Before He Preys Read online

  First, less than two weeks after Mackenzie had put Kingsville behind her, all charges were dropped against Ellington. It turned out that in the course of acquiring evidence against him, a few scandalous tidbits about his accuser had surfaced. The charges were dropped, there was absolutely no case to be had, and Ellington was reinstated pretty much on the spot.

  In the months leading up to the wedding, Mackenzie did suffer from nightmares, though they were no longer about her father or anything to do with cornfields. Instead, she would find herself hanging naked from Miller Moon Bridge, starting down into a bottomless pit. The worst things about the nightmares was she always let go, allowing herself to fall into the darkness. And when she did, there was an exquisite relief to it.

  She would always wake up in the nearly cliché state of being jarred awake by the sensation of falling. She saw a bureau psychiatrist about it and it was far too familiar to her, bringing back the moments in which she had tried to better understand the fear of heights while trying to track down a killer in Kingsville. It had helped for the most part but Mackenzie felt that she’d have to live with at least some degree of fear when it came to heights for the rest of her life.

  At work, McGrath had only torn into her a bit for her actions at the end of the Kingsville case. Rather than suspend her, he had chosen a different form of punishment. He separated her and Ellington and assigned them with new partners for the foreseeable future. It almost made a logical kind of sense when he broke the new assignments down: she would be working with Yardley while Ellington would be paired with Harrison.

  While it made her cringe to think about working in the field with someone other than Ellington, she saw it as yet another step in getting on with her future—in evolving her career and her life to where it needed to be to successfully put the past behind her.

  Besides…even with a new partner, she and Ellington always reunited back at their apartment. There was a ring on her finger, floral arrangements to choose, and a song to select for the first dance—which was becoming quite the argument among them. She wanted something by Liz Phair, and he wanted some overplayed Rolling Stones song.

  It quickly became a joke… that had they known one another’s musical tastes much better, they would have never gotten engaged in the first place. And it was jokes that like those that made Mackenzie realize that it was really happening. She was going to marry this man and they’d go running into an uncertain future together.

  It made her think of the relief she felt in those nightmares when she would let go of the side of Miller Moon Bridge and just drop.

  Apparently, it felt good to just let go sometimes.

  ***

  Three weeks before the wedding, Mackenzie was standing in the bathroom of a condo they had rented. She could hear the waves crashing on the beach outside along the coast. They had rented a place out in Sandy Point, Maryland, one of their rare weekends off of work at the same time.

  She stood in front of the toilet and looked at the pregnancy test on the sink. She had no idea what she wanted the result to be. All she knew for certain was that she was terrified.

  She waited, the two minutes following the test’s activation dragging on and on. She could only imagine what Ellington was feeling outside as he sat on the edge of the bed, waiting.

  When the result came up, she walked slowly to the test. She took a moment to sort through her own emotions before picking it up and walking out of the bathroom. Ellington stood up with the speed of a jack-in-the-box, his eyes tracking directly to the test.

  She handed it to him and watched his eyes. She could not read them. Despite their time together, it always surprised her when he was able to contain his emotions so well. Job hazard, he always told her.

  “Negative,” he said.

  “Yes. Negative.”

  He handed the test back to her, as if he had no idea what he was holding. “How do you feel about that?” he asked.

  “Good,” she said. “But I think I would have been good if it had come out positive, too.”

  “Yeah?”

  She nodded. “I don’t want one now, but…well, some day.”

  Ellington sat back down on the bed and pulled her to him. “I think I do, too. It’s just hard to fathom it with everything we see, every day, day in and day out.”

  “So maybe we start with a dog,” she said. “But nothing small or frou-frou.”

  “Now you’re talking,” Ellington said.

  He pulled her onto the bed and they spent the next hour there.

  When they were done, Mackenzie dozed. And during her nap, she dreamed.

  She was standing on the front stoop of the house from her childhood. She knew that she was a little girl in the dream. She knew this because her father was there, not dead and not in some grotesque state as he had been in previous dreams. Instead, he was standing on the porch, watching her walk down into the yard. She was carrying the little BB gun that he’d purchased for her at a yard sale. In the front yard was a series of cans that he had set up for her.

  It was her very first shooting range. In the dream, she pumped the BB gun, taking great pride in each pump.

  “Careful with that thing,” her dad said. “Don’t shoot your eye out. Or a window. Your mom would kill me. Hell…she’ll kill me for buying it for you anyway.”

  “How do I make sure I shoot where I want to shoot?” Mackenzie asked.

  “The sight,” he said. He came down from the porch and stood behind her. He helped her hold the gun correctly and then pointed out the sight at the end of the barrel. “You line the cans up with this little tab here at the end of the barrel. And when it’s all lined up, you shoot.”

  She did as instructed and when she pulled the trigger, there was about half a second that passed and then an empty can of peas went rolling over.

  “Good shot!” he told her, wrapping an arm around her.

