Before He Sees (A Mackenzie White Mystery—Book 2)

by Blake Pierce

  He’d never taken them up on it. While he loved the way women looked, especially the ones on his calendar and in the few old magazines his father had left behind in the attic all those years ago, the thought of sex was disgusting.

  A knock at the door broke him out of his thoughts.

  He set the magazine down and got up slowly, not wanting to seem too anxious. He took a deep breath and smiled as he approached the door, trying to make himself keep from trembling with anticipation. He composed himself and answered the door.

  The woman on the other side was plain-looking, but could be pretty in the right light. She carried a canvas bag filled with books and samples. She smiled warmly at him and made a quick check over his shoulder, looking into the house.

  “Hi,” the woman said. “Is Mary home?”

  “She is,” he said. “Come on in and I’ll get her for you.”

  “Thanks,” the woman said, following him in. She thought he was harmless. Most women did. It was something about the way he looked; he wasn’t threatening, nor was he good-looking. He was plain, he was average and easy to overlook. He’d known this since middle school and had always taken advantage of it.

  When the woman was inside, he closed the door behind her and started for the hallway. When he was halfway there, he stopped and turned around to face the woman.

  “You know, I think she’s asleep right now.”

  “Oh. Should I come back later?”

  “No, no not at all,” he said. “Now’s the perfect time.”

  “Oh, well I—”

  He threw out his right hand quickly, punching her directly in the stomach. When she gasped out all of her breath and bent down, he grabbed her lovely brown hair, pulled back on it, and made her look at him. She opened her mouth to scream but something in her eyes seemed to flicker for a moment. Then, rather than scream, she brought her left arm up in a hard arc.

  Her elbow caught him directly between the legs. The pain was immense and sickening. For a glaring moment, he thought of his father calling him his special boy, a memory associated with a similar pain.

  The pain and the memory made him dizzy and he released the woman’s hair. She got up quickly and instead of running, she delivered a hard kick to his stomach. The air went rushing out of him and as he fell to his hands and knees he saw that now the woman was choosing to run.

  Her canvas bag had fallen to the floor, spilling out samples and stupid little books. He slapped at them with a hand as he let out a little howl of pain. Ahead of him, the woman had made it to the door and was unlocking it.

  He pushed the pain aside, swallowing it down in a bitter pill that made him feel like he had to puke. He got to his feet and launched himself at the woman. He was actually airborne for about two seconds and as he sailed toward her, she had the door open. Saturday sunshine spilled in through the door.

  His full weight collided with her lower legs. She toppled over, her head striking the doorway with a sickening thud. Her right arm fell outside, making a clawing gesture at the porch. He grabbed her by the shoulders and hauled her back inside, throwing her down to the floor. She was clearly a bit dazed from striking the doorway but was still getting to her feet.

  She was standing on the porch, then stumbling down the concrete stairs.

  His eyes went wide. Fear and anger spun into a cyclone within him and he was running after her before he could even think to stop himself. He dashed out of the door and launched himself from the porch just as she reached the bottom of the stairs.

  He slammed into her back and they both went tumbling to the ground. He landed on top of her as she went skidding along the old cracked sidewalk that ran through his yard.

  She was sobbing, clearly in pain, and trying to move. He drove an elbow into the small of her back and then slowly got to his feet. He looked around quickly, finding that he had been fortunate; no one was out on the streets. No one was walking their dog or passing by in their cars.

  He again grabbed her by the hair, lifting her to her feet. She cried out weakly but then he placed his other hand around her throat. She sensed that she was not going to get out of this, and the fight went spiraling out of her. He nearly ran back into the house with her his hands still in her hair and at her neck. Inside, he slammed the door behind them and dropped her to the floor where she moved only the slightest bit. He then lowered himself down to her and ran a hand almost lovingly down the side of her face, then down her neck, then over her breasts, then her hips, then her knees.

  With a smile, he hitched her up beneath the arms and started dragging her to the back of his mother’s house, toward his addition. The crawlspace was empty again, and he could practically hear it calling out for someone to come occupy its dark spaces.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  When Mackenzie got to the landfill, it was just after eight o’clock in the morning. It was the landfill the first two victims had been found in and it was starting to look a little too familiar to her. She pulled her car in behind several others as she took in the commotion. There were a few state workers—landfill employees, no doubt—speaking with two agents. Beside them, she saw Bryers speaking on his cell phone. When he saw her, he beckoned her forward.

  She got out of her car and walked quickly over to him. All she was able to hear of his conversation before he ended the call was a simple “Yes sir. I’ll see you then.”

  He then gave Mackenzie his full attention and said: “That was fast.”

  “I was already on my way to the gym when you called.”

  “Well, I’m glad you’re here,” he said.

  “Another body, you said?”

  “That’s right,” Bryers said. “Another woman. She’s still up there if you want to have a look.”

  She did, but did not want to seem too enthusiastic. She let Bryers lead her up the small hill to the dumpsters, directly toward the very same dump Susan Kellerman’s body had been discovered in. Without a word shared between them, they came to the edge of the big green dumpster and looked in.

