Before He Sees (A Mackenzie White Mystery—Book 2) Read online

  When he found it parked two streets over, he unlocked the door with the keys he’d taken from the lawn care man’s pocket. He got inside quickly and started the engine. Before pulling off, he looked around the cab. There was no computer or tablet to be found, although there was a small planner. He opened it up to the day’s date and saw where the lawn care man had marked down his planned stops for the day.

  He tore the page out, balled it up, and shoved it into his pocket. He then pulled the truck away from the curb and headed east. He had no clear destination in mind; he simply wanted the truck as far away from his house as possible. He hated it when something unexpected happened, yet, at the same time, knew that problem-solving such a thing kept his mind sharp. And given the sort of hobbies he was into, keeping a sharp mind was very important.

  He came to a stop half an hour away, parking the truck in an empty spot in a Burger King parking lot. He locked the doors, took the keys with him, and started walking. Already, he felt a huge weight lift from his shoulders. He walked five minutes to the closest bus stop and caught the next ride back home.

  The whole ordeal had taken a little more than an hour and a half. He’d returned home to silence; the TV in his mother’s room was off and even before he started down the hallway, he could hear her snoring. She’d nap until after two in the afternoon, leaving him to deal with the lawn care man that was trapped in his crawlspace.

  That’s how he spent the rest of that afternoon. He’d sat there, listening to the man’s muffled pleas and screams. He knew his mother wouldn’t hear the screams; he’d insulated the crawlspace for such sound back when he’d built it, pretty sure he’d be using it for this sort of thing in the future. It was a miserable little hole in the side of the addition, but it had served its purpose well. He hadn’t had to buy anything too expensive—the simple insulation and an industrial-strength lock for the door was really all it took.

  He listened to the man beg for his life for almost an hour. After a while, the muted noise was almost like the humming of an electric fan or the pleasant rattle of the air conditioning kicking on in the middle of the night. Soon, though, he tired of the sound and grew far too excited about what came next.

  Slowly and methodically, like a man with an important job awaiting him, he retrieved his wooden baseball bat from beneath his bed. He then opened the door to the crawlspace, hunkered down inside, and quieted the man once and for all.

  ***

  That had been two days ago. He knew this because of the nudie calendar on his bedroom wall. The woman for the month of September was a redhead with small breasts and incredible legs. He had placed a mark on Thursday (a small *) and had placed small dashes on the days that followed. That was the only way he could tell his days apart. Sometimes he forgot what day it was and what he had done the day before. But he knew that the mark on Friday meant that he had taken someone to the crawlspace, which meant that he had taken that same person to a landfill that night.

  That meant today was Saturday. He looked to his cell phone and pulled his mother’s calendar up. He had synced their calendars long ago, unbeknownst to her, so he would know when she had those stupid salespeople come over to peddle their useless crap. He saw that there was someone scheduled to come by today—someone from a company called Natural Health Remedies.

  He Googled the company and found that it was a small business—owned and operated by a single woman that worked from home. Her website was cutesy and she made a big deal about how every facet of her business was run from her living room while she was trying to write the Great American Novel in her spare time. He knew that meant that there would be no co-workers or database of any kind that would know where she was headed later in the day. It made her the perfect candidate.

  He deleted the entry from his mother’s calendar and quickly walked into her part of the house. He made his way down the hallway, enveloped by the roar of whatever morning game show she was watching. He knocked on her door, heard her fumbling on the bed for the remote, and then the noise went quiet.

  “Yeah?” she asked, her voice raspy and thick.

  He cracked the door open, not even bothering to look inside. “I’m having a snack,” he said. “You want something?”

  He knew she would. She was going to want one of those God-awful pudding cups. Tapioca. She ate about four a day and there was constantly at least a case of the garbage in the pantry.

  “Thanks, sweetie,” she said. “Yeah, if you can bring me one of my puddings, that would be nice. And some juice, too.”

  “Sure thing.”

  He closed the door behind him and went into the kitchen. He popped open one of her tapioca pudding cups and poured her a cup of the orange pineapple juice she drank by the gallon. He then dug into his pocket and pulled out the three Sonata capsules he’d taken from his stash. He’d been prescribed the batch of Sonata last year when he’d been unable to sleep. He’d only taken four of them because he didn’t like the groggy way he felt in the morning after taking them. He held on to them, though, knowing he’d need to use them on his mother one day.

  He carefully separated the ends of the capsules and dumped the white powder into the pudding. He then swirled the pudding around, stirring it up to hide the powder. He waited a moment, not wanting to seem as if he had rushed things, and carried the snack to his mother. When he knocked this time, she did not bother turning down the television; she merely yelled for him to come in and then patted his hand lovingly when he set the pudding and juice down on her bedside table.

  He managed not to look at her the entire time he was in the room. She was disgusting. Seeing what she had become made him feel ill. He remembered the slim, svelte mother he’d had as a boy and wondered what had happened to her. His father was partly to blame, but then again it wasn’t his father who had shoved twenty-five years of unhealthy food into her mouth. His father had been a miserable excuse for a human being and had done lots of shitty things, but forcing his mother to gain more than two hundred pounds was not one of them.

