Their Frozen Graves

by Ruhi Choudhary

Genres: Police Procedurals; Female Sleuths; Crime Fiction

Synopsis

Two women are dead. They both look like you. The giant stretch of frozen river was melting and the light made the lake glitter like crystals. The women lay side by side on the shore, eyes open and glassy. Their long, dark hair was like tangled rope, their faces a reflection of each other… When two bodies are found dumped in one of the vast lakes in Lakemore, Washington, Detective Mackenzie Price is first on the scene. She identifies one of the victims as Katy Becker, a local known for her work helping the community. The other victim looks strikingly similar. Still grappling with a shocking revelation from her past, Mack is only too happy to throw herself into the case. But when she goes to break the news to Katy’s husband, the investigation takes an unexpected turn: Katy is very much alive, and has never met the women who resemble her so closely. Now the race is on to find the killer before Katy becomes the next victim. But when Mack unearths a disturbing connection to a sixteen-year-old suicide, she realizes they could be hunting someone whose crimes span decades— and there are more lives than just Katy’s at stake. Addictive, pulse-pounding and packed full of jaw-dropping twists, fans of Lisa Regan, Angela Marsons and Karin Slaughter will love Their Frozen Graves. What readers are saying about Their Frozen Graves : “ Started with a bang, ended with a bang! Bang, bang, bang! Loved it!... Kept me captivated from page one… I wasn’t able to put down the book… Sadly, even this book had to end, but kaboom, what an ending! ” Tove Reads ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

“ I was hooked into the story!!! It was intriguing, interesting and unputdownable with lots of twists and unexpected turns you would never expect!!! The ending left me breathless.” Tropical Girl Reads Books ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

“ Started with a bang and ended with a jaw-dropping bomb that has left me speechless. I don't know how any review I will write can do this book justice… Filled with tension and suspense…. A definite five star read.” Little Miss Book Lover 87 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

“A powerful gripping police procedural, that had me gripped from the start… was just fantastic.” Goodreads Reviewer ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

“ Gripping and highly entertaining story, a page turner I couldn't put down and inhaled in one afternoon.” Scrapping and Playing ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

“ Just fantastic… a powerful, gripping police procedural, that had me gripped from the start… gave me chills… I'm a huge fan of this series. Highly Recommended.” Goodreads Reviewer ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

“ Gripping… kept me completely engaged all the way through and I certainly didn't work out who the perpetrator was… A Brilliant novel – loved it and would definitely recommend.” NetGalley Reviewer ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

“ Twisted!... mystery, intrigue, lots of action, and anguish… I figured some of it out, but then towards the end it was wham, shocker!... a really well done crazy ride.” Goodreads Reviewer ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

“An absolute stunner of a crime novel.” Nigel Adams Bookworm ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

‘ Keeps you guessing until the end… an exciting ride that leaves you wondering what will happen next for Mack.” Goodreads Reviewer ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

“ This is just brilliant, the twist and turns so good… I so recommend this series.” Goodreads Reviewer ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

“The reader will feel Mack's emotions and cheer her on as she works to solve these murders… And the ending!!! WOWZA… amazing!! ” Netgalley Reviewer ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

“A mystery that has so many twists and turns that you almost can’t catch up. But once you do and you think you’ve figured it all out, be prepared for one more final surprise.” Goodreads Reviewer ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Release date: January 7, 2021

Publisher: Bookouture

Print pages: 350

Sample

October 22, 2018

The bell rang.

Mackenzie checked the time. It was nine in the evening. There was no car outside. Expecting to find her stout neighbor wanting to borrow something, she opened the door.

What she saw made her legs buckle. A violent tremble raked through her insides, her brain rejecting the alarming sight.

No.

Her father stood in front of her. The hair on his head and jaw was thin and white. His skin had sagged and wrinkled with time. But it was the same face—the face that was burned into her memory. The same man Mackenzie and her mother, Melody, had buried in the woods by Hidden Lake, twenty years ago.

You have to help me bury him.

“Micky?”

Mackenzie felt like she was resurfacing from a dream. She waited for her vision to swim or crack or even sway a little. But the sight of her aged and very much alive father, standing at her doorstep, was unbending and solid.

“Micky? Are you okay?”

Mackenzie strained to listen to the little sounds around her, to ground herself. Leaves rustling, car engines, Vera Lynn’s voice drifting from her speakers… anything.

Suddenly, a car driving past her house let out a brief honk.

