Their Frozen Graves: A completely addictive crime thriller and mystery novel Read online

  Their Frozen Graves

  A completely addictive crime thriller and mystery novel

  Ruhi Choudhary

  Books by Ruhi Choudhary

  The Detective Mackenzie Price Series

  Our Daughter’s Bones

  Their Frozen Graves

  Little Boy Lost

  Available in Audio

  Our Daughter’s Bones (Available in the UK and the US)

  Their Frozen Graves (Available in the UK and the US)

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Epilogue

  Little Boy Lost

  Hear More from Ruhi

  Books by Ruhi Choudhary

  A Letter from Ruhi

  Our Daughter’s Bones

  Acknowledgments

  To my parents

  Prologue

  Lakemore, WA

  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 a
sleep, 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?

  One

  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 sourc
e 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.”