8

 

 

Eve turned to the board.

“Our suspects are Reginald Mackie, age fifty-four, former Tactical officer, NYPSD.” She expected the mutters, rode over them. “And his daughter, Willow Mackie, age fifteen. We’ve identified these suspects through an eyewitness working with Detective Yancy. In addition to the physical identification, Mackie fits the profile. He was Army, weapons specialist and instructor, and for the last dozen years was part of our own Tactical unit.”

She paused, focused on the image of an attractive woman. “While Willow Mackie was produced with his first wife, that relationship ended in divorce several years ago, and in joint custody of the minor child. Zoe Younger subsequently remarried and has a second offspring. Younger, her husband, and younger child are now being taken into protective custody. I believe the impetus for the recent strikes stems from the death of Mackie’s second wife, Susann Prinz Mackie, shown here, and the fetus she carried. They died in a traffic accident in November of 2059. The full incident report is available, but to sum up: Mrs. Mackie ran out into the street into oncoming traffic and was struck and killed. Accident reconstruction as well as eight eyewitnesses confirmed the driver, Brian T. Fine, was not at fault. Mr. Fine is also being brought into protective custody.

“Mrs. Mackie’s doctor—whose offices are roughly a block from the accident scene—was Brent Michaelson, a victim in the strikes on Wollman Rink in Central Park yesterday. The first-on-scene at Susann Prinz Mackie’s accident, and the officer in charge, was Kevin Russo, who was killed in the line of duty at Times Square this afternoon.”

Eve stopped, looked at Mira. “Dr. Mira, would you concur Reginald Mackie is targeting individuals connected in some way to his wife’s death?”

“I’ll familiarize myself with all the data as soon as possible, but yes. The evidence clearly shows the suspect is targeting specific people through this connection. The others are a kind of cover. He has reached a point where these lives mean nothing. And to have involved his teenage daughter . . . I would say he believes this is not only revenge but justice.

“He is showing her, firsthand, his definition of justice.”

“I think it’s more than involving her, showing her. In each incident one of the victims was also a teenager. Serial killers most usually have a type. I believe Ellissa Wyman and Nathaniel Jarvits are Willow Mackie’s type. Not just a cover for her. I don’t believe Mackie himself would target a child or anyone near his daughter’s age.”

“You believe this teenage girl is the killer?” Whitney demanded. “Sir, Mackie’s time, due to divorce, with his first child is halved,”

Eve pointed out. “He lost the potential of a child. I don’t see him targeting the young.”

“Psychologically that may be sound enough.” Whitney glanced toward Mira.

“Yes. It’s possible.”

“But the skill required here is more than considerable.”

“Yes, sir. Lieutenant Lowenbaum, do you know if Mackie has trained or instructed his daughter in weaponry?”

“Yes. In fact, I’ve seen her on the range, dropped by one of her competitions.”

“Competitions?”

“Target and combat simulation competitions. Nonlethal weaponry. Mac took her to the range regularly, and entered her in competitions. He was proud of how well she did.”

“Willow Mackie has the training and the skill?” Eve prompted.

“I wouldn’t have said she was good enough to . . . I haven’t seen Willow in a couple of years, only saw her on the range with Mac a few times, and at the one competition. She was good,” he admitted, blew out a breath. “She was better than good, and Mac was very proud of her abilities and interest.

“But these strikes? It takes better than good.”

A couple years of practice, Eve thought, can hone a skill. “What can you tell us about their relationship?”

“They were always pretty tight. In fact, a couple years back she pushed to live with him full-time. He was considering it, especially after he married Susann, then after the accident, he wasn’t in any shape to raise a teenage girl on his own.”

“What was his state of mind?”

“Let me go back a little. I’ve known Mac for a long time. The last four years as his LT. He keeps his head—or did. He didn’t like his ex’s husband, but most of that came off as just the usual sort of resentment. He spent as much time with Willow as he could manage

—the job can interfere, but he made her a priority. I know she started getting in some trouble at school, and his ex wanted her to go to a therapist. She didn’t want to, and Mac backed the kid.”

“Dr. Mira, could you find out if Willow Mackie did indeed see a therapist? You saw a change in him after the accident,” Eve said to Lowenbaum.

“Yeah, no question there. It shattered him. I ordered him to take hardship leave because he wasn’t steady. Who would be? I heard some talk about him seeing a lawyer, trying to go after the driver, but he wasn’t talking to me much.”

