BEFORE HE NEEDS

by Blake Pierce

  You’re going to have a panic attack if you don’t get out of this room right now.

  Without saying another word to him, Mackenzie walked out of the interrogation room as quickly as she could without letting on that she was bothered. She skipped the observation room altogether and headed down to the small office that she’d been working out of. She stood there in the darkness and took several deep breaths.

  What the hell is wrong with people?

  It was not the first time the question had occurred to her. Her occupation was primarily centered on that question. She thought of the man currently sitting in the interrogation room and wondered at what point of his life things might have started to go awry. Childhood? High school? College?

  She heard footfalls behind her. She turned to see Ellington cautiously approaching her. He looked at her with more concern than he had ever shown before. It made her want to throw her arms around him, to have him hold her in silence until her body lagged from sleep.

  “Mackenzie,” he said, his voice soft. “What’s going on?”

  She made fists of her hands, not wanting him to see her trembling. “It’s just been a lot,” she said. “Harrison’s mom dying, this fucking case…that creep upstairs. And this case. It’s all just—”

  “Too much.”

  She nodded. “Just give me a second. I’ll be back up in a while. I needed to step away from O’Leary for a few minutes or I was going to snap.”

  “You need more than a few minutes,” Ellington said. “I know one night together doesn’t make me a Mackenzie White expert, but you need to sleep. Or, at the very least, rest.”

  “You haven’t had any, either,” she pointed out.

  “I had a very good night’s sleep the night before I arrived here,” he said. “And you’ve been at this for going on three days. Go back to the motel. Lay down and close your eyes. You have my word that I’ll wake you up at eight.”

  She looked to her watch and saw that it had somehow gotten to be 3:05.

  “Don’t even think about it,” he said. “O’Leary’s a monster for sure, but he’s not the killer. And he’s not going to be able to link us to the killer. If we want a productive day tomorrow, you need some rest.”

  She nodded and said, “Fine. But call me at seven, not eight.”

  “Hard ass,” he said.

  She walked toward the door and passed by him. She wanted to kiss him but she also did not want to appear like the vulnerable damsel in distress that needed a man’s touch whenever she was feeling out of sorts.

  “We need the names of the women he slept with since contracting it,” she said on her way out. “They have to be notified.”

  “Rodriguez is doing that right now,” he said. He paused for a moment and then, choosing each word carefully, added: “Do you want me to come with you? Do you need someone there?”

  The thought was a pleasant one, but she shook her head. “No thanks.”

  He nodded and watched her go.

  It’s okay to need someone, she thought to herself as she made her way through the halls and to the main lobby. Why do you do that? Why do you refuse to seek help from other people?

  For a moment, she thought of her father’s bloody bed, his final resting place before being lowered in the ground. She also thought of the absent mother who had not been there for her.

  And there’s my easy answer, she thought.

  She stepped outside into the stillness of the early morning hours. She wasn’t sure she had ever felt so lost in her life—and it had very little to do with the case.

  She got into her car and as she cranked it to life, she stared out into the night. The killer was out there somewhere, occupying that same darkness.

  In her mind’s eye, she saw each crime scene and how the hands of one member would always be slightly touching the other in their staged poses. There was something there, but she could not quite grasp what it was. It remained in her mind as she headed to the motel but faded away as the lure of sleep grew stronger with the passing of each block.

  CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

  She blissfully collapsed in bed at 3:40. She kicked her shoes off and stripped down to her underwear but made it no further. Even the thought of getting into comfortable sleeping attire was too much to think about. She had just enough time to glance at the clock on the bedside table before she was asleep.

  And, almost as quickly, she found herself pulled away in the tidal force of a dream.

  She found herself standing in the bedroom of Josh and Julie Kurtz. The bed was stained in blood—even more blood than had been present at the actual scene. Now it was splattered all over the walls and carpet. Some of it even dripped down from the ceiling, collecting in new puddles on the floor.

  Her father stood beside her. There was a hole in his head where a bullet had torn through and ended his life. He was looking at the scene with her as if it were perfectly normal—as if he also had an FBI ID in his pocket and had been on this case with her from the very start.

  “Too much blood,” he said. “It was very bad here.”

  His voice was robotic and very far away—like someone was speaking through him from a megaphone two houses over.

  Her father then walked to the bed and crawled into it. In a darkly humorous way, he collapsed into the bloodstained sheets. “Is it easier for you this way?” he asked. “This is why you’ll never escape the memory of me. Why are you so hung up on it?”

  At that moment, a figure came stumbling out of the Kurtzes’ bedroom closet. It was Vanessa Springs, dressed in her too-revealing bikini. Her stab wounds were there, having mutilated her chest and stomach. She approached Mackenzie with a sultry bit of swagger to her step. When she smiled at Mackenzie, a thin trail of blood seeped over her bottom lip. She placed one blood-streaked hand on Mackenzie’s shoulder and her other hand slipped inside of her shredded bikini top. She withdrew a white square, matted with blood.

