Before he Kills (A Mackenzie White Mystery—Book 1) (18 page)

Mackenzie parked her car at the end of
the block in this dilapidated neighborhood, and pulled up a close-range map of
the area on her cell phone before getting out of her car. She knew that her
search would consist of a one-block radius along three different streets:
Harrison, Colegrove, and Inge.

She knew that Inge Street could be
crossed off of her list because the houses along this end of the street were
vacant, having been condemned several years ago. She knew this because it was a
popular locale for drug deals and gang activity. She’d netted her first drug
bust here and had also had to pull her sidearm for the first time in her career
just a few streets over.

Colegrove and Harrison streets, though,
were fully occupied and managing to hang on in this otherwise deteriorating
part of town. These were people with menial jobs that usually spent their
paychecks on liquor, lottery tickets, and, if they had money left over, fast
food dinners most nights of the week.

Before getting out, she pulled up
Ellington’s number. She texted him the street names and then signed off with:
If
you don’t hear from me within a few hours, call someone and send them here.

She then set her phone to silent and
stepped out into the night.

Mackenzie walked down Harrison Street at
a steady pace, not wanting to seem overly suspicious at such a late hour even though
any single woman walking down these streets after dark would be seen as
foolish. She kept an eye out for houses with trucks or vans on the property,
and spotted two residences that fit the description.

The first house had a van out front,
parked in the small driveway. Worn vinyl lettering along the side of the white
van read
Smith Brothers Plumbing
.

Slinking through the shadows as quickly
as she could, Mackenzie went to the side of the van and peered into the
passenger side window. She could barely see into the back but she did manage to
see a corner of a toolbox. In the front, tucked between the seats and console
as well as between the dashboard and the windshields, she saw several invoice
sheets. On the top of a few, she saw the same artwork that was on the side of
the van, marking the invoices as Smith Brothers Plumbing.

With that house eliminated from her
search, she moved on to the next house. A black truck sat outside along the
curb. It was a newer model, adorned with a
Don’t Tread On Me
bumper sticker
and a decal in the back glass indicating the owner was a Vietnam vet. She
looked into the back of the truck for any sign that it had carried a large
cedar pole recently but saw nothing. While she didn’t want to rule a vet out
just because of their service to the country, Mackenzie did find the thought of
a man reaching seventy putting up those poles by himself hard to imagine.

She reached the end of the block and
then turned right toward Colegrove Street. She could hear the thumping of
thunderous bass from a nearby house blasting rap music. As she passed by each
house looking for trucks or vans, she caught glimpses of the murky Danvers
River reflecting the moonlight far behind the houses.

There was one truck parked alongside the
street right in front of her. Even before she approached it, she saw that it
was not the truck she was looking for. The back tires were flat and it showed
signs of neglect that made her think it had been given up on years ago.

She was halfway down the street, peering
ahead and seeing nothing but cars the rest of the way down, some in scant
driveways but most along the curb. There were six in all, one new model among
the other five rusted heaps.

She was just starting to feel that she
had unraveled yet another unsuccessful theory when she spotted the house on her
left. An older model Honda Accord sat along the curb. A small stretch of
overgrown front yard led to a badly maintained chain-link fence that extended
to an equally poor wooden fence that separated the yard from the neighboring
property. She walked further along the property and froze when she got to the
opposite side of the house.

The chain-link fence was nowhere to be
seen, apparently coming to a closure point in the backyard. What she did see,
though, was a makeshift driveway that was nothing more than flattened grass and
thin dirt tracks. She followed the tracks with her eyes and saw that they ended
where an old green Ford pickup was parked. It sat front end out, the grille and
dead headlights staring right at her.

Mackenzie glanced to the house and saw
that a single light was on. It cast very little light, making her think it was
a lamp or a hallway light from further back in the house.

Moving quickly, she dashed into the
yard, following the course of the flattened grass to the truck. She looked into
the truck through the driver’s side window and saw some old fast food bags and
other trash.

Among it all, sitting in the center of
the bench-like seat, was a Bible.

With adrenaline pumping into her heart,
she reached for the driver’s side door. She was not at all surprised when she
found it locked.

She went to the back of the truck and
saw that the tailgate was down. She peered into it and saw no clear indication
of what it had recently carried, though it was hard see anything in the dark.

She looked behind her into the backyard
and saw that her assumption had been correct; the chain-link fence ran the
length of the yard and then came up and around where it stopped alongside a
shed. She could not see any windows, but she could see a trace of light issuing
from a space along the shed door.

She stepped into the backyard, inching
closer to the chain-link fence. As the shed came into view, she started to
think the light was indeed something smaller, a candle, perhaps. With her curiosity
now morphing into something very close to caution, she came to the edge of the
fence. She crouched low to the ground as she neared the faint glow coming from
between the small crack along the door and the frame.

She started to look for a way through
the fence, fearing that crawling over it might make too much noise. As she did
this, her eyes fell on another shape alongside the shed. She’d missed it
before, as it was low to the ground and cloaked in shadows. But now that she
was no more than ten feet from the shed, the shape was clear and defined.

Actually, it was two shapes.

Two cedar poles, cut to roughly eight
feet in length.

She knew she should wait for backup.

But she sensed, with all that she was,
that there was no time.

So, with fire in her muscles and her
nerves firing on all cylinders, she reached up and grabbed the chain-link
fence.

And then she began to climb.

