by Blake Pierce
“Good,” he said. “Now, let’s get to work.”
They filed back out into the hallway and joined the three officers at the front of the building.
Mackenzie looked to Rodriguez as Nestler and Dagney flanked him to either side. “Rodriguez, you have the address, so you lead us there. But when we get to the address, Ellington and I will take the lead. When we get there, you guys don’t even get out of your car until you see us going inside—that’s whether things go smooth and easy or difficult. Got it?”
“Loud and clear,” Rodriguez said.
The five of them exited the station and headed to their cars. As Mackenzie drove behind Rodriguez, she filled Ellington in on her morning. As she recounted it all, it made her again wonder how women like Gloria and Alexa had never thought to mention Byron Decker and his actions. Had it been willful negligence on their parts or had they both genuinely assumed he was not any sort of risk?
I can see the reasoning, I suppose, she thought. A man with impotency issues that was embarrassed in a swinger setting would likely not want to show his face again. Makes him less of a threat.
Behind all of that, there was yet another thought: Don’t get too cocky. While there are clear and evident links to this guy, there’s no guarantee he’s the killer.
She tried to keep this reality in mind but something about this lead seemed solid. In the academy, she had heard about a certain feeling agents often got while in the field—feelings that they were onto something, or perhaps riding directly into a successful arrest…or potential danger.
She was feeling that now. And with Ellington being back beside her and making her feel a little more complete than she had felt earlier in the day, she felt that she had unstoppable momentum on her side.
It took nineteen minutes to reach the residence of Byron Decker. It was a modest little one-story saltbox in a lower-middle-class neighborhood. The yard looked well maintained and the porch was clean. A few hanging green plants hung from the corners, close to dying but still vibrant. The house did not have an accompanying garage, and there were no vehicles parked in front of the house or in the small concrete driveway.
She and Ellington slowly walked up to the small porch. If she needed any further confirmation that she did indeed feel like things were coming to a close, it came when she instinctually placed her right hand on the butt of her Glock, holstered at her side. She touched it lightly as they climbed the stairs.
She glanced behind them and saw that Rodriguez and his crew had done as instructed; they remained in their car, watching as Mackenzie and Ellington approached the front door.
Ellington knocked on the door. They were met with only silence from the other side. Ellington knocked again and shook his head.
“Pretty clear he’s not home,” he said.
Mackenzie thought things over, wondering what the best approach might be. The neighborhood was quiet and dead, paralyzed by the absence of people in the middle of the day.
We technically need a warrant, she thought. While signs might be pointing to him, there’s nothing concrete just yet.
But if he is the killer and we wait to get everything in order…there’s one more couple. Maybe more. He could easily kill again—his quick turnaround time is evidence of that.
Ellington could tell that she was thinking hard about it. “Your call,” he said.
She nearly asked him to kick the door down. But she was making the decision and did not want him held responsible if they were reprimanded for it later.
She gave him a quick nod, drew her Glock, and took a single step back. She lunged forward and brought her leg up fast and hard. It connected squarely below the knob, right at the edge. She could not deny the surge of satisfaction that raced through her when the door swung open to the sound of splintered wood as the frame buckled and cracked.
She only caught a glimpse of Ellington’s impressed expression as she walked inside. She was vaguely aware of the sound of car doors opening and closing behind her as Rodriguez, Dagney, and Nestler exited their car and came across the lawn.
Inside, the place was just as tidy as the porch. The front door led directly to a small living room, which was decked out in a nice television and a small corner that served as a study of sorts. A small sitting area separated the living room from the kitchen and the hallway that ran off of the kitchen and into the remainder of the house.
She and Ellington slowly staked out the house. They came to the house’s only full bathroom, then the master bedroom and a guest bedroom. At first glance, there was nothing at all suspicious. Decker seemed to live a neat and organized life. He had a decent wardrobe hanging in his closet, and the appliances in the kitchen were all brand name and clean.
“No one’s home,” Mackenzie said as they cleared the final room.
“That makes our forced entry a little sticky then,” Ellington commented.
Hearing Rodriguez and his partners quietly walking down the hallway, Mackenzie entered the hallway and shook her head. “We’re clear.”
Nestler and Dagney were unable to hide their disappointment, though Rodriguez did a better job. Mackenzie passed them all as she made her way back to the living room. There, she went to the little corner office. She powered up the laptop that was sitting on the corner desk and, as expected, was thwarted by a password screen.
“Well, there’s some good news to come out of it all,” Rodriguez said. “Moments before you guys stepped inside, I got a call from the precinct. Believe it or not, we have two Vaughans to look into.”
“Both associated with swinger clubs?” Mackenzie asked as she looked through the well-organized papers and books on Decker’s desk.
“Yeah,” he said. “One appears to be a younger well-to-do couple and the other is a bit older. I had someone at the station speak with Gloria at DCM and she confirms that she has had dealings with both couples, though one had not been active for a while.”
Mackenzie took all of this in as she looked through the assorted items around the desk. As she did so, Ellington spoke up over her shoulder. “I’ll poke around the bedroom and see if I can find anything.”
