Mackenzie White 10-Before He Longs

by Pierce, Blake

  She filled him in on the conversation she had just had with Ralph Underwood. She then tapped at the whiteboard and showed him what she was writing down when he’d entered the room.

  “Every single one of the units the killer is using is smaller than average. Ten-by-eight, eight-by-eight, even an eight-by-six, which is the smallest of them all.”

  The flicker of excitement in his eyes made her feel confident that she had potentially stumbled onto something. “Any idea what it might mean?”

  “I don’t know. But everything about this case seems to be symbolic…whether the killer realizes it or not. He’s using storage units to hide his victims. He’s setting up bizarre little tea party scenes in a very obscure way. And he’s using smaller units to do it all.”

  “Not trying to be a smart-ass here, but maybe it’s a cost-saving technique? I’d imagine the smaller units are cheaper to rent.”

  “That’s true but…I don’t know. I think it might mean something. Maybe something to do with confinement or some personal issue. Maybe…maybe claustrophobia.”

  “But wouldn’t he try to avoid small spaces if that were the case?”

  “Not if he’s subconsciously trying to overcome it.”

  Again, Ellington got that little flicker in his eyes. “So where do we start?”

  “We need to call everyone all over again. I want to find the facilities outside of the ones the killer has already used that offer very small units. Anything smaller than ten-by-ten. And any that have been paid for in cash should be red-flagged.”

  “Anything else?” he asked.

  She thought about the dolls, about the tea party items. There was something there, too. She was sure of it. Not just a meaning, but maybe an avenue for a lead. She could feel it teasing at the edges of her reasoning but she couldn’t quite grasp it just yet.

  “I think that’s all for now,” she said. “I’ll find Rising and see if I can get him to assemble a team.”

  She headed for the door and on her way out, Ellington took her by the arm. She turned to look at him and saw that he suddenly had a very serious look in his eyes.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Are we okay?”

  “Yes, we’re okay. We need to talk for sure, but now’s not the time. Call it the work-obsessed part of me if you want, but that’s the way it is.”

  She wished she could take back the last little barb but it was too late. She let it hang in the air between them as she headed out of the conference room.

  ***

  Including Rising, there were four officers already calling up the owner of the storage facilities in the city and surrounding towns. With Mackenzie’s new request, two others were also thrown at the task, including the department’s secretary.

  While she waited, Mackenzie and Ellington remained in the conference room to continue going over the files. While Mackenzie underwent a quick study of each of the victims for what felt like the hundredth time, she could feel Ellington’s gaze on her from time to time. She knew that he loved her without question and felt bad for being so cold to him over the course of the last day or so. She knew it came down to her own insecurities and a fear of getting married, but there was no time to delve into all of that right now. Maybe on the way home, after they’d cracked this case.

  If we crack this case at all, she thought.

  She was about to leave the room and ask if there was any new information on the missing persons case regarding Daisy Walker when Rising entered the room. He had a single Post-it note in his hand, which he slapped on the desk between them.

  “Twenty-six places called so far, and these are the only two not already on the killer’s list that offer smaller units,” he said. “One of them is about thirty miles away, on the other side of Redmond. The other is somewhere downtown…and just happens to be one of the places that has refused to shut down while we conduct the investigation. And because of his shitty attitude, he would not give a name for the unit, though he did say it was paid for in cash.”

  “Are there already officers on the scene?” Mackenzie asked.

  “No. We’re meeting up as a force in about an hour to divide up the real estate and set up shifts.”

  “We’ll start with the one downtown, then,” Mackenzie said. “Can you have someone roll by the one in Redmond just to have a look around?”

  “Can do.”

  Mackenzie wasted no time in tidying up the table, still littered with the case files and notes. She and Ellington left the room in a hurry. As they did, Mackenzie realized that not only was she exhausted, but she was starting to feel slightly ill. She tried to remember if she’d eaten much of a breakfast and could barely remember what she’d had. This damned case…it was really getting to her. She had to settle down…had to calm herself.

  Should probably see a doctor or a shrink when I get back to DC, she thought as they headed for the car. And then, on the heels of that, she returned to the horrifying hunch that had come to her earlier…one she did not want to face in light of what she and Ellington were potentially headed toward downtown.

  She kept it all to herself, though she did let Ellington drive. And as she watched the city pass by, she found herself looking over to Ellington. She thought of him as a husband and realized it was something she wanted very badly. Only, now that it was so close to being a reality, it scared her.

  Many things were scaring her, actually. She just hoped she was hiding it well from Ellington rather than unintentionally using that fear to push him away.

  In an almost subconscious movement, Mackenzie placed her hand over her stomach as Ellington drove them toward the downtown district.

  CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

  They arrived at Roy’s Storage just after three o’clock in the afternoon. It was situated in an old parking lot, fenced in by black metal slats. The neighboring businesses were a barber shop and what appeared to be an abandoned and long-neglected bakery of some kind. An auto garage sat across the street, one of the bay doors blocked off with spare tires. It wasn’t quite what some might call the “bad part of town” but it was pretty close.

