Susann and the son he’d longed for would be avenged. Justice well served by the daughter who gave him pride and purpose. And one day, when Will was old enough, he could leave her, secure in the knowledge that his only child could make her own way.
He could leave her to join Susann and the son they’d named Gabriel.
Thinking of them he began to drift away, into the comfort of imagining Susann in a white dress, sitting under a big, arching tree on a gentle green hill, with the baby in her arms.
There was a little farmhouse nearby, yellow with blue shutters, a white fence, a garden in bloom.
Their dream house, one they’d built in their dreams and conversations, the house in the country they’d dreamed of having one day.
She waited for him there, with the baby in her arms, and a brown puppy sleeping by her side.
He needed to see her there, her and his son. Under the big tree, in sunlight. At night she screamed for him in the dark, screamed his name, and the baby screamed with her.
But now she smiled, content to wait until he climbed the hill and sat beside her.
“Dad! Dad!”
He shot awake, reaching for the weapon at his hip.
In the gloomy light of the loft he saw Will standing in front of the short sofa, staring at the wall screen. She’d been cleaning her weapon, he noted, pleased to see the rifle on the table in front of her.
Still, the snap in her tone brought him to his feet, brought back the former soldier inside him. “Do we have a breach?”
“They’ve got our names, our faces.”
He stepped over to stand with her, to listen to the breaking story.
His last official ID photo, and Willow’s, filled the screen while the reporter’s voice sounded over them.
“To repeat, police have identified two suspects in the Wollman Rink and Times Square attacks in which seven people, including a police officer, were killed and more than fifty people were injured. Police are looking for Reginald Mackie, a former Tactical officer with the NYPSD, and his fifteen-year-old daughter, Willow Mackie.”
The ID shots shrunk, swiped to the side of the screen while Nadine Furst in her bold red came into view.
“Police officials have scheduled a media conference to provide additional details. At this time, they ask if anyone has information regarding the whereabouts of these suspects, please do not engage, as they are believed to be armed and dangerous.
“Reginald Mackie, fifty-four, an Army veteran and decorated police officer, was widowed in November of 2059 when his wife, Susann Prinz Mackie, was killed in a vehicular accident. Mrs. Mackie,” Nadine continued when Susann’s picture came on screen, “was sixteen weeks pregnant at the time of the accident.”
Susann’s picture hung on screen, lips curved, eyes smiling. Then his came on, and Willow’s while Nadine continued the report.
“How’d they make us? How’d they make us this fast?”
“Solid police work.” He said it quietly as he saw his dream of a life in Alaska, a life of peace, fading.
Gone, he thought. No peace to come. No home. No life to build.
“But we’ve been so careful. They have Mom by now, don’t they? And Lincoln and the brat.”
“Your brother,” Mackie reminded her. “He’s your brother, Will. Your blood.”
Something feral gleamed in her eyes, but her father didn’t see it. “Yeah, they have them. You cleared out everything from your room? Anything that connects to the agenda?”
“I told you I did.” Insult sliced through her tone. As if she’d leave anything. Her eyes, hard green against that soft, smooth skin, flashed toward him. “There’s nothing in my room back there. I’m not stupid.”
He nodded, moved over into the tiny kitchen area, programmed coffee for himself, got her a tube of the Coke she preferred. “This is why we worked out a Plan B.”
“But, Dad—”
“Will, the mission comes first. You understood that. You trained for that. We go to the alternate plan, and regroup.” He gave her a sad smile. “You need to cut your hair, honey, and get moving. I’ll get to you when I can, but . . . In the event I’m captured or taken out, you know what to do.”
He laid a hand on her shoulder. “I depend on you.”
When she nodded, he stepped back. “Pack it up, clear it out, wipe it down. We both move tonight.”
“The media conference. We need to watch. We need to know what they’re releasing to the public.”
Pride rose again. “That’s right. Leave the screen on.”
—
Eve might have hated media conferences, but she knew how to use them when it worked to her advantage. If the Mackies weren’t watching live, they’d see the constant replays, the sound bites, the endless talking-head commentary.
So she made certain the killers got an earful.
“I’m not at liberty to divulge what investigative steps led us to identify the suspects other than to say the NYPSD has focused its manpower, its experience, and its man hours into doing so since the first strike in Central Park.”
One of the reporters leaped to his feet. “Isn’t it true that additional focus and manpower was put into the investigation after an NYPSD officer was killed?”
Eve said nothing for fully five seconds. “Ellissa Wyman, Brent Michaelson, Alan Markum,” she began, and named every victim, in order of their deaths. “Those are the lives taken, the human beings killed. I wonder if the suspects know their names, looked into their faces, thought of their families. We did. So save your idiot remarks for somebody who hasn’t stood in the blood of the seven dead. Nathaniel Jarvits was only seventeen. He died on his seventeenth birthday. Officer Kevin Russo, age twenty-three, was struck down while going to Nathaniel Jarvits’s aid, trying to shield him from further injury. While doing his job as a police officer. Do you want me to give you a thumbnail on each victim? Because I can if you don’t have the balls to do your job and report on who they were.”