The fence was old and rusted just like
everything else on this godforsaken street. She felt the rust cutting into the
padding of her finger but at least, because of the rust, the chain-link
material made almost no noise as she scaled it. The fence was seven or eight
feet tall and soon she reached the top.

She threw one leg over, steadied
herself, and then brought the other over.

With a single push away from the fence,
she leaped from the top and landed in the yard with a soft thud.

She instantly withdrew her Glock from
its holster and crept toward the shed in a crouching position. She made her way
to the door and rose up on her legs a bit, trying to find the warped area in
the frame that kept the door from shutting all the way. She found it three
quarters of the way up the door and peered inside.

She saw the pole right away, standing
directly in the center of the shed. A scurrying shadow flew across it, followed
by the object that had cast it. She saw the woman first, her legs kicking at
the air, and then the man that was holding her from behind. The woman was naked
except for a gag around her mouth. A series of muffled cries were coming from
behind it as she fought to get away.

The man was wrestling her toward the
pole. A strand of rope was wrapped around his shoulder like a limp snake.

Mackenzie, heart slamming so hard she
could barely hear, had seen enough. She knew she’d have to act fast; she had to
pull the door open and get inside with her gun raised before the creep had any
idea what was happening.

This is where it would be easier with
help,
she thought to herself, suddenly regretting that she had ventured out here
alone.

She extended her hand to the door’s
rusty handle. When she grasped it, a sickening thought filled her head.
What
if it’s locked from the inside somehow?

That answer was simple enough. Now that
she was inches away from the killer, she was willing to take more risks.
If
that’s the case,
she thought,
I’ll shoot through the fucking door.

She gripped the handle and took a deep
breath. She held it in and didn’t exhale until she had pulled the door open.

She leaped forward, bringing the Glock
up.

“Police! Put the weapon down and your
hands—”

She knew she’d made a mistake the moment
she stepped inside. Something under her feet felt odd. And there came a noise,
something that made no sense.

Mackenzie looked down for a split
second, her eyes leaving the shape of the man in front of her, and saw the
plastic sheeting that covered the floor. She was standing on it. And although
it took less than a second for her to process what she was seeing, it was a
second too much.

The murky figure in front of her dropped
immediately to his haunches, grabbed the plastic sheeting in his hands, and
yanked with all he had.

Mackenzie felt the ground move. The
plastic she was standing on was yanked toward him and she lost her footing and
went airborne.

The man then shoved the naked woman in
her direction, and she landed on top of her.

Mackenzie, dazed, reached up and shoved
the frantic woman off her, but by the time she did, the man was already lunging
for her, bringing his fist down. She was halfway up when it struck Mackenzie
directly between the eyes and sent her back to the ground.

As she fell to the ground, Mackenzie got
her first glimpse of the killer. He was in his forties and partially bald. His
eyes were electric blue and had the look of a crazed animal that has been penned
up for far too long and has a pretty good idea of what freedom must be like. He
was short but had a stocky look to him. Mackenzie had a pretty good idea that
there was more muscle under his shirt than his appearance made it seem. The
punch he’d delivered to her was another indication of this.

He was coming in for her now, moving
with a quickness that the small space of the shed seemed incapable of
containing. He had something in his hand that seemed to slither through the
darkness. By the time he had raised his arm, Mackenzie realized what it was.
She saw the splintered end sailing toward her.

Mackenzie rolled out of the way just in
time.

The whip cracked less than two inches
from Mackenzie’s right ear. The sound was deafening.

The killer brought the whip back again,
this time aiming it directly for Mackenzie.

This time, she reached back, raised her
gun, steadied her hands, and fired.

The motion he made as he brought the
whip down skewed her aim and the bullet hit him high in the left shoulder
rather than his heart.

He dropped the whip and stumbled
forward, looking to Mackenzie as if the very idea of a gun was absurd to him.

Still, he was undaunted. He dove for
her, going for her gun. Mackenzie fired again, this one grazing his right arm
as he came down.

He slammed his full weight on top of her
and the jolt of it sent a blast of pain through her body. Her hands opened
reflexively and the Glock went to the floor.

The moment she heard the gun hit the
floor, the killer rose up and drew his fist back. Before he could bring it
down, Mackenzie punched him squarely in the gut. From the floor on her back,
she did not get her full force into it, and it only diverted his blow. Yet when
he brought it down and his fist only bounced from her shoulder, Mackenzie spun
and clubbed him hard in the side of the jaw with her elbow.

He went sliding off of her and she
instantly went for the Glock.

The killer ran as Mackenzie’s hand found
the gun. She brought it up and aimed at the door just as he made his exit. She
nearly fired, but the naked woman was in the way.

Mackenzie jumped to her feet and looked
over at the naked woman, shaking, still bound.

“Stay here,” Mackenzie said. “I’ll come
back for you.”

The woman nodded and Mackenzie saw
something broken in the woman’s eyes. The events of this night, no matter how
they turned out, would traumatize this poor young woman for the rest of her
life.

With that haunting thought pushing her, Mackenzie
sprinted out of the shed just in time to see the back door to the house
closing. Mackenzie gave instant chase, fully expecting the back door to be
locked.

When she turned the knob, it did so
freely. The back door opened, revealing a small entryway and a darkened kitchen
beyond.

He did that on purpose,
she thought.
He
wants me to follow him inside.

She gave only a moment’s thought before
she stepped inside and raised her gun, plunging into darkness.