BEFORE HE LAPSES

by Blake Pierce

  “You like power, too,” he commented. “Tracking down the bad guys, trying to understand why they do the things they do.”

  “That’s a different sort of power.”

  “Is it?” he said through a laugh. “You truly think so? Well…tell me this. If you had to choose between getting a confession out of me or saving a life…which would you choose?”

  “What do you mean?” she asked, getting a very bad feeling.

  “The longer you keep me here, chatting with me, the chances of there being a fourth go up substantially.”

  It was the first thing he’d said that she actually cared about. And given the man’s current state and the profile that he so snuggly fit into, she doubted he was lying.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means there were four women. Four women that I had chosen to send out of this life before I…retired, let’s say…”

  “They were all at the event last summer?”

  “Oh yes. What a night that was. That’s how I met them all. All four of them.”

  “I need a name.”

  “I think not. You found out Dumfries and then, when it mattered most, saw through that and realized it was me. I do admit that took some fortitude and exceptional smarts. Surely you and your FBI help can figure out who and where this fourth woman is.”

  “Think about it, Senator. You can go to trial for the murder of three women or four. You’re screwed either way, but one is obviously worse than the other.”

  “You haven’t gotten a confession.” He looked back to the camera and smiled. “Not a recorded one, anyway.”

  She had one move left but she wanted to hold on to it. Slowly, she got to her feet and walked to the side of the table. She was within touching distance of him now. If his hands had not been handcuffed, he could have easily reached out and grabbed her.

  “Let me share something with you,” she said. “I know you sent men to my room to bully me. To beat me up or scare me. But I sent them back to you, limping and wounded. I take some pride in that. But what you don’t know is that one of your goons kicked me quite hard in the stomach. A stomach that, as of right now, is harboring a sixteen-week-old baby.”

  An expression somewhere between surprise and delight crossed his face. It took everything in her not to smash his face in.

  “Confess to that, at least. You sent them, didn’t you?”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about. And honestly, it’s to my disappointment that he didn’t kick harder.”

  An electric surge passed through her body and she could feel her hand balling into a fist. She got up from the table and walked away as quickly as she could before her emotions got the best of her. She collected herself and slowly walked back to him, reaching into her pocket and taking out her phone. She opened up the voice and set the phone on the table, pressing Play as she did so.

  Connor’s own voice came back to them, something he’d said about two hours ago.

  “…the conference kicks back up. Now, which of you fine folks would like to ask the first question?”

  She then pointed to the length of the track, a recording she had ended just fifteen seconds ago.

  “I got my confession,” she said. “This has been recording ever since I approached you at the conference. Now…taking that into consideration, why don’t you tell me where that fourth woman is?”

  Connor stared at her with what was easily the most hatred she had ever seen in a gaze. “No,” he said. “Your little invasion of privacy just cost that poor woman her life.”

  “So that’ll be four counts of murder,” Mackenzie said.

  He shrugged, as if indifferent. Again, that smile appeared on his face. “I’m a sporting man, I believe. You want to find that fourth woman?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “I’ll tell you where to start. But I want these damned handcuffs taken off of me.”

  “No way.”

  “The it seems that fourth murder will be on your hands. Not mine.”

  She had to leave the room. If she stayed there any longer, she’d assault the prick. So with that, she left the room. She found Ellington and McGrath standing outside the door. McGrath looked concerned and a little angry.

  “He says there’s a fourth one,” Mackenzie said. “A fourth victim. He indicated that she’s not dead yet but he has her somehow.”

  “You sure?” Ellington said. “You don’t think he’s lying?”

  “No. He likes bragging too much to be lying. He says he’ll give us a starting point to look for her if someone takes off his cuffs.”

  “Ah, hell…what do you think?” McGrath asked. “Would he really give us legit information?”

  “Based on what I can tell…probably. It’s just another way for him to show he has us in the palm of his hand. But if it means we save a woman’s life, I’m fine with that.”

  “Ellington…get two officers to go in there. Have one of them uncuff him but only after he gives Mackenzie the location.”

  “One more thing,” Mackenzie said, handing her cell phone to McGrath. “It’s not exactly a confession, but there’s enough to convict on there. Listen to the last five minutes or so. And see if he’ll give Ellington the location.”

  “Why? Where are you going?”

  Her stomach was already clenching from the surge of emotion and nerves. For a moment, she was afraid she wouldn’t make it to the bathroom. Without answering McGrath, she darted down the hallway, praying she would make it in time.

  CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

  While she was washing her hands, her nerves seemed to catch up to everything that had occurred in the last hour or so. She felt it gathering in her stomach and the baby apparently did not like it—which was apparently what had sent her running to the restroom in the first place. Shew tried to fight off the urge but before she knew it, she was throwing up into the sink. Again.

  I don’t remember reading about this sort of thing in any of those pregnancy books, she thought idly.

  When she had control of herself, she then rinsed her mouth out with water from the tap and tried to seem as composed as possible when she stepped back out into the hallway. She made it no more than three steps before she heard her name being barked from behind her.