“Pissed at you?”

“Yeah, maybe. Some. We need to talk to Vince Patroni, from my unit. They were closest. Mac wasn’t the same when he came back on the roll. He’d lost weight, was too often distracted. And angry under it. He never came in drunk, but I know he hit the bottle hard off duty for a while. But that stopped. Still, he wasn’t solid. He was shaky and he was pissed. He was coming up on his twenty, so I talked to him about either turning in his papers or a reassignment.”

“Did you push it?”

“Didn’t have to. He said he’d already decided to take his twenty and be done. Have more time with his daughter, maybe travel some. I tagged him a couple of times after that, to see if he wanted to have a brew, grab a meal, but he put me off. I let it go.”

“I need Patroni brought in.” “I’ll get him.”

“If they were close, he may feel some loyalty.”

“I’ll get him,” Lowenbaum repeated, “I’ll make certain he doesn’t contact Mac.”

Eve nodded. “It’s highly possible the suspects have other connections to and communications with the NYPSD. It’s imperative we keep this information inside this room. Any indication we have a suspect or are looking for Mackie may cause him to go under. Or it may force him into a confrontation. He’s killed or encouraged his daughter to kill a police officer. He won’t hesitate to do so again, even knowing the result may be his own termination.”

“It’s highly possible that’s his end goal,” Mira pointed out. “He has nothing to live for once this mission is completed or aborted. If he plans to protect his daughter, the best way to do so is his own death. The killings would be blamed solely on him, and as a minor, she could claim coercion, emotional instability.”

“Which is why we need to take them quickly, smoothly, and soon.

The suspect has an apartment on the sixth floor of a residential building on East Twenty-Fourth. Captain Feeney, I need an EDD team to determine if both suspects are in that apartment. A cop with that much experience would know what to look for.”

“We can get around that. Don’t happen to own that building, do you?” Feeney said to Roarke.

“No,” Roarke responded, already checking on his PPC. “But I do own one across the street that might be helpful.”

“Lowenbaum, I need a unit. Again, he’ll know what to look for.” “And we know how to get around that.”

“Reineke, Jenkinson, Santiago, Carmichael, you’re on takedown.

Baxter, Trueheart, you’re on data and interviews. Trueheart will soften the mother up,” Eve added before Baxter could object. “We’re going to need her cooperation. Baxter, you’re going to sit hard on Patroni, put the fear of God into him, if necessary. Fuck his loyalty, if any, to Reginald Mackie. I want three officers, soft clothes, to check out the minor suspect’s school.”

“School would be over for the day, Lieutenant,” Peabody told her. “There may be staff still there, after-school shit going on. We may

be able to determine if she has any particular hangout. If we can take her outside the apartment, we take her. We’re not just taking

down serial killers, we’re taking down a veteran police officer and his teenage daughter. We need it clean.

“We need a warrant to search the mother’s residence, get into the kid’s room there.”

“Consider it done,” Whitney told her.

“Peabody and I will handle that search before or after the takedown, depending on timing. The mother’s residence is on First. Anyone not on takedown, get started now.”

“One moment.” Tibble rose, tall and lean and, under the control, Eve noted, furious. “I’d like to add to Lieutenant Dallas’s statement. Reginald Mackie served the city and its people for twenty years. But he has broken his oath, his faith, his duty. He is responsible for the death of another police officer and six other citizens, one a minor. He has done this for his own purposes, and has disgraced himself, has made his own child an accessory at best, a killer at worst. Knock him down, take him out, bring him in. I would prefer he still be breathing at the end of this operation, but I want no other good cops killed today. Serve and protect, not just the citizenry, but each other.

Lieutenant Dallas, good work. Commander, we have work of our own to do to support those who are going out into harm’s way.”

Eve let out a breath when Tibble walked out with Whitney. “He is pissed.”

“So am I.” Lowenbaum pushed to his feet. “I never saw it. You asked me, dead on, who I knew who could make these strikes. Mackie never blipped on my screen.”

“Let me ask you now: Could he have executed these strikes?” “Possibly. He wouldn’t have been high on my list, but possibly. The

thing is, he’s been off my screen for close to a year. I never pushed to see how he was doing. If I had, I might have had a better sense where his head was at.”

“You said you tagged him.” “I didn’t push.”

“Were you pals?”

“No, not really. But we were comrades. I was his supervising officer when he broke.”

