by Blake Pierce
She had four houses left and, after going door-to door on more than twenty houses, had sold seven of the booklets—not a great haul but more than she had been expecting in this neighborhood. She was also making great time. She’d left school early and knew that if she could wrap things up within the next half an hour or so, she’d be able to make it back to practice with this unexpected chunk of money.
She approached the next sidewalk and started to get that tingling in her stomach, the old familiar pangs of nervousness. She’d gotten it a few times while selling the booklets but always managed to swallow it down. It wasn’t so much about speaking to strangers, but the embarrassment of peddling something that they had no real interest in.
Just four houses left, she thought to herself. Just get over yourself and get it done. Get it done with enough time to get back to practice, deliver the money, and bask in the praise of the coach and the other runners.
That thought quickened her step. She walked up the sidewalk and knocked on the front door with confidence. Right away, from somewhere inside, she heard a man say rather loudly: “You stay put, Mom! I got it.”
The man’s voice sounded a little off…maybe sort of excited or nervous. Had he maybe spied her coming up the sidewalk in her athletic shorts and tight-fitting T-shirt? She didn’t really care one way or the other. A sale was a sale.
Seconds later, the front door was opened. A man that looked to be in his forties or so looked out at her. His gaze was at first curious and then somewhere near amazed. What confused Lauren, though, was that he was not staring at her like most men his age did. There was something else in his gaze—something that Lauren did not like at all.
“Hello?” the man said in an almost breathless voice.
No way, she thought, gripping the booklets tightly in her hand. This guy is a creep. This guy is bad news and no sale is worth this. Move your ass, Lauren.
“Sorry,” she said. “Wrong house.”
“It’s okay,” the man said. “Are you lost?”
No,” Lauren said, shaking her head. “Sorry to bother you.”
She turned away quickly and stepped toward the stairs.
That’s when she felt the man grab her by the messy bun of hair in the back of her head. She felt her head whipped backward quickly and then a massive arm fell around her chest. She tried to let out a scream for help but then a sweaty hand was locked firmly around her mouth.
Lauren kicked madly, trying to free herself as she felt herself pulled through the front door and into the house. The world spun as she was thrown to the floor and then the man was there, his hands on her in a way that was not sexual but somehow far, far worse.
When his hand came off of her mouth, she tried to scream again but then his other hand came out of nowhere. It struck her hard in the side of the head.
And brought with it a sheet of darkness.
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
As it turned out, speaking to Trevor Simms’s co-worker and part owner of The Green Team did not take long at all. Benjamin Worley had already spoken to the police and the Bureau very briefly following the discovery of Trevor’s body. In his records, there were notes about the neighborhoods that Trevor had mentioned canvassing on the day he went missing. When Mackenzie called him, he reestablished those locations and made himself readily available to answer more questions or help in any way he could.
Unable to make herself return to her apartment, Mackenzie had made the phone call from her car, still parked in the parking garage beneath the J. Edgar Hoover building. With the neighborhoods written down, Mackenzie then pulled up a map of the area on her phone. After a few moments of scrolling around the map, she got the confirmation she needed.
One of the streets Trevor Simms had planned to visit was Estes Street. Estes Street just happened to be two streets over from Black Mill Street. The streets were simply too close together to be a coincidence. As far as she was concerned, every single clue in this case was pointing back to Black Mill Street.
She started her car and called Bryers on her way out of the parking garage. He answered right away, sounding just as excited as Mackenzie felt.
“Got something?” he asked.
“Yes. One of the places Trevor Simms had scheduled to visit was Estes Street. That’s two blocks over from Black Mills.”
“How soon can you be over there?” Bryers asked.
“I’m already on the way.”
“Just please remember what McGrath said. You have to stay invisible on this, okay?”
“I know,” Mackenzie said, suddenly starting to resent it.
“Why don’t you meet me at the corner of Black Mill and Sawyer Street? We can start from there. I don’t know when McGrath is going to have others over there.”
“Sounds good,” she said. “See you then.”
Mackenzie ended the call and focused on the traffic. It was quickly reaching four o’clock in the afternoon. Soon, the afternoon rush would clog up the main roads. It wasn’t until then, as she merged off of the central roads and onto the freeway, that Mackenzie realized that a sensation she’d felt about three months ago while on the heels of the Scarecrow Killer was washing over her.
It was the feeling that she was suddenly racing against the clock, not quite sure which hour could be the last.
***
She pulled her car along the curb several feet away from the intersection of Black Mill and Sawyer twenty-five minutes later. Apparently, Bryers also felt as if they were racing against the clock because he was already there, waiting for her. He flashed his brake lights at her, signaling for her to come join him. She did so quickly, locking her car up and once again hopping into his passenger seat.
“Have you ever done this before?” Bryers asked her. He looked anxious and a bit nervous. More than that, he looked tired and maybe even borderline sick.
“A few times,” she said. “Going door to door looking for a missing kid and then again in the hopes of finding a coke dealer.”
