BEFORE HE LAPSES

by Blake Pierce

  She was in her car, parked two spaces over. Bridgette knew his situation, knew that he had to remain private and, as such, was always in a hurry during these special times. So she played the part, not even saying hello to him as she left her car and walked to the rear entrance of the apartment building. They gave one another a brief and knowing smile as he opened the door for her.

  A growing excitement started to spread through him as they made their way through the lobby. As they had practiced in the past, they separated so no one that spotted them would assume they were together. Bridgette took the elevator and he took the stairs. As always, she got there before him; when he came to the top of the stairs, she was already waiting by the door. That excitement in him spiked—and with good reason. He had always gotten excited when he came to this apartment. He’d only ever used it for this one purpose…well, not for what he currently had in mind. But to be with women who had few limitations on what they wouldn’t do to achieve some level of power. That, he assumed, would excite any man.

  But there was a different sort of excitement stirring in him now. The same sort of twisted pleasure that had arisen in him when, as a twelve-year-old boy, he would spy on the teenage girl next door, peering through her window at night while she had sex with her boyfriend.

  But this feeling was even more intense, more piercing. The knowledge that Bridgette thought she was going to have a quick romp between classes…the knowledge that he, in fact, intended to kill her.

  But the more he thought about it, maybe she’d meet the same fate as Marie. He’d enjoyed the bondage part more than he’d expected. The sense of power and control that came with watching her come to, realizing she had been fooled and was in mortal danger—that was better than any sexual encounter he’d ever had. And he looked forward to experiencing it again.

  He unlocked the door. Even as he turned the knob and opened it, her hands were on him. She was pushing him at the back, urging him inside. He wondered if this was because she so badly wanted him or if it was because she was in a hurry to get back to campus for her next class.

  He honestly didn’t care. When the door shut behind them, he turned to her and pushed her hard against the wall. Bridgette looked surprised, maybe even slightly hurt, but a smile touched the corners of her mouth.

  “Since when were you ever rough?” she asked.

  She placed her right hand to the side of his face and pulled him close. She kissed him fiercely and he felt no real want in it. No, she was just in a hurry today. He clenched his free hand and, after enduring another five seconds of her kiss, balled that hand into a fist and punched her hard in the chest.

  There was more give than he expected and the breath came whooshing out of her in a nearly comical way. The look of pain and surprise on her face enticed him further and he was helpless but to do it again. When he hit her this time, she started to crumple to the floor but he stopped her by grabbing her neck. He throttled her against the wall, shaking her and realizing that he was so hard now it was nearly painful.

  Maybe it would be more than tying her up this time. Maybe, like Jo, he’d have her before he got on to the other things.

  He literally had to bite back a laugh. So many decisions, all of which he was more than happy to make. He had nowhere to be for several hours and he was going to make very good use of each second he had with her.

  As he applied more pressure to her neck and her eyes started to roll back in her head, there was a small flutter of thought somewhere in the back of his head, like a bat coming out of a cave and then turning around instantly to go back inside. That flutter was a distant voice of reason, some long-ago part of him that asked if he was sure this was what he wanted to do…if he was sure this was what he wanted to become.

  He’d thought of this at least a dozen times since he strangled Jo Haley…since the idea had come to him the day before he’d killed her. The fact of the matter was that no, he wasn’t quite sure.

  But if the thrumming energy in his heart and the wild excitement in every muscle in his body was any indication as he started to drag Brigette’s body across the apartment, he thought it was far too late to change.

  CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

  “Mac…you can’t just take things from the apartment of a murder victim. I really wish I didn’t have to tell you that.”

  Ellington had taken her news of visiting Christine Lynch’s apartment as well as she had expected. He looked upset but also a little excited as he drove them back toward DC.

  “I know,” she said.

  “Are you sure? Because given that you weren’t even supposed to be there, I doubt we could use it as evidence.”

  She could sense his disappointment with her and for that, she truly felt as if she had failed him. On the other hand, Ellington knew that she was not the type who could just move aside and let others do all of the work.

  Besides, he was also juggling some new information he had discovered during his morning investigations. Chief among them was the fact that Bruce Dumfries was currently in Washington, DC, meeting with several different non-profit organizations, as well as a few heads of a legislative committee, in preparation for a conference the following day.

  Because of this bit of news, Ellington had seemed to not care too much about the pin. The entire confrontation did not escalate into what Mackenzie would have called a fight, but it did create a heavy tension between them. Things were so tense when they returned to their apartment that it was almost a relief when Ellington left to report to McGrath. She knew that there would eventually be hell to pay for keeping the pregnancy from McGrath but for now, he seemed to be at least somewhat understanding. She felt a pang of sorrow for Ellington, aware that he was going to have to lie on her behalf about what she had been doing ever since being discharged from the hospital…and that was certainly not how she wanted to start out their marriage.

  She fixed herself a small late lunch and sat at the bar, staring at the golden pin she had taken from Christine’s apartment. She tried to imagine the excitement of a political fan being invited backstage at a fundraising event. She wondered how many others there had been—how many other women had this same pin.