  She blushed, soaking in the words of praise from her dad. She lined up her next shot and blasted another can. And then another and another.

  “Looks like I won’t have to worry about you taking care of yourself when you get older,” he said. “It looks like you can hold your own!”

  Mackenzie White woke up with that comment from her father spiraling through her head. She looked at Ellington and was glad that he, too, had dozed off. She wasn’t so much embarrassed that she had fallen asleep in the middle of the day as she was at the innocence of the dream. She was crying and could not quite explain why.

  She got out of bed and walked to the balcony window, standing by the sliding doors. She looked out to the beach, watching people walk up and down. A girl was flying a kite. A family was playing a game of corn hole.

  There were lives taking place out there, people she did not know with dreams she could not even begin to imagine.

  But she looked past them all and to the limitless expanse of the ocean. The horizon was a blur from where she stood and something about that comforted her. Even something as absolute and as solid as the horizon could be blurred. And no matter how close you got to it, it always moved with you, always the same distance away.

  There were things that remained constant despite the circumstances.

  And with a ring on her finger, a man holding her heart, and the demons of her past finally buried and behind her, she was ready for some consistency.

  NOW AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER!

  BEFORE HE LONGS

  (A Mackenzie White Mystery—Book 10)

  From Blake Pierce, #1 bestselling author of ONCE GONE (a #1 bestseller with over 1,200 five star reviews), comes BEFORE HE LONGS, book #10 in the heart-pounding Mackenzie White mystery series.

  BEFORE HE LONGS is book #10 in the #1 bestselling Mackenzie White mystery series, which begins with BEFORE HE KILLS (Book #1), a #1 bestseller with over 500 reviews!

  FBI Special Agent Mackenzie White is summoned when another body is found dead in a self storage unit. There at first appears to be no connection between the cases; yet as Mackenzie digs d
eeper, she realizes it is the work of a serial killer—and that he will soon strike again.

  Mackenzie will be forced to enter the mind of a madman as she tries to understand a psyche obsessed with clutter, storage, and claustrophobic places. It is a dark place from which she fears she may not return—and yet one which she must probe if she has any chance of winning the game of cat and mouse that can save new victims.

  Even then, it may be too late.

  A dark psychological thriller with heart-pounding suspense, BEFORE HE LONGS is book #10 in a riveting new series—with a beloved new character—that will leave you turning pages late into the night.

  Also available by Blake Pierce is ONCE GONE (A Riley Paige mystery—Book #1), a #1 bestseller with over 1,200 five star reviews—and a free download!

  BEFORE HE LONGS

  (A Mackenzie White Mystery—Book 10)

  Did you know that I've written multiple novels in the mystery genre? If you haven't read all my series, click the image below to download a series starter!

  Blake Pierce

  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.

  ONCE GONE (a Riley Paige Mystery--Book #1), BEFORE HE KILLS (A Mackenzie White Mystery—Book 1), CAUSE TO KILL (An Avery Black Mystery—Book 1), and A TRACE OF DEATH (A Keri Locke Mystery—Book 1) are each available as a free download on Kobo!

  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.

  BOOKS BY BLAKE PIERCE

  THE MAKING OF RILEY PAIGE SERIES

  WATCHING (Book #1)

  RILEY PAIGE MYSTERY SERIES

  ONCE GONE (Book #1)

  ONCE TAKEN (Book #2)

  ONCE CRAVED (Book #3)

  ONCE LURED (Book #4)

  ONCE HUNTED (Book #5)

  ONCE PINED (Book #6)

  ONCE FORSAKEN (Book #7)

  ONCE COLD (Book #8)

  ONCE STALKED (Book #9)

  ONCE LOST (Book #10)

  ONCE BURIED (Book #11)

  ONCE BOUND (Book #12)

  ONCE TRAPPED (Book #13)

  MACKENZIE WHITE MYSTERY SERIES

  BEFORE HE KILLS (Book #1)

  BEFORE HE SEES (Book #2)

  BEFORE HE COVETS (Book #3)

  BEFORE HE TAKES (Book #4)

  BEFORE HE NEEDS (Book #5)

  BEFORE HE FEELS (Book #6)

  BEFORE HE SINS (Book #7)

  BEFORE HE HUNTS (Book #8)

  BEFORE HE PREYS (Book #9)

  BEFORE HE LONGS (Book #10)

  AVERY BLACK MYSTERY SERIES

  CAUSE TO KILL (Book #1)

  CAUSE TO RUN (Book #2)

  CAUSE TO HIDE (Book #3)

  CAUSE TO FEAR (Book #4)

  CAUSE TO SAVE (Book #5)

  CAUSE TO DREAD (Book #6)

  KERI LOCKE MYSTERY SERIES

  A TRACE OF DEATH (Book #1)

  A TRACE OF MUDER (Book #2)

  A TRACE OF VICE (Book #3)

  A TRACE OF CRIME (Book #4)

  A TRACE OF HOPE (Book #5)