“So…you know that at any moment, we can knock on a door and be met with force?”
“Yes,” she said.
Quickly, Bryers reached over and thumbed open the glovebox. When it fell open, Mackenzie saw a neatly organized space with maps, vehicle ID, a small toolbox, and a Glock 26—a small handgun that she’d heard some students in the Academy refer to as a Baby Glock. It was roughly half the size of a standard Glock, easy to conceal, and a little toy-like in its appearance, but it could still get the job done.
“Take it,” Bryers said. “McGrath doesn’t need to know. But I’ll be damned if I’m going to let you walk into this without protection.”
“Are you sure?” she asked, already reaching for it.
“No. So take it quickly. And then check the trunk which I’m about to accidentally pop for a small-of-back holster.”
Without looking away from her, he reached down and to his left, popping the trunk. She stepped out of the car, went to the trunk, and found the back holster stowed away in a small kit with a few other holster-related items. She then turned her back to the car, trying to look inconspicuous to anyone that might pass by, as she holstered the gun and then attached the holster to the inside of the waist of her jeans. She’d never worn a small-of-back holster; she arched her back a bit to get used to the shape of it.
Bryers joined her at the back of the car and looked up the street. “I say we start here, on Black Mill,” he said. “Maybe just cover a few blocks. After that, if we don’t find anything, I think we head over to Estes since that’s one of the streets Trevor Simms specifically named. We go together, never apart. I hate to make you feel like you’re being babysat, but—”
“It’s okay,” she said. “I get it.”
A curt little nod from Bryers told her that he’d not mention it again. With that, he started walking forward, beyond the intersection and to the scattered houses ahead. The streets were empty for the most part. As they made their way forward, Mackenzie saw an afternoon jogger sprinting across
an intersection further ahead, but that was about it.
They came to their first home, a sad-looking shack of a place with a mostly dislodged satellite antennae dangling from the roof. The grass had clearly not been mown in about a month and the house’s vinyl siding was in desperate need of a pressure washing. As she and Bryers walked up the cracked sidewalk to the front door, Mackenzie prepared herself for how this task would go. As she’d told Bryers, she’d done it before; she knew the next hour or so would consist of having doors answered by cranky people or no people at all, with startled noisy dogs on the other side.
They approached the first house and Bryers knocked on the door. The sound was abrupt and hollow in the silence of the neighborhood. They waited a beat, exchanging a knowing glance, and then Bryers tried again. As they waited this time, Mackenzie looked to the window by the front door, looking for any signs of movement. But as far as she could tell, no one was spying on them through the dingy curtains.
“No one’s home,” Bryers said after another thirty seconds of waiting. “On to the next.”
They left the house and walked just a few yards before coming to the next one and getting the same result. At the third, however, someone was home. When Bryers knocked, the door was answered by a man that was either sick or drunk. It took less than ten seconds for Mackenzie to determine that not only was this man not a suspect, but that he’d be absolutely no help in terms of questioning. After an awkward exchange where half of the man’s words were slurred and incomprehensible, they headed on to the next house.
After two more empty homes, they came to a small house that looked relatively tidy from the outside. As they walked up the sidewalk, Mackenzie spotted a television through the front window. It was turned at an angle but she could see that a talk show was currently filling the screen. Whoever was watching it, though, was apparently sitting away from the window.
They approached the front door showing the first signs of fatigue and disappointment from what was starting to seem like a pointless errand. Bryers knocked as usual and they could hear movement from behind the door within a matter of seconds.
Eventually, a waifish older woman came to the door. Her hair was almost entirely gray and her skin was loose and wrinkled. Mackenzie guessed the woman to be in her late seventies or so. She regarded them both with a pair of thick glasses that she pushed up onto her nose.
“Yes? Can I help you?”
“Sorry to bother you, ma’am,” Bryers said, showing his badge. “I’m Agent Bryers with the FBI. We’re staking out the neighborhood, looking for a certain individual or anyone that might be able to provide information.”
The old lady nodded solemnly, as if she had been expecting their visit but they had taken too long to get there. “Well, it’s about damned time,” she said.
“What does that mean?” Bryers asked.
The old woman took a step out onto her concrete slab of a porch and looked to her right, in the direction Mackenzie and Bryers had been heading this whole time. She extended a bony finger, pointing to a house two yards down.
“There’s a very bad man that lives there. I’ve called the police about it twice but they have never done anything about it.”
“What sort of bad man, ma’am?” Bryers asked.
“People are coming and going out of that house all of the time,” she said. “Mostly late at night. A lot of time, there are little girls.”
“Little girls?”
“Well, not little. Thirteen or fourteen, I’d guess. And the man that lives there…well, there’s no need for him to have girls that age at his house.”
“Maybe they are his daughters?” Mackenzie suggested.
