Two
The scraping sound of a knife slicing through vegetables and the sharp sting of the blade hitting the cutting board was comforting. Mackenzie chopped the carrots into fine pieces and dumped them in the blender.
Next came the tomatoes. The juice spurted and spilled. She stared at the red liquid trickling across the cutting board. It was lighter than her father’s blood. If she added some blueberries to the mix, the color would match.
Heavy footsteps thudded down the stairs. “Baby, have you seen my watch?”
She paused and looked at Sterling. His dark skin was stretched out tight over his strong facial bones. He was clean-shaven—exactly how she liked him. Underneath the gray suit, his muscles were bulging and rippling. He was at least half a foot taller than her. He looked like a cop, not a lawyer.
“Mackenzie?”
“Sorry. I don’t know where it is.” It was in the laundry room.
He groaned. “Dammit. I’m late already.”
“Why? Where do you have to be?” She tried to sound neutral.
“I have a meeting with Ron. He’s in a bad mood. I’ll just go without it then.” He picked up his briefcase and put on his coat.
He cupped her face with his calloused hands. She remembered their first date, when he had touched her like this. He told her she looked like the moon on fire, with her pale skin and flaming red hair.
But Sterling said a lot of things. He was charming, successful, and beautiful. He didn’t let anyone mistreat his wife. He helped with household chores. He liked to go down on her.
Mackenzie was lucky. She had found someone good . She hadn’t made the same mistake her mother had. Sterling was the perfect husband, the ideal specimen.
He leaned in and planted a quick kiss. It left a bitter taste lingering on her lips.
When Sterling walked out, she turned on the blender.
The white noise filled her house. She looked up at the box-beam ceiling.
She had come a long way from growing up in a house with a cracked and moldy roof.
She looked down at the floor. Her kitchen didn’t have dirty yellow tiles.
Mackenzie looked around her home—the vast open floor plan, with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the front yard.
The lack of privacy didn’t bother her; it was easy to look into her house, but there was nothing to hide. No bloodied wives, no dead bodies.
Every day, she admired her garden: the flourishing shrubs, the immaculately mowed grass and the weeping willow that looked like an umbrella. Today, as she gazed out the window, she wondered how he kissed her.
Her stomach churned. Her face turned the color of the tomato she had just chopped. Her bones ached to smash something. She snatched at the blender jug and it slipped from her grasp, spattering the juice over her glistening white counter.
She didn’t bother cleaning it up. Sterling would do it.
She picked up her iPod and went for a run.
Runners usually took the scenic routes in Lakemore. There were plenty—lonely trails through forests or twisting paths along the lakes—but next to Olympia, Lakemore was an ugly mole that couldn’t be surgically removed.
Mackenzie liked to run through the ugliness of Lakemore. Buildings that had no creativity in their design. Parks that were neglected, with broken and vacant swings. Billboards that paraded tacky and half-hearted advertisements.
Lakemore didn’t thrive; it slithered. It didn’t try; it had accepted. It was a city people ran away from, not toward. With Olympia and Tacoma nearby, the brightest minds headed out of town.
But when a town gives up, a few people rise to build it up again.
Detective Mackenzie Price was one of them.
Her breaths came out in short bursts. Drops of sweat popped all over her skin. She ran harder than she had before. The cool but unusually dry air traveled with her. Her feet bounced off the concrete sidewalk. She felt the material of her track pants stick to her legs.
She ran past a boy putting up a poster on a lamppost. She stopped and turned. Breath wheezed in and out of her.
“Hey, kid!” She frowned. “What are you doing?”
The boy froze. He was not even in his teens yet, and he wore a jacket too big. It swallowed his scrawny frame. “Putting up this ad for football coaching.”
Mackenzie snatched the poster from him. He recoiled. “You know you’re covering this missing girl’s poster, right?”
His lower lip puckered. “But this poster is on every lamppost and wall in the city! It’s been a year. Who even cares anymore?”
Mackenzie raised her eyebrows.
“Sorry,” he mumbled.
She handed him the poster and folded her arms. “If I see this covering any of the missing person posters, you’ll be in big trouble, kid.”
The boy’s eyes peeked at her toned and muscular arms. He swallowed hard and nodded before running away.
Mackenzie looked at the missing person poster.
Erica Perez smiled, showing her pearly white teeth.
Her skin was caramel, and her straight dark hair neatly framed her heart-shaped face.
Her red sweater had black polka dots, and a blue pendant rested in the hollow of her neck.
Under her picture was the line: Have you seen me?
followed by a description of her basic features and what she was wearing when she disappeared.
She was only sixteen years old at the time.
Mackenzie’s fingers grazed the poster. The paper was thick and glossy. It was clear that money had been spent on it. A few weeks ago, the rain had washed down the posters. The next day, new posters made of sturdier paper were stapled all over the city.
Erica Perez was everywhere. Every nook and cranny of Lakemore had her poster up. Her pretty face was carved into the memory of every citizen. Even the people who had never seen her before she disappeared would never forget her face. A few months ago, her face had flashed over the billboards too.
Usually, posters have their edges peeled off or have other posters pasted on top. But not hers. It was partly money and partly fascination that kept them up.
Mackenzie stared at the girl who had vanished from her bedroom and into thin air.
Her phone vibrated in her pocket. “Detective Price.”
“Mack?” Sully said. “I’m sending you an address. Justin will meet you there.”
She started walking back towards home. “What’s this about?”
“Another girl went missing.”
She froze. “Shit. Uniform isn’t investigating?”
“No, I want you to go. I have a bad feeling about this. She’s from Lakemore High and went missing yesterday . You remember what day it was?”
A pair of girls walked past her. They were showing each other their phones. One of them giggled. The other one blushed. They were both Erica’s age. Neither of them knew what this world could do to them.
Her blood ran cold. “The first anniversary of Erica’s disappearance.”
* * *
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