BEFORE HE LAPSES

by Blake Pierce

  “There we go,” the nurse said. “Hold on one second and let me check…yes, I don’t see any harm done to the baby or to the home you’ve made for it. Of course, this simple ultrasound can’t tell everything, though it’s a pretty good indicator. We’ve called the on-call obstetrician. He’ll look you over and run a few tests. But based on what I’m seeing, I think you’re okay. And extremely lucky.”

  The nurse cleaned the goo off of Mackenzie’s stomach and cleaned the wand. She gave Mackenzie and Ellington a quick nod as she left the room.

  When she was gone, Mackenzie could no longer hold in her tears. She let them come freely and when Ellington came to her, sitting on the edge of the bed and taking her in his arms, they came even harder.

  But that was fine. She supposed that if a baby could develop to learn its mother’s voice from within the womb, it would also learn to understand that every now and then, mommy just needed a good cry.

  ***

  She supposed it could have been worse. She’d come away from the fight with only her left pinky in a very uncomfortable splint and her head was sore from the knee she’d taken and her abs were a little tweaked but other than that, she was fine. The baby, too. Her obstetrician had checked her over and concluded that the baby was fine, though the series of events had likely scared it and caused it to grow tense. It amazed her to think that something that was only fifteen weeks old—sixteen, as of today, her doctor had told her—could react to the same sort of environmental factors that she reacted to.

  Mackenzie knew without a doubt how lucky she was. She looked over to Ellington, who had stayed in the room with her every moment following the ultrasound. Yeah, she thought. Pretty damned lucky.

  “I think we need to talk about what this could mean,” she said.

  “You mean why two armed men came in trying to kill you?” Ellington asked.

  “Yes. And why it happened once we started looking into Daniel Humphrey.”

  “I’ve been speaking with Yardley off and on while the doctors have been seeing you. I spoke with them very briefly when you were first admitted, too. All three of us agreed that it was indeed fishy that you were attacked right after pushing to look into him.”

  “Are they following up on that?”

  “As best they can. And look…you’re feeling good now, right?”

  “My head is still a little sore. He whacked me pretty good. Why?”

  “Well, you might want to know that McGrath is in the waiting room. He’s been there for about an hour. I haven’t told him anything yet…about the baby. But, Mac….even if we manage to keep it from him while he’s here, he’ll end up seeing the medical report when it goes across his desk.”

  “Yeah…”

  “Should I send him in?”

  She sighed, trying to understand the weight of the situation. She had no idea how he might respond. She was actually quite surprised that he had bothered coming to visit her.

  “Yeah, you might as well.”

  “Want me to be here when you tell him?”

  “I appreciate it…but no. Just send him.”

  Ellington nodded, coming to her bedside to kiss her forehead before heading out to get McGrath.

  A feeling of despair went through her. She realized that no matter how McGrath handled the news of the pregnancy—at the fact that she had been hiding it from him—things would be different for her now. For the rest of this case, for the rest of her career, for the rest of her life.

  Two minutes passed before McGrath showed up. He knocked politely on the door before walking in. He wore his usual attire of shirt, slacks, and tie but he looked out of place. He looked normal and almost chagrined.

  “How are you?” he asked.

  “Alive. Lucky.” She paused and then added: “If you don’t mind my asking…why are you here? It wasn’t anything even remotely close to fatal.”

  “I’m here in the event I needed to run damage control. This attack occurred very close to when you pushed towards looking into Daniel Humphrey. Especially if the two are indeed related…things could get bad. Of course, I also wanted to check in on you.”

  “You should keep that in mind when I tell you what I’m about to share,” she said.

  He cocked his head and her heart warmed toward him when she saw genuine concern on his face.

  “I’m pregnant. I’ve known for a few weeks now.”

  The shock on McGrath’s face was only momentary. It was almost instantly replaced with concern.

  “Was the baby hurt?” he asked.

  “No. I got lucky there, too.”

  “How far along are you?”

  “Sixteen weeks.” She looked down at her stomach and shrugged. “It’s sort of starting to show.”

  McGrath approached the bed, his hands on his hips and his head hung low. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Because I was being stupid and selfish. I figured if I told you, you wouldn’t give me any high-profile cases.”

  “Judging from where you are right now, I’d say that would have been a smart choice.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. She meant it, too; she meant it so much that she felt tears stinging the corners of her eyes.

  “But you’re okay?” he asked.

  “Yes. Me and the baby.”

  “Good,” he said, walking back toward the door. He turned back quickly and added: “And congratulations, by the way.”

  “Am I in trouble?” she asked, trying to sound funny.

  “We’ll talk about that later. Get some rest for now.”

  He left after this, leaving her alone again. Mackenzie wasn’t sure how to feel now that McGrath knew. She was relieved and touched because of his reaction. But at the same time, she did not like the lack of control in not knowing her fate.

  Several moments later, Ellington reappeared. He came to her bedside and took her hand. “He didn’t say much when he came back out,” Ellington said. “How did he take it?”

  “Much better than I expected. He was genuinely worried about me and the baby. He even congratulated me. But…”

  “Yeah, I sensed there was a but.”