She snapped out of her daze and moved on autopilot. Her hand slid to the hall table, where she opened the drawer and pulled out her Glock.

She aimed the gun at him. Pointing at his head.

“Mick—”

You have to help me bury him.

“Hands out of your pockets.”

You have to help me bury him.

“But—”

You have to help me bury him.

“Hands out of your pockets!” Mackenzie said in her hardest voice.

His forehead crumpled in confusion. Slowly, he raised his hands and licked his lips. She instructed him to come inside.

When he brushed past her, a chill encased her, as if the temperature in the room had plummeted. Mackenzie shut the door behind him.

He took off his coat deliberately, and her eyes made a quick inspection of his clothes. A dark green sweater and black jeans. No weapon tucked in his waistband.

Stinging tears disrupted her vision, but she refused to shed them. She told him to turn his pockets inside out and pull down his socks. Puzzled and mildly offended, he did.

He wasn’t armed.

They stood glaring at each other in the living room. Mackenzie never lowered her gun. Her aim was glued to the middle of his forehead. If she pulled the trigger, she would kill him instantly.

He would die again. He would come back again.

“Micky, can we talk?”

“Who are you?” she whispered.

“Your father. Robert.”

If he was alive, who had died that night? Who had she buried in the woods?

The possibility of him being a conman had crossed her mind. What if he was a lookalike? But he’d called her Micky. Only her father had called her Micky.

Holding the gun in one hand, she marched to the couch and tapped his coat. There was nothing in it except a bus ticket in the inside pocket.

Portland.

She clicked the safety on and tucked the gun in her waistband.

“You try to do anything stupid, and I’ll put a bullet through your head.” Mackenzie sounded out of breath.

He nodded and followed her into the kitchen area.

She took out a bottle of water from the refrigerator and downed it like a creature parched in the desert. She felt the coolness spread into her lungs and soothe her insides. She kept her gaze locked on the ghost of her past.

She had a billion questions, but her tongue was sticky and heavy in her mouth. There was one question above all that stopped her from showering him with the others.

How much did he know about that night?

“Talk,” she demanded.

He chuckled. “I should have practiced before I came. How are you?”

Mackenzie’s eyes darted all over his face. His eyes were narrow, like slits. There was no sign of an old major head injury in his appearance or speech. He looked exactly like he did all those years ago, only older. The sole blemish Mackenzie didn’t recognize was a little scar on his chin. No one could look at him and imagine that his head had once curved inward, his eye swollen to the size of a golf ball.

“Robert Price went missing twenty years ago.” Her voice was thick. “He was never found. Thirteen years ago, he was declared dead by the courts.”

“I see.” He perched on a stool at the kitchen island. “I left Washington and never looked back. Even changed my name. I knew I was nothing but a nuisance to you and your mother.”

“Where did you go?”

“Everywhere,” he replied vaguely. “Last few years, I was in rehab down in Dallas.”

“Did you know that you were a missing person?”

He chuckled. The sound made the hair on Mackenzie’s arms rise. “I didn’t think anyone would care enough to look for me. That morning, while you were both asleep, I took some cash lying around the house and walked out.”

Mackenzie remembered that day. She hadn’t seen her father all day, but that wasn’t unusual. She had just assumed he was sleeping off another hangover in his room. Later that night, Melody claimed to have killed her abusive husband as Mackenzie had stood trembling in the kitchen, staring at his barely recognizable corpse.

She wanted to ask him what he knew. But could she trust him? Would he lie? Would he threaten her? Something had clearly gone awfully wrong that night—and she didn’t trust the man standing in front of her one bit.

“Why are you here now?”

“To be a family, of course.” There was a glint in his eye. It made her heart rise up in her throat. He had been alive this entire time and showed up now—after twenty years.

“Took you a while to realize you wanted that,” she snapped. “Where are you staying?”

“Miller Lodge.”

Mackenzie nodded, but a sickening thought unfurled in her brain. How did he know where she lived? Had he been following her? He wore a small smile. But she knew his temper. She knew the damage those swinging fists could do.

“How did you find me?”

“I went back to our old house, but someone else is living there. I looked you up on the internet and asked around. Took me a few days, but Lakemore is still small. Not too difficult to find someone if you look hard enough.”

Had he been following her?

Sweat trickled down the back of her neck. The air thickened between them. The shackles of fear held her eerily still. She felt like she was balanced on the tip of a sharp blade. One wrong move and she would find herself in a situation there would be no saving herself from. She stared at Robert. He had done nothing to threaten her until now. But she couldn’t help feeling like there was danger behind that smile and the spark in his eyes.

