paid Robbie in Bitcoin. And the patrol was still underway at Woodburn.

  Ben Harlan seemed like the obvious suspect for the murders, yet his role in the bigger operation felt unlikely. He was unhinged, an abusive drunk, but he didn’t fit the profile. His only concern seemed to be Kim and the money. She’d let Nick check that box off, though.

  Mackenzie logged in and scoured over all the files again. From the medical examiner’s report on Katy and Bella, to old case notes on the suicide and records of Alison’s last movements. She hoped that something would catch her eye, but going over the facts of the case again, she felt more and more baffled.

  She was certain that Steven Boyle had had something to do with the suicide. Could the victim have been his drug-addicted wife, Sofia,—the one he talked about? Could he have surgically changed his own wife to look more like Carrie Breslow? She recalled how the nurse at the retirement home had told them that Steven had looked down on his wife for being a shut-in and an addict.

  Years later, someone was doing something similar, using his name on the dark web. Someone had sent him a gift—an expensive pen with a molecule’s structure engraved on it. A symbol that would have meant something to Steven, had he been in his right mind.

  Then there was Bella’s tattoo—except Jasmine was adamant that Bella was allergic to the ink.

  Mackenzie had planned to follow up on this before the vinegar had caught her attention and distracted her. Now, she looked up all the reasons one might have an allergic reaction to tattoos. The most obvious explanation was metal hypersensitivity, as a result of heavy metals present in tattoo ink. It was more commonly associated with colored ink—especially red ink—as it contained rust, but even black ink contained metals.

  She scratched her hea
d, her brain scouring for alternatives. Realizing she was out, she shot Becky a message.

  Is it a good time to talk?

  Becky was a night owl, so Mackenzie was certain she wasn’t asleep at midnight. But she and her husband were having problems. As Mackenzie waited for a reply, her mind imagined what their issues looked like. Did they scream and shout like Melody and Robert? Or were their cold silences bursting with tension and grudges, like with Mackenzie and Sterling?

  Her phone buzzed—a call from Becky.

  “How’s the concussion, Mack?”

  “Not too bad. I wanted to talk about one of the victims, Bella Fox. The one with the tattoos?”

  “Oh yeah, the former drug addict.” Mackenzie heard water gush out of a faucet and then Becky gulping. “What about her?”

  “Tracked down her roommate. She said that the last time Bella tried to get tattoos, she had a severe allergic reaction and had to be taken to a hospital.”

  Becky was silent for a beat. “Okay…”

  “The doctor told her not to get inked because of the allergy.” Mackenzie dragged her hands down her face, drowsiness intensifying. “Can you extract the ink from the body and check its composition to confirm what kind of ink was used?”

  Becky chuckled. “Doesn’t work that way, Mack. Tattoo removal means destroying it.”

  “Then I don’t know what to think. She had to be taken to the hospital when she tried getting tattoos before.”

  “Hmmm…” A chair scraped against tiles. “I read somewhere about something known as vegan ink, I think. I don’t know anything about it but worth checking out.”

  “Okay, will do. Thanks, Becky.”

  “No problem.”

  Mackenzie disconnected the call and searched vegan ink. Traditional ink was generally iron heavy and used animal products as carriers. Bella’s tattoos were black. Non-toxic versions of blank ink used carbon or logwood, and purified water and witch hazel for carriers. The information washed over Mackenzie. But then she came across some articles on how vegan friendly, non-toxic ink offered an alternative to people who were allergic to the ingredients found in traditional ink.

  A glimmer of hope pulsed through Mackenzie. Her eyes were drooping, sleep coming back to her in full force. But she couldn’t sleep now. She needed to scratch this itch, needed to get one step closer before the paths twisted away from her again.

  She hunted for tattoo parlors that used “non-toxic” and “vegan” ink. There were no hits for Lakemore or Riverview. She expanded the search. There were six parlors fairly nearby that offered vegan ink services. Bella could have gone to any of them. Mackenzie noted down their addresses.

  Maybe one of them was where Bella went. Maybe they would know what her tattoo meant.

  Forty-Four

  December 7

  Mackenzie turned the key in the ignition and felt the pulsating car still. Driving had taken a toll on her shoulder. She had tried to keep her arm braced, but the little movements had accumulated and left her muscle sore and throbbing.

  The bandage was still wrapped around her head—it was the last day she had to wear it. The swelling had reduced. She had displayed no symptoms as a result of the concussion. Just one more day and then at least her hair wouldn’t be drenched in sweat. She grazed the back of her head and winced at the wetness pooling along the edge of the bandage.

  She grabbed her bag and climbed out of the car. It was a rare sunny afternoon in Lakemore, with clear blue skies. But even as she put on her sunglasses, she felt a chill hanging in the air.

  She pounded her fist on the door. The sound of footsteps grew clearer. The thick wooden door flung open, and Nick gave her a brittle smile. “You lasted a day away. Color me surprised.”

  “Move.”

  He grunted and let her in. Dressed in sweatpants in the middle of the day, he shrugged when Mackenzie cocked an eyebrow at him. “I wasn’t expecting company. Who told you I was here, anyway?”

  “Troy.”

  “That little shit. Come on.” He led her to his office—or his lair, as Mackenzie called it. The square room was windowless, with dark wooden paneling. A vintage twin pedestal desk stood with several monitors on top. The wall opposite was crowded with pictures and copies of reports. There was no chair to sit on. Just a thick rug splayed in the middle with yellow elephants embroidered on it. It was brash and out of place. But Nick’s mother had made it before she passed away.

