Before He Preys

Blake Pierce is author of the bestselling RILEY PAGE mystery series, which includes twelve books (and counting). Blake Pierce is also the author of the MACKENZIE WHITE mystery series, comprising eight books (and counting); of the AVERY BLACK mystery series, comprising six books; and of the new KERI LOCKE mystery series, comprising five books.

An avid reader and lifelong fan of the mystery and thriller genres, Blake loves to hear from you, so please feel free to visit www.blakepierceauthor.com to learn more and stay in touch.

Copyright © 2018 by Blake Pierce. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior permission of the author. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Jacket image Copyright Joe Prachatree, used under license from Shutterstock.com.

PROLOGUE

Once, when she was a girl, Malory Thomas had come to this bridge with a boy. It was Halloween night and she was fourteen. They’d been looking down into the water one hundred and seventy-five feet below, looking for the ghosts of those who had committed suicide from the bridge. It was a ghost story that had circulated through their school, a story Malory had heard all her life. She let that boy kiss her that night but had pushed his hand away when it went up her shirt.

Now, thirteen years later, she thought of that innocent little gesture as she hung from that same bridge. It was called the Miller Moon Bridge and it was known for two things: being an awesome and secluded make-out spot for teens, and the number one suicide location in all of the county – maybe in the entire state of Virginia for all she knew.

In that moment, Malory Thomas did not care about the suicides, though. All she could think about was holding on to the edge of the bridge for dear life. She was clinging to the side with both hands, her fingers curled against the rugged wooden edge of it. Her right hand could not get a good grip because of the enormous bolt that went through the wood, affixing the strut along the side to the iron beams beneath it.

She tried to move her right hand to get a better grip but her hand was too sweaty. Moving it even an inch made her fear that she’d lose her grip completely and go falling all the way down to the water. And there wasn’t much water there. All that awaited her below were jagged rocks and countless coins stupid kids had tossed off the side of the bridge to make pointless wishes.

She looked up to the rails along the edge of the bridge, old rusted trestle rails that looked ancient in the darkness of the midnight hour. She saw the shape of the man who had brought her here – a far cry from that brave teenage boy from thirteen years ago. No…this man was hateful and dark. She did not know him well but knew enough to now know for sure that something was wrong with him. He was sick, not right in the head, not well.

“Just let go,” he told her. His voice was creepy, somewhere between Batman and a demon.

“Please,” Malory said. “Please…help.”

She didn’t even care that she was naked, her bare rear end dangling from the edge of the Miller Moon Bridge. He had stripped her down and she was afraid he would rape her. But he hadn’t. He’d only stared at her, run a hand along a few places, and then forced her to the edge of the bridge. She thought longingly of her clothes scattered on the wooden beams behind him, and had a sick sort of certainty that she would never wear them again.

With that certainty, her right hand cramped up as it tried to get used to the shape of the bolt beneath it. She cried out and felt all of her weight slip over to her left hand – her much weaker hand.

The man hunkered down, kneeling and looking at her. It was like he knew it was coming. Even before she knew the end was there, he knew it.

She could barely see his eyes in the darkness but she could see enough to tell that he was happy. Excited, maybe.

“It’s okay,” he said in that odd voice.

And as if the muscles in her fingers were obeying him, her right hand gave up. Malory felt a tightness all the way down through her forearm as her left hand tried to hold up her one hundred and forty pounds.

And just like that, she was no longer clinging to the bridge. She was falling. Her stomach did a cartwheel and her eyes seemed to tremble in their sockets as they tried to make sense of how fast the bridge was moving away from her.

For a moment, the wind rushing past her felt almost pleasant. She tried her best to focus on that as she scrambled for some kind of a prayer to utter in her final moments.

She only managed a few words —Our Father, who art…– and then Malory Thomas felt her life leave her body in a sharp and crushing blow as she slammed into the rocks below.

CHAPTER ONE

Mackenzie White had fallen into something of a routine. This did not sit particularly well with her because she was not the kind of woman who liked routine. If things stayed the same for too long, she felt they needed to be shaken up.

Only a few short days after finally bringing the long and miserable chapter of her father’s murder to a close, she had come back to her apartment and realized that she and Ellington were now living together. She had no problem with this; she had been looking forward to it, actually. But there were nights during those first few weeks where she lost some sleep when she realized that her future now seemed stable. For the first time in a very long time, she had no real reason to chase hard after anything.