  “White!”

  She turned and saw McGrath storming toward her. She noticed that he was looking at the floor, apparently also trying to look composed. Still unable to look at her just yet, he handed her cell phone over to her and a furious nod.

  “You’re right. There’s no confession. But there should be enough to start convicting. And if he’s not lying about this fourth woman…just finding her would be a step towards prosecution. Also…on that recording, you mention to Connor that six months ago, you would have handled something differently. I want you to think about that. I want you to think about how you might have handled this entire case differently if you weren’t pregnant.”

  It felt almost sexist for him to say such a thing but she knew what he meant. And he was right.

  “He still hasn’t asked for his lawyers to return,” McGrath said. “It makes me think he’s just accepting it. He’s giving up.”

  “Yeah, me too. And it makes no sense. He enjoys being in control. Why would he stop now?”

  “He does mention retiring in the recording—even if he was using it ironically.”

  That could be it, but Mackenzie thought she had another answer. Connor knew that he was no longer in control—that any semblance of power was out of his reach. Maybe it would have been different if Mackenzie had not revealed the recording to him. But for now, he knew he had lost control. And without control, what was the point in carrying on?

  Before McGrath could offer any sort of opinion, they both heard footfalls marching down the hallway. They looked to the left, where Ellington was approaching from one of the other interrogation rooms, flanked by two police officers.

  “He gave us a vague location,” Ellington said. “Spilled the bea
ns on a ton of things after that, though, as soon as we uncuffed him. Still spilling to some of the police, actually. But for right now, I think we’ve got what we need. There’s a secondary living space, about eight miles away from Queen Nash. An apartment. We don’t know anything else for sure. No address, no apartment number, nothing. Just that he would take women there sometimes.”

  “I want you up there,” McGrath said. He then looked to the police officers and asked: “Can we get an escort?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “In the meantime, call the Baltimore PD and have them narrow this search down. If they can find her before Ellington even gets on the scene, that would be perfect.”

  “One apartment about eight miles away from campus,” Mackenzie said. “That narrows it down, but that’s still a needle in a haystack.”

  “I’ll make sure the police give every available mind over to this one. Landlords, noise complaints, anything worth looking into.”

  Ellington nodded as he started to rush for the end of the hallway, toward the front of the building. Mackenzie followed along, the two officers running between them.

  “Agent White,” McGrath said. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”

  When she turned toward him, she didn’t try too hard to hide the sorrow in her eyes. She’d been expecting resistance from him and was ready to go down fighting.

  “I got your suspect. We got a potential location for the fourth victim. In the last five days, I’ve seen two dead women, abused and neglected. Please, sir…let me find this one alive. I have to…I have to help find this one alive.”

  She could tell that McGrath was struggling between protocol and a calling to do the right thing. Finally, with a sigh and a grimace, he nodded. “Go. But if it goes anywhere beyond simply finding this woman, you keep your ass away from the action. Am I understood?”

  “Loud and clear,” she said.

  She turned away from him before the tear came trickling out of the corner of her eye. And with her back to him, she ran quickly down the hall to catch up with Ellington and the two police officers.

  ***

  True to his word, McGrath had set as many people on the task of narrowing down the address as possible. During the thirty-three-minute car ride to Baltimore, he had managed to come up with sixteen potential apartments to look into. It was all based on records, landlord grievances, and any call about negligent or disorderly conduct. He’d also set his feelers out for apartments that were paid for on a recurring basis without the tenant actually sending in checks or money. This, plus asking for apartments where the landlord knew that resident rarely lived at the residence, made the search a little more bearable.

  Meanwhile, McGrath had set Yardley and Harrison on a track to expedite some the less-stressed details such as re-interviewing people who had last seen Jo Haley, Christine Lynch, and Marie Totino. Harrison, specifically, was speaking with a liaison from Marie’s cell phone carrier, trying to determine her last location, and local PD in trying to locate her car. These were tasks that had, of course, been on their radar but tended to take some time.

  “You know McGrath is going to have your ass for continually pushing on this, right?” Ellington asked.

  “Yet he keeps giving me slack…keeps saying yes.” She had to say it because, honestly, she was pretty sure her husband was right.

  “That’s because respects you more than you think and—”

  He was interrupted by Mackenzie’s phone ringing. She had been fielding calls for the duration of the trip while Ellington drove. It was infuriating but also gave the case the feeling that it was finally headed somewhere. They had the killer and now they were on the trail to hopefully save a potential fourth victim. And they were speeding toward a conclusion at nearly one hundred miles per hour.

  Mackenzie answered the call, hoping it would be the call that would lead them to the fourth victim. “This is Agent White,” she said.

  “Hey, White. It’s Harrison.”

  “Tell me you’ve got something good.”

  “I think I might. You in the city yet?”

  “About to get off on the west side. Why?”

  “Don’t,” he said. “Skip it and go two exits up.”

  “Why? You got an address?”

