Free Before he Kills (A Mackenzie White Mystery—Book 1) by Blake Pierce Page B

need to
finish my drink.”
    Mackenzie was about to argue her point
when Porter’s phone rang. He answered it, pressing his free hand to his other
ear to block out the godawful noise of the current Skrillex song blaring from
the PA. He spoke briefly, nodding in a few places before hanging up. He then
downed the remainder of his drink and handed the car keys to Mackenzie.
    “What is it?” she asked.
    “It seems I am done,” he said.
Then his face became set. “There’s been another murder.”

CHAPTER TEN
     
    They drove a little over two and a half
hours from the strip club after receiving the call, night falling slowly the
entire way, increasing Mackenzie’s depressed mood, and when they arrived at the
scene, night had fallen. They finally turned off the main highway onto a strip
of unpaved blacktop, and then onto a dirt road that led to a large open field.
As they neared their destination, she started to feel an impending sense of
doom.
    Her headlights glowed just ahead of her
as she carefully drove down a bumpy dirt track, and slowly, she started to see
the numerous police cars already on the scene. A few of them were pointed to the
center of the field, their headlights revealing a grisly, yet familiar sight.
    As much as she tried not to, she
flinched at the sight.
    “My God,” Porter said.
    Mackenzie parked, but never took her
eyes from the scene as she stepped out of the car and walked slowly forward.
The grass in the field was high, coming to her knees in places, and she could
see the slightly worn trail that the officers had been using. There were too
many officers here; she already worried that the scene was contaminated.
    She looked up and took a sharp breath.
It was another woman, stripped to her underwear, bound to a pole that looked to
be roughly eight feet tall. This time, seeing the woman strung up in such a
way, Mackenzie was unable to repress a memory of her sister. Steph had been a
stripper, too. Mackenzie wasn’t exactly sure what Steph was up to these days,
but it was too easy to imagine her ending up like this.
    As Mackenzie approached the victim, she
glanced around the crime scene and counted seven officers in all. Two officers
were off to the side, speaking with two teenagers. Up ahead, standing a few
feet away from the pole and the victim, Nelson was speaking with someone on his
phone. When he saw them, he waved them over and quickly ended his call.
    “Anything of substance from the strip
club?” Nelson asked.
    “No sir,” Mackenzie said. “I’m convinced
Avery is clean. He’s offered the names and numbers of all of his employees if
we need them, but I don’t think we’ll need his help.”
    “We need someone’s help,” Nelson
said, looking to the pole and looking as if he might get sick.
    Mackenzie approached the body and saw
right away that this one was in worse shape than the body of Hailey Lizbrook.
For starters, there was a large lump and bruise on the left side of the woman’s
face. There was also dried blood in and around her ear. The lashes on her back
looked to have been made with the same weapon, only this time they had been
applied with more force and in greater succession.
    “Who discovered the body?” Porter asked.
    “Those two kids over there,” Nelson
said, pointing toward where one of the officers was still speaking to the two
teens. “They admitted they came out here to make out and smoke some weed. They
say they’ve done it for a month or so. But tonight, they found this.”
    “Same body type as Hailey Lizbrook,” Mackenzie
said, thinking out loud. “I think we can probably assume the same profession,
or similar, too.”
    “I need answers on this, you two,”
Nelson said. “And I need them now .”
    “We’re trying,” Porter said. “White is
on fire with this thing and—”
    “I need results,” Nelson said, close to
fury. “White, I’ll even take some of your out-of-the-box thinking on this one.”
    “Can I borrow a flashlight?” she