“Of course they aren’t,” the woman spat. “Not unless he has lots of daughters. And these girls…they look like they’re being escorted—”
“Do you know this man’s routine?” Bryers asked. “Is he home right now?”
“He keeps his car parked along the side of the house,” the old woman said. “If it’s there, so is he. Now, I know I sound like some nosy old biddy, but I know there’s something bad that goes on there.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” Bryers said, looking in the direction of the house. “We’ll check it out.”
“Good,” the old woman said.
Bryers and Mackenzie went back to the sidewalk and headed down toward the house the old woman had pointed out. “You believe her?” Mackenzie asked.
“I don’t know. But it’s certainly worth checking out. Don’t you think?”
Mackenzie nodded even though something about the situation didn’t feel quite right. If this guy was guilty of anything that involved young girls, there was a chance that it was purely sexual. Illegal and morbid, of course, but it was not an MO that lined up with the man she believed they were looking for.
Still, after knocking on the door of the house next to the old lady and finding no one home, they ventured to the house in question. As the old woman had indicated, there was a car parked alongside the house, partially off of the faded paved driveway. They both gave it only a glance as they walked across the yard and to the front porch. The porch was a dirty little square of wood and shadow, littered with cigarette butts, dead insects, and grime.
“Ready?” Bryers asked.
She nodded her confirmation. Suddenly, she was very aware of the Baby Glock holstered at her back.
Bryers raised his hand and knocked. They waited a moment, listening for the sounds of movement. Mackenzie heard a slight shuffling noise but was fairly certain it was not coming from inside.
It was outside. And if her ears were picking the noise up correctly, she was pretty sure the sound was coming from the back.
“You hear that?” she asked.
“No,” Bryers said. “What is it?”
Mackenzie waited a moment, making sure she could still hear the sound. When she continued to hear it, she wasted no time running for the porch steps.
“Around back,” she said. “Someone’s making a run for it.”
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
As she dashed across the side yard and to the small backyard beyond, she remembered McGrath’s order to be like a ghost. Be invisible. Be in the background and out of the way. She knew that chasing after someone as they attempted to escape through the back door was directly disobeying that order but in the moment, she didn’t know what else to do.
Just as she heard Bryers falling in behind her, she caught sight of two men at the edge of the backyard. The yard fed into a small strangled field that ran on for a bit before the backyard to another property took over. As Mackenzie’s eyes fell on the two men, they were running across the small field, heading west. One of them spotted her as she rounded the corner of the house into the backyard and this seemed to kick him into a higher gear.
Mackenzie knew she was fast and had better-than-average endurance. She was confident that she could catch up to the men. But then what? She had Bryers’s Baby Glock holstered at her back but if she drew it, McGrath would have her ass.
She turned quickly back to Bryers, desperate for some sort of confirmation or approval. “Can you catch up to them?” she asked.
He frowned, watching the two men get further away from them with every second. Seeing him at a dead sprint, she could tell that he was struggling.
“Doubtful,” he said.
Mackenzie looked back towards the men and gave a grunt of frustration.
“White?” Bryers said. “Don’t even—”
But she was already moving. Her legs instantly found the refined speed that they’d gathered over the last six weeks as she’d run through obstacle courses and wooded trails. The only thing different about it now was that her muscles were practically soaked in adrenaline as she bolted across the backyard and toward the field. Behind her, she barely heard Bryers let out a strangled curse. Without bothering to look over her shoulder, Mackenzie knew that he was following along, trying to keep up with her.
With each running stride she took closer t
o the field and the rushing shapes of the two men ahead of her, she felt her future crumbling. She knew that this was a no-win situation and for a moment, she despised the men that had organized back room meetings to essentially place her in the situation. If she’d seen the two men escaping and didn’t give chase, she’d be seen as a failure. On the other hand, chasing after them was going against everything McGrath had instructed her to do.
She figured she’d sort through all of that when all was said and done. For now, she had a man that had potentially killed at least four people on the run. And she’d be damned if she was going to let him get away.
She was running with such fury that she nearly stumbled when her feet stepped off of the smooth grass of the yard onto the thick tangles mess of the dead field. She regained her balance quickly, though, and peered ahead to see the two men coming to the end of the field and cutting through someone else’s backyard. They were faster than she had given them credit for and she was going to have a chase on her hand if she stumbled again.
She finally got a chance to catch a glimpse of Bryers as she made it into the field. He was about twenty yards behind her, running with purpose but obviously not accustomed to the exertion. She then refocused on the men ahead of her and again slipped into the zone she’d found so comfortable while getting accustomed to the Academy’s rigorous training. She ran hard, her legs not tired, her lungs working like some perfect machine.
She lost sight of the two men for a moment but kept her eyes glued on the yard that they had escaped into. It was coming up fast on her right, a dry patch of grass behind a ramshackle house. An old clothesline and rusty swing set sat in the yard. As she scanned the yard, trying to take everything in at once while still running, she barely caught sight of the flurry of motion coming from the far side of the house.