“I’ll cover the bathroom,” Nestler said.
Mackenzie could find nothing incriminating around the office area. Yet as she thumbed through one of the few books on his desk (a battered copy of what appeared to be a self-help book titled It’s Not All in Your Head), an old Polaroid picture fell out. She picked it up and the blatant nature of what it showed shocked her. It was a picture of a woman’s genitalia, but not shown in any sort of pornographic light. It was from very close up and obviously not taken by force.
She slid the picture back in and looked back to the password screen. She knew that, if necessary, she could have someone crack into it within a matter of minutes. But maybe it wouldn’t come to that.
“Hey, Agent White?”
It was Nestler, calling from the bathroom.
“Yeah?” she asked, heading that way to join him.
“Your suspect supposedly has impotency issues, right?”
Before Mackenzie could respond, Nestler was coming out of the bathroom toward her. He tossed her a prescription bottle of pills. The script had Decker’s name on it and was for a relatively high dose of a common drug to treat erectile dysfunction.
Definitely on the right track, she thought.
Another voice sounded out from the back of the house. This time, it was Ellington. “I’ve got a sort of gross jackpot back here,” he called out.
Mackenzie went back to the master bedroom and saw that Ellington was standing by the bedside table. The table’s single drawer was open; Ellington had taken several items out and spread them out on the bed.
Among the items were several photographs. These had been printed out on high-quality glossy photo paper. They were a little grainy, suggesting the pictures had been taken by a digital camera and then resized improperly. Still, the subject of the pictures was plain to see.
And quite haunting.
&n
bsp; The four pictures showed four nude people. In some, two were on a bed while the other two surrounded it. The two on the bed were engaged in sex. Because the woman was on top and facing the camera, her face was clearly visible.
It was Vanessa Springs.
As for the two by the edge of the bed, the woman could not be clearly seen, as she was on her knees and facing away from the camera. The man she was servicing, though, was mostly visible. His head was arched up and looking away from the camera, but it was clearly Jack Springs.
She looked from picture to picture, trying to get a better look at the unseen man and woman. In one, she could see the reflection of the man in bed in a mirror to the right. The reflection in the grainy picture made it hard to be sure but it looked very much like a face she had seen quite recently in crime scene photos.
It was Josh Kurtz…leading Mackenzie to believe that the woman on her knees in front of Jack Springs was Julie.
“I wonder who is taking the pictures,” Ellington said.
“The killer?” Rodriguez asked, looking over their shoulder.
“Possibly,” Mackenzie said. “Either way, this confirms that Byron Decker was indeed connected to these two dead couples.”
“And the Vaughans are the only other couple we know for sure was connected to him,” Ellington added.
We need to get to them before the killer does, Mackenzie thought.
“We need to split up,” she said. “Rodriguez, you take your team to one of the addresses and Ellington and I will go to the other one.”
“Any preference?” he asked.
“No. Just text me the first one.”
Rodriguez nodded and pulled out his phone to do just that. Mackenzie made her way to the door and stepped back outside. As they all filed out, Nestler tried his best to shut the door in a way where their forced entry wasn’t so obvious.
“You feel good about this?” Ellington asked her as they got into the car.
“We have eight dead people,” she said. “There’s nothing good about this at all. I assume you’re asking if I think we’re about to track down our killer?”
“Yes, I am.”
“In that case, yes…I think we do. Let’s just hope we make it to the Vaughans before Decker does.”
She cranked the car and pulled away from the curb.
It was 12:47 and she headed west, away from the beach that sat less than half a mile behind the house she had just forcibly entered. She went as fast as she could without being reckless.
And yet, even so, Mackenzie couldn’t help but feel that they were probably already too late.
CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT
Mackenzie could still feel the sense of urgency when she stepped out of the car. Still, she kept herself calm, forcing herself to get a proper lay of the land. The house was quite nice, one of the nicer ones in the neighborhood. It was a neighborhood very much like the one the Springses had lived in, only it was nearly on the other side of the city.
She looked up and down the streets and saw a few cars parked here and there. The closest one to them was an older model pickup truck. Two blocks down, a man was jogging, running in the opposite direction. Further off, she heard the buzz of a motorcycle engine. Otherwise, the street was basically dead.
One of the doors to the two-car garage was open. It revealed a large-bodied GMC truck. The tailgate was down and a series of clear empty plastic bags were stuffed into a corner.
“There’s always the chance that these people work,” Ellington said. “Like normal folks. It’s Friday, after all.”
“Possibly,” Mackenzie said.
Yet as they made their way closer to the shallow front porch, Mackenzie started to doubt it. She saw mulch scattered here and there, as if accidentally dropped in the yard. Probably from those empty bags in the back of the GMC, she thought.
She then looked to the beautiful flower beds and saw that they were beautiful for a reason. They had recently been touched up. If the trowel and pair of gardening gloves sitting on the bottom porch step was any indication, it had been done very recently…as in, within the last couple of hours.