“And you did what you could for him. Don’t go there, Lowenbaum. If you have to go there, save it for later. Get me a SWAT team, one

that knows how to take a suspect of this caliber alive, and can keep a lid on it.”

On a brisk nod, he left the room. “Feeney.”

“Just hold it, your man’s working on something.”

“I’ve got something,” Roarke corrected, “again that might be useful. Can I use the screen there?” Without waiting, he rose, walked over, and interfaced his PPC with the room comp.

“Your suspect’s building,” he began, when the image came on. “We’ll draw in on his apartment. It’s apartment 612, according to my data.”

“Okay.”

“And my building, just diagonal from the target. We have an unoccupied apartment—actually three altogether, but this one on the seventh floor provides a good location to set up. We could do a heat sensor search from there, and potentially set up ears at least, depending on the target’s shielding.”

“Do that,” Eve said.

“How about we add this?” Feeney scratched his chin. “People move in, move out. We use a small moving van. We get McNab here, maybe another boy to cart in some boxes, or furniture, and our equipment moves in without sending up any flags.”

“How soon can you have it set up?” “Fifteen, maybe twenty.”

“Roll it. Baxter, Trueheart, start compiling data, and check with Uniform Carmichael. Start the interview process as soon as we’ve got some of these people in the house. See if you can get the name of the lawyer Mackie talked to. We need to bring him in. He may be a target.”

“Protecting a lawyer.” Baxter shook his head. “What the hell.

Come on, partner, let’s get this started.”

With only her takedown team in the room, Eve turned to the screen. “Okay, here’s how I see it going.”

Within thirty minutes, as data continued to stream in, Eve had her team in a police van, outfitted not only with body armor, but helmets. Which meant she had to do the same. While the coat took care of the body armor, the helmet bugged the crap out of her.

But a head shot would do worse.

Inside the van, on screen, she watched the feed Feeney sent her.

She watched McNab and Callendar, looking every bit like a happy couple moving into a new place, haul boxes into Roarke’s building.

“No heat source in suspect’s apartment,” Feeney told her. “We’re running that from the van for now. They’re not in there.”

“When you’re ready, McNab and Callendar can run that from inside, and you move off.”

“Your man has a garage about a block away. We’ll go in there, sit awhile. Lowenbaum’s team is moving into position. One of them will use the apartment, two on the roof, and another two in another empty apartment in Roarke’s building. See the window of the suspect’s apartment?”

“Yeah, yeah. Privacy screened. I’m going to hit the mother’s place now. Jenkinson, you’re in charge here till I get back—sit tight.

Peabody, I want constant reports. Roarke, you’re with me. I’ll be heading east, then south, on foot. I can be back here inside five minutes, so I need to know the first sighting on either suspect.”

She stepped out of the van, moved fast. The suspects could be back any minute—or not for hours. Any data she could dig up might pinpoint their next target. Even now they might be holed up in some hotel room, some flop, some empty office space, preparing to strike again.

Nothing fell out of the sky now as the ugly day headed toward a bitter evening. Streetlights shimmered on, cutting the gloom with chilly white pools of light. As she walked, she studied faces.

Pedestrians hurrying home, or to meet up for drinks, to get in more shopping. Others huddled at a cart that smelled of soy dogs and really terrible coffee.

They could walk here, she thought, father and daughter, back to the apartment, out to grab a slice. They would have walked here at some point, from the townhouse to the apartment.

Had they plotted along the way? Who to kill and when?

A block and a half from Zoe Younger’s townhouse, Roarke stepped up beside her. “Lieutenant.”

“I want to hit the kid’s room. Whitney got the warrant for the whole place, but we’re going to focus on the girl’s room. It’s unlikely the rest

of this family are involved, or she’d leave handy clues in the living area.”

“Understood.”

When he took her hand, she linked her fingers with his. On duty, yeah, but no cops around to see.

“We will take a pass at any and all electronics—and flag them for EDD.”

“I expect I’ll be entirely more useful there than tossing a teenage girl’s room.”

She frowned up at him as they swam across the crosswalk with the tide of people. “You were a teenage boy—there can’t be that much difference between male and female at that age.”

“Oh, only worlds, I imagine.” With her, he made the turn, walked up the five steps to the front right door of the pretty duplex. As he spoke, he took out his tools—quicker than her master, she thought, eyeing the security.

“You were a teenage girl.” “Not so much, or only sort of.”

