Blake Pierce

Blake Pierce is author of the bestselling RILEY PAGE mystery series, which includes six books (and counting). Blake Pierce is also the author of the MACKENZIE WHITE mystery series, comprising three books (and counting); of the AVERY BLACK mystery series, comprising three books (and counting); and of the new KERI LOCKE mystery series.

An avid reader and lifelong fan of the mystery and thriller genres, Blake loves to hear from you, so please feel free to visit www.blakepierceauthor.comwww.blakepierceauthor.com to learn more and stay in touch.

Copyright © 2016 by Blake Pierce. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior permission of the author. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Jacket image Copyright andrey_l, used under license from Shutterstock.com.

BOOKS BY BLAKE PIERCE

RILEY PAIGE MYSTERY SERIES

ONCE GONE (Book #1)

ONCE TAKEN (Book #2)

ONCE CRAVED (Book #3)

ONCE LURED (Book #4)

ONCE HUNTED (Book #5)

ONCE PINED (Book #6)

MACKENZIE WHITE MYSTERY SERIES

BEFORE HE KILLS (Book #1)

BEFORE HE SEES (Book #2)

BEFORE HE COVETS (Book #3)

AVERY BLACK MYSTERY SERIES

CAUSE TO KILL (Book #1)

CAUSE TO RUN (Book #2)

CAUSE TO HIDE (Book #3)

KERI LOCKE MYSTERY SERIES

A TRACE OF DEATH (Book #1)

PROLOGUE

Pam took a seat on the fallen log at the edge of the campsite and lit up a cigarette, energized after sex. Behind her, Hunter’s tent was set up in a dented dome shape. She could hear him snoring lightly inside. Even here in the woods, it was the same; here she was, awake and energized in the afterglow of their lovemaking, while he was dead asleep. Here in the woods, though, she didn’t mind so much.

She dug a little hole in the ground for the ashes of her cigarette, well aware that smoking in the forest during what had so far been a dry autumn was pretty reckless. She stared up into the sky, looking at the stars. It was a very cool night, as fall had staked its claim on the East Coast and dropped the temperatures significantly, and she hugged her shoulders against it. She wished Hunter’s tent had one of those netted tops where you could look out, but no such luck. Still, there had been something romantic about it – getting away from home, being alone in the forest. It was the closest to living together she’d allow until the idiot finally proposed. Given the night sky, the perfect weather, and their crazy chemistry, it was one of the happier nights she’d had.

She wanted to go back inside, to warm up against him, but first she needed to go to the bathroom. She edged into the woods and took a moment to get her bearings. It was hard to make out where she was headed now that it was dark; the starlight and half-full moon provided some light, but not enough. She studied the layout around her and was pretty sure she just needed to cut hard to the left to find the rest area.

She crept out a few feet further and went in that direction for about thirty seconds. When she turned around she could not see the tent.

“Damn,” she breathed, now starting to panic.

Get a grip, she told herself as she continued to walk. The tent is right back there and —

Her left foot caught on something, and before she was aware of what had happened, she was falling to the ground. She managed to throw her hands out at the last second, keeping her face from striking the ground. The wind went out of her in a solid little gasp and she pushed herself up right away, embarrassed.

She looked back to the log she had tripped over, angry at it in an almost childlike way. In the dark, the shape looked odd and almost abstract. She knew one thing for certain, though. It was not a log.

It had to be the night playing tricks on her eyes. It had to be some weird play of the shadows in the dark.

But as a cold fear crept over her, she knew it for what it was. There was no denying it.

A human leg.

And from what she could tell, that’s all it was. There did not appear to be a body to go along with it. It lay there on the ground, partially hidden by foliage and other woodland debris. The foot was covered in a running shoe and a sock that was soaked in blood.

Pam let out a scream. And as she turned and ran back through the black of night, she never stopped screaming.

CHAPTER ONE

Mackenzie sat in the passenger seat of a bureau-issued sedan with a standard-issue Glock in her hand – a weapon that was becoming as familiar to her as the feeling of her own skin. But today, it felt different. After today, everything would be different.

It took the voice of Bryers to break her from her mini-trance. He was sitting in the driver’s seat, looking at her in a way that Mackenzie thought was similar to the stare of a disappointed father.

“You know…you don’t have to do this,” Bryers said. “No one is going to think any less of you if you sit this out.”

“I think I do have to. I think I owe it to myself.”

Bryers sighed and looked out of the windshield. In front of them, a large parking lot was illuminated in the night by weak streetlights that were positioned along the edges and in the center of the lot. There were three cars out there and Mackenzie could also see the shapes of three men, pacing anxiously.

Mackenzie reached out and opened the passenger side door.

“I’ll be okay,” she said.

“I know,” Bryers said. “Just…please be careful. If anything happens to you tonight and the wrong people find out I was here with you – ”

She didn’t wait. She stepped out of the car and closed the door behind her. She held the Glock down low, walking casually into the parking lot toward the three men standing by the cars. She knew there was no reason to be nervous, but she was all the same. Even when she saw Harry Dougan’s face among them, her nerves were still on edge.

“Did you have to have Bryers bring you?” one of the men asked.

“He’s looking out for me,” she said. “He doesn’t particularly like any of you.”

All three of the men laughed and then looked to the car Mackenzie had just gotten out of. They all waved to Bryers in perfect sync. In response, Bryers gave a fake smile and showed them his middle finger.

“He still doesn’t even like me, huh?” Harry asked.

“Sorry. Nope.”

The other two men looked to Harry and Mackenzie with the same resignation they had gotten used to over the last few weeks. While they weren’t a couple per se, they were now close enough to cause the slightest bit of tension among their peers. The shorter of the men was a guy named Shawn Roberts and the other, a massive man who stood at six-foot-seven, was Trent Cousins.

