“There she is,” Porter said.
She smiled, marveling at how much their relationship had changed.
“How are you, Porter?”
“Well, the good news is that I can hear you, which is something the doctors weren’t too sure about two days ago. The bad news is that I can’t hear you very well. The worse news is that my right ear is never going to look the same again. It seems the bullet actually tore off part of the top.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Well, what was I supposed to do?” Porter asked, a little ill-tempered. “Your FBI buddy calls me and tells me that you’re planning on trying to find this guy’s lair all alone. I had to help.”
She shook her head and squeezed his hand.
“How did you find me, anyway?”
“I may have broken into your house,” Porter said with a sly smile. “I saw the map you made, pinpointing the location at the center of the cities. Then when I reached the area, I heard gunshots – I guess that’s from when you got the jump on him in the shed. So I just followed the commotion.”
“Porter, thank you so much. I would have died – ”
He shook his head, his jaw set.
“Hell no,” he said. “You would have gotten him somehow.”
Mackenzie nodded, touched by the compliment, but wasn’t so sure. She could still see the killer’s face when she closed her eyes, raising that whip, preparing to kill her. She had awakened the last two nights in a panic attack, sweating, alone in bed, and wondered if she would ever stop seeing it.
She found herself getting lost in reverie, and wasn’t sure how much time had passed when Porter spoke again.
“So, how’s your back?” he asked, quickly changing the subject, probably sensing what was happening to her.
She smiled, forcing herself to snap out of it, forcing herself to stay upbeat. After all, she’d come here to comfort Porter, and she owed him at least that much.
“I had my final X-ray this morning,” she said. “Everything checks out. No spinal injuries, just a bad sprain. I was lucky.”
“To look at the stitches in your face and my mangled ear, I’m not so sure lucky is the word I would use.”
Mackenzie went to the visitor’s chair by the head of the bed and looked at him with as much sincerity as she could muster.
“I came by to thank you,” she said. “And to say goodbye.”
He looked alarmed.
“Goodbye?”
She braced herself.
“Yes. Nelson had to make a hard decision. When things got out that I caught the killer after he had taken me off the case, it got ugly.”
“He actually fired you?”
“No. He suspended me for six months. And after he did that, I quit.”
Porter sat up in bed, grimacing but still managing to sneer at Mackenzie.
“Why the hell would you do that?”
She looked to the floor, unsure how to explain it.
“Because,” she said, “I spent too much time trying to prove that I wasn’t just some young naïve girl that was looking to out-work a mostly older male police force. Now, if you add to that a renegade who openly disregards the chief’s rules, that’s just something else for me to live down.”
He frowned, silent for a long time.
“What do you plan on doing now?” he asked. “You’re too good of a detective to be anything else.”
She smiled and said: “I’m considering other opportunities.”
He grinned at her for a moment and then chuckled.
“You’re going to the FBI, aren’t you?”
She was sure she did a poor job of hiding her shock. She returned his smile as he reached out and took her hand. It reminded her of their final coherent moments in the killer’s house and she found herself wanting to tell him what she had in mind for her future. She left it quiet, though. Now wasn’t the time.
He’d hit the nail on the head and it had surprised her. Had he always been so perceptive? Had he been hiding some sort of genuine care for her beneath the snark and impatience all this time?
“You are,” he said. “And good for you. Let’s be honest here – that’s where you belong. You were always too good for this place. I know that and you damn well better know it. I always rode you so hard because I wanted you to be better. I wanted you to get the hell out. And it looks like I did a fine job.”
She had expected a reprimand, and she was so touched and relieved by his warmth and his genuine happiness for her.
For the first time in a very long time, she felt tears of gratitude. She managed to keep them in, though, letting the silence speak for them as their hands remained clasped together in a solemn gesture of a friendship that had developed far too late.
CHAPTER THIRTY SIX
It hadn’t taken her long to pack. She managed to fit about half of her clothes into two suitcases and put the other half in a cardboard box which she labelled PLEASE DONATE using a Sharpie. Another box contained assorted items such as several paperback books, an old iPad, and a record player she’d once wanted to repair but never got around to. It was labelled the same way.
She had called Zack, fully aware that he was at work and would not be able to take her call. She left him a message that she now regretted as she wheeled her suitcases to the front door. It had been brief and even now, as she looked around at the house, unnaturally empty and cleaned, she wondered if she’d owed him more of an explanation.
That was ridiculous, though. If she owed anyone an explanation, it was herself, for staying stuck in this lifestyle as long as she’d had.
“I’m heading out of town for good,” she’d said. “The house is paid for up until the end of next month. It’s yours if you want it. If not, the lease will expire and become available. All of your stuff is still here, so come get it whenever you want. You can have the furniture, TV, and anything else we went halves on. I’m starting a new chapter in my life and it’s clear that you aren’t in it. Please respect my wishes and don’t bother calling. Take care, Zack.”
The bit about a new chapter was clichéd, but true. It was why she could so easily leave behind thousands of dollar worth of furniture and appliances. It simply wasn’t worth the arguments she’d have with Zack over them. It was also why she was leaving half of her clothes. She could buy new clothes – clothes that she’d always wanted to wear but had hesitated to because of what Zack might think, or how Porter or Nelson might react.
This new life she was walking towards offered a new vision of herself that she had only dared to dream of before now. What was the alternative? Was she supposed to stay here and suck up her suspension, then return to work with one more mark against her in a sea of aging men that saw her as an empty threat?
No thanks.
The house had never been so quiet. It was nearly as serene and still as murder scenes she’d seen – almost as stoic as that first cornfield where they’d discovered the first victim. Anything of hers that remained in this house was dead. She felt that with certainty as she reached for the doorknob.
When Mackenzie opened the door and stepped outside, she felt an unseen weight dissolve from her. It only increased as she rolled her suitcases across the small yard and to her car. She put the suitcases in the trunk, slammed it closed, and got behind the wheel.
When she backed out towards the street, she didn’t give the house a second look. Her future was in the other direction. All the house represented was a past that she could already feel sliding from her shoulders, a burden she had carried for far longer than she should have.
The papers had finally gotten tired of the story. Mackenzie had read it five different ways and no matter how it was told, she still felt as if she were reading about someone else. She had not granted interviews, allowing lazy reporters to assume things. She’d even gone online to the Oblong Journal to see if Ellis Pope had written anything about it.