by Blake Pierce
The real killer, though, was out there somewhere.
And the clock was ticking.
CHAPTER EIGHT
His mother was in her bedroom, watching one of her stupid morning game shows. Her bedroom was in the back of the house, off in the farthest corner, and the noise filled the rest of the house like a muted explosion. She’d laugh every now and then, laughter that would morph into her loud, dry coughs. The sound was like nails on a chalkboard to him. Every time he heard it, he wished she’d die. Maybe he’d finally get the courage to kill her in her sleep—to place a pillow over her stupid fat face or to just hold his strong hands over her nose and mouth and watch her suffocate.
It had nothing to do with a lack of courage, though. He had all the courage in the world. What it came down to was that he loved her. He loved his mother very much; she just got annoying and extremely inconvenient at times.
It was one of the reasons he was glad to have the mangy old addition on the back of the house. He’d built it himself, taking about two weeks to create the two-room domicile that was attached to the rear walkway of his mother’s house. Even at twenty-three years of age, almost two decades ago, done with college and with no real job prospects, he’d known that his mother would need him. Someone had to take care of her and she sure as hell wasn’t going to find a man to spend the rest of her life with. She was three hundred and forty pounds and, quite simply, didn’t care. She could die tomorrow, but as long as she did it while drinking her sodas and inhaling a box of oatmeal crème pies, she’d be fine with her demise.
He had just finished cleaning the living room, prepared to head back to his little add-on dwelling where he’d probably spend a few hours online doing absolutely nothing, when he spotted movement through the living room blinds. He peered through the slats and saw a man walking up the sidewalk. He was carrying a large book under his arm and was dressed in a button-down short-sleeve shirt and a pair of khakis. A pair of eyeglasses clung to his nose and ears, making his face appear thin.
“Hey, Ma!” he shouted.
He heard no response, just the blaring of the television from her corner of the house. Quickly, he walked to the hallway and took a few steps toward his room.
“Ma!”
After a moment, the TV went silent. They did this sort of back and forth several times a day. He knew that she was muting the show, probably annoyed. Then her voice came at him through the thin walls. It was thick and garbled, the sound of a lazy fallen animal that has given up on the hunt.
“What?” she bellowed.
“Did you make an appointment with another one of those salespeople for today?”
There was a moment as she thought about this but then she answered: “That’s for Saturday! I’m not expecting anyone today!”
His mother tended to make appointments with salespeople on a regular basis. It was why they had more kitchen knives than they’d ever use. It was why his mother had tons of makeup, smoothie solutions, and weight loss gimmicks piled in the closet that had only ever been used once—if at all. The woman had no life and hated to leave the house. No use going out into the world when the world can come to you, she had told him on more than one occasion.
He felt the same way…only not in regards to shopping.
“Okay,” he bellowed back.
The noise of her daytime game show came back in full force. It made him turn his hands into fists. Not only was she slowly eating herself to death but the bitch was apparently losing her hearing, too.
Several moments later, the man he had spied coming up the walk knocked on the front door. Not wanting to seem too excited, he waited a moment before answering the door. He felt his heartbeat growing in his chest, his palms getting sweaty, and the beginnings of an erection in the front of his pants.
Slowly, he advanced toward the front door. He opened it, putting on his best look of disinterest. It was important to get the expression just right; he didn’t want to look too disinterested. He wanted them to think they had a chance to sell whatever crap they were peddling. Now that the salesman was at the door, he saw that it was not a plain book under the man’s arm, but a large binder. The company name along the spine read THE GREEN TEAM LAWN CARE.
“Hey there,” the bespectacled man said. “My name is Trevor Simms and I’m one of the soil techs with the Green Team. Have you heard of us, by any chance?”
“I actually haven’t,” he responded.
“Well, what we do,” Trevor said, “is make sure your lawn looks the best it can for the lowest cost. Now, I noticed some dead spots out front and we can take care of that for you. There are also a lot of weeds around the sides and—”
“Let me cut you off right there, Trevor,” he said. “Living in this neighborhood, do you really think I can afford to have someone fix my yard? Spending money on making my grass look pretty is not high on my list of priorities.”
Undaunted, Trevor went on. “Oh, I hear that. Trust me, I do. But with our prices, you’d be surprised at just what you can do to make your yard look perfectly green.”
He waited a while before answering. He even made an effort to pretend like he was looking over Trevor Simms’s shoulder to see the dead grass in question. “Ah, hell,” he said. “Come on in…Trevor, was it?”
“That’s right,” Trevor said, stepping inside. “You’re making a great decision.”
“Oh, I haven’t decided anything yet,” he said.
He heard the television blaring through the walls. It was almost as loud as the voices he sometimes heard at night…the voices from the foot of his bed. He thought he heard them now, through the noise of his mother’s fucking television shows. He also felt a familiar headache coming on and he knew what had to be done to make it go away.
So in that moment, he did make a decision, although it had nothing at all to do with lawn care. In fact, he was already thinking about shoving this four-eyed imbecile into the crawlspace in his small addition to his mother’s house.
