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“I don’t understand.”
“No, neither did we. But it looked like some of his stuff was missing, so he must have gotten out of there before my men arrived. I told my guys to carry on with the cleanup, so if the police did start looking for him, it wouldn’t seem so suspicious, but as for the professor, it was as though he’d vanished into thin air.”
“And where is he now?”
He bites his lower lip. “That part, we don’t know, which is where lies the problem. There’s a chance he’s trying to find Mackenzie.”
Ice runs through my veins.
“How have we not killed this fucker yet?” I demand.
My father counts on his fingers. “First, he’s an upstanding citizen, someone who is admired and respected. We can’t just kill him, okay? This isn’t something the police will overlook—there will be an investigation. Second, we don’t even know where he is. Maybe if we did, we’d be able to figure out how to get rid of him.”
I don’t answer my father’s point number one, but that’s horseshit. He has the means, and if not him, then someone like Kirill’s father, certainly. The Russian mob? They make people disappear all the time. Still, point two overrides point one. If we can’t find him, we can’t kill him.
I picture Mack, freaking out because she’d believed she’d killed this fucker. She must have panicked for her not to have checked properly.
“Weren’t you there?” I demand of her mother. “Didn’t you check this man was dead?”
She doesn’t meet my eye. “No. I just got Mackenzie out of there. Call it mother’s instinct, but all I wanted was to get her as far away from there as possible. I called your dad for help, and he stepped up for us.”
“Yeah, the fucking hero,” I mutter.
My father balls his fists, and I don’t even flinch. I want to, the instinct is there, but I won’t show him fear. I’ll bleed it out later, in private.
I suddenly understand why it’s so important that we find Mackenzie and bring her home again. “You think he might be out there, looking for her, then?”
“It’s possible, yes,” he says.
“How would he know where she is?”
“I’m not sure, but he might have his ways, his connections. We really don’t know much about this man at all. What we do know is that he most likely wants revenge. Why else didn’t he go to the cops after she’d stabbed him?”
“Maybe he knew he was in the wrong?” I suggest. “Figured the police wouldn’t do anything, or that he’d be the one who’d end up serving time.” It’s bullshit, and I know it as I say it, but I’m trying to find some hope to hold on to here.
Dad shrugs. “Unlikely. I believe it’s more likely that he doesn’t want anyone to know he has any kind of connection to Mackenzie, so when he finds her, and rapes and kills her, no one will point the finger at him.”
Fuck. I’m finding it hard to breathe. It’s as though I can feel my view of Mackenzie reshape inside my brain and heart. How has she been through all of this, and the three of us had no idea? I thought the information about her having epilepsy was as big a shakeup as I could expect, but this is on a whole other level. She believed she’d killed a man? That she’d been capable of doing so in the first place has thrown me.
Something else occurs to me. I hold up one finger. “Hang on. If Mack believes she killed a man, and that she had to come here to hide out from the police, when did you tell her that this professor isn’t actually dead?”
The two of them exchange another glance. They’re thick as thieves, these two. Each as bad as the other.
The truth dawns on me. “She doesn’t know, does she?”
Lucia clears her throat again, like a nervous tic. “We thought it best not to worry her.”
I bark laughter. “Not worry her? You’re fucking kidding, right?”
“Mackenzie is fragile,” she insists. “You know that.”
“So you thought it better that she carries on believing she’s a murderer?” I shake my head and drag my hand through my hair. “This is fucking unbelievable.”
She continues trying to fight her corner. “We didn’t want her to panic that he might be coming after her. We figured she was safe here, at Verona Falls. Once we’d dealt with him, then we’d have told her the truth.”
“Except you don’t know where he is. And now you don’t know where she is either.”
Lucia places her hands together in a prayer sign. “Please, Dom. If you know anything, please help us. We only want to make sure she’s safe.”