  Mackenzie looked at the woman’s body without blinking for about five seconds, just to make sure she was really seeing it. It was wasteful and it was sick, seeing a human body like this: lifeless and devoid of color, strewn in with candy wrappers, old coffee filters, dingy cardboard, and other refuse.

  There was a scrape on the top of her forehead, mostly raw and not yet scabbed over. There was also a clear bruise just to the left of the center of her neck. She was completely naked and uncovered by the trash, lying on top of the pile.

  “It gets worse,” Bryers said.

  “How so?” Mackenzie asked.

  “McGrath is on his way. He’s in full freakout mode. I almost called you back to tell you not to come, but I don’t know how to play this.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He’ll be irritated that you’re here at all,” Bryers explained. “But I thought it might be worse if you weren’t here. He gave you forty-eight hours so I guess you should be present at something like this.”

  “Damned if I do, damned if I don’t,” Mackenzie said.

  “Exactly.”

  “Another strike against us,” Bryers said, pointing to the sky, “is the weather. Those gray clouds up there make me think we’ll see rain within the hour.”

  “Has the medical examiner already come?”

  “No. They’re about ten minutes out. We just got the call an hour ago, from one of the workers down with the other agents. Everything is going a hundred miles a minute for this one. It quickly hit the top of the Bureau’s priority list.”

  It took that last bit to clue Mackenzie in on just how high-profile this was becoming. And somehow, she had gotten stuck directly in the middle of it. Looking down to this dead woman—the fourth victim of what was now appearing to be a serial killer—she started to think that maybe McGrath was right. Maybe she had no business being involved in this.

  “Our hands are tied until the ME gets here, right?” she asked.

  “Y
eah.”

  “Maybe we can find something down by the chain-link fence again?” she suggested.

  “You can try. But remember how well that worked out last time.”

  There was a hint of annoyance in his voice that Mackenzie decided to ignore. As her partner (technically), the whole situation was just as messy for him. She understood it, but she didn’t have time to sympathize.

  She headed back down to the bottom of the small hill to where the chain-link fence separated the dump from the feeder road. She had made it halfway down when a car came speeding up the feeder road. It came to a jarring stop just inches behind Mackenzie’s car. She watched as McGrath got out, wasting no time as he sauntered through the gate and straight toward her.

  When he stopped several inches away from her, he did not look angry per se. He looked like a man with a hell of a lot of pressure and weight on his shoulders and she just happened to be in the way.

  “Mrs. White,” he said, remaining as calm as he could, “because of this death, things are getting out of hand with this case. There’s no apparent time-table for this killer and within a few hours, an ungodly amount of Bureau resources are going to be poured into this. And the more people that get involved, the harder it’s going to be to stay hush-hush about your involvement.”

  “I see,” Mackenzie said. She felt anger and disappointment trying to flare up but she did understand where he was coming from. After all, this was not about her…this was about tracking down a killer. She was a bit ashamed that she was letting her ambition cloud her priorities.

  “However,” McGrath said, “I am a man of my word. I gave you forty-eight hours. And by my estimation, you still have twenty-two. But I can’t have you here, in the middle of all of the commotion. I’m going to have to stick you with family duty.”

  “But sir, I can be a valuable asset here and—”

  “This is non-negotiable,” he said. “I expect you off of this scene within two minutes. I don’t care where you go, just don’t stay here. I’ll see to it that Agent Bryers gets you the contact information for the family the moment we make a positive ID. That’s the only favor you’ll get from me.”

  Mackenzie knew that she had to do as he said. Not only was he extending an olive branch by keeping her on the case at all given the recently escalated nature of the case, but she also needed to stay in the good graces of everyone that that sticking their necks out for her, making sure she was still involved.

  “Yes, sir,” she said. She gave a curt little nod and headed back for the gate and her car beyond. She didn’t look back toward the dumps until she reached her car and opened the door. She found Bryers’s face among the growing crowd. He was staring in her direction and she was touched to see that he looked sad and disappointed.

  She gave a small wave as she stepped into the car. Then she started the ignition and backed out. Before she reached the end of the feeder road and was back on the main highway, the first small droplets of rain fell and started to patter against her windshield.

  ***

  She certainly wasn’t going to head back to her apartment, and she didn’t want to go to the gym to start a workout that she would get interrupted from. Being a Sunday, retreating to the Academy or the firing range was also out of the question. She felt strange—not dissatisfied but somehow depressed all at the same time.

  She decided to hit up a Starbucks, where she ordered a dark brew and simply sat in the back of the shop, scrolling through her phone and listening to the light drizzle of rain tap against the window. As she looked through her contacts, she started to understand the feeling that was sweeping through her. She hated to admit it—hated to lower herself to what felt like the emotional state of a teenager—but she was lonely.

  Her finger hovered over Harry’s name for a few moments before she decided to press it. She then held the phone to her ear and listened, trying to remember the last time she had called a man she wasn’t working with.

