CHAPTER SIX

While she had been hoping to avoid speaking to the families of the recently deceased, Mackenzie found herself working her way down her to-do list faster than she had expected. After leaving the Sterlings’ house behind, the next natural place to go for any answers was to the closest relatives of the families. In the case of the Sterlings, their closest family was a sister that lived less than ten miles from the Kurtzes’ townhouse. The rest of the family lived in Alabama.

The Kurtzes, however, had plenty of family nearby. Josh Kurtz had not moved very far away from home, living within twenty miles of not only his parents, but his sister as well. And since the Miami PD had already spoken extensively with the Kurtzes earlier in the day, Mackenzie opted to check in with the sister of Julie Kurtz.

Sara Lewis seemed more than happy to meet with them, and although the news of her sister’s death was less than two days old, she seemed to have accepted it as well as a twenty-two-year-old could.

Sara invited them into her house in Overtown, a quaint one-story house that was little more than a small apartment. It was decorated sparsely and held the sort of edgy silence that Mackenzie had felt in so many other houses where someone was dealing with recent loss. Sara sat on the edge of her couch, cupping a mug of tea in her hands. It was clear that she had done her fair share of crying recently; she also looked like she hadn’t slept much.

“I assume that if the FBI is involved,” she said, “that means there have been more murders?”

“Yes, there have,” Harrison said from beside Mackenzie. She frowned briefly, wishing he had not so willingly divulged the information.

“But,” Mackenzie said, interjecting before Harrison could continue, “we of course can’t make any solid claims about a connection without a thorough investigation. And that’s why we’ve been called in.”

“I’ll help however I can,” Sara Lewis said. “But I already answered the police’s questions.”

“Yes, I understand, and I appreciate that,” Mackenzie said. “I just want to cover a few things they might have missed. For instance, do you by any chance have any idea how your sister and brother-in-law were in terms of financial standing?”

It was clear that Sara thought it was a strange question but she did her best to answer nonetheless. “Okay, I suppose. Josh had a good job and they really didn’t spend too much money. Julie would even scold me sometimes for spending too frivolously. I mean, they certainly weren’t loaded…not from what I know. But they did okay.”

“Now, their neighbor told us that Julie liked to draw. Was this just a hobby or was she making any money off of it?”

“More of a hobby,” Julie said. “She was pretty good, but she knew it wasn’t anything spectacular, you know?”

“How about ex-boyfriends? Or maybe ex-girlfriends Josh might have had?”

“Julie has a few exes, but none of them took it hard. Besides that, they all live halfway across the country. I know for a fact that two of them are married. As for Josh, I don’t think there were any exes in the picture. I mean…hell, I don’t know. They were just a really good couple. Really good together – disgustingly cute in public. That sort of couple.”

The visit felt too brief to end but Mackenzie had only one other route to pursue and she wasn’t quite sure how to refer to it without repeating herself. She thought back to those odd entries in the Sterlings’ checkbook, still unable to figure them out.

Probably nothing, she thought. People keep their checkbooks differently, that’s all. Still, worth looking into.

Thinking of the abbreviations she had seen in the Sterlings’ checkbook, Mackenzie continued on. As she opened her mouth to speak, she heard Harrison’s phone vibrating in his pocket. He quickly checked it and then ignored the call. “Sorry,” he said.

Ignoring the disturbance, Mackenzie asked: “Would you happen to know if Julie or Josh were involved with any sort of organizations or maybe even clubs or gyms? The sort of place they’d routinely pay fees to?”

Julie thought about this for a moment but shook her head. “Not that I know of. Like I said…they didn’t really spend a lot of money. The only monthly fee I know of that Julie had outside of bills was her Spotify account, and that’s only ten bucks.”

“And have you been contacted by anyone like an attorney about what happens with their finances?” Mackenzie asked. “I’m very sorry to ask, but it could be pressing.”

“No, not yet,” she said. “They were so young, I don’t even know if they had drawn up a will. Shit…I guess I have all of that to look forward to, don’t I?”

Mackenzie got to her feet, unable to answer the question. “Thanks again for speaking with us, Sara. Please, if you think of anything else in regards to the questions I’ve asked you, I’d appreciate a call.”

With that, she handed Sara a business card. Sara took it and pocketed it as she led them to the door. She wasn’t being rude but it was clear that she wanted them to leave as quickly as possible.

With the door closed behind them, Mackenzie found herself standing on Sara’s porch with Harrison. She considered correcting him on so quickly letting Sara know that there had been more murders that could be related to the murder of her sister. But it had been an honest mistake, one that she had made once or twice when she had started off. So she let it go.

“Can I ask you something?” Harrison asked.