“Have a seat, Trevor,” he said, closing the door behind them. “Let’s have a talk, you and I.”
CHAPTER NINE
That afternoon, Mackenzie found herself walking a little too slowly toward a bar called Red’s Roost. She’d been there only once before, during her first week in Quantico, where she had sadly nursed a mojito by herself. Now she looked to the place with a new sort of fear—a creeping unease that she knew she should listen to but was bucking up against for reasons she didn’t understand.
She walked inside, passed by the hostess with a little smile and a wave, and headed straight for the bar. When her eyes fell on Ellington, that unease shifted in her gut and felt like a lead weight. She should not be here. She should not be doing this. Even though Ellington insisted there was nothing more than career interest here and she did believe it, there was still something wrong about it.
He waved to her and playfully patted the back of the seat beside him. She walked over and was glad to see the bar was packed. There was absolutely no chance at all that this was going to turn into anything intimate or inappropriate.
You’re making too big of a deal about your own self, she thought as she sat down across from Ellington. He doesn’t think of you like that. You’re just the poor stranded girl from Nebraska that he’s trying to help get a pair of solid feet beneath. Why are you trying to ruin it?
She had no idea. What she did know, though, was that she was nervous around him in a way that made her feel off of her game but, at the same time, like a delighted high school girl.
“Tough day?” he asked.
“I’ve had better,” she said. “Thanks for the heads-up about the meeting with McGrath.”
“Sure. I heard about the crap deal. Forty-eight hours, huh?”
“Well, technically, I’m down to just thirty-eight now. So…no offense, can we get to the point of you asking me here?”
A waitress came by, breaking up the back-and-forth. They ordered their drinks (a stout for Ellington and a martini for her) and
she waited to see where Ellington would take the conversation. He had been the one to request this little meeting for drinks, so she’d be damned if she’d muck it all up by forcing small talk—especially not when her career was ticking away with every breath. She got the sense that Ellington was also not a fan of small talk; it was one of the things she liked about him.
“So,” he finally said, “word of your recruitment has gotten out to your fellow classmates somehow.”
“How?” she asked.
“No idea. Even in the FBI, gossip can be a killer. However, no one knew about the recruitment other than Bryers, you, me, and the deputy directors. The best we can figure, someone maybe overheard some of the conversation we had over coffee when we approached you.”
“So is everyone pissed at me now?” Mackenzie asked.
“Pissed? No. Jealous…maybe. But your past is heralded even among your classmates. I think they understand. But still…like gossip, jealousy is also a sad reality to working your way up through the Bureau. I don’t think anyone knows about the ridiculous timeline that McGrath strapped you with, though.”
“Ah, so I’m being thrust back into the social structure of high school again.”
Ellington smirked at her. “Is it any worse than where you came from?”
She thought of Porter and Nelson back in Nebraska. Although Porter had come around before she’d left, the entire experience had left a bad taste in her mouth. “Touché,” she said, followed by a sip from her martini.
“But, speaking of where you came from,” Ellington said, “I must admit, I am here solely as a friend.”
“Oh?” she asked.
“Yeah. The directors are still trying to figure it all out. There’s talk about how it might have been a mistake to try this experiment at all. They wonder if you’ve undergone a proper psych evaluation. After the Scarecrow Killer case, you’re considered at risk in terms of your mental state.”
She bit back a smile. She had seen a shrink during her first two weeks in Quantico—two quick sessions that had been suggested by Ellington and her assistant director. But the sessions had not been mandatory and she’d given up on them after two weeks. She’d made the Academy her priority and her psychological well-being had gone by the wayside.
“I’m fine,” she said. “No dark thoughts. No nightmares.” Only when she said the word nightmares, her blood went cold. The image of the Scarecrow Killer in her childhood front yard and backing into the rotting arms of her dead father flashed across the eye of her mind and then disappeared.
“Would you tell me otherwise?” he asked.
“No.”
“Well, at least you’re honest. But look…if you feel like we threw you into the deep end without asking if you could swim, you have to let me know now rather than later.”
“I’m fine, Ellington. And besides, in thirty-eight hours, it could all be over anyway.”
He smiled at her and they locked eyes for a moment. She looked away, reminding herself that he was married and that he had already shot down her advances once.
“Don’t let him know I told you this,” Ellington said, “but Bryers thinks you’re awesome. He gushed about your dossier before he even met you. He’s nervous because of the responsibility, but he’s glad to have you.”
Mackenzie wasn’t sure how to respond, so she simply took another gulp from her drink. It felt good going down and she couldn’t help but wonder what it might be like to sit here with this interesting man and get pretty close to drunk again. Maybe this time, the result would be different.
It doesn’t change the fact that he’s married, she thought.
“What’s the deal with Bryers anyway?” Mackenzie asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, he’s all about asking questions about my past, which is good. It shows that he’s interested. But whenever I ask him even the smallest question about his past, he clams up.”
