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

like the copper of
pennies.
    She stepped into the room and saw the
foot of the bed, a bed that her mother had not slept in for a year or so—a bed
that looked far too big for just her father.
    She saw him there, legs dangling over
the side of the bed, arms splayed out as if he were trying to fly. There was
blood everywhere: on the bed, on the wall, even some on the ceiling. His head
was turned to the right, as if he were looking away from her.
    She knew he was dead right away.
    She stepped toward him, her bare feet
padding down in a splatter of blood, not wanting to get closer but needing to.
    “Daddy,” she whispered, already crying.
    She reached out, terrified, but drawn in
like a magnet.
    Suddenly, he turned and stared at her,
still dead.
    Mackenzie screamed.
    Mackenzie opened her eyes and looked
around the room in a glare of confusion. The case files were in her lap, spread
out. Zack was sleeping beside her, his back still to her. She took a deep
breath, wiping the sweat from her brow. It was just a dream.
    And then she heard the creak.
    Mackenzie froze. She looked toward the bedroom
door and slowly got out of bed. She’d heard the weak floorboard in the living
room creaking, a sound that she had only ever heard when someone was walking in
the living room. Sure, she had been asleep and in the midst of a nightmare, but
she had heard it.
    Hadn’t she?
    She got out of bed and grabbed her
service pistol from the top of her dresser where it sat by her badge and small
purse. She quietly angled herself around the doorframe and walked out into the
hallway. The ambient glow of streetlights filtered in through the living room
blinds, revealing an empty room.
    She stepped into the room, the gun held
in an offensive position. Every gut instinct told her that there was no one
there, but she still felt shaken. She knew she’d heard the floorboards creaking.
She walked to that area of the living room, just in front of the coffee table,
and heard it creak.
    Out of nowhere, the image of Hailey
Lizbrook crossed her mind. She saw the lashes on the woman’s back and the
prints in the dirt. She shuddered. She looked dumbly down to the gun in her
hands and tried to remember the last time a case had ever gotten to her this
badly. What the hell had she been thinking? That the killer had been here in
her living room, sneaking up on her?
    Irritated, Mackenzie headed back to the
bedroom. She quietly placed the gun back on top of the dresser and went to her
side of the bed.
    Still feeling slightly spooked and with
the remnants of her dream still floating in her head, Mackenzie lay back down.
She closed her eyes and tried to find sleep again.
    But she knew it would be a hard time
coming. She was plagued, she knew, by the living and the dead.

CHAPTER SEVEN
     
    Mackenzie couldn’t remember a time when
the station had been so chaotic. The first thing she saw when she walked through
the front doors was Nancy rushing down the hallway to someone’s office. She’d never seen Nancy move so quickly. Beyond that, there were anxious looks on the
faces of every officer she passed on her way to the conference room.
    It looked like it was going to be an
eventful morning. There was a tension in the air that reminded her of the
thickness of the atmosphere just before a bad summer storm.
    She’d felt some of that tension herself,
even before she left her house. She’d gotten the first call at 7:30, informing
her that they would be moving on the lead within hours. Apparently, while she’d
been sleeping, the lead she had managed to pull out of Kevin had turned out to
be a very promising one. A warrant was being acquired and a plan was being put
into place. One thing had already been established, though: Nelson wanted her
and Porter to bring the suspect in.
    The ten minutes she spent in the station
was a whirlwind. While she poured a cup of coffee, Nelson was barking orders at
everyone while Porter sat solemnly in a chair at the conference table.