Ray closed his notebook and slipped it into his coat. “I’m surprised no one called you about his disappearance. It’s gotten a lot of coverage on the news.”

“There’s no one left to call, Ray. The lights of my generation have almost all gone out.”

10

Mackenzie Mason stood in the great room of her recently acquired home and surveyed the scene—white walls, thick white carpeting, black granite on the countertops and the fireplace surround. Built on a small spit of land that extended into the bay, the contractor’s trophy-home intentions were limited by the buildable area of the lot. More by accident than aspiration, he had managed to build a structure appropriately sized for the setting, his efforts enhanced by the work of a skilled young architect. The final product was a home of modest proportions with luxury accoutrements—exotic woods, pricy fixtures, and high-end appliances. A great room—high ceilinged, glass walled, and occupying half of the building’s footprint—was the focal point of the structure. It provided spectacular views of the bay and the orchard-covered hillsides beyond. A large master suite, a second bath, and two tiny bedrooms completed the house.

Mackenzie had found the listing online. The real-estate agent told her that the house was completed just as the economy tanked. The builder’s company went into receivership and the bank was left holding the bag. The bargain property was then picked up by a Bloomfield Hills orthopedist as an investment. Less than six months later, he walked from the mortgage as his own financial house of cards came crashing down.

When Mackenzie offered $100,000 less than the asking price, she was amazed at how quickly the bank snapped up the offer. She chided herself for not going lower. So much for toxic assets, she thought out loud as she looked around the room. She’d had spent little time or effort redecorating. The house was furnished with only the essentials needed for the next few months. She had, however, upgraded the security system with cameras, monitors, additional motion detectors, and a wireless uplink to the alarm company’s headquarters.

Mackenzie walked to the front of the room and stood near the wall of glass that faced the bay. Small patches of snow were still visible on the opposite shore, and cold drizzle blurred the already formless landscape. After spending more than two decades in the west, most of it in California, she was having trouble adjusting to the cold, gray, March weather of northern Michigan. Sliding into an Aeron chair, she wondered, Is this just madness? Her eyes ran along the bleak horizon. Why am I here?

Mackenzie Mason had left her senior vice-president position in a high-tech company on December 31. She and three other top-level executives walked away with severance packages equal to a year’s salary with the customary bonuses—a generous parting gift for the fortunate few. Based on their rank in the hierarchy, the other employees got from three months to two weeks wages as the once highflying dot.com slid toward insolvency.

January 1 found Mackenzie at loose ends. But the search for a new job was the least of her concerns. Headhunters had started harassing her as soon as rumors of the company’s demise went public. More than one had made the point that she was the dream client: young, bright, articulate, the right education from the best places, and a solid track record of accomplishment. What they didn’t say, because it might be considered inappropriate, was that she was also funny, beautiful, and very sexy.

For Mackenzie, the end of a long-term relationship was more problematic than the employment situation. Although she was the one who had insisted on it, she still woke up at night with the fear that she had made the wrong decision. Which was why she’d decided to come back to Michigan. There was something she needed to know, investigate, understand, and perhaps resolve before she could move on with her life.

Even as she admired her now sumptuous surroundings, she could still remember being poor and hungry and vulnerable. For years she had done her best to avoid the painful memories of childhood and the trauma and sadness of her brother’s death. Those memories had intensified the day before, when she drove to the south end of the county to look at the village where she had spent two desperately unhappy years.

Mackenzie was shocked at how the town, Sandville, had almost vanished over the past several decades. Any thoughts of taking a closer look at her grandmother’s old garden, or perhaps searching the cemetery for her brother’s grave, quickly evaporated when she saw a sheriff’s car parked on the road. The deputy, a young woman, had a small dog on a leash, and they were walking around the lot where the house formerly stood. Mackenzie slowed enough to take in the scene; she circled the block, then left, not wanting to attract attention to herself.

What was that all about? Mackenzie thought as she drove north. She ran several scenarios that would explain the deputy’s presence at her grandmother’s house, but couldn’t generate anything more plausible than a chance happening. Perhaps the dog needed a walk. She reassured herself that it would be silly to read anything into the event.

Mackenzie picked up an iPad and flipped through the apps. She opened a project planner and looked at her early notes. Scrolling through the first draft, she was struck by the disorder of her stratagem. She had been doing project planning for years and was known for the precise and skillful way she could focus the work of hundreds of people and millions of dollars to achieve timely, profitable results. But here she was stymied. She hardly knew where to begin.

In frustration, she got up and began switching on the lights, making the room as bright a contrast as possible to the end of winter gloom. Then she unlocked the hinged covers of the two stainless steel shipping cases she had collected a few hours earlier in Traverse City. She had been apprehensive about the pick-up, but everything went without a hitch. Ken Lee Park, a sometimes boyfriend, Taekwondo instructor, and expert in computers and corporate security, had assured her that everything would come via FedEx Ground without inspection. FedEx had further helped her by putting the trunks on an aluminum hand truck, rolling them to the parking lot, and lifting them into the back of her Subaru.

She lifted a layer of dark gray foam from the first case, exposing the precisely engineered interior. The contents had been carefully packed, foam cut to surround every component. She removed a large computer display and set it on the desk. After pulling out more of the packing, she found the tower for the system and positioned it beside the display. From the second case, she lifted a small laser printer and a box of wires. Each cable and cord had been marked with colored stickers for easy assembly.

In a few minutes, the computer was running. Mackenzie plugged in a thumb drive she’d brought with her from California and opened an encrypted text file, working her way through the elaborate security system Ken Lee had installed to protect the contents of the hard drive—the normal array of business application programs plus a collection of sophisticated intercept, surveillance, and hacking software.

Returning to the second trunk, she lifted away another layer of foam and began unpacking several articles of clothing, all black, each packaged in a sealed plastic bag. There was also a bag of special soaps and shampoos. Without opening them, she stowed the bags in the large walk-in closet of the master suite and put the toiletries in a cupboard in the bathroom. The last block of foam came apart in two halves, revealing meticulously hollowed-out spaces. Ken Lee, well aware of her competence in the martial arts, had stressed the importance of weapons for self-defense. He had selected and trained her to use the two pistols, a Glock 19 and a Rohrbaugh R9. Each was tucked into a holster. The Glock was to be carried at the hip, the Rohrbaugh inside the left ankle. In addition to extra magazines for each weapon, there was also a small, high-quality LED flashlight and a bear claw knife.