There had been her father’s case, eating at her since she had first picked up a badge and a gun back in Nebraska. That was now solved. There had also been the uncertainty of where her relationship with Ellington was headed. They were now living together and almost sickeningly happy. She was excelling at work, gaining the respect of just about everyone within the FBI. Even McGrath seemed to have finally warmed up to her.

Things felt stationary. And for Mackenzie, she couldn’t help but wonder: was this simply the calm before the storm? If her time as a detective in Nebraska and an agent with the FBI had taught her anything, it was that life had a way of snatching away any sort of comfort or security without much warning.

Still, the routine wasn’t all bad. After Ellington had healed up from his wounds following the case that had brought her father’s killer to justice, he was ordered to stay at home and rest. She tended to him as well as she could, discovering that she could be quite nurturing when she needed to be. After Ellington had fully recovered, her days were pretty standard. They were even enjoyable despite the horrid degree of domestication she felt.

She would go to work and stop by the firing range before returning home. When she got home, one of two things happened: either Ellington had already prepared dinner and they ate together like an old married couple, or they went directly to the bedroom, like a newly married couple.

All of this was going through her head as she and Ellington were settling down for bed. She was on her side of the bed, half-heartedly reading a book. Ellington was on his side of the bed, typing out an email about a case he had been working on. Seven weeks had passed since they’d closed the Nebraska case. Ellington had just started back to work and the routine of life was starting to become a stark reality for her.

“I’m going to ask you something,” Mackenzie said. “And I want you to be honest.”

“Okay,” he said. He finished typing the sentence he was on and stopped, giving her his full attention.

“Did you ever see yourself in this kind of routine?” she asked.

“What routine?”

She shrugged, setting her book aside. “Being domesticated. Being tied down. Going to work, coming home, eating dinner, watching some TV, maybe having sex, then going to bed.”

“If that’s a routine, it seems pretty awesome. Maybe don’t put sometimes in front of the sex part, though. Why do you ask? Does the routine bother you?”

“It doesn’t bother me,” she said. “It’s just…it feels weird. It makes me feel like I’m not doing my part. Like I’m being lazy or passive about…well, about something I can’t really put my finger on.”

“You think this stems from the fact that you’ve finally wrapped your dad’s case?” he asked.

“Probably.”

There was something else, too. But it wasn’t something she could tell him. She knew it was pretty difficult to emotionally hurt him but she didn’t want to take the chance. The thought she kept to herself was that now that they had moved in and were happy and handling it like pros, it really only left one more step for them to take. It was not a step they had discussed and, honestly, not a step Mackenzie wanted to discuss.

Marriage. She was hoping Ellington wasn’t there yet, either. Not that she didn’t love him. But after that step…well, what else was there?

“Let me ask you something,” Ellington said. “Are you happy? Like right now, in this very moment, knowing that tomorrow could very well be an exact duplicate of today. Are you happy?”

The answer was simple but still made her uneasy. “Yes,” she said.

“Then why question it?”

She nodded. He had a good point and it honestly made her wonder if she was overcomplicating things. She’d be thirty in a few weeks, so maybe this was what a normal life was like. Once all of the demons and ghosts of the past had been buried, maybe this was what life was supposed to be like.

And that was fine, she supposed. But something about it felt stagnant and made her wonder if she’d ever allow herself to be happy.

CHAPTER TWO

Work was not helping the monotony of what Mackenzie was coming to think of as The Routine – capital T and capital R. In the nearly two months that had passed since the events in Nebraska, Mackenzie’s case load had consisted of surveilling a group of men that were suspected of sex trafficking – spending her days sitting in a car or in abandoned buildings, listening to crude conversations that all turned out to be about nothing. She’d also worked alongside Yardley and Harrison on a case involving a suspected terrorist cell in Iowa – which had also turned out to be nothing.

The day following their tense conversation about happiness, Mackenzie found herself at her desk, researching one of the men she had been surveilling for sex trafficking. He was not part of a sex trafficking ring, but he was almost certainly involved in some sort of deranged prostitution set-up. It was hard to believe that she was qualified to carry a weapon, to hunt down murderers and save lives. She was starting to feel like a plastic employee, someone who served no real function.

Frustrated, she got up for a cup of coffee. She had never been one to wish anything bad upon anyone, but she was wondering if things in the country were really so good that her services might not be needed somewhere.

As she made her way to the small lobby-like area where the coffee machines were housed, she spotted Ellington putting the top on his own cup. He saw her coming and waited for her, though she could tell by his posture that he was in a hurry.

“I hope your day has been more exciting than mine,” Mackenzie said.