  I wonder if there was a guest list or a list of those invited, she thought. If we can find that, we might be able to see if there are more targets. We might be able to find out who the killer is going for next.

  Of course, to get that kind of information, she’d have to be assigned to the case. She wondered if Ellington would be willing to reach out to Yardley and Harrison about such a thing.

  In the meantime, she could do some digging herself. She knew that if she could find something compelling enough, Ellington would always go to bat for her. So once again, she got behind a laptop—this time using Ellington’s old model since hers was currently broken from the scuffle in her hotel room. She was starting to feel like one of those research geeks that used the internet to drum up conspiracies or dirt on famous people—notably celebrities.

  She started by looking into Neil Rooney, mainly because his name was so closely linked to everyone they had looked at so far. He was the clearest and most obvious link between the victims. But try as she might, she could not find a single negative thing said about him other than a few snarky Reddit threads. She noted, too, that in a few of those threads, many people were quick to point out that Rooney’s campaign manager apparently paid off a woman to shut up about him having raped her and a friend.

  She tried to apply her profile to the squeaky clean Rooney. She watched a few YouTube clips of him, including one where he visited a destitute family in Mexico. Even when the man laid into his opponents or those on the far right or left sides of the aisle, he did it with class and dignity. He never slung mud, he never threw people under the bus.

  Mackenzie hated to rule people out in such things but she found it very hard to believe that the man she was reading about and watching on YouTube was capable of killing someone…much less strangling them.

  She then turned he
r attention to where she really didn’t want it to go. She’d heard horror stories of agents with both the FBI and the CIA who had lost their jobs because they had gone looking in the wrong places when it came to US politics. And while someone like Bruce Dumfries wielded no real power of his own, she knew there would be powerful people he was connected through thanks to the all-powerful thread of money.

  She felt the weight of her decision the moment she typed the name Bruce Dumfries into the Google search bar. She was about to jump down a rabbit hole she had no business diving into. Even if she were actively on the case, she’d have some hesitation about looking into a lobbyist. Lobbyists tended to have links and connections that were buried deep, far beyond the public eye, no matter how good their intentions may be.

  As she started to look into Dumfries, Mackenzie began to realize that all she truly knew about the man that he was a lobbyist. And that was about it.

  She soon discovered Dumfries had a criminal history that came up quite quickly on her web search. He’d been arrested for drug possession in the ’80s and for a disturbing the peace complaint in the early ’90s during a protest outside of the Pentagon where he had been involved in a melee that ended up breaking a woman’s nose. When he was called out for hitting a woman, he was literally degraded by the media and massively ridiculed. However, when a video of the event made the news, it was revealed that it was not Dumfries who had punched the woman. Rather than boast that he had been right all along, he let it slide and faded into obscurity. After that, he was known for making generous donations to Planned Parenthood and several different environmental programs.

  And that’s where the trail on Bruce Dumfries seemed to die down. She did find easy connections to him and the Rooney campaign, though his name was never explicitly linked to Daniel Humphrey’s.

  She did find one mention of Dumfries in direct correlation with Eric Connor, though. Several years ago, one of Connor’s bodyguards quit unexpectedly. In the single interview she could find with the bodyguard, he stated that the relationship he had with Connor was just fine—it was the some of the people he had associated with.

  Namely, Bruce Dumfries.

  ***

  When Ellington arrived home, Mackenzie wasted no time. She felt that if she didn’t tell him right away, the anticipation and worry of it would make her sick to her stomach—not something she wanted to experience while also growing a human being in there.

  To his credit, Ellington handled it well. He did not interrupt her as she told him how she had spent her afternoon. He listened to her for a full six minutes as she filled him in and showed him some of the online content she had found. She had the article about the bodyguard pulled up, ready for him to read if he chose to do so.

  “He’s not specific at all,” she said. “He just says there were people that Connor was associating with that he did not agree with. He said sometimes it made for a tense and stressful work environment—added pressure you didn’t really look for when it came to being a bodyguard for a politician.”

  When she was finally done explaining her train of thought, he was sitting on the couch, leaning back and looking at her as if he was trying to see through her.

  “Mac,” he said. “It all sounds really promising. But if Dumfries was indeed linked to Eric Connor so directly…you don’t go after someone like that unless you are absolutely positive.”

  “You don’t think I know that?” she asked. “I’ve been debating on it for the last hour and a half. But if I didn’t at least pursue it and this killer is never found, I’d always wonder. It would haunt me.”

  “Besides…we’ve been digging up stuff on him all day,” Ellington said. “We found exactly the same things you did. The good news is that we know he’s in DC.”

  “You said he’s going to be at that conference tomorrow, right? I think Rooney is scheduled to speak, too.”

  “That’s right. So if we do indeed need to get to Dumfries, he’s right here in our own backyard.”

  “Did you find the name of the bodyguard? The article never mentions it.”