  They pulled into the parking lot and parked in front of the main office. There were two other vehicles there. Wasting little time, they walked directly inside where they found a man—presumably Roy, the owner—sitting behind a counter with his feet kicked up. He was scrolling through Facebook on his phone. He looked up at Mackenzie and Ellington as if he were in the middle of some very important work, and set his phone down.

  “Can I help you folks?” he asked.

  Ellington showed his ID and did the introductions. Roy sighed and shook his head. “Did the cops actually call the feds because I refused to shut down my business?”

  “Not at all,” Ellington said. “However, our case has led us to believe that we may need to take a closer look at the storage facilities that offer smaller units.”

  “Can I ask why?”

  “No,” Mackenzie snapped. “We’d really just appreciate some cooperation from you. Can you tell us how many of your units are of a smaller size? We’re looking for anything smaller than ten-by-ten.”

  He seemed to size her up in a way that made Mackenzie think he might consider getting rude with her if Ellington wasn’t there. Roy then looked back and forth between the two of them and let out a chuckle of disbelief. He reached under the counter and grabbed a key ring that was decked out with at least thirty keys.

  “The keys with the yellow heads are all for the smaller units. They’re going to be the ones closest to the parking lot.”

  “Thanks,” Ellington said, taking the keys from him. “We’ll try to be as quick as possible.”

  They walked back outside and around the back of the office building. The storage units were basic storage sheds, situated within several feet of one another. As Roy had indicated, the smaller ones sat closest to them. They seemed to be in pretty good shape; had the location and the parking lot not seemed so grim and cheap,
they would have looked almost normal in a nicer facility.

  As they approached the first storage shed, marked A1, Ellington flipped through the keys until he found one with a yellow head. A strip of yellow tape ran along the top and the marking A1 had been written on it.

  Ellington unlocked the rollaway door and pushed it up. It rolled noiselessly on the rails and revealed a space that had been packed out. There was an old grill, two old bikes, several carboard boxes, milk crates stuffed with CDs and DVDs—a little bit of everything. Even if they had suspected a body to be hiding away in this unit, one glance told them that there wasn’t enough room to store such a thing.

  As Ellington pulled the door back down, Mackenzie caught slight movement out of the corner of her eye back toward the office building. While they had been inside, someone else had pulled up. They were driving a black Ford pickup truck and had parked directly beside their car. The driver had opened the door and was looking out their way. It looked like he had been prepared to get out of the truck and perhaps go into the office or walk to the storage sheds. But he had stopped, still standing behind the open truck door, frozen while he gazed at them.

  “Ellington,” she said quietly. “Look.”

  Ellington followed her gaze and saw the man, too. He was wearing a baseball cap, low over his brow. He pulled it a little tighter down over his brow and lowered his head as he started to get back into the truck.

  “Excuse me!” Mackenzie called out. “Sir, can we ask you a few questions?”

  He ignored her and closed the door. Mackenzie then looked to Ellington and they communicated without words. Ellington started walking quickly forward while Mackenzie kept a slower pace behind him.

  Ellington had made it a few steps before the truck cranked to life. Ellington raise his badge and ID, yelling out, “FBI!”

  The driver did not care. He backed out quickly, nearly colliding with a passing car. A blaring horn split the afternoon, causing the driver to slam on his brakes. That was the opportunity Ellington needed. He rushed forward, his hand hovering over the butt of his Glock.

  Mackenzie quickened her pace, ready to jump into the car and give chase if necessary.

  Ellington made it to the truck just as the car that had nearly been hit veered around the back of the truck. He grabbed at the door handle but the door was clearly locked. He knocked on the window hard; Mackenzie could tell that he was losing his cool.

  As she rushed forward to help, she took note of the license plate and committed it to memory.

  And that’s when she heard the gunshot.

  Ellington cried out and stumbled back, falling to the ground. Mackenzie’s heart stopped beating for a moment as she reached for her sidearm. She pulled it right away as she took in the scene in the course of a split second.

  The driver had fired a shot through the window. Glass was all over the ground, some of it covering Ellington. He was moving, going for his gun. She saw the driver reaching out of the window to fire another shot.

  Mackenzie moved as if it was second nature. She raised the gun and took aim one inch to the left of the shape of the driver. She did not want to kill him, just scare him. She fired and her shot tore through the windshield in a perfect little circle.

  The driver’s arm went back inside and the truck sped back out into the road. The sound of screeching tires and horn sounded out as the truck spun straight into the road and then sped forward.

  Mackenzie ran forward, a lump rising in her throat. Please be okay, please be okay… That comment raced through her head in a continuous stream as she made it to Ellington. She saw him slowly sitting up and, perhaps more importantly, saw no blood.

  “Are you hit?” she asked, fighting back tears.

  “No. He must have been rushed or disoriented. I was lucky as hell.”

  “Can you get up?”

  Ellington nodded and they hurried to the car. Without any discussion, Mackenzie took the wheel. Another of their ongoing inside jokes was how Mackenzie was a much better driver than Ellington. That, coupled with the fact that he had just nearly been shot in the head, made it a no-brainer.

