Not looking up, Markwell continues rifling through papers while saying, “They called earlier to announce you were coming.” After jotting down an address on a Post-it note, he hands it to me with a set of keys. “I had new keys cut for you. Ifshe’s already called in a locksmith, you’re on your own.” Now he looks up. “You’ll find all the files you need at that address”—he eyes the Post-it note—“if you’re lucky, she may allow you to view them.”
When my eyes stray to the files stacked on his desk, confused, he huffs out a breathy chuckle. “That’s the information she wants me to think she’s unearthed on this assignment. They are useless, but you can have them if you want them.”
I gather up the files, adding to his breathlessness.
After dipping my chin, I leave his office, happy our meeting was brief. Some supervisory agents drone on for hours. I will never become one of them.
Partway out, Markwell dampens my eagerness with a gruff tone. “Please be discreet with your investigations. Waters are murky, and we don’t need more mud sullying the rivers.”
I want to say killers don’t deserve diplomacy, but I stay quiet because Alex went out on a limb to assign me this case.
The apartment block Markwell jotted down is a short drive from headquarters. It is nestled right on the beach. While the sound of waves meeting the shore is calming, my irritation prevents me from fully appreciating it.
Alex was right when he said it shouldn’t matter where these women were housed and killed. They’re American citizens. That should make them our utmost priority.
As I near the resort-like building, my eyes scan the surrounding structures, seeking any signs of trouble. It appears postcard perfect. Quiet and sleepy, yet also a replica of a town where secrets go to die.
Small coastal communities are the top pick, alongside mountain ranges, when an agent needs to re-home someone who was once a witness. I’ve used towns like this many times during my career.
I check that I have the correct apartment number before stuffing a new key into the third-floor apartment’s door and twisting it.
The key doesn’t budge the locking mechanism, so I remove it, cover the peephole with my thumb, and then knock. My face is generally recognizable, though more so among fellow agents. I am a younger version of my father, and regretfully, now just as anal.
My request for entry goes unanswered for several lengthy seconds, so I add words into the mix. “I am Special Supervisory Agent Grayson Rogers.” I flash my credentials at a window that has the slightest flapping curtain before saying, “I am here to relieve you?—”
TheHa!that barrels through the door is female, as expected, but also extremely telling. It sends a cool bead of sweat rolling down my back and picks up my pulse.
“Macy?”
Agent Macy Machini grunts as if annoyed that I recognized her voice. I don’t know why. She’s one of the lifelong friends I mentioned yesterday, and the one person I could be honest with about my private investigation if I ever needed an ear, since I know she’s undertaking similar investigations.
Macy’s baby sister’s disappearance was one of my first cases after graduating from the academy.
Despite a thorough investigation, we were unable to locate Kendall.
Macy joined the bureau a year after the trail went cold. Although her cheeks were streak-free, and she’d put on a bit of muscle during her months at the academy, I recognized her face in an instant. Since my supervisor acted clueless, I followed his lead. Tobias never ratted on his understudies, and he often encouraged us to think outside the box.
He was also the first to caution me about keeping my investigations into Cameron’s disappearance on the down-low.
Alex was the second.
After a brief stint of silence and the removal of my thumb from the peephole, I ask, “Are you going to let me in, freckles?”
A smirk lifts the edge of my mouth when Macy replies with some of the gall I’m anticipating. In case you’re wondering, it’s unrelated to my mention of the adorable freckles that sprinkle her nose. They give her a youthful appearance that not even a decade in the trenches can diminish. “Depends. Are you here to replace me as the principal investigator on this case?”
I scoff as if the thought never entered my head. “What gave you that idea?”
“Ah… you, two seconds ago when you said,I am here to relieve you…” Her impersonation of my voice is atrocious, but my smirk still shifts into a full smile. It’s always like this when we work together. Intense enough to make me feel guilty, yet light-hearted enough to remind me to breathe.
My grin radiates in my voice. “That was before I knew who they’d sent me to replace.” When she doesn’t object, I coax her a bit more. “Perhaps I’m here to remind you about how you said I couldn’t get rid of you that easily when I had to place you on paid leave for a disciplinary citation I know you didn’t do.” I let the air get stale with remorse before saying, “That was over three years ago, Mace. I’ve not seen hide nor hair of you since then.” I speak as if we haven’t kept in regular contact by email and occasional phone calls.
Macy is also an agent who straddles the boundary of morality. She proved that without fault three years ago when she took the murder charge of a convicted criminal because she blamed herself for his headspace that day.
Tobias’s regularly run “death of a victim” ruse went off without a hitch until Macy got her latest recruit in the witnessprotection program in the air three years ago. Demi Petretti’s head flooded with blood on the plane. Without Macy’s quick actions and a prolonged undercover stint as an ER nurse, Demi would have died.
Despite Macy saving Demi’s life, the bureau believed they had a rogue agent among them, so they let rumors circulate that Demi had passed away for real.
Agent Arrow Moses, a snake in tall grass, used the knowledge of Demi’s death to taunt Maddox Walsh into a psychotic rage. Maddox killed Moses with a shank—the same shank Macy used to tear open her skirt so a man on the cusp of being swallowed whole wouldn’t go down for the murder of a known rapist—Macy’srapist.