  “I get the feeling I might pay for this. I don’t know what he has in mind, but it could be bad.”

  “You’re probably right,” Ellington said. “No sense in kidding ourselves about it.”

  She knew McGrath well enough to know that this was true. The concussion the doctors had diagnosed her with would have been enough for him to seriously push her toward taking a few days off. Add in a pregnancy that had also been in jeopardy, and that’s what you call a double-whammy.

  “What did he think of the timing of it all?” Ellington asked. “You being attacked when you were, I mean.”

  “He skirted around that. He did say that was the primary reason he showed up here, though.”

  “Can I tell you something?” Ellington said.

  “What?”

  “I’m glad he knows now. At the risk of sounding too cheesy, I’m excited for everyone to know. It makes me happy, and I’m understanding that I’m more excited about it than I realized.”

  She was happy to hear it, though she had never suspected he’d freak out about it no matter how far along she was. Still, her mind kept going back to the events of the afternoon. The fight itself was nothing more than a blur in her head. But there was one detail that she was still hung up on, something irritating her.

  “It all happened because I went to answer the door,” she said. She was sure it seemed random to Ellington, but it’s where her mind kept tracking back to. “The desk clerk called our room phone and said there was a man downstairs wanting to speak with me. I opened the door to go down there and that’s when they jumped me.”

  “Yardley and Harrison questioned the staff. They got a description of the guy and there’s a pretty wide search out for him.”

  “Good. But there’s something else. They had guns. If they wanted me only dead, they could have shot me the moment I opened the door. The fact that
they just barged in makes me think they wanted me alive. Probably to question me or threaten me.”

  “And then you kicked their asses and they had to change their plan,” Ellington said. He sighed and said, “That’s another thing: McGrath wants your report of how things happened in the next forty-eight hours. He’s pressing pretty hard for it. You fired your weapon and there are two men on the loose.”

  “Maybe when we can get an ID on the guy from the lobby, that’ll help.”

  “Maybe,” Ellington agreed. “But that’s no longer anything for you to worry about. You’re off the case, remember.”

  She frowned and was about to say something. But then Ellington walked over to her, placed his hand very softly on her stomach, and kissed her on the side of the mouth. “And that’s perfectly okay.”

  She smiled at him but thought: That’s the one thing he doesn’t quite know about me yet. Off the case or not, I’ll constantly think about it until the damned thing is wrapped.

  And true to form, she was already trying to figure out not only how a supposed nobody like Daniel Humphrey had discovered he was being looked into, but what he truly had to hide.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Mackenzie drifted off sometime later and woke up to the sound of her phone ringing. It took her a moment to realize that it was not her phone, but Ellington’s. When she opened her eyes, he was speaking into it, standing by the door as to not wake her. Something in his voice seemed excited…promising, almost.

  She heard him say: “Yeah, I can do that. Soon, yeah.” And then he was done.

  “Who was that?” Mackenzie asked.

  “I was hoping that didn’t wake you up,” he said.

  “Well, it did. Who was it?”

  “That was Yardley. They’ve got tabs on Daniel Humphrey and wanted to know if I wanted to be there. And honestly, I’d like to. I feel like one of us needs to.”

  “Well, grab my stuff,” she said with a lazy grin. “I’ll go.”

  “Ha. Ha. Are you okay if I head out? They’ve got eyes on him right now, so it shouldn’t take long.”

  In all honesty, she wanted him to stay with her, but that was mainly because the idea of spending another few hours in the hospital alone was depressing. But she nodded, took his hand, and said, “Yeah. Go kick his ass and bring him in. Do it for me and the baby.”

  Again, she offered a half-hearted smile. But the look in Ellington’s eyes was all business. “Oh, I will,” he said.

  He kissed her softly on the mouth and then walked quickly out of the room Mackenzie watched him go, realizing that she might be getting an early glimpse of what it might be like to have to watch the most exciting part of a case from the sidelines.

  ***

  Ellington sped down the street with about a million thoughts in his head. First, Mackenzie had been hurt and maybe even almost killed. Secondly, their baby had been at risk of also being seriously hurt. And it had all happened on the cusp of looking into this prick Daniel Humphrey. So when Yardley had called and asked if he wanted them to hold off on going in after him, of course he’d said yes.

  The drive from the hospital to the area where Yardley and Harrison were staking out the restaurant Humphrey had been seen entering an hour and a half ago took less than twenty minutes. When he spotted their car parked on the side of the street, he parked as close to them as he could. He then took out his phone and called Yardley back.

  “I’m three cars behind you,” he said. “Is he still in there?”

  “Yeah,” Yardley said, “nothing new on our end. We’ve been talking about going in and pretending to be there for dinner. Just to get a better look. What are your thoughts?”

  “Give it another half an hour. If he’s not out, I’ll make up some excuse to go in there and pull him out. Maybe some lie about someone from Rooney’s campaign at the bar that wants to meet him.”

  “Sounds good. How’s Mac?”

  “She doing great. A concussion and a broken pinky. But it could have been much worse.” It took everything within him not to tell her about the baby. Just thinking of revealing the news to Yardley and Harrison made him smile.