  As they peeled out of the parking lot, Roy stepped out of the office, yelling something at them. He was clearly pissed that shots had been fired in his facility. Mackenzie ignored him and straightened out the car’s course in the road. She saw the black truck up ahead, having just shot through a stoplight that was turning yellow.

  Mackenzie gunned the gas and laid down on the horn. Beside her, Ellington was slowly strapping on his seatbelt. “Careful,” he said.

  “Always,” Mackenzie replied through clenched teeth.

  “You get the asshole’s license plate number?” he asked.

  “I did. Can you call Rising?”

  As Ellington pulled out his phone, Mackenzie tore through the stoplight, now red. Her horn had alerted everyone who was coming up to the light, but she still had to swerve hard to the left to keep from hitting another car. She straightened the car out just in time to see the truck take a right turn at the end of the block. The back end of it jumped up on the sidewalk, nearly taking out a pedestrian.

  While Mackenzie sped to the same turn, Ellington had gotten Rising on the phone. Mackenzie focused on his end of the conversation while she drove, wanting to be on top of everything without having him repeat it to her while she tried to chase down the man in the truck—a man she was assuming was their killer.

  “Rising, we’re in pursuit of a black Ford truck that just turned on Wythe Street. The driver took a shot at me when we tried to stop him at Roy’s Storage. I need you to get units out here to help right now. License plate on the truck is…”

  Mackenzie recited the number loudly as she took the turn. The truck, meanwhile, had somehow increased its lead. It was about fifty yards ahead of them now. As she sped after it, the truck barreled through a red light, bringing lines of traffic on both sides to a shuddering halt. One car was rear-ended and another came very close to slamming into a dump truck.

  Mackenzie laid down on the horn, knowing that the longer this chase went on, the chances of a serious accident occurring increased. She also went through the red light. Up ahead, the black truck took another turn. Mackenzie punched the gas to the floor. The car surged forward and gained some ground. When she took the same turn, the truck was now about thirty yards away.

  She watched as it went through a stoplight—a green one for once. Yet as it crossed through and Mackenzie approached, it turned yellow. Mackenzie continued to lay down on the horn but it did not seem to register with the driver of the red van that was coming in from the right. As the light turned red in front of Mackenzie, it tuned green for the van reaching the intersection. It started creeping through, moving at a pace that would put it directly in front of Mackenzie.

  “Stop!” Mackenzie screamed.

  Of course, the driver did not hear her.

  She had no choice but to slam on brakes as the van made it cross the intersection. Still blasting the horn, Mackenzie started up again, heading through the intersection. When she cleared it, she saw a straight stretch of road with a few cars coming and going. But she did not see the black truck anywhere.

  “Damn it,” Mackenzie said.

  “It’s okay,” Ellington said. “That was a bad-ass bit of driving.” He then pulled out his phone and called up Rising again. Within a few seconds, he was reporting to the deputy. “We lost him just after the intersection at Nelson and Fifth. See if you can set up some sort of perimeter, would you?”

  He ended the call as Mackenzie pulled a quick U-turn at the next intersection.

  “Heading back to Roy’s Storage?” Ellington asked.

  “Absolutely. I want to see what this guy was afraid for us to see.”

  “You thinking he’s the killer, too?”

  “If he’s not our killer, he’s certainly some type of killer. Shit…Ellington, are you okay?”

  “Yeah. The adrenaline is still fresh.”

  “Did you get a good lo
ok at him?”

  “No. Just the jawline and mouth. He was smart. He never once looked at me, not even when he was reaching out of the window to kill me. Nice shooting on your part, by the way. You saved my life, you know.”

  “Glad to do it,” she said. It was a generic comment, but it was all that she could manage in that moment, as she felt like she might be on the verge of crying. “Now let’s go see what this asshole was hiding.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

  By the time they returned to the unit, the Seattle police were in pursuit of the black Ford pickup truck. This time, Mackenzie went past the main office and the parking lot, straight for the paved aisle between the storage sheds. She checked her rearview and saw Roy, the owner, come rushing out of the office after them.

  Mackenzie parked the car halfway down the aisle and got out. Ellington joined her, taking out the key ring Roy had given them earlier. Mackenzie wondered if that was the source of his irritation—that they quickly left the property with all of his spare keys.

  “What the hell happened?” Roy asked as he met up with them. He was red in the face with worry and anger. Part of Mackenzie almost hoped he’d say something out of line so she could set him straight.

  “One of your clients took a shot at me is what happened,” Ellington said. “Good thing he was in a hurry to get away, too, or you’d have my brains on your pavement.”

  “You got a call earlier today from the police, asking about the size of some your units, correct?” Mackenzie asked.

  “Yeah…asking about small-sized ones.”

  “We’re looking for a murderer,” Mackenzie said. “And we have reason to believe he is using storage sheds—small ones.”

  “Using them for what?”

  Mackenzie shook her head. She wasn’t about to tell this guy all of the details. “Please…just let us do our jobs. You told the cops on the phone that you had smaller units and that some of them were paid in cash, right?”

  “Well, just two of them.”

  “Is one of them rented by a man named Mark Riley?”