“As I was not so much, or only sort of a teenage boy, how well we suit. They have excellent security,” he added, sliding through it like a knife through warmed butter.

“We clear it first.” Eve drew her weapon. “Just in case.” After his nod, they went through the door together. “NYPSD,” she called out, sweeping left. “We’ve entered the

premises duly warranted.”

“No one’s here—you can feel an empty house,” Roarke said. “Ah, there was a day when a B and E into an empty house was my favorite thing.”

“Now you get to do it legally.” “Not nearly the same.”

While she agreed with the empty, she cleared the first level—living area, kitchen, dining, a home office, and a kind of family entertainment area.

The house smelled of the spicy rust-and-pumpkin-colored flowers on the dining room table. Some sort of board on the kitchen wall held kid art—weird stick figures, trees with blobs of green representing

leaves. A kind of chart that listed duties—chores, she corrected—like clearing the table, setting it, making beds.

Beside the chart someone had pinned a Christmas photo. Zoe Younger, Lincoln Stuben, Zach Stuben, and Willow Mackie in a group in front of a festive tree, presents stacked beneath.

All smiled but Willow, who stared into the camera with hard green eyes and the faintest hint of a smirk.

“Arms folded.” Eve tapped the picture. “There’s defiance there.

The boy? He looks happy enough to do handsprings for a few hours, and the parents look happy, content. Her? That’s a fuck-you stare.”

“Indeed it is, and I suspect Mira would add she’s separated herself

—the folded arms, the bit of distance while the other three are all touching. Then again, fifteen? It’s an age, isn’t it, to consider your parents the enemy.”

“Hard for us to say. The ones we had were the enemy. But, on the surface anyway, it looks like these two worked to give happy and stable. The house is clean, but it’s not sterile or perfect. Kid-type cereal box on the counter, a couple dishes in the sink, the boy’s skids under a chair in the living area, somebody’s sweater on the back of a chair over there.”

He glanced over—hadn’t noticed. “You’re a wonder.”

“I’m a cop,” she corrected. “You’ve got this task chart—everybody does their share, and that’s probably a good thing. Kid’s weird drawings displayed. The family Christmas picture.”

She took one more look around. “Reads normal, except it isn’t.

Under the surface, it isn’t.”

They went upstairs to the second floor, cleared that: the master suite, the attached office, the boy’s room—a minor disaster area with strewn toys, vid games, clothes. A guest room identified as such by its pristine, unlived-in feel, then the girl’s.

And there was a third floor, a kind of casual family area for watching screen, hanging out—which the scatter of games proved they did—with a small kitchenette and a half bath.

Eve headed straight back down to Willow’s room.

Bed, sloppily made, and with none of the fussy pillows or weird stuffed animals Eve had encountered in other teenagers’ rooms. A desk and comp under the window, a lounge chair, some shelves.

Posters on the walls. Some music group all in black with snarling faces and lots of tats. The rest were weapons, or someone holding weapons. Knives, banned guns, blasters.

“Clear where her interests are,” Eve commented, moving to the closet.

A few girlie dresses—some with the tags still on them. Most of the clothes ran to black or dark colors, rougher styles.

“There’s an order in here,” she observed. “She knows where she puts her things, wants everything in its place. And if her mother or her brother poke around in here, she knows it.”

Roarke had already started on the computer. “She has this passcoded, and fail-safed. A very intricate job for someone her age.” He pulled out the desk chair and sat to work.

Eve started on the dresser. Plain underwear, winter socks, sweaters, sweats, all organized without looking overly so.

Purposely, she thought. Yes, she’d know if her mother shifted a pair of socks in the drawer.

“Keep going on that, but she wouldn’t leave anything in here she didn’t want her mother to find.”

“You’re sure of that?”

“She put a slide lock on the inside of the door—they took it off.” Eve nodded toward the door and the telltale marks. “Everything in here is arranged in a kind of system. I always did the same—in foster care, in state. You want to know where your things are so, if necessary, you can grab what matters most, is needed most, and run. Or so you know when they’ve done the look-through. I’m betting her mother does the regular look-through. Mother swallows the posters,” Eve continued as she kept searching. “Making the girl take them down only entrenches the interest, drives it deeper under. So she swallows that. But she’s had the room painted in this pale, pretty blue, buys dresses that aren’t worn—unless she forces that issue.

She comes in, looking for something, anything, to give her more insight into her daughter. Or—more and—because she’s worried she’ll find illegals or weapons or a journal full of ugly thoughts.”

