Undying. V.K. Forrest
her. They talked about once a month but this would be the second time she made this kind of call. Last time, Macy had been right on the money. Upstate New York. Mother. Father. Two little girls and an infant boy.
“Where do you think he is?”
The photographer headed up the driveway toward the house, cameras swinging on both her shoulders. She waved to Macy, smiling. Macy waved back and turned away again, gripping the cell tighter in her hand.
“Listen, I have to go. Check it out. There was nothing on the news this morning, but you know how it goes. Sometimes it takes a few hours to find them.” Once it had taken four days.
“Can I call you back, Maggie? After I look into it?”
Macy hesitated. She usually didn’t do things that way, but the cell only had a few minutes left on it. Then she would toss it. She already had a new one on the floor of the back of her car. She’d bought it at a Piggly Wiggly two days ago. “Sure, you can call me.”
“What’s the number?” Fia played it cool.
Macy almost smiled. She liked Fia Kahill. In another life, they might even have been friends. “Don’t get your panties in a twist, Special Agent Kahill. You’re not going to find me. It’s a disposable, as always. I’m tossing it tonight whether I hear from you or not.”
“You’re good, Maggie-With-No-Last-Name.”
Macy gave her the number and hung up. She met the photographer at the wrought iron gate covered in crepe myrtle and shifted into work mode, setting Special Agent Kahill and Teddy aside for a few hours.
Arlan turned on his cell phone as the seat belt light on the overhead cabin went out. He checked the last missed calls. There was only one he cared about.
“Fee,” he said when she picked up the phone.
“Arlan.” She sounded stressed. “You’re home?” She was making a point to sound professional, maybe for the sake of someone near, but Arlan knew her, maybe better than she knew herself. She was upset.
“Just landed. Still on the tarmac.” Although the plane was still moving, passengers were beginning to get up and mill around in search of carry-ons and lost shoes.
“Your trip successful?”
“Yup.”
“This was a big one, Arlan.” She didn’t hide the pride in her voice.
“They all are, Fee. What’s going on?” She never called just to chat. She showed up on his porch in the middle of the night for that.
“Want to take a ride with me?”
The plane nosed into the terminal and passengers began moving toward the door. “Sure. Where we going?” He tried to sound light, but he sensed this wasn’t a pleasure trip. Neither he nor Fia were very good at telepathing long distance, but he knew from the tone of her voice that this was business. Ugly business, if he had to guess.
“Northeast Virginia. On the peninsula. I need—” she was quiet for a breath—“I need your perspective.”
“This an official case?”
“Does it matter?”
He smiled. “No.”
“I’m already on my way.”
He heard an elevator ding.
“Pick you up outside of baggage,” she said.
“I don’t have any baggage.”
“Yeah,” she chuckled. “Right.”
Macy was done by midafternoon and made arrangements with the homeowners to return in a week. By then, she would have had time to look at the photographer’s prelim shots and have a better idea of exactly what she wanted her to take for the spread.
Ordinarily, Macy would have gone home. Home to read. Home to work. Instead, she drove east, not knowing where she was going or why. She wasn’t surprised when the disposable cell phone on the car seat beside her rang.
“Special Agent Kahill,” Macy said into the phone.
“You were expecting me.”
“I don’t give my number out to many people,” she said glibly.
“If you’d give me your permanent number, this would be a whole lot easier.”
“But it wouldn’t be as much fun, would it, Special Agent Kahill? You wouldn’t be able to spend all those hours contemplating who I am and why I picked you.”
“Good point,” Fia agreed.
They were both stalling. Macy could feel the dread again, creeping up with long, black claws. In the moment of silence, she knew Fia felt it, too.
“You were right,” the FBI agent said on the other end of the phone. There was no emotion in her voice.
“Where?”
“Outside a little town called Accomack on the eastern shore of Virginia.”
Macy knew the area. She knew the whole country. She’d been to almost every state in the Union. Driven through most. Running. Always running.
“Maggie?” Fia said after a moment.
“I’m still here.”
“I want you to think about meeting me. There,” she said.
“There?” Macy shook her head. She signaled, glanced over her shoulder and passed an SUV pulling a pop-up camper. She tried not to look at the happy faces of the family inside as she cruised by. “Oh, no. I’m not going there. I don’t want to see them.”
“No. You don’t have to,” Fia said quickly. “It wouldn’t be allowed, anyway. Let me go to the scene, then we could meet. Maybe you could help me out. Help us catch this guy.”
“I can’t help you,” Macy said incredulously. “This was a bad idea. I should never have called you. I’m going to hang up now.”
“No, no. Don’t hang up. Maggie?”
Macy signaled and edged back into the right lane.
“Maggie, listen to me. I don’t know what your connection is to the guy, but I know it’s got to be personal. I know you want me to catch him.”
Macy didn’t say anything.
“If you didn’t want to help catch him, you wouldn’t keep calling me. You wouldn’t keep checking on the cases. You wouldn’t keep making sure we were doing our job.”
“I…I just call because I want him caught. He…he’s a monster.”
“It’s more than that. We’ve got plenty of monsters out there, Maggie. This is personal, somehow, between you and him. You want to help me. You need to.”
Was that true? Did Macy want to help the FBI catch him? The idea was ridiculous. She couldn’t help. What could she do? She was helpless. She had always been helpless when it came to him.
“Maggie?”
“I…I don’t know if I can do it,” Macy said, her voice shaky.
“I think you can.”
Macy gripped the wheel, staring straight ahead. She was going in the right direction. She had been for more than an hour. It was as if she had known, subconsciously, where the murders had taken place. It was as if she had known she would go this time. She could be there in a couple of hours.
“Maggie?”
“I’ll think about it.” The phone beeped in her ear. “Look, my time’s about to run out on this phone. I’m going to have to go. Sorry.”
“Maggie—”
Macy hit the End