by Blake Pierce
Shortly after she broke for lunch, still reading over Brian Woerner’s blog entries for some sort of hope of a connection, she found herself looking at digital copies of the pictures that Kirk Peterson had provided. She stared at the business card for Barker Antiques, staring at both sides of it. Seeing her father’s name written on the back was like looking at some relic from out of time, a new discovery that might help to reestablish previous views of a once-lost civilization.
This changed everything. This presented a whole new batch of questions surrounding her father’s death. And the more she looked at it, the more she felt that not only was the man who killed Jimmy Scotts bragging in a subtle way, but he was also playing some sort of game…a game she didn’t know the rules to. A game she didn’t even know the name of yet.
She was mulling over this as she headed to the nearest coffee pot, which was located in a small alcove that served as a mini–break room of sorts. As she poured her fourth cup of the day, a familiar voice from behind startled her.
“Welcome back.”
She turned and saw Ellington smiling at her. He looked bored and maybe a bit tired. He was also holding a cup of coffee.
“Thanks,” she said.
“Were you starting to like Strasburg?” he asked. “I guess it beats the hustle and bustle around here.”
“It’s not too bad.”
Ellington looked behind him, making sure the hallway was clear. He then stepped into the alcove and closed in on her. There was only about three feet between them.
“I’m going to ask you something. If you think I’m out of line, tell me to shut up. Okay?”
“I can do that,” she said.
“I heard through the very long grapevine within the bureau that you took a trip out to Nebraska this week. Sort of an unexpected family thing. Is that right?”
She almost took him up on his instruction, telling him to shut up. But she was very interested in how he knew and why he cared.
“Yes, that’s right,” she said.
“Can I ask what for?”
“I’d rather you didn’t,” she said.
“Understandable. But I ask only because McGrath is currently seeking agents to assist with a case out that way. Somewhere out near Lincoln, I think. I read the brief on the case and there’s a certain link to a certain old case that might interest you. Ringing any bells?”
“Are you going to bust me on this?” she asked.
“Absolutely not,” he said, his voice quieter than ever. “I was just wondering if you managed to get a head start while you were down there.”
“Off the record?”
He nodded, taking another peek down the hall to make sure they were still alone.
“The link to my father’s case is undeniable,” she said. “As of now, though, the only lead seems to be a false flag left by someone involved to send us scrambling. And no offense, but that’s all I feel comfortable telling you.”
“Got anyone down there that will be feeding you information?”
“Maybe. Why?”
“I can be a snoop on this end too, you know. It occurred to me when I read the brief that I really don’t know all that much about your father’s case. Seems a shame.”
“Why is that?”
He cocked his head and looked at her inquisitively. “Because you interest me,” he said. “Maybe a little too much.”
A small flush of heat uncoiled in her stomach but she kept her head about her. “Those aren’t words that should be spoken by a married man.”
“You’re right,” he said. “But how about a man that got served with divorce papers two weeks ago?”
“Sorry to hear it,” she said, meaning it.
“I was, too. At first. I’d love to tell you about it. Actually, that’s a lie. I really just want an excuse to get out and have a drink with you.”
“The need for a drink should be enough.”
“I suppose so. So what do you say?”
“I say it sounds okay. But not now. There’s way too much going on right now. I have to get this Little Hill case wrapped up. And this thing with the Nebraska case—”
He held his hands up in mock surrender and took a few steps back. “Say no more. I understand completely. The offer is there. Just call me when you want to cash it in.”
With that, he walked away and he was gone. Mackenzie did not want to admit it to herself, but she wanted him to stay. The banter they were building felt normal. It felt safe and…well, like it was leading somewhere.
She went back to her cubicle and stared at the photograph of the business card again. She knew her mind should be on the Little Hill case. She felt like there was something she was missing…some huge clue that was sitting right in front of her, so obvious that it had been overlooked.
But still, the business card and her father’s scrawled name were too hard to ignore. Someone had written his name very plainly, quite deliberately. But who had written it? For that matter, who would even know his name and how he had been killed?
My mother, for one, she thought.
Suddenly, she looked away from the files and folders. She slid the information from the Nebraska case aside and started quickly leafing through the photos and details of Little Hill. She looked to the locations within the park, noticing how they were all spread apart. She unrolled her map of the area and traced the points she had drawn on it with her finger.
Just like the link between the business cards from twenty years apart, she felt like there was something there…some clue just waiting for her to snatch it out of thin air.
The fact that it wouldn’t come to her was maddening.
She slammed the folder shut and opened up the directory for headquarters. She had an idea of how to possibly pry the idea out of her but it was not going to be pretty. Back in Nebraska, she had caught a glimpse of a part of her that she thought she had buried. She had gone dark. Going dark was something she had done quite a bit of during her teenage years. She’d gotten violent and confused and had acted out on a few occasions.
And she feared that to get to the conclusion she was looking for, she just might have to touch upon some of those darker edges.