  He went back into his add-on and sat on the edge of his bed. He looked to the crawlspace that sat just outside of his room, installed in the wall like a strange trap-door. He then looked to his watch. It was 10:05. The appointment with the lady from Natural Health Remedies was at 11:30.

  He could do nothing between now and then to ease the need that was even now consuming him from within.

  All he could do was look at the entrance to the crawlspace and fantasize about what the next victim might be like. Would she scream? Would she beg for her life and offer sex? Or would she just melt into a blubbering mess?

  He didn’t care one way or the other. All he cared about was filling the hole—satisfying the need. The scary thing was that, for right now, he didn’t see the need being fully satisfied anytime soon.

  In the past, one victim had done it. He’d off one person and the itch would be scratched. One victim would last him several months. But now, ever since the woman named Shanda Elliot, the need had only grown stronger. And he had to satisfy it or the voices would start again…the voices that reminded him about his failure of a father and the things his father had done to him.

  You liked it, didn’t you? the voices would ask. You liked it and when he walked out, that was the only thing you were sad about….that you wouldn’t be his special little boy anymore.

  “Shut up,” he said into the empty room. Even at the thought of those voices returning, he grew restless and borderline sick.

  He had to keep the voices away. And he would do anything to do that…even if it meant more deaths to satisfy the hunger inside of him.

  If it kept the voices away, he’d kill anyone and everyone. He’d kill everyone…burn down the whole world just for a moment’s peace.

  He looked to his watch. Eighty more minutes and she’d be here.

  He could wait that long. The need could wait that long.

  And if it couldn’t…well, there was always his mother.

  CHAPTER FIFTEENr />
  Mackenzie spent Saturday holed up in her apartment, looking over the case files. She spoke to Bryers only once in the time and that had merely been so he could update her on what was going on behind the scenes. A small team was still actively trying to locate Lonnie Smith but had come up with nothing so far. Also, they received information from the local PD that Trevor Simms’s work truck had been discovered in a Burger King parking lot and towed away by the city. It was currently sitting in an impound lot and had been looked over by a forensics team that had found not a single trace of evidence. The only thing of note was that Thursday’s log entries had been torn from Trevor’s planner.

  It was the planner that Mackenzie was thinking about Saturday afternoon as she sat at her small table in the kitchen, drinking a beer and listening to music. She stared at the contents of the files, the pictures of the landfills and victims, as if they were works of fine art to be admired and studied.

  She wondered if Bryers would be able to get the planner for her. Having the page torn out indicated that the killer was logical. She also assumed that it had been the killer that had dumped the truck off in the Burger King parking lot, having moved what would have otherwise been a beacon for the FBI from his neighborhood.

  She tried to envision herself as a murderer that was moving such a damning piece of evidence. To have left no evidence meant that he was not only careful, but also calm. It suggested that he felt no real remorse for what he did. He showed no panic, no laziness in his approach. And to show no remorse for his actions yet also have the logical aptitude to move the truck and take a page from a planner, it was also clear that he was aware of what he was doing. Dumping the bodies in landfills (state landfills at that) also indicated that he knew keeping the bodies for any period of time could also come back to harm him. Awareness of the murders without any remorse indicated some sort of psychological issue. If that were the case, there was a very good chance that their killer was killing with no real motive other than he enjoyed it.

  Looking at the crime scene photos with this kindling of realization made her feel more worried than ever. A cold-blooded killer with intellect like that was going to be tricky to catch and, over time, a lot more brutal and routine in his actions.

  Maybe, she thought as she finished her beer, it will be the routine that leads us to him.

  As she continued to pore over the files, her phone rang. She dashed to it right away, thinking it would be Bryers. But the number on the display was unfamiliar. She answered it cautiously, wondering if Zack was using another number to get in touch with her, hoping to fool her. But the area code was DC, so that was probably not the case.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi, Mackenzie. How are you?”

  “I’m…good. Who is this?”

  “It’s Colby Stinson.”

  “Oh…sorry. I didn’t catch your voice and haven’t saved your number to my phone yet.”

  “No worries. Look, I figured you for the type that would be stuck in your apartment on a Saturday night.”

  “That obvious?” she said, playing along so as not to reveal the fact that she was secretly helping with a case.

  “Come on out and join me for a drink,” Colby said.

  “I don’t know. I don’t really feel like drinking.” This, of course, was not true. But she’d just had a beer and wanted to remain alert and available in the event that Bryers called.

  “Fine then,” Colby said. “Come out and watch me have a drink.”

  Mackenzie looked down to the case files on the table. She knew them inside and out now, having spent the weekend poring over them. She wasn’t going to extract anything new from them in the course of the next two hours or so. Besides that, some human interaction after the miserable twenty-four hours she’d had might do her some good.

  “Sure, I can do that,” Mackenzie said. “Where and when?”

