Or maybe she was more like a giant spider, waiting for the slightest vibration on the elaborate web she’d spun. It wasn’t pretty, inhabiting the same places as the lawbreakers she was trying to expose. Sometimes she felt as if no endless shower of hot water would scald the taint from her skin after a particularly long research mission in those lightless corners.
She wriggled on the hard seat.
You’re doing what’s necessary for Aaron and all the other people whom you’ve helped.
Each tiny quiver of information pointed her to thisregion, this town, and hours of research and inquiries had led her to her source. Lorraine would confirm if she was correct or not. In a best-case scenario, she would also answer Mackenzie’s crucial second question.What is Bullseye’s real name?
Or maybe Lorraine would give her something else to narrow the field, point her to someone who could help. But one way or another, Bullseye would be exposed.
Mackenzie had gained a following on her podcast,Boots on the Ground, thanks to the modern fascination with true crime and the cases she’d been able to help solve. Every time she launched a new case, tips flooded in, but the majority never panned out. She garnered her share of haters too—mostly men who objected to her message, her words, her presentation, her clothes, her age, and her very existence. The same type of hatred she’d seen in the eyes of the bearded guy driving the white truck. Just an unfriendly local? Or one of Bullseye’s people who had somehow tracked her? She’d abstained from posting updates since she hit town, but Bullseye might be every bit as adept at tracking as she was. She’d made no secret of the fact that Aaron Bardine was her brother.
And Bullseye was a filthy drug lord who was going to pay for his death.
Her body still tingled from the strip search. Hot shame licked her cheeks. Though she’d been treated respectfully, there was no way to avoid feeling humiliated and exposed while standing naked in front of a rubber-gloved stranger. It pained her to be deceiving the police. Part of her identity would always be law enforcement, even though she hadn’t finished the academy. Down the road she’d have tocome clean with the cops and FBI about what she learned and how she’d collected the information, but that wasn’t important now.
Aaron often said,“Use your powers for good, Zee.”
And she intended to.
An image of her parents swam through her mind, how they’d react when they heard what she’d done, their daughter, arrested for robbery. Her parents did not have the will to fight. Instead they comforted themselves with a future reckoning.“No one escapes God’s justice,”her father said.“He wins in the end.”
But God put her here on this planet to act, and act she would.
Her mission was not a quest for attention, as Gideon believed.
His expression when she’d taken his wallet was not something she’d ever forget. Shock, anger, and the worst emotion, disappointment, cascaded over his face. He had no idea what she was doing, and she wasn’t sure why it mattered anyway. Gideon wouldn’t want to even try to understand someone who reminded him of how he’d failed. She experienced agony whenever she recalled how she had done the same.
Her mom and dad would understand someday that it was the only way, the best chance she had to get enough information to help her prove that Bullseye was responsible for employing the dealer who’d murdered Aaron. He had a network of people who sold for him, transporting the drugs on small planes from Canada into the US. She knew it, from a thousand different bytes of information, but she couldn’t prove it.
Not yet, anyway.
“Hungry?”
She snapped out of her reverie to find a cop talking through a slot in the cell door.
“Oh. Yes, actually.”
“There’s a light snack in the dining hall. I’ll need to shackle your ankles.”
Mortifying, but her chance had come. She stood.
“Okay.”
He started to unlock the door. “We’re working on your arraignment details, but the—”
Another cop hustled up before the door swung open. “We gotta evac the prisoners to county,” he said to the first cop. “Two trips. I’ll drive the women out first, Dan will follow to back me up. We’ll get the males out next.”
Evacuation? Mackenzie’s chest tightened.No, no, no.Once they reached the larger county jail, she might never have her chance to talk to Lorraine.
“Wait,” she started, but the officers weren’t listening. It was clear the unit was in “handle it” mode. In a matter of moments, she was handcuffed and escorted to a covered garage and loaded into a small van, where her cuffs were fastened to the welded O-rings on the side of the vehicle. There were no windows save for the front, where she could get a partial look.
She strained to see as two other women were ushered in, one with a frizz of gray hair and the other younger with braids tight to her head and ... Mackenzie stared ... a broken front tooth, the only physical descriptor she had for her informant.
“Lorraine?” Mackenzie said to the woman across from her, as loudly as she dared.
The woman’s freckled brow creased. She nodded, chewing her lip. “Yes.”
Mackenzie’s heart soared.Thank you, God.“I’ve been hoping to talk to you.”