“Micky? Are you okay?”

“Y-yes. I think you should go. It’s getting late.”

“Are you sure? You look pale. Where’s your husband?”

“He’s sleeping upstairs,” she lied, not wanting to tell him she was alone in the house. “Give me your number. I’ll call you when I’m ready to talk.”

“I don’t have a phone yet. Just call at the lodge. I’m going to stick around, Micky. We should reconnect, wouldn’t that be nice?” He stood up and put on his coat. His nonchalance was unnerving. As if it were perfectly normal to show up twenty years later and “reconnect.”

As soon as he left, Mackenzie sprinted to lock the door. Quickly, she ensured that all the doors and windows were locked and ran up to her bedroom, locking the door behind her.

She rehashed her meeting with Robert again and again—memorizing his words, his face, and his voice. Like she would find the hidden answers there. She couldn’t shake the feeling that he knew more than he was saying. That he wasn’t just here to be reunited as a family.

Her heart skittered and thumped wildly inside her chest. With trembling hands, she retrieved her service weapon and held it tight. She climbed into her bed and pulled the duvet up to her chin.

She held the gun close to her chest, the awful realization seeping into her bones. Her father was alive, which meant someone else had died that night. What wasn’t Robert telling her? And why was he really back here?

November 20

Detective Mackenzie Price killed the engine of her car and removed her sunglasses, studying her reflection in the rearview mirror. Her blazing red hair was pulled into a high ponytail. The dark circles under her eyes were concealed, the cracks in her lips covered in pink. She was tall, muscular and often imposing, always wearing a fierce expression on her face. “Mad Mack,” as the team at Lakemore PD called her. They had coined the nickname during a particularly grueling case: the murder of a woman and her eleven-year-old son in their own home. Mack practically hadn’t slept for the duration of the investigation and she damn near went mad. But she had brought the killer to justice, and that’s what mattered.

Mackenzie’s obsession with tidiness was another source of amusement to her co-workers, but that’s how she liked it. She liked her appearance, desk, and life to be clean. But today she lacked her usual composure. Her face gave away her exhaustion, but she hadn’t admitted defeat.

This was just another day. Another day trying to make Lakemore a better place.

Lakemore was a small Washington town, tucked right next to Olympia. It was stricken with crime and poverty, but united by its passion for football. The Sharks, Lakemore High School’s football team, was Lakemore’s identity, that one thing this fading town relied on. But Mackenzie’s previous case had changed all that, exposing a disturbing history of rape and murder linked to the team that went back years. The previously revered Lakemore Sharks were in disgrace, and as the cases moved toward trial, there was a gaping hole in the fabric of Lakemore’s community. The case had triggered a chain of events leading to riots and protests in town, and it was going to take time to heal. In truth, the process had barely begun.

Mackenzie climbed out of the car to be greeted by a chill nipping into her skin. The wintry air was difficult to inhale, like miniature icicles were scraping through her nostrils. She looked around the packed parking lot. Cars and tracks were covered in snow.

She liked winter better than summer; the biting winds helped fortify her composure. In the heat, she felt like her armor was melting away.

Lakemore usually had mild and wet winters, but in the last three days a shocking snowstorm had swept across the dwindling town. Heaps of snow and frozen lakes—everything Lakemore never prepared for.

Mackenzie shoved her numb hands in her pockets and jogged across the parking lot. The hedges around the building had been shaped into boxes and were now crowned with snow.

Inside, the station was crowded and noisy. Mackenzie weaved her way through the uniforms, nodding at the familiar faces.

The Investigations Division in Lakemore PD consisted of Special Investigations and the Detectives Unit. While the former looked into robberies, fraud, and drug- and gang-related crimes, the Detectives Unit was tasked with homicide, cold cases, missing persons, and felony assaults.

Mackenzie was part of the Detectives Unit, along with five fellow senior detectives and three junior ones, headed by the quirky but sharp Sergeant Jeff Sully.

“She returns!” Troy Clayton, a senior detective, announced to an empty office.

“Hey, Troy. Where is everyone?”

“The last couple of weeks have been a mess.” He dragged his hands down his face.

Mackenzie looked at the state of the office. All the cubicles were littered with cups and files. The garbage was overfilling with empty takeout boxes and the stench of old Chinese food lingered in the air. Even Troy looked haggard. His mop-like hair fell unevenly over his forehead. “The FBI investigation into the department is fully underway.”