“Do you have a motive?”
“We believe the Mackies are targeting individuals connected in some way with Susann Mackie’s accident. We’re actively pursuing this line of investigation.”
“Willow Mackie is only fifteen. Do you believe she was taken as a hostage by her father?”
“Evidence does not lead us to believe Willow Mackie is being held against her will or is being coerced. And don’t bother because I’m not at liberty to share that evidence with you at this time. Both suspects are expert and experienced marksmen. Reginald Mackie trained his daughter in weaponry, in marksmanship. Seven people have been killed, more than fifty have been injured by what we term long-distance serial killers. The LDSK is, at the core, a coward. Skilled, cold-blooded, but a coward who kills at a distance, who sees the victim as nothing more than a target or a mark.”
“Reginald Mackie used that skill as an NYPSD officer,” someone called out.
“The skill, yes. Tactical officers aren’t killers. Nor do they mark innocents. It’s their job to use that skill to protect the innocent and other officers. And to take down a threat by forceful stun. Terminating that threat is only ordered when the risk to other lives is too great.”
“Why didn’t Mackie’s predilection show on his evaluations?”
Before Eve could answer, Lowenbaum stepped forward. “That’s on me,” he stated. “Lieutenant Lowenbaum. I was Reginald Mackie’s supervising officer.”
Eve stayed back. Lowenbaum was clear, precise, accurate. He fielded follow-ups with more patience than she might have.
But when she’d heard enough, just enough, she moved forward again.
“If you want to angle a story that blames the department for the actions of a retired officer, go do that. But right now there are two suspects at large. You have their names, you have their faces. Maybe you should push forward with your trumpet call of the public
’s right to know and get this information out there. It might save a life. We’re ending this session so we can go to work and make certain we save lives.”
10
Lowenbaum caught up with her—Eve moved fast—took her arm. “They may have a point.”
“The reporters? Most of them only have a point on the top of their heads.”
“I didn’t see a killer, Dallas. He was one of mine, and I didn’t see what he was.”
“Because he wasn’t.” She had to keep moving, but she also needed Lowenbaum, and needed him steady. “If that was in him all along, the Army missed it, the NYPSD missed it, his former LT missed it. Testing missed it. What makes you so damn special?
“And where’s that gum you always have?”
Perplexed, Lowenbaum pulled it out of his pocket as they worked their way through the maze of glides toward Homicide. “You want?”
“No. It smells purple. How do you chew something that smells purple?”
Since it was in his hand, Lowenbaum unwrapped a piece, popped it in. “I used to smoke.”
“And Mackie used to be a pretty solid cop. Things change. Our job’s to stop him, and after that it’s Mira territory.” She paused outside her bullpen, took a good look at him, and saw what she felt in herself. Anger, frustration, and adrenaline warring with bone-deep exhaustion.
“Tactical has scenarios, right, for containing attacks throughout the city? Your basic plays?”
“Yeah, and we’ve been running them holographically since the first strike. I’ve got the tech guys running probabilities—feeding them data as we get it—trying to project when and where he’ll strike next. It’s a crapshoot.”
“What’s your sense? Once he sees we’ve ID’d him and his daughter? Pause and reflect or up the schedule?”
“He’s had months to pause and reflect. He’ll want to take down as many targets as possible.”
“Agreed. We’ve got all but three where he can’t get to them. Talk to your men. Maybe, just maybe, he mentioned names.”
“Been doing that, but I’ll try a different angle.”
“Do that. Good talk. I’ve got people to interrogate.”
She left him looking bemused, and strode into the bullpen.
“Reports.” She snapped everyone to attention. “Younger first. Go.” She pointed at Baxter.
“Right call to have Trueheart soften her. She came in with a chip on the shoulder, bitching for a lawyer, demanding blah-blah. And where was her daughter? Trueheart suggested she contact the daughter, and the chip started wobbling some when she was unable to reach same, when she contacted the school and was told Willow Mackie was no longer a student at that facility. She started to ream the school office a new one, but they had the paperwork—with her signature along with Mackie’s.”
“Her reaction to that?”
“Pissed off and scared. Trueheart played both. Over to you,” he told his partner.
Trueheart shifted in his shiny black shoes. “She said she never signed anything, and that rang true. She believes Mackie abducted their daughter, so I worked that. We put out an Amber Alert, and she was more cooperative in providing information.”
“Such as?”
“She last saw her daughter three days ago, when she left to switch off to Mackie. They haven’t communicated, which Younger stated wasn’t unusual. Her relationship with her daughter has been somewhat strained for the last several months.”
Trueheart hesitated, then lifted his shoulder. “I think longer than that, but it got bigger, harder over the last several months. Ms. Younger stated Willow idolizes her father, resents the stepfather, often picks fights with her younger brother and/or her mother. Ms. Younger feels it’s a stage, but has tried to persuade the daughter and Mackie toward family counseling.”
Trueheart shifted his feet again. “She cried a lot, Lieutenant, claimed she hated her daughter’s obsession—her word—with weapons, but as it was Willow’s only real interest and outlet, and a connection to her father, she didn’t want to forbid it. Couldn’t have, as the shared custody put Willow out of her supervision half the time.”