She found the number she was looking for in the directory and called it, finding that she was actually willing to explore the anger and hostility that had caused her to put a fist through the wall of her childhood home two days ago.
If she was being honest, a small part of her had missed it.
A small part of her had wanted it back for quite some time.
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
Mackenzie balked a little at the sight of Dr. Madeline Goldsmith’s office. It was sickeningly pretentious and looked like it had come out of some really bad Sunday night drama on primetime TV. She had met with Dr. Goldsmith twice upon coming to Quantico, as per the bureau’s orders following her quick rise to fame after the Scarecrow Killer case—the case that had more or less put her on the map and led her to the FBI.
She’d gone to those two sessions only because they had been mandatory but had skirted them after that. It seemed to be something that Dr. Goldsmith almost held against her. Still, she had agreed to see Mackenzie that very day, scheduling in some time at 3:00, just an hour and a half after Mackenzie had called her.
Refusing to become a living cliché by sitting on the couch, Mackenzie stood by Dr. Goldsmith’s window and looked out into DC. She saw a group of academy students filing out of a lecture hall and tried to remember what that had been like. It had been less than nine weeks ago but it seemed like forever.
“Why did you wait so long to speak with me, Mackenzie?” Goldsmith asked.
“I didn’t see the need. No offense.”
“You said that you think speaking with me might help you to tease out some clue to this case you’re working on, correct?”
“Yes. I think I can be led to this one little item that I can’t seem to latch onto with the right line of questioning.”
“And you think I can do t
hat for you?” Goldsmith asked.
“I do.”
“Is that because of your reputation for being able to get into the minds of the people you are after? Do you think that if I can somehow get into your head and force you to speak about certain things, you might unwittingly discover the answer you’re looking for?”
“Yes,” Mackenzie said, a little uncomfortably.
“Okay,” Goldsmith said. “That’s a little unorthodox and not at all what I usually do, but let’s give it a shot. Why don’t you catch me up on what’s been bothering you these last several days, aside from the obvious trials of the case.”
Mackenzie spent the next fifteen minutes spelling out the Little Hill case and the tension between the state PD, the local PD, and the park rangers. She then told Goldsmith about her impromptu trip to Nebraska and how it had affected her. The only thing she left out was the devastating news that Bryers had given her. She was keeping that to herself for now.
“I want to start with you putting your fist through the wall of the room your father died in. What was that about?”
“I was frustrated.”
“I need more than that, Mackenzie.”
She looked to the hand she had sent through the wall and frowned. “That damn room has haunted me my entire life. To realize that as I was standing there a few days ago…it was my way of telling it to fuck off. I’m done with it. I can’t let it affect me anymore.”
“Are you truly done with it, though?”
“I’d like to be. I’d like to think so.” Aside from this lingering suspicion about my mother, she thought but didn’t dare say.
“And this connection between the new case and your father’s case. Do you feel that it is, in a way, resurrecting the guilt you say you felt about your father’s death?”
“No. I don’t feel guilty about it. I haven’t in a while. But there’s that darkness I felt. It was me going dark again, like when I was an angry stupid teenager.”
“Like dark thoughts?” Goldsmith asked.
“Yes, but more than that. It’s like seeing the world through a lens of negativity and hatred. I have to sort of tap into it sometimes to get into the mind of a killer—to think like they do. And I haven’t been able to do that yet with this case. Something seems off about it.”
“Does it make you feel like an inadequate agent?”
Mackenzie thought about this for a moment and then shook her head slowly. “No. It makes me feel weak, though. I’ve got too much distracting me.”
“Well, your work can’t make up your entire life,” Goldsmith said.
“I’m slowly finding that out,” Mackenzie said. “But with this job, it can happen so easily.”
“Is there anyone you can think of that could help you through this? Someone that can help you map out the intricacies of your life? A family member? A love interest?”
“No,” Mackenzie said. “I’ve pretty much driven anyone that fills those roles away. All I really have right now is Bryers and he—”
She stopped here, thinking. It was more than wanting to keep Bryers’s current health a secret; something had sparked in her. An idea. An inkling of a theory.
“What about Bryers?”
“Nothing,” she said absently. Her mind was backtracking a bit, to something Goldsmith had said.
Someone that can help you map out the intricacies of your life…
“Mackenzie?”
“Hold on,” she said, starting to pace around the room.
Maybe she had been unable to get into this killer’s head because it wasn’t a killer’s head she was trying to step into. Maybe there was…well, maybe there was help.
But the word help wasn’t what had created the spark in her mind. It was another word entirely: map.
“Did we do it?” Goldsmith said. “Did you stumble upon what you were looking for?”
Mackenzie nodded slowly.
She thought of Brian Woerner. He had gone out in Little Hill State Park despite the barricades. And then he had apparently been taken without a drone, park rangers, or manned police cars seeing him. What were the odds of that? Sure, he’d gotten into the park because he knew the grounds, but who else would have known where someone might sneak in? Who else would have known when it was safe to go after a curious passerby?