  They made plans and even as Mackenzie closed up the files, her mind remained on the contents inside of them. She went down a mental checklist in her head, trying to come up with a valid solution.

  Most likely a male with some sort of psychological issues but is very clever. He is probably holding the victims in some sort of wooden cage or box that has insulation inside of it. No motive, just kills for the sport. So far, it seems all of the victims have come to him rather than him scouting them out.

  The picture these facts painted was not pretty, but it at least gave her some color to work with. And it was that picture that remained in her head as she headed out the door in an attempt to resume a normal life.

  ***

  She met Colby at a small diner two blocks away from the Academy. The place was mostly known for its thick, greasy burgers but Mackenzie had a soft spot for their omelets. She was enjoying one as she and Colby caught up. It was mostly small talk, some of which made Mackenzie a little envious. While Colby did not come out and say as much, she heavily eluded to a weekend fling with a guy from their Profiling class that kept them in bed most of Saturday.

  Mackenzie tried to remember the last time she’d had sex. It had been over five months ago, a quick and rather unfulfilling session with Zack. She wondered then if she was going to end up being one of those women who was more interested in her career than men. However, given some of the impure thoughts she’d been having about Ellington as of late, she found that very hard to believe. She also knew that Harry would probably be more than willing, if she ever gave him the chance.

  Maybe if my time runs out on this case and McGrath kicks me out, I’ll run crying to Harry for consoling, she thought.

  She listened to Colby as cordially as she could, nodding here and there and making comments at all the right points. But it wasn’t until near the end of the meal that she really started listening. With the way Colby decided to wrap up their conversation, she had no choice but to pay close attention.

  “So listen,” Colby said. “I don’t know how to say this to you, but I feel that I need to because I guess we’re sort of friends, right?”

  “Oh shit,” Mackenzie said. “Is there another elephant?”

  “Not quite an elephant this time.”

  “But some sort of large jungle creature?”

  Colby shrugged, apparently done with the elephant business. “Well, just about everyone in our courses knows that you’ve been helping Agent Bryers on a case,” she said. “Jealousy, of course, has reared its ugly head. Some of the things I’ve heard in the hallways is pretty bad.”

  “How bad?” Mackenzie asked, already feeling anger rise up inside of her. She didn’t mind. She’d rather feel anger toward gossip than pity any day.

  “Well, everyone thinks of you as this B-list celebrity anyway because of the Scarecrow Killer. So there’s rumors of how you’re all entitled and are just taking classes to go through the motions. There’s also a rumor going around that you’re sleeping with Bryers and that’s how you got the job.”

  Mackenzie couldn’t help but laugh. “Sleeping with Bryers? That’s hilarious.”

  “Well, sleeping with someone. Mind you, I don’t believe any of it.”

  “What do you believe?” Mackenzie asked.

  Colby took a moment to think before verbalizing her answer. “I think the skill you showed in bringing in the Scarecrow Killer followed you here. And I also know that Bryers’s old partner is now riding a desk somewhere. Not sure why. So Bryers needed a new partner and rather than promote from within, the powers that be decided it might be a good experiment to pair him with one of their most promising recruits.”

  “I like your theory much more,” Mackenzie said.

  Colby smiled. “Yeah, and it makes more sense. I’m all about sleeping with older men, but Bryers doesn’t seem like the cradle-robbing type.”

  “Trust me, he’s not.”

  “But…older men. Yay or nay?”

  Mackenzie shook her head. “Not as old as Bryers. I have to draw the line somewhere.”

  It was good to get in some girl talk, even though it was taint
ed by the news that she was a point of nasty gossip among her peers. It did make her realize that she was isolating herself and becoming something of a hermit. When the only man she was spending time with was her partner, who was twenty-two years older than her, something had to give.

  Maybe she’d work on that after this case was wrapped up. Because even as she and Colby joked about their sex lives, Mackenzie was still scrolling down the mental checklist in the back of her head, trying to nail down a profile on their killer.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  He had almost an hour and a half to waste. He again thought of moving the Green Team truck and wondered if it had been towed yet. He almost hoped so. If the authorities were on to something yet, the random location of the truck would throw them off. They were much dumber than those glamorized shows on TV made them out to be.

  Soon, 11:00 came, and then 11:15. He started to feel the familiar anxiousness in his gut, a feeling that radiated through him and was almost sexual in nature. At 11:20, he walked into his mother’s house and tiptoed down the hallway. As he reached her door, he heard her sleeping, not quite snoring but with deep heavy breaths the doctors said would eventually lead her to needing a breathing device to help her sleep.

  He walked back into the living room, sat on the couch, and thumbed through one of his mother’s food magazines. He paid no attention to the words or pictures, thinking only of the woman that was on the way. He wondered what her pleas through the crawlspace would sound like. The lawn care man had been childlike and pathetic. Women, on the other hand, sometimes sounded almost sensual when they started crying for their freedom. Some had even offered to have sex with him, to do anything he wanted.