“Round it up for me.”
“She’s scared and she’s holding on to the belief Mackie has the girl against her will, or at least is deceiving the girl. But . . .”
“Finish it.”
“I think, I feel, she’s as scared of her daughter as she is scared for her.”
“Good. I can use that. Interview A?”
“We just had her brought up. She’s pissed again,” Baxter added. “Wants to go home, doesn’t like being brought up and separated from her husband and son.”
“I’ll use that, too. Who took Marta Beck?”
“We had her.” Santiago looked toward Carmichael.
“I’m just writing it up,” Carmichael said. “She remembers Susann Mackie, and remembers hearing about the accident, and accompanying Dr. Michaelson to the memorial.”
“They went to the memorial?”
“Not unusual for Michaelson, according to Beck. When they offered condolences to Mackie, he made no response, seemed cold and angry, which Beck considered understandable. We questioned her about Mrs. Mackie’s appointment on the day of the accident, and Beck looked up the records. It was a standard exam—the mother in good health, the fetus progressing normally. There had been an emergency in the office earlier, with one of the patients going into labor. While that patient was seeing the midwife, Michaelson assisted, and appointments were backed up. The records show Mrs. Mackie’s appointment ran forty-three minutes behind schedule. She was offered the option of seeing the PA or rescheduling, but opted to wait.”
“What time was her appointment?”
“Scheduled for twelve-fifteen. She didn’t get in for the exam until nearly one.”
“That eats up a lunch break, doesn’t it? You’d probably be in a hurry to get back to work. Who’s got her supervisor—Mackie’s supervisor at work?”
“She’s on her way in,” Jenkinson told her. “Reineke and I took Lincoln Stuben, the stepfather. He paints a darker picture of Willow Mackie than her mother. Sneaky, disruptive, disrespectful. Says she’s a liar, stated she once threatened him with a knife and said if he told her mother, she’d claim he’d tried to rape her. Said she knew ways to make that stick. And when it stuck, her father would kill him.”
“Did he tell the mother?”
“Did better. He hid a cam in the kitchen, goaded the girl into saying it again, and showed the mother the recording. When confronted, the girl responded with belligerence, locked herself in her room. She subsequently apologized—but Stuben didn’t buy it like the mother did. Marriage is on shaky ground at this point, and he refuses to leave his son alone with the girl. Might be resentment, but he says Willow Mackie wouldn’t need to be coerced or manipulated into being party to murder.”
“They got a puppy for the boy his last birthday,” Reineke continued. “Kid was crazy for it, slept with it, took it for walks himself. Couple months later, the kid comes home from school, and sees the puppy come flying out of the window on the third floor, goes splat at his feet. Broken neck. Kid’s hysterical, people stop to help—somebody even calls the cops. A few minutes later, Willow shows up.”
“Nobody can figure why the window was open, or why the dog went up there, why he’d jump out, but that’s the way it looked. Except Stuben’s dead sure Willow broke the dog’s neck, tossed him out when she saw the boy coming. Then went out the back, circled the block.”
“Nothing like practicing on puppies and kittens.”
“I’ve got a little more on Mrs. Mackie, if it helps,” Peabody put in. “I’ve talked to some family, some teachers, some employers and coworkers. The gist is, Mrs. Mackie was a nice woman—a polite, well-mannered, personable individual. A dreamer more than a doer. No particular ambitions, no career path. More a romantic who sa
w herself as waiting for her prince to come. Kind, soft, pretty, sweet, and a little on the ditzy side. Those are the terms that came up most often from various sources.”
“All right. Trueheart, take the kid—the half brother. Reineke, take the father in with him. Let Trueheart lead on the boy. Willow Mackie strikes as the type who may have threatened the kid, and kept him afraid to tell anyone. She may have said more to him, bragged some. Peabody, with me. We’re on Zoe Younger.”
“Younger’s what you’d say is the opposite of the second wife,” Peabody said as they walked to Interview. “Has a career, is solid there. From the data anyway, a more practical type of person. She may not be realistic about her daughter, but she’s not a dreamer.”
“Younger than Younger—ha—and softer, and someone who looked at him as her prince. Clearly, the accident was a result of her running late, not paying attention, but he can’t have that. She was his ideal, and there has to be blame.”
She stopped outside Interview A. “Trueheart softened her up, played to the maternal. I’m going to kick her ass.”
Eve stepped in. “Record on. Dallas, Lieutenant Eve, and Peabody, Detective Delia, entering Interview with Younger, Zoe, in regards to case files H-29073 and H-29089. Ms. Younger, have you been read your rights?”
“My rights? I don’t understand. We— I was brought in for protection.”
“Correct. You’re also here to answer questions regarding your daughter, Willow Mackie, and your ex-husband, Reginald Mackie, the primary suspects in seven homicides. Maybe you’ve heard about the Wollman Rink attack and the Times Square massacre.”
“My daughter is only fifteen. Her father—”
“Have you been read your rights?”
“No.”
“Peabody.”