Who else could have mapped the area so perfectly?
“Shit,” Mackenzie said. “I have to go. Thanks so much.”
“Okay,” Goldsmith said as Mackenzie made her way to the door. “But Mackenzie?”
“Yes?” she said, impatiently.
“Don’t wait so long to see me again?”
Mackenzie only responded with a nod. Before the door was even closed behind her, she pulled out her phone and called Bryers. He answered on the second ring and sounded a little tired. He sounded like he had been coughing a lot lately.
“You said you wanted to be of use before you kicked off, right?” Mackenzie asked.
“Yeah. Why?”
“I think I have an idea. I think I might know who’s been orchestrating the deaths at Little Hill.”
“Who?”
“Do you have any idea who was posted closest to where Brian Woerner snuck into the park?” she asked.
“Um…yeah, I’m pretty sure it was one of your good friends, the park rangers.”
“Can you be ready to leave for Strasburg in ten minutes?” Mackenzie asked.
“I can be ready in five,” he said, no longer sounding tired.
Mackenzie hurried down to the parking garage, confident that this would be the last God-awful trip to Strasburg she would have to make.
CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT
When Mackenzie pulled her car into the small parking lot of the Strasburg police station, Clements and Smith were already waiting. Dusk was approaching, settling quietly over the little town. Smith gave a little wave as they stepped out of the car. Clements, on the other hand, did not look happy. He approached them like a soldier marching to war, his jaw set and his eyes narrowed.
“Are you certain about this?” Clements asked.
“Like I told you on the phone,” Mackenzie said, “I’m not absolutely certain but everything points to it. And the worst thing that could happen is that we end up with a very pissed off park ranger when all is said and done.”
“Holt,” Clements said, shaking his head. “Charlie Holt of all people. You think he did it?”
“I don’t know,” Mackenzie repeated, almost as if she were speaking to a five-year-old. “But I think we need to look into it.”
“We still have to be careful about how we approach this,” Smith said. “You’re accusing a state park ranger of some pretty heinous acts.”
“The thing is,” Clements said, “I almost find it easy to believe. Holt always sort of seemed like an odd duck, you know? Staring out into space all the time, sort of muttering to himself. Always picking at those acorns like a druggie jonesing for a fix.”
“I picked up on that,” Mackenzie said. “The fixation on the acorns shows that he was nervous about something. Looking back on it, it was more than just a compulsive thing like smoking when a smoker gets nervous. He was fidgeting…he was occupying his hands, like he was afraid he might literally jump out of his skin.”
“Were you able to pull his records?” Bryers asked Clements.
“Yeah,” Clements said. He offered Mackenzie a folder he had been holding in his hands the entire time.
Mackenzie looked it over quickly, looking for anything that stood out to her. Charlie Holt was twenty-seven years old and had gotten the job as a ranger thanks to an agriculture degree from Virginia Tech. He’d started two years ago as a guide for youth-oriented park programs and had eventually been given security patrol before coming on as a ranger one year later. He had no criminal record but there were also no references other than a few from college.
“There’s nothing from before college?” she asked. “No high school information or anything?” Mackenzie asked.
�
��No,” Clements said. “But why does that matter?”
“Do we know where he grew up? Where did he live before he went to Virginia Tech?”
“Not sure,” Clements said. “I’m pretty sure the applications to work as a ranger don’t require much of anything other than a basic background check and college information. And from what I can tell, he’s clean.”
Silence fell among the four of them—a silence that didn’t end until Clements kicked at the tire of his patrol car and said, “Ah, hell. Let’s get it over with. But not all four of us. If we go after him and we’re wrong, I don’t want it to seem like we’re bullying him.”
“Just you and me then,” Mackenzie said. “In and out, really quick. It’ll be like pulling off a Band-Aid.”
“For you, maybe,” Clements said. “If we’re wrong on this, I’ll have to face the backlash.”
Mackenzie understood his concern, but she also felt that her hunch was right. To know the woods so well, to know when the drones were going out…it was either a local cop or a ranger. And based on the way Charlie Holt had reacted when the FBI had come in and his position along the perimeter on the day Brian Woerner got through, he was certainly worth checking out. The fact that he had such a blank space in his record also made her feel that he was a prime candidate.
It was a certainty that felt solid as she got into the passenger seat of Clements’s patrol car. As they pulled out, she watched Bryers walk inside the station with Smith and felt that they needed to act fast. Something about Bryers filling her in on his limited time to live had her feeling as if her time was running out, too.
***
Charlie Holt lived in a ramshackle one-story house on the east edge of Strasburg. It was a lower-middle-class neighborhood with tall grass and cracked sidewalks. It was less than a twenty-minute drive from Little Hill and when Clements parked the car, night had fallen completely. Mackenzie found it almost comforting that they were able to simply walk right up to Charlie’s front door and knock. It was that sort of community—quiet, with streetlights on every corner with no real need to feel secure.