Mackenzie winced inwardly. More fallout from the Lakemore Sharks case—the whole affair had reeked of police corruption. “Since when?”

“They got here a week ago.”

“Right.” She took off her coat and scarf.

“You still sick?”

“Sick?”

“Your flu.”

She blinked in confusion. “Yeah. Much better now.”

“And the wedding?”

“The wedding?”

He narrowed his eyes but a phone call diverted his attention.

Mackenzie sat at her desk, trying to gather her wits. She had been away for over three weeks—her longest break from work—traveling all around the country confirming her father’s story. Now she was back and had clearly missed more than just the winter storm. She was ready to dive back in, except everything was in flux. Looking at the disarray around her, Mackenzie’s heart started thudding wildly. She began fixing the little things she found out of place on her desk. She was determined not to let her work slip away from her. It was the only thing left in her control—the sole and lonely source of stability in her life.

Detective Nick Blackwood walked in. “You’re back.”

Nick was another senior detective in the Detectives Unit. For the last eight years, he had been not only Mackenzie’s partner but also her best friend. Their friendship had weathered several storms, but they always managed to come out strong.

She eyed his cropped black hair, turning gray around the ears. “Working so hard is making you old.”

“Can’t say I missed you really,” he teased.

“My flu is gone.” She waggled her eyebrows at him.

When Troy left, he shrugged. “Had to come up with an excuse.”

“There was a wedding?”

“I said you had a destination wedding. Normally, the flu doesn’t last three weeks. So, where were you?”

“Around.”

“Around?” Nick leaned against his desk. “I covered for you. Don’t you think I should get more than that?”

“I went on a road trip to clear my head.” It was only half a lie.

“Alright. Sterling showed up here and to my place.”

Mackenzie winced. Sterling Brooks, assistant district attorney, was Mackenzie’s husband of three years. Their marital bliss had shattered when Sterling had cheated on her earlier in the year. He had had a fling with a waitress who he’d hooked up with after a few drinks. It had taken Mackenzie a while to wrap her head around it and confront him. But when she did, she kicked him out of their house, wanting space and time to think. Now he seemed determined to earn her trust back.

“What did he want?”

“Looking for you. You didn’t tell him where you were. He was panicking.”

Mackenzie rolled her eyes. “Yeah. I was preoccupied.”

“Did you make up your mind?”

“About what?”

“Sterling!” he said, exasperated. “Isn’t that why you took off? To think things over?”

Mackenzie swallowed. She hadn’t thought of him nearly as much as she should have. “Still deciding. Anyway, what did I miss?”

Nick’s eyebrows dipped, assessing her. She met his scrutinizing eyes with a composure practiced and perfected over decades. Eventually, he let it go. “Crime’s up. I just came from throwing a pickpocket in jail. That’s how bad it’s gotten. All departments are short-staffed. Peck’s gone. We have a new lieutenant—Atlee Rivera. Transferred from Ohio.”

She opened her mouth to inquire about Sully when the door to his office opened and a stranger’s face poked out. The woman was middle-aged, with olive skin and dark hair pulled back from her square face. Her eyes were narrowed above her broad nose.

“Detective Price?” She cocked a brow.

“Yes.”

“Could I see you in here, please?”

Mackenzie stepped into Sully’s office. It was filled with packed boxes and papers—no place for whatever his latest hobby was.

“I’m Atlee Rivera.” Atlee shook Mackenzie’s hand. “Good grip.”

“Thanks.”

“Sorry about the mess!” She looked around the office and hopped over the boxes to get behind Sully’s desk. “My office isn’t ready, so all my things are here. Sergeant Sully’s been kind enough to lend it to me. So, you’re Mad Mack.”

Mackenzie suppressed a groan. “You can call me Mack.”

Atlee chuckled. “If they’ve given you a nickname, it’s a compliment. It means you stand out. Worth remembering. I was in Savannah for a few years before moving to Ohio. They called me ‘the Razor.’”

“Why?”

“I was cutthroat.” She leaned back on her chair. “I had the chance to address this department a few days ago, but you were out sick?”

“Flu.”

“From what I’ve heard you never take any time off, so you must have been really sick.”

“All good now, ma’am.” Mackenzie’s smile was strained.

“Call me Lieutenant. Good job on your previous case. From what I hear, it changed a lot of things in this town.”