“Did you have one? A journal.”

“No, I kept my ugly thoughts to myself because they always . . .

The brother’s room!”

When Eve walked out, Roarke arched his eyebrows. He finished bypassing the fail-safe, then rose to see what his cop was up to.

She sat at the boy’s comp in the middle of his boy mess.

“I didn’t always keep my thoughts—ugly or otherwise—to myself.

That’s learned behavior, that’s experience. Sometimes you’re just writing a paper for school, and they get into your comp, and you get punished for writing how you like riding an airboard. So you start doing those papers in school, mostly. Or you’re bored and unhappy and you write down some stupid wish list, and they find that, and you get your ass kicked over it.”

Roarke brushed a kiss over the top of her head, said nothing— which said everything.

“It’s not about me, it’s just about . . . A couple of times when I needed to write something down—when you just need that tangible act—I figured out how to sort of hide it on another comp. One they didn’t bother with. You’ve got a real kid—I mean the foster’s real kid

—in the house, and he’s gold in their eyes, you can use that. The thing is, if she used that method, she’s probably a hell of a lot better at it than I was—than I am.”

“Let me.”

When she rose, he took her by her shoulders, looked into her eyes. “What did you need to write down?”

“I kept a calendar—almost always, wherever I was—marking time till I could get out. For good. How many years, months, weeks, days, hours sometimes, before I could. How I was going to get out, go to New York. New York seemed so big and full, so I focused on New York pretty early. And the Academy. How I was going to be a cop because cops took care of themselves, and everyone else. Good cops, anyway, and I was going to be a good cop, and no one was ever going to tell me what and when to eat, what to wear—”

“And now I do.”

She shook her head. “Not the same. Not close to the same. No one loved me, and maybe along the way that became my fault as much as the system’s, but no one loved me. No one said eat something because I love you, because you matter. I was just another number until I earned the badge. I was just a badge, mostly just a badge, until I earned you.”

She took a breath. “I could have been this girl, Roarke.” “No.”

“Yes, or at least something like her. If Feeney had been a different kind of cop, a different kind of man. If he’d been like Mackie, broken and twisted like Mackie. He saw me. Really saw me, and he pulled me out of the rest, paid attention, gave me time, gave me him. No one had, ever, offered me what he did. No one, ever, saw me like he did. I wanted to make him proud of me, wanted to be the kind of cop he’d be proud of. It drove me.

“And doesn’t it look like she wants to be what her father wants?

That is part, a big part, of what drives her.”

“If the last part of that’s true, it means she’s turned her back on everything else she has. A mother, a brother. A good home from the looks of it.”

“Maybe, but looks don’t always mean dick. We’ll see about that. But perception’s truth, right? If nothing else, she perceived no one sees her, gets her, cares about her—not like her father. And she’s killing for him. Killing because he’s trained her, taught her to see that as her right, or at least as an answer.”

She shook it off, had to shake it off. “It only matters why right now if the why helps us find them, stop them. So yeah, you take a look. Given his age, they probably have parental controls on this unit, but she could have hidden her own files in there.”

“Easily enough.”

“If so, you’ll find them. I’m going to go back to her room.”

Eve checked in with Peabody—no movement—then stood in the center of Willow Mackie’s bedroom. A good space, fully triple the size she’d been able to claim at the same age. Nicely, comfortably furnished. The clothes all good quality.

No photographs, not of herself, her family and friends. Not even of her father. Maybe some on her computer, Eve thought, and she’d look there.

She searched through the three drawers in the desk, found a few school-type supplies. No junk. None of the weird junk teenage girls— and boys, for that matter—collected.

No discs, she realized. Data or music. No other electronics. No PC, no tablet.

Because she carted them with her, one week here, one week there?

Her gaze passed over the posters. Weaponry, violence. Would a teenager so focused on weapons live every other week without access to any?

She stepped back into the closet. A smallish space with that same sense of organization. The fussy clothes—obviously the mother’s pick—in the back. And there, still in their boxes, a pair of heels, a pair a boots—both clearly, even to her eye, meant to go with the dresses or more stylish pants.

And both, she determined, studying the soles, never worn.

In the toe of a well-worn boot she found a little stash of cash. Just a couple hundred, which made Eve feel as if it had been put there deliberately, something her mother could find.

