Before he Kills (A Mackenzie White Mystery—Book 1) by Blake Pierce Read Free Book Online

what
else on the sheets.”
    “Ah, God,” Zack said, annoyed. He rolled
off of the bed, purposefully covering as much of the sheets as he could. “Why
are you such a tight-ass?”
    “I’m not a tight-ass,” she said. “I just
prefer to not live in a pig sty. By the way, thanks for cleaning up after
yourself before you left for work.”
    “Oh, it’s so nice to be home,” Zack
sneered, walking into the bathroom and shutting the door behind him.
    Mackenzie sighed and chugged down the
rest of her beer. She then looked across the room where Zack’s dirty work boots
were still on the floor—where they would stay until he put them on tomorrow.
She also knew that when she got up in the morning and went into the bathroom to
get ready, she’d find his dirty clothes in a pile in the floor.
    To hell with it, she thought,
returning to her book. She read only a few pages while she listened to the
water from Zack’s shower in the bathroom. She then set the book aside and
walked back into the living room. She picked up her briefcase, carried it into
the bedroom, and pulled out the most up-to-date files on the Lizbrook murder
she had retrieved from the station before coming home. As much as she wanted to
rest, even for a few hours, it would not let her.
    She looked through the files, digging
for any detail that they might have overlooked. When she was certain that everything
had been covered, she once again saw Kevin’s tear-filled eyes and it pushed her
to look again.
    Mackenzie was so enamored with the files
that she didn’t notice Zack coming into the room. He smelled much better now
and, with only a towel around his waist, looked much better, too.
    “Sorry about the sheets,” Zack said
almost absently as he dropped the towel and slid into a pair of boxers. “I’m…I
don’t know…I just can’t remember the last time you actually paid any attention
to me.”
    “You mean sex?” she asked. Surprisingly,
she found that she was actually up for sex. It might be just what she needed to
finally unwind and get to sleep.
    “Not just sex,” Zack said. “I mean any kind of attention. I get home and you’re either already asleep or looking
through casework.”
    “Well, that’s after I’ve picked
up your crap from the day,” she said. “You live like a boy that’s waiting for
mommy to clean up after him. So yeah, sometimes I jump back into work to forget
about how frustrating you can be.”
    “So it’s back to this again?” he asked.
    “Back to what?”
    “Back to you using work as a way to
ignore me.”
    “I don’t use it as a way to ignore you,
Zack. Right now I’m more concerned with finding out who brutally killed a
mother of two boys than making sure you get the attention you need.”
    “That right there,” Zack said, “is why
I’m in no hurry to get married. You’re already married to your work.”
    There were about a thousand remarks she
could have spat back at him, but Mackenzie knew there was no point. She knew
that he was, in a way, right. Most every night, she found the caseloads she
brought home more interesting than Zack. She still loved him, without a doubt,
but there was nothing new to him—nothing challenging.
    “Good night,” he said bitterly as he
crawled into bed.
    She looked at his bare back and wondered
if it was, in some way, her responsibility to give him attention. Would that
make her a good girlfriend? Would that make her a better investment for a man
that was terrified of marriage?
    With the idea of sex now a forgotten impulse,
Mackenzie simply shrugged and looked back to the case files.
    If her personal life had to melt into
the background, then so be it. This life, the life inside the case, felt more
real to her anyway.
     
    *
     
    Mackenzie walked into her parents’
bedroom, and before she made it through the doorframe, she smelled something
that made her seven-year-old stomach buckle. It was a tangy sort of smell,
reminding her of the inside of her piggy bank—a smell