  “That’s great. Let her know we would have loved to have been there but we were hunting down this creep.”

  They ended the call, leaving Ellington to stare out the window at the high-end restaurant Yardley and Harrison had been parked in front of for over an hour already. He wondered just how closely tied to Mackenzie’s attack this Humphrey jerk was. He wondered how much the attackers had been paid and what sort of campaign fund Humphrey had swiped the money from.

  He suddenly wondered if it had been a mistake to come out and take part in his arrest. If he didn’t calm down a bit, he was afraid his temper—which he usually did a reasonable job of keeping in check—might get the better of him.

  Exactly eleven minutes after he arrived, he saw that he was going to get the chance to test out the rein on his temper. He watched as three men and a woman came out of the restaurant, one of whom was clearly Humphrey. The canopy lights of the restaurant’s little canvassed walkway shone down directly on them so there was no mistaking the man he had seen in serval pictures since they’d started looking into him.

  His phone dinged as he received a text from Yardley. That’s him. We’ll move with you the moment you open your car door.

  To Ellington, it looked like Humphrey was waiting on the valet to bring his car around. Not seeing the point in waiting for the car to arrive, Ellington got out of the car. He walked quickly toward the restaurant, taking note of Yardley and Harrison joining him, falling in behind.

  They crossed the street and approached the group of four people. Only one of them seemed aware that they were being approached. It was the woman, dressed in an elegant and slightly slutty black dress. She nonchalantly grabbed Humphrey’s shoulder and said something to him. He turned, saw the agents walking toward them, and his eyes got rather wide.

  “Mr. Daniel Humphrey?” Ellington asked.

  “Who’s asking?” Humphrey said. He was tall and a little overweight but still had something of an intimidating figure. It helped that he carried himself like he thought he was royalty.

  “Agent Ellington, with the FBI. I’d like to have a moment of your time, please.”

  “About what, exactly?”

  “Things I don’t think you’d want discussed in front of your companions. Just five or ten minutes, that’s all I ask.”

  “I really don’t have time.”

  Ellington stepped forward. Harrison followed, keeping his distance, but flanking to his right. Yardley stayed where she was, watching it unfold and ready to act if needed.

  Standing within three feet of Humphrey, Ellington dropped his tone to just above a whisper. He leaned in close and said: “Given that your name has come up in a recent string of murders and that I highly suspect you sent people to bully my wife today, I suggest you make the fucking time.”

  “Or what?” Humphrey said. It was clear that he had long grown accustomed to thinking he was as powerful and influential as the people he rubbed shoulders with. Ellington wondered just how many favors had been granted to this twerp because of the people he knew.

  “Or I’ll arrest you right here in front of this pretentious restaurant.” He leaned in closer, his mouth nearly to Humphrey’s ear now, and added: “And I’ll make sure to bend your arm back just enough to make you squirm in front of your woman right here. Take your pick. And choose wisely, please. If I’m being honest, I’m looking for a reason to drop your ass to the ground.”

  Humphrey looked back to his three friends, giving them a what are you gonna do look. “Could you guys grab the car for me and just meet me down the street?”

  The woman nodded as Humphrey turned away and looked to Ellington. “Fine,” he said. “Lead the way.”

  Ellington did, leading him back to the car that Harrison and Yardley had been sitting in. Without being asked to do so, Harrison and Yardley took the back seat, allowing Ellington and H
umphrey to sit in the front. When all four of the doors were closed, Humphrey instantly went rigid. Ellington could see the man’s nerves in his eyes—not necessarily an indication of guilt, but that he had never quite been treated in such a way.

  “So what murders are you even talking about?” Humphrey demanded.

  “Three murders, all young women that we believe are in some way related to the Rooney campaign you helped to run last fall. You are the only link between the three of them, and you’re friends with all of them on Facebook.”

  “That’s your link?”

  “Well, that and your questionable history with women.”

  Humphrey looked as if someone had reached out and slapped him in the face.

  “Mr. Humphrey, do you recall ever meeting women by the name of Jo Haley, Christine Lynch, or Marie Totino?”

  The look spread across Humphrey’s face again. This time, it was even stronger. It was like watching someone trying to take in far too much information at once. It made Ellington very uneasy because no matter how good of an actor this man might be, Ellington was pretty sure his shock was genuine.

  “Marie Totino?” he asked, the name seeming to fall out of his mouth.

  “Yes.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Positive. Her body was discovered in the river yesterday. The third woman in the area in less than ten days. I take it you knew her?”

  Humphrey nodded, the look of shock now morphing into confusion. “We…we sort of went on a date. Two dates, actually. That was sometime back in…I guess it was October.”

  “A date? What was the age difference?”

  “I don’t know. Eighteen or nineteen years, maybe.”

  “How did the date go?” Yardley asked from the back.

  “Well enough. It was dinner. Two dinners. I tried to kiss her on the second date, but she wasn’t interested.”

  “Did you speak to her again after that?” Ellington asked.

  “I tried texting her a few times, but she never responded.”

  “How did you meet?”

  “It was at one of Neil Rooney’s fundraisers. It was like a dinner event. We talked for a very long time about minority votes. I remember because she was so passionate about it.”