Apprentice in Death (In Death #43)(51)

The ID shots shrunk, swiped to the side of the screen while Nadine Furst in her bold red came into view.

“Police officials have scheduled a media conference to provide additional details. At this time, they ask if anyone has information regarding the whereabouts of these suspects, please do not engage, as they are believed to be armed and dangerous.

“Reginald Mackie, fifty-four, an Army veteran and decorated police officer, was widowed in November of 2059 when his wife, Susann Prinz Mackie, was killed in a vehicular accident. Mrs. Mackie,” Nadine continued when Susann’s picture came on screen, “was sixteen weeks pregnant at the time of the accident.”

Susann’s picture hung on screen, lips curved, eyes smiling. Then his came on, and Willow’s while Nadine continued the report.

“How’d they make us? How’d they make us this fast?”

“Solid police work.” He said it quietly as he saw his dream of a life in Alaska, a life of peace, fading.

Gone, he thought. No peace to come. No home. No life to build.

“But we’ve been so careful. They have Mom by now, don’t they? And Lincoln and the brat.”

“Your brother,” Mackie reminded her. “He’s your brother, Will. Your blood.”

Something feral gleamed in her eyes, but her father didn’t see it. “Yeah, they have them. You cleared out everything from your room? Anything that connects to the agenda?”

“I told you I did.” Insult sliced through her tone. As if she’d leave anything. Her eyes, hard green against that soft, smooth skin, flashed toward him. “There’s nothing in my room back there. I’m not stupid.”

He nodded, moved over into the tiny kitchen area, programmed coffee for himself, got her a tube of the Coke she preferred. “This is why we worked out a Plan B.”

“But, Dad—”

“Will, the mission comes first. You understood that. You trained for that. We go to the alternate plan, and regroup.” He gave her a sad smile. “You need to cut your hair, honey, and get moving. I’ll get to you when I can, but . . . In the event I’m captured or taken out, you know what to do.”

He laid a hand on her shoulder. “I depend on you.”

When she nodded, he stepped back. “Pack it up, clear it out, wipe it down. We both move tonight.”

“The media conference. We need to watch. We need to know what they’re releasing to the public.”

Pride rose again. “That’s right. Leave the screen on.”

—

Eve might have hated media conferences, but she knew how to use them when it worked to her advantage. If the Mackies weren’t watching live, they’d see the constant replays, the sound bites, the endless talking-head commentary.

So she made certain the killers got an earful.

“I’m not at liberty to divulge what investigative steps led us to identify the suspects other than to say the NYPSD has focused its manpower, its experience, and its man hours into doing so since the first strike in Central Park.”

One of the reporters leaped to his feet. “Isn’t it true that additional focus and manpower was put into the investigation after an NYPSD officer was killed?”

Eve said nothing for fully five seconds. “Ellissa Wyman, Brent Michaelson, Alan Markum,” she began, and named every victim, in order of their deaths. “Those are the lives taken, the human beings killed. I wonder if the suspects know their names, looked into their faces, thought of their families. We did. So save your idiot remarks for somebody who hasn’t stood in the blood of the seven dead. Nathaniel Jarvits was only seventeen. He died on his seventeenth birthday. Officer Kevin Russo, age twenty-three, was struck down while going to Nathaniel Jarvits’s aid, trying to shield him from further injury. While doing his job as a police officer. Do you want me to give you a thumbnail on each victim? Because I can if you don’t have the balls to do your job and report on who they were.”

“Do you have a motive?”

“We believe the Mackies are targeting individuals connected in some way with Susann Mackie’s accident. We’re actively pursuing this line of investigation.”

“Willow Mackie is only fifteen. Do you believe she was taken as a hostage by her father?”

“Evidence does not lead us to believe Willow Mackie is being held against her will or is being coerced. And don’t bother because I’m not at liberty to share that evidence with you at this time. Both suspects are expert and experienced marksmen. Reginald Mackie trained his daughter in weaponry, in marksmanship. Seven people have been killed, more than fifty have been injured by what we term long-distance serial killers. The LDSK is, at the core, a coward. Skilled, cold-blooded, but a coward who kills at a distance, who sees the victim as nothing more than a target or a mark.”

“Reginald Mackie used that skill as an NYPSD officer,” someone called out.

“The skill, yes. Tactical officers aren’t killers. Nor do they mark innocents. It’s their job to use that skill to protect the innocent and other officers. And to take down a threat by forceful stun. Terminating that threat is only ordered when the risk to other lives is too great.”

“Why didn’t Mackie’s predilection show on his evaluations?”

Before Eve could answer, Lowenbaum stepped forward. “That’s on me,” he stated. “Lieutenant Lowenbaum. I was Reginald Mackie’s supervising officer.”