In the pocket of a hoodie she found a notebook and, engaging it, heard a girl’s voice—a shock how young—complaining about her brother, her mother, her stepfather. How they didn’t understand her. And on and on.

Also so her mother could find it, Eve thought, bagging it for evidence. They’d listen to all the whines and complaints, but the last entry at least had been clearly designed to make her mother feel guilty if she searched and found it.

So she wouldn’t hide anything important in the closet, Eve determined.

Though she didn’t believe she’d find anything in usual places, she checked them anyway.

She went over the closet floor, the walls, even the ceiling, looked under the bed, between mattresses, checked the cushions of the desk and lounge chairs, under and behind the desk.

She judged the dresser too heavy to be moved out without showing scuffs on the floor, but tried it anyway, looked under it, pulled the drawers out, looked under them.

As she slid the bottom drawer back into place, the design beneath it caught her eye. A kind of braiding, about two inches high, ran along the base. And when she’d slid that drawer in, pulled it out, there’d been the slightest need to tug, and the faintest little click.

Nothing that out of the ordinary, but . . .

She took the bottom drawer out again. It was a well-made piece of furniture, sturdy, nicely crafted of engineered wood.

The bottom drawer rested on a slab of that wood.

Curious, she ran her fingers over the twisted braid of decoration along the base, pushing, prying. Felt one twist give, just the tiniest bit.

She tugged. Nothing.

She kept working along the braid, found another twist give, then a third.

She didn’t have to tug. The narrow hidden drawer slid out toward her.

Empty, she noted. Empty but for the cushioning foam with cutouts for two knives and two hand weapons. Blasters by her eye. Another cutout, a rectangle, would easily hold several IDs, maybe more cash, Eve thought.

“She’s not coming back here,” she murmured.

“I agree,” Roarke said from the doorway. “You’ll want to see this.

You were right about using the younger brother’s unit. The file I found was cleverly hidden. And even then,” he continued as they walked back to the brother’s room, “she was careful. This isn’t a rash or impulsive young girl.”

“Not even close.” Eve studied the first document on screen. “It’s their hit list. Just initials, not full names, but there’s BM, KR— Michaelson, Russo—there’s MB—and I’m betting on Marta Beck, Michaelson’s office manager, there’s BF, that’s going to be Fine, the driver who hit the second wife. One of these others—AE, JR, and MJ

—is likely the lawyer we haven’t identified. And two others. Two down, five to go.”

“There’s a second page to this document.” Roarke ordered it on screen.

“Zach Stuben—that’s her brother. Lincoln Stuben, her stepfather. Christ, her mother’s on here. Rene Hutchins, Thomas Greenburg, Lynda Track—we need to identify them. And this one with initials.

HCHS.”

“It’s her high school—I’m sure of it, as I found this document as well.” Roarke called up a blueprint of Hillary Clinton High School.

“Certain classrooms, certain areas were highlighted, egresses marked.”

“Jesus, Jesus. She plans to hit her school.”

“And already has her nest chosen. Closer this time than the other two attacks, but still an appreciable distance.”

Eve looked at the next image. “The roof of her father’s apartment building. She has these hidden here because this isn’t her father’s agenda. It’s hers. When they finish his mission, she can begin her own. How hard did you have to look to find this?”

“A bit of work, but more to the point, I likely wouldn’t have found it if I hadn’t been specifically looking for it. It was shielded under a perfectly harmless school report on George Washington.”

Eve paced. “Okay, let’s get back. We need to access Mackie’s apartment. It’s likely he’s got cams set up, is monitoring anyone going in or out of the building, certainly his own space.”

“I can take care of that.”

“Counting on it. We need to get in, see who’s next. When and where. They may have moved straight to the next nest, and there are three people on his agenda we haven’t ID’d. And we have to ID the unknowns on her list.”

“There’s more on hers. She’s listed her kills. Animals,” he said quickly. “The type, the place, the distance, the weapon, the date, the time. It appears her father’s taken her hunting—illegally very often— into Montana, Wyoming, Alaska, the Dakotas, even into Mexico, Canada. She’s listed over two dozen kills in the last seven months.”

“Copy the file to my units. I’ll have EDD pick this up, and hers.

Hell, all of them, and now. She’ll have a unit at her father’s place. We need to get into that. She wouldn’t have needed to be so careful on his agenda there, so maybe we’ll have names.”

Eve shoved a hand through her hair. “I wonder if Mackie knows what kind of monster he’s created. And if he knows, does he care?”