Bryers nodded. “Yeah, that’s Bryers. I’ve known him for about six years now and he’s a pretty closed book. I haven’t pried, but I hear he was involved in a case a while back that sort of messed him up. Something to do with a kidnapping case gone really bad. He had to take some time off. So…just don’t pry too much.”
“I won’t.”
The table fell into silence again and Mackenzie was very aware of the way he was looking at her. It was very different from the brief time they had spent together in Nebraska. It was the same way Zack had once looked at her back when they had started dating—a look that had grown dimmer and dimmer the longer they had stayed together.
Harry Dougan looked at her like that from time to time as well. She wondered how he would feel if he knew she was having this little meeting with Ellington.
“So how are things going with you?” she asked.
“Decent, I guess. I’m heading up this domestic terrorism task force. It’s almost a desk job, really. But it’s high-speed, you know? I’ve been pulling eighty-hour weeks for the last month.”
“That sounds exciting.”
“Sure it is. And tiring. It also tends to piss spouses off.”
“I’m sure.”
She noticed him sliding his index finger around the surface of his wedding ring. He opened his mouth to say something and then seemed to think better of it.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Nothing you want to hear,” Ellington said.
“Probably not,” Mackenzie said. “But I asked anyway, didn’t I?”
He hesitated for a moment, taking a long pull from his beer. When he set it back down, his tone seemed to have changed. “This job,” he said. “It’s rewarding, fun as hell, and exciting. But if you picked any five married people at random—male or female—from the Bureau, I can guarantee you that at least three have troubled marriages or have been divorced at least once. With this job, you marry it. It becomes your life, you know?”
She nodded. She’d heard such things before, especially during the introductory courses she’d sat through when she first arrived in Quantico. Maybe that’s why she was so drawn to it; it took the place of fostering any sort of relationships with people.
“My wife is just about done,” he said. “If it wasn’t for our kid, I’m pretty sure she’d be gone by now.”
A million clichéd phrases went through Mackenzie’s head, but she ended up opting for “I’m sorry to hear it.”
“The hell of it is that if she made me choose between her and the job, she’d be packing her things pretty quickly. It kills me to admit that, but it’s the truth.”
That comment left the table in silence again. Things had suddenly gotten awkward and she could tell that Ellington sensed that he had maybe gone too far. Mackenzie started looking for excuses to leave, any reason to remove herself from a situation she wasn’t sure she’d be able to defuse if it went too far. As it turned out, though, she didn’t need an excuse. Her phone rang in the midst of the silence and she answered it right away. She gave Ellington an apologetic glance as she answered.
“Hello?” she asked.
“Hey,” came Bryers’s voice from the other end of the line. It sounded somber and quiet. She wondered, rather selfishly, if McGrath had talked the other directors into cutting her loose right now rather than two days from now.
“We’ve got a third body.”
Mackenzie felt her heart pounding in her chest as he gave her directions to the new dump, barely hearing him. She felt waves of guilt for being unable to stop the killer in time. She knew this was too fast for three bodies; the stakes had been upped dramatically and everything was about to change.
She paused as she got up from the table and looked back to Ellington as she downed her drink.
“Another body?” he guessed.
She nodded back, sharing his somber glance.
“I hope things get patched up with your wife. In the meantime, maybe you shouldn’t have drinks with the young lady recruit that came on to you that one time in Nebraska.”
&nbs
p; He nodded, grim, whether from the body or her statement, she could not tell.
“Yeah, maybe not.”
With that, Mackenzie turned away from him and headed back outside, where the night seemed a little darker after having received Bryers’s call.
CHAPTER TEN
When Mackenzie arrived at the dump, a small team of agents was already there. They had blocked off the entrance to the dump even though it was after operating hours. Behind the two cars and single agent that were blocking the entrance, a crew was setting up miniature floodlights to illuminate the grounds.
She stopped her car at the car-barricade. A young agent stepped forward and she rolled down her window. When he looked inside at her, she could sense right away that he was new. All new agents seemed to have a certain fake-hardened look to them, like they were trying a little too hard.
God, don’t let me become one of those types, she thought.
“This landfill is a restricted area right now, ma’am,” the agent said.
“I know,” Mackenzie said. “I’m Mackenzie White. Agent Bryers should have called ahead for me.”
The agent nodded and gave her a quick smile. Behind it, she thought she saw a trace of resentment. “He sure did. Can I see some ID?”
It occurred to her then that all she had in the form of ID were her driver’s license and her Academy ID card. She showed the agent both, feeling like a novice for not being able to present an actual badge or, at the very least, a temporary ID card on a lanyard or something. Satisfied, the agent allowed her to park her car. She then got out and walked up the slight incline to the flat area where the floodlights were being set up.
As she did, she heard the agent behind her at the barricade speak in not quite a whisper into a hand-held radio. “Mackenzie White is on the scene.”
Following this, every figure up ahead by the lights and the edge of the dump turned to regard her. She felt like a bug under a microscope as she approached the dumps and wondered if she should have waited for Bryers before getting out of the car.