  Mackenzie took it and was not at all surprised by what she saw.

  It was a business card. Barker Antiques.

  “Mackenzie,” her father said from the bed. He was now pale and lifeless, exactly the way he had been when she had discovered him so many years ago as a young girl. “What the hell are you waiting for?”

  He started to laugh, and Vanessa Springs followed his example. Blood came out of her mouth, pooling on the floor and on Mackenzie’s feet.

  She jerked awake, her heart hammering.

  For a panicked moment, she looked down at the bed, half expecting to be on the bloodied bed of Josh and Julie Kurtz. But she was in her motel, taking a rest that Ellington had strongly suggested. It then occurred to her that her phone was ringing. She had not merely been torn from her sleep by the nightmare, but by the ringing of the phone.

  As she reached for it, she saw on the clock on the table that it was 6:46.

  “Hello?” she said, answering the call and trying not to sound as tired as she felt.

  “Hey, Agent White,” said a somber male voice. “It’s Lee.”

  Hearing Harrison’s voice was surreal. It made her wonder if she was still dreaming. Oddly, the first thing she could think to say was: “I told you…call me Mackenzie. None of the Agent White stuff.”

  “I know. Sorry. Look…I’m calling to thank you for handling things for me when I got the call about my mom.”

  “Sure,” she said. “All I did was make some calls. How are you doing?”

  “Fine, I think. I’m at my sister’s house in Arlington. The funeral is tomorrow.”

  “With all due respect, you didn’t have to call me at six forty-five in the morning to thank me,” she said. “What’s going on, Lee?”

  “Well, I got a call last night from a contact I’d been using on the back end of things. Nothing official…sort of a shady go-to. McGrath okayed it. It was a guy I was using to see if I could get any clues about your father’s case.”

  Now wide awake, Mackenzie sat up in bed. “And you didn’t tell me?”

  “I di
dn’t. It was McGrath’s orders and, quite frankly, I thought it was a good idea. No sense in you getting overly obsessed with the case when you aren’t officially on it.”

  This irritated her to no end, but she knew it was the right thing to do. Still, she also could not help but feel like she had been left in the dark.

  “So what did this guy want?” she asked, doing her best to move on.

  “He says he thinks he might have a lead on an old business called Barker Antiques. It’s been closed for years now. And even when it was open for business, it apparently didn’t do well.”

  “Where was it out of?”

  “New York. He’s making some calls today to confirm and will get back to me. Look…I haven’t even told McGrath about this yet. I figured I should bring it to you first. I’m telling you this part of it because as hard as it is going to be, please sit on this for a day or so. And if McGrath breaks the news to you, try to act surprised.”

  Already, the need to delve deeper into this was overwhelming. Especially after coming out of the nightmare she’d just had.

  Priorities, she told herself. Your first concern is to wrap this swingers case.

  “Yeah,” she said. “I can do that.”

  “Okay. How’s it going there anyway? I hear he sent Ellington to fill in for me.”

  “He did. It’s going slower than I’d like but I think we’re making some progress. As for you…let me know if I can do anything for you when I get back into town. Sorry again to hear about your mother.”

  They ended the call and she rolled out of bed. She peeled out of her underwear and took a quick shower. She was putting on the last of her clothes when a knock sounded at her door. She checked the time and saw that it was 7:20.

  He’s late, she thought with a smile. On purpose, I’m sure, wanting to give me a few more minutes of sleep. If he only knew…

  She answered the door and found Ellington waiting on the other side. He somehow looked very much awake. He smiled at her and offered her one of the two coffees he held in his hands.

  “Coffee is essential,” he said. “It simply can’t wait. Breakfast, though…I figured we could sit down somewhere and have that together. That sound like something you’d be up for?”

  “Sounds great,” she said.

  But in the back of her head and heart, she wondered what Harrison’s contact had found and what sort of links were tied to her business card in a long-forgotten business in New York.

  CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

  He woke up shortly after seven o’clock. As usual, he took a moment to himself before he got out of bed. Sometimes he simply needed to orient himself, to make sure he knew where he was and what had potentially happened the night before. He never drank, as it muddied his thoughts and actions, so the hangover haze he’d heard about wasn’t an issue. No, for him it was something else. Something mental. Something he had been living with ever since he was a boy.

  He felt a leg draped over his own. He looked to his right and saw a blonde woman, rather young. She was completely nude, sleeping on top of the covers, her body partially clinging to his. She was very pretty and had smudges of eyeliner on the side of her face. Slowly, the events of last night came to him. He was both satisfied and saddened by them.

  He’d picked her up at a bar—the kind of place that sells two-dollar beers twice a week and has a ladies’ night where watered down fruity liquor drinks are featured. She’d been an easier conquest than most other women. If he recalled, she’d said something about a boyfriend dumping her two days ago. Sensing her need for revenge, he’d spent the remainder of the night with her and had eventually come back to her place.

  He wasn’t sure if the sex had been good or not. He barely remembered it. Besides, in the same way she had been using him to get over an ex, he had been using her, too. He needed the sexual release if he was going to finish his work.