“Sure,” Mackenzie said.

“Why were you so fixated on their finances? Did it have something to do with what you saw in the Sterlings’ place?”

“Yeah. It’s just a hunch for now, but some of the transactions were – ”

Harrison’s phone started vibrating again. He scooped it out of his pocket with an embarrassed look on his face. He checked the display, nearly ignored it, but then kept it out as they walked back toward the car.

“Sorry, I have to take this,” he said. “It’s my sister. She called while we were inside, too. Which is weird.”

Mackenzie didn’t pay him much attention as they got into the car. She was barely even listening to Harrison’s end of the conversation as he started speaking. However, by the time she had pulled back out onto the street, she could tell by his tone that something was very wrong.

When he ended the call, there was a shocked expression on his face. His bottom lip had a sort of curl to it, somewhere between a grimace and a frown.

“Harrison?”

“My mom died this morning,” he said.

“Oh my God,” Mackenzie said.

“Heart attack…just like that. She’s – ”

Mackenzie could tell that he was struggling not to break down in tears. He turned his head away from her, looking out of the passenger side window, and started to let it out.

“I’m so sorry, Harrison,” she said. “Let’s get you back home. I’ll set up the flight now. Anything else you need?”

He only gave a brief shake of the head, still looking away from her as he wept a bit more openly.

Mackenzie first made a call to Quantico. She was unable to get McGrath on the phone so she left a message with his receptionist, letting her know what had happened and that Harrison would be on a flight back into DC as soon as possible. She then called the airline and grabbed the first available flight, which departed in three and a half hours.

The moment the flight was booked and she ended the call, her phone rang. Giving Harrison a sympathetic look, she answered it. It felt terrible to resort back to a work mentality after Harrison’s news but she had a job to do – and there were still no solid leads.

“This is Agent White,” she said.

“Agent White, this is Officer Dagney. I thought you might want to know that we have a potential lead.”

“Potential?” she asked.

“Well, he certainly fits the profile. This is a guy that was booked on multiple home invasions, two of which included violence and sexual assault.”

“In the same areas as the Kurtzes and Sterlings?”

“That’s where it gets promising,” Dagney said. “One of the instances that involved sexual assault happened in the same group of townhouses the Kurtzes lived in.”

“Do we have an address for the guy?”

“Yeah. He works at an auto garage. A small one. And we’ve got confirmation that he’s there right now. Name of Mike Nell.”

“Send me the address and I’ll go have a talk with him. And any word on the financial records Harrison requested?” Mackenzie asked.

“Not yet. We’ve got some guys working on it, though. Shouldn’t take too long.”

Mackenzie killed the call and did her best to give Harrison his moment of grief. He was no longer weeping, but was clearly having to make an effort to keep it together.

“Thanks,” Harrison said, wiping a stray tear away from his face.

“For what?” Mackenzie asked.

He shrugged. “Calling McGrath and the airport. Sorry this is such a pain in the midst of the case.”

“It’s not,” she said. “Harrison, I’m very sorry for your loss.”

After that, the car fell into silence and whether she liked it or not, Mackenzie’s mind slipped back into work mode. There was a killer somewhere out there, apparently with some odd vengeance to enact upon happy couples. And he might be awaiting her this very second.

Mackenzie could barely wait to meet him.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Dropping Harrison off at the motel was bittersweet. She wished she could do more for him or, at the very least, offer some more comforting words. In the end, though, she only gave him a half-hearted wave as he went into his room to pack his things and call a cab to take him to the airport.

Once his door had closed behind him, Mackenzie pasted the address Dagney had sent her into her GPS. Lipton Auto Garage was exactly seventeen minutes from the motel, a distance she started to cover right away.

Being alone in the car felt strange but she again distracted herself with the Miami scenery. It was different from any other beach-oriented city she had ever been in. Where smaller towns situated by the beach seemed a little sandy and almost faded, everything in Miami seemed to shine and sparkle despite the nearby sand and salt spray from the ocean. Here and there she would see a building that seemed out of place, neglected and forlorn – a reminder that everything had its blemishes.

She arrived at the garage sooner than she expected, having been distracted by taking in the sights of the city. She parked in a lot that was overcrowded with broken down cars and trucks that were obviously being pillaged for spare parts. It looked like the sort of operation that was forever in a state of almost going bankrupt.

Before walking into the place, she did a quick once-over of the place. There was a run-down front office that was currently unattended. The attached garage held three bays, only one of which contained a car; it was up on risers but did not look to be having any work done on it. In the garage, one man was rummaging through a shelf-shaped toolbox. Another was in the very back of the garage, standing on a small ladder and rifling through a series of old cardboard boxes.