  “Maybe. I wanted you two to have a crack at it first. I just got off of the phone with Marie Totino’s cell phone service provider. They indicate that her phone has been in the same spot for fifty-nine hours. And it is exactly eight miles away from Queen Nash.”

  “Are you and Yardley headed to the location?”

  “We are, but we’re coming from Bethesda, where we were pushing the DMV around. Based on this address, you’ll get there before us.”

  “Give it to me.”

  He did, and she recited it to Ellington. Based on the address alone, she was fairly certain the phone had not been discarded in the river when Connor disposed of the body. Maybe it was in Marie’s car. Or even better still, in the apartment Connor had lured her to.

  “Thanks, Harrison. Do you mind calling the State PD to let them know? Every second counts here, so if they can get there before us…”

  “Yeah, I’m on it.”

  Mackenzie ended the call and, in that lovely mind-to-mind communication that she and Ellington were starting to develop, he recited the address to her without having to be asked. She plugged it into her GPS as one of the exits Harrison had indicated blazed by them. The coordinates came up, and she found herself leaning forward in anticipation.

  “Take the next exit,” she said. “We’re less than three miles away from the location of Marie’s phone.”

  Ellington stepped on the gas, blasting the car to one hundred as the exit came into view. Mackenzie, meanwhile, got on the phone and contacted their escort officers to fill them on what was going on.

  Whether it was the excitement of closing the case, finding the fourth victim before it was too late, or the speed that Ellington was driving, Mackenzie wasn’t sure…but her stomach started to do that all-too-familiar surge and roll.

  No, baby. Not right now, please…

  She took a series of deep breaths and grasped the door handle, trying to steady herself. She closed her eyes as Ellington took the exit, the tires screeching. Ahead of them, their police escorts tuned on the sirens to accompany the lights.

  Almost done, baby, Mackenzie said, trying to ease the nausea. Give Mommy fifteen more minutes, what do you say?

  She couldn’t help but smile as the sensations slowly passed. She opened her eyes and looked at the GPS. They were now just 1.2 miles away from the address Harrison had given them. As they closed in, she picked the phone back up and called McGrath.

  “You talk to Harrison yet?” he asked.

  “I did,” Mackenzie answered. “We’re a mile away. You got any apartment listings from your hunt that relate to that address?”

  “I’ve got someone on the phone with the landlord now. Stand by and I’ll let you know.”

  She did that as Ellington tore through a red light, the escorts leading the way.

  For Mackenzie, it was bittersweet. They seemed to be closing in on a woman who was likely going to be Connor’s fourth victim. And while the idea of rescuing her and hopefully mining enough information out of her to put Connor away for life was exciting, Mackenzie also knew that it might very well be the last case she was actively a part of until the baby came. And when she added that amount of time to the amount of time she’d need to recuperate and take maternity leave, she was looking at about eight or nine months.

  Yes, the prospect of becoming a mother was becoming more and more important to her, but was she ready to put that above her career? It was something she had never been asked to do, not even with Ellington and their relationship.

  It was a scary thought and one that she tried not to let bog her down as Ellington brought the car around a hard right turn, finally bringing them to their destination.

  Ellington wasted no time looking for a parking
spot. He brought the car to a skidding halt at the far end of the lot where he blocked in two other cars. They both hurried out of the car, drawing their weapons in unison.

  Mackenzie and Ellington had barely made it to the sidewalk that ran along the front of the apartment building before a police cruiser came tearing into the parking lot. She could hear more sirens in the distance as more cruisers responded to the call. The officers got out of the car but stopped when they saw the agents entering the building.

  “What can we do to help?” one of them shouted over the top of the car.

  “Check the plates on every car in this parking lot. See if you can locate the cars of any of our three victims. We know for a fact that Marie Totino’s cell phone is somewhere on the premises. Maybe it’s in her car.”

  She and Ellington then stepped inside the building. The front lobby was dimly lit and the building looked like any number of lower-income apartment buildings. The walls could have used a fresh coat of paint, the elevator doors were marred in graffiti, and there was a strong aroma of astringent cleaner that had not done its job to the fullest extent.

  “What if this isn’t him?” Ellington asked as they started for the stairs, still with no clear indication as to which apartment to check.

  “Then we start over,” she said. “We check Christine’s phone…Jo’s phone…”

  But in her heart of hearts, she felt that this was it. Even though they had no apartment to start checking, she had a feeling deep in her bones that they were in the right place.

  As if summoned by Mackenzie’s purely positive thoughts, her phone rang. She barely took the time to register that it was McGrath before answering it. “What apartment?” she asked.

  “I’ve got two for you to check. Apartment twenty-seven is leased by a tenant that several people have complained about. Noisy at night, the smell of marijuana permeating the hallway coming from his door.”

  “That wouldn’t be it,” she said. Someone like Connor would not live in a place like this. No, this was his lair...his nest. This was where he brought the women so that no one would catch him—a place far enough away from campus to create distance but close enough to still maintain the campus as a hunting ground for women starving to get a career started. To learn about control and power…