  Thinking of the work, he gently pried her leg off of his body and slipped out of bed. He watched her sleep for a moment, making sure she was not going to rouse. She seemed dead to the world, taking deep breaths and oblivious of his movement.

  He stepped out of her bedroom and quietly walked down the small hall until he found the bathroom. There, he cleaned himself up. He washed his face, washed himself from the waist down to rinse the activities of last night from him, used mouthwash, and splashed cold water into his face. He then returned to the bedroom, gathered his clothes, and headed out.

  He left her apartment without her even knowing he had left. It was the second time he’d done such a thing in the last two weeks.

  He’d done it numerous times ever since his wife had left. He knew it wasn’t the typical way a newly single forty-year-old man should spend his life, but it was necessary.

  He had been preparing himself for the murders for about three months now. And while there was no real sexual enticement in the murders themselves, it did cause a certain stirring of lust after the fact. And he had learned a long time ago that any form of lust caused him to grow distracted—violent, almost.

  And that was odd to him because the very act of killing made him feel strangely at peace. He was not naïve enough to feel that there was a certain sort of justice being dealt out. Nor did he really think he was doing the world a favor. But it just made him feel like he had done something right.

  He was still slightly thrumming with electricity from having killed the Springses on the cruise ship. It had been far too easy. Vanessa had opened the door to him, thinking that he was coming by for what Jack had referred to as a threesome warm-up for the night’s events.

  He’d killed them easy enough, getting Jack first because he was a huge son of a bitch. The element of surprise was eliminated when he busted in on Jack as he had started to unpack his things in the bathroom. He’d been a massive headache to get back in the bed to stage the scene.

  But then, two hours later, he had been in that bar. Chatting with the blonde had seemed normal, felt good. The murders had been noting—just some strenuous exercise that he kept tucked in the back of his mind as he drew closer and closer to bedding the blonde.

  When he reached the front steps of her apartment complex, he breathed in the morning air. He could smell the ocean and the exhaust of morning traffic.

  It was a new day.

  And it was a day where he fully planned to finish his work. He had one more couple he needed to…meet with. The meeting had already been arranged and as greedy as it seemed, he couldn’t help but get a little turned on by it.

  He’d saved the best for last. He held a special place in his heart for this last couple. The sight of the wife, naked and straddling him, had stuck in his mind for far too long. It had been one of the handful of reasons his marriage had ended.

  But first, coffee. And then maybe he’d go home and get some work in.

  He walked toward the nearest bus stop, his car still at the bar from last night. The sun was shining, the sky was an achingly beautiful blue, and the magic of Miami seemed to waver and dance all around him.

  It was going to be a great day.

  By the end of it, this last couple would be dead.

  And finally, he would be free.

  CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

  Mackenzie was apparently hungrier than she thought. After putting down two cups of coffee, she ate two eggs, two sides of bacon, hash browns, and a bowl of oatmeal. Ellington, finishing up his southwester omelet, couldn’t help but smile.

  “How you keep your awesome figure is beyond me. I showed up late at night two nights ago and you had been scarfing down pizza. And now this breakfast…yeesh.”

  “A girl’s gotta eat,” she said.

  “Did you get a good rest?” he asked.

  She shrugged. “It was enough. How about you? You’ve been up for quite a while, too.”

  “I got a power nap between four thirty and six thirty. I’ll be good until tonight. And hopefully by then, we’ll have this thing wrapped up. Any ideas on your plate?”

  She had a few
but was hesitant to latch on to one because they all felt flimsy. “A few,” she said. “I want to look into this woman Alexa mentioned…Tanya Rose. If she was part of the group Alexa is in charge of, maybe she’ll know about any loose cannon sort of people we could be on the lookout for. How about you?”

  “I’ll probably pore over more paperwork and files down at the precinct. I can sic some officers on hunting down this Tanya Rose for you, too. Want to join me?”

  “Not particularly,” she said.

  “You’re the agent that needs to be out moving around to feel productive, right?” he said.

  “Most of the time.”

  The table fell into silence for a moment as Mackenzie polished off her breakfast. Ellington sat forward, looking anxious.

  “How are things going with the case out in Nebraska?” he asked. “With your dad and this newer victim?”

  “The same,” she said. She wasn’t sure why she was keeping Harrison’s newest revelation from him. For right now, it just seemed a little too personal. She also wasn’t sure why she didn’t feel comfortable with Ellington talking about her father’s case.

  Because it’s none of his business, she thought. Of course, it’s just him trying to be sympathetic. He genuinely cares. Maybe he made the mistake of thinking that because you’ve now slept together, he can ask more personal questions.

  It was a sweet thought, but she wasn’t ready to get into anything that deep with him yet. And it had nothing to do with him. She didn’t want to talk about her father’s case with anyone. Especially now that there was a potential lead.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” she said. And then, assuming he’d be able to handle the blunt truth, she added: “My dad’s case isn’t something I like to talk about.”