  “We did,” he said, the tone in his voice indicating that he did not like where this was headed.

  “We just need to speak with him,” Mackenzie said. “Even if he can’t provide enough evidence to go after Bruce Dumfries, he’s sure to know something about the darker dealings within that group.”

  “And why do you think there are dark dealings at all?”

  “All of the victims were behind the scenes of the campaign with these men. Politicians. I hate to paint them all with a wide brush but…three dead women, all connected to powerful men. Even if Humphrey or Dumfries turns out to be innocent, maybe this bodyguard knows about enemies they would have had. Maybe he knows deeper details about enemies Rooney or Eric Connor have made along the way. There’s a whole pool of potential suspects in what he might be able to tell us.”

  He nodded and she could tell that he was doing his best to think like she did. He was trying to think of her not as his wife and the soon-to-be mother of his child. He was seeing her as the gifted special agent now, reminding himself how instinctual she could be.

  “I’ve thought the same thing,” he said. “It might seem like a long shot, but it’s certainly worth looking into. If we don’t have a suspect soon, and if Dumfries does indeed check out, we’d probably have to go to the bodyguard anyway.”

  “Does he live in DC?” she asked.

  “No. Richmond. Intel suggests that once he quit his job, he moved to Richmond, Virginia, to take care of his ailing mother.”

  “We can go first thing in the morning, right?”

  “We?”

  She hated to come off like a bitch, but she could not just sit by on this. After all, they were just paying the man a visit. There was no danger involved.

  “Yes. We.”

  “McGrath would kill both of us.”

  “Then we don’t tell him. I’m…God. This sounds so terrible. But I’m not going to be active anymore after this. Just let me tag along and be there when you question him. You take the lead. I’ll just be there.”

  “My arm candy,” he said with a smile. “I guess if we’re married, I need to get used to that.”

  She walked over to him and kissed him softly and playfully on the lips. “Thank you.”

  “Don’t thank me yet. You have to know…even if we find anything of value, we’re talking about going after a lobbyist that is tightly linked to a senator. Even if Eric Connor has no idea about the vile shit this guy might be doing…it affects him, too.”

  “I know.”

  As she said that, another thing suddenly dawned on her. The men who had accosted her in the hotel room…to have been sent by someone as small-time as Daniel Humphrey just didn’t make sense. It made her wonder if a man like Dumfries—a man who was used to tossing money at things he believed in or wanted to see pushed through—he would probably do the same to eliminate something that was standing in his way.

  “I think we do need to talk about this,” Ellington said.

  “About what?”

  He took a moment to answer, choosing his words carefully. “Your inability to just let things go. I saw it first with the case concerning your father. And I love that about you—the drive and the determination. But you don’t always have to be the one saving people, you know? You don’t always have to shoulder that burden. Sometimes it’s perfectly okay to allow others to help.”

  The comment stung a bit, but she knew he was right. And honestly, she thought she might have been able to completely release this current case if it hadn’t been for the two men who had attacked her; they had not only put her own life in jeopardy, but her child’s as well.

  For her, that was more than enough reason to stay attached to the case in any way possible.

  No matter the cost.

  CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

  They were on the road the following morning, headed out of DC toward Richmond at seven o’clock to meet with a man named Earl Jack
son, former bodyguard of Eric Connor. Mackenzie could tell that Ellington was on edge, probably feeling both guilty and scared for his job due to her accompanying him.

  “I could have stayed at home,” she said when they were about halfway through the trip.

  “You and I both know that’s a lie. Even if I had have managed to leave without you, I would have not heard the end of it for a very long time. Or you would have given me the silent treatment.”

  “I don’t do the silent treatment.”

  “Whatever the case…we both know there was no way in hell you would have let me speak to Jackson without you coming along.”

  “You’re right,” she said. “I was just trying to be a sweet and accommodating wife.”

  “For the record, I would have preferred you stay at home.”

  “Noted.”

  “I’m serious. We’re not just talking about your safety anymore. This isn’t even about the baby. This is your job. I remember that detective I met a few years back in Nebraska. I remember how trapped she felt. I saw then that you were meant for better things. And you worked your ass off to get those things. I don’t want to see you lose it all just because you can’t let things go.”

  Again, she felt as if he was attacking her. But she also knew he was only saying these things because he genuinely cared for her and wanted the best for her. It was this that allowed her to push the slight hurt to the side and reach out for his hand.

  She looked through the windshield and enjoyed the silence that fell in around them. She was coming to understand that when two people were in love and relying on one another for just about everything, even uncomfortable silences delivered quite a bit of peace.

  ***

  Earl Jackson actually lived a bit outside of Richmond, beyond the Short Pump area. They pulled into his driveway just shy of nine a.m., right behind a large black Ford pickup truck. He had a nice home, a two-story brick house along a cul de sac in a wealthy neighborhood. The neighborhood was quiet as they walked to the door and knocked, the only commotion coming from an elderly man walking his dog just a bit up the sidewalk.