“Maybe,” he said. “Ask me again in half an hour. McGrath just called me up to his office.”

“For what?” Mackenzie asked.

“No idea. He didn’t call you, too?”

“No,” she said, wondering what might be going on. While there had been no direct conversation about it with McGrath ever since the Nebraska case, she had just assumed that she and Ellington would remain partners. She wondered if maybe the department was finally deciding to separate them based on their romantic relationship. If so, she understood the decision but would not necessarily like it.

“I’m getting tired of riding my desk,” she said as she poured her coffee. “Do me a favor and see if you can get me on whatever he sticks you on, too.”

“Gladly,” he said. “I’ll keep you posted.”

She walked back to her office, wondering if this small break in normalcy might be the one thing she had been waiting for – the crack that would start to chip away at the foundation of routine she’d been feeling. It wasn’t often that McGrath summoned just one of them to his office – not recently, anyway. It made her wonder if she was perhaps under some kind of review that she didn’t know about. Was McGrath digging harder into the last case in Nebraska to make sure she had done everything by the book? If that was the case then she might be in some hot water because she had most definitely not done everything by the book.

Sadly, wondering what the meeting between Ellington and McGrath was about was the most interesting thing that had happened in the last week or so. It was what occupied her mind as she sat back down in front of her computer, once again feeling like nothing more than another cog in the wheel.

She heard footsteps fifteen minutes later. This was nothing new; she worked with her office door open and saw people walking back and forth up and down the hallway all day. But this was different. This sounded like several pairs of footsteps all walking in unison. There was also a sense of quiet – a hushed tension like the atmosphere just before a violent summer thunderstorm.

Curious, Mackenzie looked up from her laptop. As the footsteps got louder, she saw Ellington. He quickly glanced through the doorway, his face tight with an emotion she couldn’t quite place. He was carrying a box in his hands while two security guards followed closely behind him.

What the hell?

Mackenzie jumped up from her desk and ran into the hall. Just as she was coming around the corner, Ellington and the two guards were getting on the elevator. The doors slid closed and once again, Mackenzie just barely caught sight of that tense expression on his face.

He’s been fired, she thought. The idea was absolutely ridiculous as far as she was concerned, but that’s what it seemed like.

She ran to the stairwell, pushing the door open quickly and heading down. She took the steps two at a time, hoping to make it out before Ellington and the guards did. She rushed down the three flights of stairs, coming out along the side of the building directly next to the parking garage.

She came out of the door at the same time Ellington and the guards exited the building. Mackenzie rushed across the lawn to cut them off. The guards looked on edge when they saw her coming, one of them stopping for a moment and facing her as if she might actually be a threat.

“What is it?” she asked over the guard, looking at Ellington.

He shook his head. “Not right now,” he said. “Just…let it go for now.”

“What’s going on?” she asked. “The guards…the box…have you been fired? What the hell happened?”

He shook his head again. There was nothing mean or dismissive about it. She figured it was the best he could do in the situation. Maybe something had occurred that he couldn’t talk about. And Ellington, loyal to a fault, would not speak if he had been asked to stay quiet.

She hated to do it, but she didn’t press him any farther. If she wanted direct answers, there was only one place to get them. With that in mind, she ran back into the building. This time she took the elevator, taking it back to the third floor and wasting no time marching down the hall toward McGrath’s office.

She didn’t bother checking in with his secretary as she headed for his door. She heard the woman call her name, trying to stop her, but Mackenzie went in. She did not knock, just walked right into the office.

McGrath was at his desk, clearly not at all surprised that she was there. He turned toward her and the calmness on his face infuriated her.

“Just remain calm, Agent White,” he said.

“What happened?” she asked. “Why did I just see Ellington escorted from the building with a box of his personal belongings?”

“Because he’s been released from duty.”

The simplicity of the statement did not make it any easier to hear. Part of her was still wondering if there had been some huge mistake. Or if this was all some huge elaborate joke.

“For what?”

She then saw something she had never seen before: McGrath looking away, clearly uncomfortable. “It’s a private matter,” he said. “I understand the relationship between the two of you, but this is information I can legally not divulge due to the nature of the situation.”

In all of her time working under McGrath, she had never heard so much legalistic bullshit come out of his mouth at one time. She managed to quash her anger. After all, this was not about her. There was apparently something going on with Ellington that she knew nothing about.

“Is everything okay?” she asked. “Can you tell me that much?”

“That’s not for me to answer, I’m afraid,” McGrath said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m actually pretty busy.”