“For the better,” Mackenzie said, almost defensively.

“We’ll see about that.” A corner of Atlee’s mouth raised in a half smile. “Justice doesn’t always bring peace, unfortunately. Anyway, the reason I called you in was to introduce myself. I’ve been told that I’m the first female lieutenant in the history of Lakemore PD, and you are the only female senior detective in this unit. Police work is still considered a man’s job, especially in small towns like Lakemore. I don’t know about you, but I have dealt with my fair share of old-school thinking and boy’s club culture. I won’t make any assumptions about this office, but I wanted to let you know that I have an open door and an open-mind policy. If there’s anything I can help you with, I’d like you to come to me.”

She smiled warmly, but Mackenzie could detect a steely composure underneath. Instinctively, she could tell Rivera wasn’t the kind of woman who needed to raise her voice to intimidate. A woman with clear intentions, who was not easily fazed. “Thank you. I’ll keep that in mind.”

Atlee nodded. “Glad that’s settled, then.”

There was a knock on the door, and Nick peered in. “Sorry to interrupt. Mack, we have to leave. Two bodies at Woodburn Park.”

“Where’s Sully?” Mackenzie asked, following him out and getting her jacket from her cubicle.

“Rounding up graffiti artists.” Nick smirked.

“He’s out on the field?”

“I think he’s trying to make a good impression on the lieutenant.”

“What do you think of her?” Mackenzie asked.

“She’s hard to read. We’ll see.”

“Is the crime scene secured?”

“Yeah. Justin is holding the fort.”

As they approached the exit to the building, sirens blared loudly. Several officers shot past them toward the parking lot. Mackenzie and Nick exchanged a bewildered look before shouldering their way outside.

Mackenzie’s breath caught in her throat. A police squad car was on fire.

Fire trucks were turning round the corner, zipping past the traffic. As they entered the parking lot, the sirens drowned the drone of the crowd. Black smoke jetted upward. Even from several feet away, Mackenzie could feel the heat on her cheeks. The view of the lot behind the car rippled. Flames danced higher, licking the air. Suddenly, the windshield of the squad car cracked and shattered. An explosion, and chunks of the car fell to the ground, still on fire. The toasted car was disintegrating when the firefighters began dowsing it.

“What happened?” she whispered, turning to Nick.

He looked at her. “Lakemore happened.”

Mackenzie remembered coming to Woodburn Park as a child. It was a fleeting memory, like a vague dream on the brink of being forgotten. She recalled chasing her father along the edge of the lake. She closed her eyes and saw him from behind; he looked so much bigger and stronger. It must have been a time before the alcohol took over his life and brought him down brick by brick. She heard his laugh, cheery and guttural.

Woodburn Park had changed over the years. What was once a hangout spot for families was now abandoned and creepy. Westley River—one of the two major rivers in Lakemore—cut through Woodburn, opening into Crescent Lake before continuing on its way and finally draining into the sea at Riverview, a neighboring town. There were cabins in the park, but they were all rundown. The exodus had started when drugs came to the area, and the woods became a spot for dealing. Some teenagers were found having overdosed. Arrests were made. The police eventually cleaned up the area, drove away the dealers and users, but a bad reputation was more durable than a good one.

Now, Woodburn stood lonely. Safe, but haunted by the ghost of its treacherous past.

There was a single trail that ran through Woodburn and was used to access most of the cabins in woods. Before the drugs, it was used for hiking. Walking through the woods was difficult with wild thickets and shrubbery covering nearly every inch of ground.

Mackenzie scowled at her feet cracking a frozen silver puddle. The thin blanket of snow was crushed and brown under their feet as they walked. Weathered leaves hung from lifeless, barren branches. The cold came suddenly and would leave just as quickly. A blip in the otherwise predictable wet winter of Lakemore.

“How’s Luna?”

“Good. I’m getting her for Christmas this year,” Nick beamed.

“How come?”

He rubbed the back of his neck. “Shelly’s going on a vacation with her boyfriend.”

“She has a boyfriend? Since when?” Mackenzie almost slipped on a thin sheet of black ice. She gripped the mushy bark of a tree to balance herself. “Damn it.”

“Few months now. If she’s going on vacation with him, means it’s serious.”

Mackenzie dusted her muddy hands. “Ordered a background check on him?”

Nick turned and raised an eyebrow.

“What? This man might become Luna’s stepfather.”