  Mackenzie was surprised at the unexpected effects the claustrophobic room had on her. Devoid of any distractions and stifled with investigation details, this room allowed her to submerge completely in a case.

  She glanced over the pictures of Katy and Bella’s bodies, Kim, Cole, Carrie, Alison, Ben, and Robbie pinned to the wall along with the ads. Her eyes froze on the crime scene pictures from Ben’s cabin. A pool of blood photographed from every angle.

  Thick and grotesque.

  “Anything on Ben? Any connection to the ads?” she asked doubtfully.

  Nick faced the wall where all the clues were pinned. The middle of the wall displayed the timeline of the cases. Starting from the suicide of their Jane Doe sixteen years ago to the deaths of Kim Harris and Ben Harlan. “Ben’s alibi is airtight for that weekend. He spent Friday night getting drunk and Saturday in the hospital for alcohol poisoning.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Nick tapped at a piece of paper clipped to the board. “Hospital sent a record of his stay. He was discharged in the evening. Clint is going through Ben’s phone and laptop to see if he put out the ads. I don’t think he’ll find anything either.”

  She dropped her bag on the ground and sat cross-legged on the floor.

  He froze and narrowed his eyes. “What are you doing?”

  She shrugged innocently. “Helping.”

  “You’re on leave.”

  “You don’t have to tell Sully.”

  His gray eyes drilled into hers like their sharpness could change her mind. But she was stubborn. When the corners of her mouth quivered, he rolled his eyes and sat on the floor with her. “How are you doing?”

  “Fine.” Her tone was curt.

  “Don’t beat yourself up over what happened too much.”

  Saliva thickened in her throat. “I’m the reason she’s dead.”

  “Ben is the reason she’s dead,” he scolded.

  “Because I made a mistake.”

  “I don’t know why you’re so hard on yourself, Mack.”

  You have to help me bury him.

  She smoothed her hair over her scalp repeatedly and unnecessarily—it was already glued to her skull with sweat.

  He looked over at the wall. A dark shadow crossed his face. “The body count doubled weeks into the case.”

  Mackenzie chewed her lips in contemplation. Ben Harlan was impulsive and manipulative. She recalled his lopsided smile when he had fooled her and Nick into thinking he was an innocent bystander. A harmless fellow who had been heartbroken and wanted to explore the mysterious woods of Lakemore. But there was a twisted, even lethal, side to him.

  “Becky finished the autopsy on the bodies,” Nick said out of the blue. “Kim wasn’t pregnant, unsurprisingly.”

  “We’re still keeping the switch from the family?”

  He nodded, clearly peeved by their boss’s orders. “Next of kin identification isn’t reliable because they’re twins, so we have to wait for DNA testing.”

  “Kim told me that she was Kim. What possible reason would she have to lie?”

  “None that I can see, but this is more for Katy. We need DNA validation to confirm her identity. Especially when we have another victim who looks a lot like her. Rivera is being very strict about protocol, especially after you…”

  “Messed up big time?”

  “No,” he said reassuringly. “Made a mistake and then got unlucky. Anyway, yeah. Just going by the book now. Even if it feels a little redundant. But that’s bureaucracy.”

  “How long will Becky take to confirm the
identities?”

  “Standard DNA testing doesn’t differentiate between identical twins. Becky said it requires a deeper exploration of the DNA to pinpoint mutations, as their genetic code is the same. She’s not an expert and doesn’t have access to the resources, so we’re sending the samples to a lab in Seattle.”

  “That’s going to take several days.”

  “Could even be weeks depending on backlog.” Nick’s frustrated expression shifted to one of concern as he looked at Mackenzie. “Hey, you look like hell. Do you want a drink?”

  Mackenzie shot him a look. “It’s noon.”

  Nick shrugged and went to the mini fridge he kept in his office and took out two beers. “I don’t have wine. You’ll have to make do with this.”

  “Why are you out of wine?” She took a swig and suppressed a gag.

  “You finished it, Mack.”

  “Oops.”

  Nick sat across from her and scrutinized her with curious eyes. “So you just didn’t do any work yesterday?”

  She scraped the label on the bottle and shrugged innocently. “Nope.”

  “I don’t buy it.”

  She looked up and found him flashing her a triumphant smile. Like he was familiar with all the gears and wheels in her brain. “I did some browsing and made one phone call, to Becky.”

  “Of course, you did.”

  She told him about her research and the six parlors in close vicinity, where Bella could have gotten her tattoos.

  Nick took a swig, visibly amused. “Hand over the names. I’ll ask Justin to check them out.”

  “I can do that too,” Mackenzie protested like a petulant child. What else was she supposed to do for the next few days?

  “Mack, I’m worried about you.” His forehead bunched. “That shooting was screwed up, and you had a bad concussion. Take it easy, okay?”

  She wanted to confide in him that work was the only thing keeping her from breaking down. She was conflicted in her feelings for Sterling; too embarrassed to admit even to herself that she was considering letting him move back in. Then there was her father, who had snuck up on her out of nowhere. It was like exercising after a long time. At first it was painful, leaving her sore, but then one day, it stopped hurting. Their relationship was slowly unfolding, but Mackenzie had to quash that feeling. She had to keep the distance between them. He was still the man who had beaten her mother every day. And someone else was buried out in the woods. Mackenzie still hadn’t made any attempt to find out who he was. She had to try and find out what her father knew. No excuses.