Mackenzie gave a little nod and backed out of the office, closing the door behind her. The secretary behind her own desk gave her a nasty look that Mackenzie ignored completely. She walked back to her office and checked her mail to reconfirm that the remainder of her day was a slow void of nothing.

She then hurried out of the building, doing her best not to look like something was troubling her. The last thing she needed was for half of the building to be aware that Ellington was gone and that she was rushing out behind him. She’d finally managed to overcome the prying eyes and almost legendary rumors of her past within the workplace and she’d be damned if she’d create another reason for the cycle to start all over.

She felt confident that Ellington had simply gone back to their apartment. When she’d first met him, he’d been the kind of man who would maybe go directly to a bar in an attempt to drown his sorrows. But he had changed in the last year or so – just as she had. She supposed they owed that to each other. It was a thought she kept in mind as she opened the door to her apartment (their apartment, she reminded herself), hoping to find him inside.

Sure enough, she found him in the small second bedroom they used as an office. He was unpacking the things he’d had in his box, tossing them haphazardly onto the desk they shared. He looked up when he saw her but then quickly looked away.

“Sorry,” he said with his head turned. “You’re not exactly catching me on my best day.”

She approached him but resisted placing a hand on his shoulder or an arm around his back. She had never seen him so out of sorts. It alarmed her a bit but, more than anything, made her want to see what she could do to help.

“What happened?” she asked.

“Seems pretty obvious, doesn’t it?” he asked. “I’ve been suspended indefinitely.”

“What the hell for?” She again thought of McGrath and how uncomfortable he had looked when she had posed this same question to him.

He finally turned to her again and when he did, she could see embarrassment on his face. When he answered her, his voice was trembling.

“Sexual harassment.”

For a moment, the words didn’t make much sense. She waited for him to smile at her and tell her that he was just kidding, but that never happened. Instead, his eyes locked on hers, waiting for her reaction.

“What?” she asked. “When was this?”

“About three years ago,” he said. “But the woman just came forward with the allegations three days ago.”

“And is the allegation a valid one?” she asked.

He nodded, taking a seat at the desk. “Mackenzie, I’m sorry. I was a different guy back then, you know?”

She was angry for a moment, but she wasn’t sure at who: Ellington or the woman. “What sort of harassment?” she asked.

“I was training this younger agent three years ago,” he said. “She was doing really well so one night, a few agents took her out to celebrate. We all had a few drinks and she and I were the last ones left. At the time, the thought of hitting on her had never crossed my mind. But I went to the restroom and when I came out, she was right there waiting for me. She kissed me and it got heated. She pulled away – maybe realizing it was a mistake. And then I tried to go back in. I’d like to think that had I not been drinking, her pulling away would have been the end of it. But I didn’t stop. I tried to kiss her again and didn’t realize she wasn’t returning it until she pushed me away. She pushed me off of her and just stared me down. I told her I was sorry – and I meant it – but she just stormed out. And that was it. A sad little encounter between bathrooms. No one forced themselves on anyone else and there was no groping or other misconduct. The next day when I got to work, she had asked to be transferred to another agent. Within two months, she was gone, transferred to Seattle, I think.”

“And why is she bringing this up now?” Mackenzie asked.

“Because it’s the popular thing to do these days,” Ellington snapped. He then shook his head and sighed. “Sorry. That was a shitty thing to say.”

“Yes, it was. Are you telling me the whole story? Is that all that happened?”

“That’s it,” he said. “I swear it.”

“You were married, right? When it happened?”

He nodded. “It’s not one of my prouder moments.”

Mackenzie thought of the first time she’d spent any significant time with Ellington. It had been during the Scarecrow Killer case in Nebraska. She had basically thrown herself at him while she had been in the midst of her own personal dramas. She could tell that he had been interested but in the end, he had declined her advances.

She wondered how heavily the encounter with this woman had been weighing on his mind during that night when she’d offered herself to him.

“How long is the suspension?” she asked.

He shrugged. “It depends. If she decides not to make too big of a stink about it, it could be as little as a month. But if it goes big, it could be much longer. In the end, it could lead to a total termination.”

Mackenzie turned away this time. She couldn’t help but feel a little selfish. Sure, she was upset that a man she cared very deeply about was going through something like this, but at the root of it all, she was more concerned with losing her partner. She hated that her priorities were so skewed, but that’s the way she felt in that moment. That and an intense jealousy that she loathed. She was not the jealous type…so why was she so jealous of the woman who had reported the so-called harassment? She’d never thought of Ellington’s wife with any hints of jealousy, so why this woman?