“Already did it. He’s a widower with only a few parking tickets to his name.”

“How did his wife die?”

He threw back his head and laughed. “Are you seriously suspecting he killed his wife?”

Mackenzie shrugged innocently. “Maybe?”

“It was cancer.”

Mackenzie could see the shore of the lake a dozen feet ahead of her. The frozen river upstream was pristine white from a distance. She spotted the yellow tape and the crime scene unit dressed in jackets. Detective Justin Armstrong, a junior detective, looked over the area with his binoculars. He had been with Lakemore PD two years and was often assigned to assist Mackenzie and Nick on their cases. His build was beefy but muscular, a moustache sat on his upper lip, and a contemplative frown always clouded his face. His discipline and mannerisms were military-like, and Mackenzie appreciated his unwavering focus.

The stretch of river meeting the lake was thawing and the brilliant wintry light made the surface glitter like crystals. As they got closer to the shallow bank, she saw the thin layer of ice on the surface was cracked. Pieces drifted away from each other, revealing the gushing water underneath.

“Detective Price,” Justin tipped his head. “Welcome back, ma’am.”

“Thanks, Justin. What do we have here?” She and Nick donned disposable suits, latex gloves and skullcaps before getting close to the crime scene.

Justin pointed at two men sitting on a boulder with blankets around their shaking bodies. “Those fishermen caught two bodies instead of fish around an hour ago. First they caught the victim wearing the blue sweater in fishing net. When they were rowing to the shore, their boat hit the other victim floating just under the ice.”

“Any other witnesses?” Nick asked.

“None, sir. No one else is in the area. The cabins look unoccupied.”

Nick made his way to speak to the spooked fishermen. Four personnel from the medical examiner’s office huddled together, blocking Mackenzie’s view of the bodies. Two of them collected samples from the soil and the bodies, while the third one made an inventory. The fourth person took pictures.

They moved, giving Mackenzie full view. Two women lay side by side on the shore, several feet apart. Their eyes were open, milky white and bloated. Their skin glistened like wax, matted with mud and sand and remnants of the lake. They both had long dark hair like tattered ropes, the same length, tangled with weeds and debris. One body was wrapped in a fishing net. Both barefoot, their skin was covered in bruises and cuts.

The woman in the net was dressed in jeans and a full-sleeved blue sweater, the other in a brown woolen dress and stockings. Their clothes were bloodied, the epicenter being their abdomens, but otherwise largely intact. There were some rips, likely from being underwater—no obvious signs of deliberate tearing or removal, which could have indicated sexual assault.

Mackenzie noted their similarities: bone structure, rosebud mouths, height, and build. They were bloated and their skin was clammy and translucent, a blue tinge coming from their veins.

“Did they have ID?” Mackenzie asked Justin.

“No. It’s probably at the bottom of the lake somewhere.”

Mackenzie nodded and continued staring at the women’s faces. They looked too similar. Were they related? She wouldn’t be surprised if they were twins. But being underwater had morphed their appearance.

“Looks like they were stabbed,” Nick noted as he joined them. “No other major injuries visible that could lead to death. Sexual assault looks unlikely. They were thrown in the water instead of being positioned a certain way, so no ritualistic killing either. Robbery gone wrong?”

“I don’t think so, sir. One of the bodies is wearing a wedding band and a necklace,” Justin pointed out. “The necklace looks cheap, but the ring is probably gold.”

“They look very similar, but they’re bloated and have all these marks,” Mackenzie said.

“Probably from the water. This lake is forty meters deep and pretty rocky at the bottom. There can be strong afternoon winds here, causing currents.” Nick frowned. “I swear I’ve seen someone like them before.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know…” He shook his head and leaned on his haunches to get a closer look. “I’ve definitely seen this face somewhere.” He pulled out his phone and typed something. He handed it to Mackenzie. “One of them could be her?”

She stared at the picture. It was slightly pixelated, but the woman smiling at the camera bore an uncanny resemblance to both corpses. “Who is that?”

“Katy Becker.”

“The social activist?” Mackenzie raised her eyebrows.

Katy Becker was a well-known name around Lakemore. The short, slender-framed woman had worked relentlessly to raise money to restore several state parks and construct homeless shelters around the city. She dodged direct media attention, preferring to work from behind the scenes, but was big on social media. Authorities knew her—or at least of her. Mackenzie had never spoken to the woman, but on several occasions they had been present at the same event. Last year, Katy had organized a protest outside city hall d. . .