Mackenzie nodded toward the gloves and Ellington nodded. “There’s a good chance someone is home,” she said. “Did you see the truck?”
“In the garage. Yeah.”
This yard work was done within the last few hours, she thought. It seems like we got here before Decker. Hopefully we can—
Someone screamed from inside the house. It was not a scream of pain, but one of surprise. This was followed by a voice that Mackenzie could barely hear. As this voice spoke, she also heard a slight thumping noise.
She raced to the door and knocked hard. Without waiting for a response, she yelled to whoever could hear her on the other side.
“I’m an FBI agent,” she said loudly. “Mr. and Mrs. Vaughan, I’m coming.”
She tried the door and found it locked.
Another scream sounded out from inside. This one was louder and, while not a pain-filled one, carried a lot of fear. She then heard loud footfalls and something falling over, shattering.
Then, as she stepped back to fire her gun at the locked doorknob, another scream came through the door.
“Help!”
Mackenzie raised her gun and fired a round into where she thought the lock was. Immediately following this, Ellington delivered a swift hard kick to the same place. The door went creaking open and Ellington gracefully brought his kick down and transformed it into a quick stride into the house.
Mackenzie followed him, again raising her gun. But she didn’t even have time to assume a shooter’s stance.
As Ellington cleared the doorway, a man came out of nowhere. He seemed to have been hiding behind the door itself, waiting for it come flying open. Mackenzie barely caught sight of the quick motion before the man collided with Ellington. The two men went tumbling back into the wall and when they struck, she heard Ellington let out a gasp of pain.
Mackenzie knew she would not get a clear shot without potentially hurting Ellington, so she reached out for the man’s right arm.
That’s when she saw the knife sticking out of Ellington’s side.
It caused her just enough distraction to become defenseless for a split second. So while she did see the man’s right hand come at her in a blinding fist and was able to draw her own hand up to block it, he had her beat. His right hand clipped her in the jaw and she stumbled backward, blinking back black stars that bloomed in her vision.
He came at her, his hands going for her throat, but Mackenzie started to raise her gun. He swatted at it, taking advantage of her temporary daze, and he did it with such force that it sent her spinning to the wall.
She waited for him to attack again, tensing herself up as she did her best to blink away the haze that had come over her from the sharp blow to her jaw.
Instead, she heard his footsteps. She also heard Ellington breathing heavy, now slumped to the floor to her right.
From somewhere else nearby, she heard a woman crying.
Mrs. Vaughan, she thought.
Mackenzie willed herself to her feet. She glanced to Ellington and saw that he had not lost a lot of blood, but he looked out of it. The knife in his side was buried about four inches. She was no anatomy expert, but she knew that at the angle the blade was in and the location it was occupying, things were either going to be very bad for Ellington or he could potentially come out nearly unscathed.
She then wondered, almost morbidly, if the knife sticking out of him was the same knife that had been used to kill the four couples she had seen in the course of the last few days.
She got to her feet, shaking off the last of the haze from the punch. She saw the man that had attacked them heading for a large room ahead of them. He was heading for the living room, where Mackenzie saw the body for the first time.
It was a male, lying on his stomach. He was crawling forward, leaving streaks of blood on the light blue carpet. The attacker was heading for this man—having a
pparently already attacked him once.
Mackenzie sprinted toward him. He saw her out of the corner of his eye and turned to meet her. He drew back his fist just as she raised her gun. He charged her, hunkered down. She lowered her gun and fired a round. She then felt him strike her in the collarbone. It was not a hard punch but it sent a pins and needles sensation racing down her arm. Shocked, the arm went limp and she dropped her gun.
The attacker—the man she was now fairly certain was Byron Decker—then grabbed her by the shoulders and tried to throw a knee into her stomach. Instead, Mackenzie blocked his knee and grabbed his leg. She attempted to throw him over in a fireman’s carry but her right arm was still tingling. So instead, they both went stumbling backward in an awkward little ball.
Decker released her and when he did, she sprang at him.
She realized her error too late.
She struck him hard and they went backward again, stumbling blindly.
She saw the sliding glass door behind them a moment before they crashed into it.
She felt the glass cutting into her about a split second after she heard it shattering all around them.
Suddenly, she was lying on her back on the Vaughans’ back porch. She was staring up into the flawless blue sky and could already feel the stickiness of her own blood as it poured from her forearm and the back of her neck.
Somewhere beside her was the killer. And her gun. She had dropped the damned thing when she’d hit the wood of the porch.
She rolled over to locate Decker. Her left hand slid in the glass. It felt like dozens of insects biting her as tiny shards and splinters pierced her skin.
And then there he was—Byron Decker, standing over her with a large flower pot held over his head like a huge boulder, bringing it down to crack her skull.
CHAPTER TWENTY NINE
As Decker brought the flower pot down, Mackenzie lifted her leg and delivered as much strength as she could into a kick that landed squarely in the fork of his legs. His knees buckled and the pot went toppling to the patio. Mackenzie rolled to the right and dodged it, feeling yet more glass stick her exposed forearms and hands.