  Harry answered on the second ring. He sounded like he was tired, but trying to hide it.

  “Hello?” he asked.

  “Harry…it’s Mackenzie.”

  “Yes, my magical cell display told me so.”

  “What are you up to?”

  “Not much,” he said. There was an edge of curiosity to his voice. Clearly, he was trying to figure out why she had called. “I thought you’d be fast on the heels of a killer by now.”

  “What?”

  Harry hesitated for a moment before coming clean. “Everyone knows you were tapped to help on a case.”

  “Does everyone know which case?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I know that I don’t. So…is it true?”

  “I can neither confirm nor deny,” Mackenzie said.

  “What if I get you liquored up? Would you talk then?”

  “It depends on what we’re drinking and how much we’re drinking,” she said. “But in all honesty…it’s all too much right now.”

  “What is?” Harry asked.

  “Nothing I can talk about, really.”

  “Oh. Well if you can’t talk about it, why did you call?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I mean, I’m glad you did,” Harry said.

  Silence filled the line and the awkwardness that fell between them reminded Mackenzie of why she had never bothered calling boys. Even from as early as her teenage years, she’d hated it.

  “What are you doing later today?” Mackenzie asked. The question came out suddenly, almost like a burp it was so unexpected.

  “When today?” he asked.

  “Later. Like in the afternoon.”

  “Nothing much. How about you?”

  “I don’t know yet. But if I happen to be free, I thought we could maybe get those drinks.”

  “So, you want me to be available in the off chance that you’re available,” Harry said. “Is that about right?”

  “That sums it up, yes,” she said with a laugh. Hearing her own laugh was odd. She didn’t really care for it.

  “I think I can do that,” Harry said.

  “Good. I’ll call you.”

  “If you’re free,” Harry pointed out.

  “Yes. If I’m free. Bye, Harry.”

  “Bye,” he said, with that edge of curiosity still in his voice.

  She felt slightly empowered to have survived the call and was pleasantly surprised that she hoped things worked out and they could get together in the afternoon. While her feelings for Harry were nowhere near what his seemed to be for her, she wondered if it would be so bad to kiss him…to have his hands on her and to feel wanted. While she had obviously been intimate with Zack numerous times just before their breakup, he had not made her feel wanted in a very long time.

  Feeling as if the phone call had given her some sort of courage she’d not had in quite some time, Mackenzie scrolled further down into her contacts. She stopped at MOM.

  Again, her finger hovered. She hadn’t spoken to her mother since moving to Quantico. And while she doubted her mother even cared, there was a sense of responsibility that had been evolving into guilt over the last few weeks. While things with her mother and sister were strained, there was no reason to completely cut them off.

  She nearly pressed MOM but the phone buzzed in her hand as she lowered her thumb. The display screen now showed BRYERS.

  She answered quickly, feeling a little derailed from taking a moment to sort through her own personal matters. “Hey, Bryers.”

  “Hey,” he said. “Look…sorry about how things worked out. McGrath is right, though. This thing is about to become a circus.”

  “I know. It’s fine.”

  “Sure. The tone of your voice says otherwise.”

  “Did they get a positive ID already?” she asked.

  “Yeah. And I’m going to text you over an address. The victim was Dana Moore, thirty-one, single. The only person we’ve contacted so far is her mother. Seems to be the only family she had.”

  “Okay. T
hanks.”

  “You okay?” Bryers asked. She recalled the disappointed look she’d seen on his face when she’d left the landfill. His genuine concern meant a lot to her and, truthfully, it did make things a little closer to okay.

  “Yeah,” she said. “I’ll keep you posted if I find anything from the mother.”

  “I look forward to it,” Bryers said.

  Mackenzie ended the call and took her coffee with her as she headed out the door. The rain was still coming down in a sprinkle, hesitant drops falling just frequently enough to be annoying. She heard her phone chime as Bryers sent her the address and she wasted no time in pulling it up.

  She had twenty hours remaining and she was going to make every single one of them count. More than that, she was going to do a good job, regardless of what bullshit detail McGrath stuck her with. With the rain still falling, Mackenzie got back behind the wheel of her car and went to speak to the third mourning family member in the last two days.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Gloria Moore was in a state of shock when Mackenzie got there. Mackenzie felt bad for the fifty-five-year-old woman but would much rather deal with utter shock and disbelief than outright sorrow and wailing. She’d only received the call confirming her daughter’s death forty minutes ago and if Mackenzie had to guess, the full weight of the news had not yet registered. Right now, she simply looked tired and terribly confused.

  She’d invited Mackenzie in right away, but walked through the house like a zombie. They’d settled down in a Gloria’s small living room and had sat in silence for a good twenty seconds before Mackenzie understood that it was going to take some prodding to get Gloria Moore out of her stupor.

  “I know it may be hard to sort through these sorts of things right now,” Mackenzie said, “but any information you can give me right now could potentially help us find the man who did this.”

  “Yes, I know,” Gloria said. Her voice was robotic and monotone.

  “Do you know if Dana had any enemies? People that she simply didn’t get along with?”