Cousins nodded to the Glock in Mackenzie’s hand and then unholstered his own from his hip.

“So are we going to do this?”

“Yeah, we probably don’t have much time,” Harry said.

They all looked around the parking lot in a conspiratorial fashion. An air of excitement started to thicken the air among them and as it did, Mackenzie came to a sudden realization: she was actually having fun. For the first time since her early childhood, she was legitimately excited for something.

“On three,” Shawn Roberts said.

They all started swaying and bouncing on their feet as Harry started the countdown.

“One…two…three!”

In a flash, all four of them were off. Mackenzie took off to the left, headed for one of the three cars. Behind her, she already heard the gentle sound of shots being fired from the guns the others carried. These guns, of course, were mock-ups…paintball guns created to look and feel as close to the real thing as possible. This was not the first time Mackenzie had operated in a simulated munitions environment, but it was the first time she’d gone through one without an instructor – or pads of any kind.

To her right, a red smear of paint exploded on the pavement no more than six inches from her foot. She ducked behind the car and quickly slid to the front end of it. She dropped to her hands and knees and saw two different sets of feet separating further ahead of her, one of which was going behind another car.

Mackenzie had been scoping out the lay of the land while they were standing together. She knew that the best spot to be in the parking lot was going to be at the base of the stone pillar that held the streetlight in the center of the lot. Like the rest of Hogan’s Alley, this parking lot was set up as randomly as possible, but with an eye toward educating academy trainees. Given that, Mackenzie knew there was always an optimal location for success in every setting. For this lot, it was that streetlight column. She’d not been able to get to it right away because there had already been two of the guys standing in front of it when Harry had counted down to three. But now she had to figure out how to make a run for it without getting hit.

She’d lose the game if she was shot. And there was five hundred dollars at stake here. She wondered how long ago this little pre-graduation ritual was implemented by trainees and how it had come to be a little hidden legend among the top of every class.

As these thoughts went through her head, she noticed that Harry and Cousins had engaged in a little back-and-forth shootout on the other side of the parking lot. Cousins was behind one of the cars and Harry was pressed against the side of a dumpster.

With a grin, Mackenzie took aim at Cousins. He was well hidden and she could not actually shoot him from where she was, but she could spook him. She aimed at the top corner of the car and fired. A blue spray of paint burst up as her shot landed dead on. She saw Cousins jerk back a bit, distracted from Harry. Harry, meanwhile, took advantage and fired off two shots.

She hoped he was keeping count. The whole point of their little unauthorized late-night exercise was to come out the only one not shot. Each player had the same weapon – a gun that fired paint pellets – and they were each only allowed the standard number of rounds that came with the sort of Glock their paint guns were modeled after. That meant they each had only fifteen rounds. Mackenzie now had fourteen left and she was pretty sure the three men had fired at least three or four each.

With Harry and Cousins occupied, that left only Shawn to contend with. But she had no idea where he was. To be so damn tall, he did a fine job of being stealthy.

She carefully got to her knees and lifted her head out from the side of the car, looking for Shawn. She did not see him, but she heard the little puff-like sound of a gun being fired nearby. She jerked back at the same moment a paint pellet struck the edge of the car’s bumper. Some of the green paint splattered on her hand as she backed away but that did not count as a shot.

To be eliminated, you had to be shot in the arm, leg, back, or torso. The only thing that was off limits was headshots. Even though the pellets were small and made of thin plastic, they had been known to cause concussions. And if one took you in the eye, you could be blinded for life. That was one of the big reasons this little exercise was so frowned upon by the bureau. They knew it happened every year but they typically let the graduates have their little secret fun, turning a blind eye.

The shot gave Mackenzie a good idea of where Shawn was hiding, though. He was hunkered down behind the concrete post. And, just as she had planned for herself, he now had a great shot at just about anyone. He turned away from Mackenzie and fired off a quick shot at Harry. The shot missed, striking the top of the dumpster a few inches above Harry’s head. He dropped to the ground as both Cousins and Shawn started firing at him.

Mackenzie attempted to get a shot off on Shawn and nearly took him in the shoulder. He ducked back down just as she fired, though, and the shot went wild. Meanwhile, she heard Cousins yell out in frustration and pain.

“I’m out,” Cousins said, walking slowly to the edge of the lot. He sat down on a bench, where those who were eliminated were to sit in silence. Mackenzie saw a splotch of yellow paint on his ankle where Harry had landed a shot.

Harry took advantage of this distraction and dashed out from his hiding spot behind the dumpster. He was heading for the third parked car with his usual speed.

As he ran, Shawn rolled out from his hiding spot. He first fired at Mackenzie to keep her in hiding and then swiveled around to catch Harry. He fired another shot at Harry and it struck the ground about two inches away from Harry’s left foot just as he leaped behind the car.

Mackenzie took the moment to move to the rear of the car, thinking she could draw Shawn out. She fired to the left of the concrete pillar, the same place she had aimed at while at the front end of the car. When the paint pellet exploded there, he waited a moment and then swiveled out with his eyes at the front of the car. When he did this, Mackenzie dashed out from the rear of the car and advanced quickly and quietly. When her angle was right, she fired off a shot that took him directly in the hip. Green paint exploded on his pants and shirt. He was so shocked by the attack that he fell back on his rear end.

“I’m out,” Shawn yelled, giving Mackenzie a sour look.

No sooner had he started walking to the edge of the lot to join Cousins than Mackenzie saw a flicker of motion from her left.

Sneaky bastard, she thought.

She dropped to the ground and hunkered down behind the concrete post. The light shone bright above her head, like a spotlight. But she knew that this could work to her advantage when her attacker was in shadows. The light could be too bright, throwing off his aim the slightest little bit.

Just as she pressed her back against the concrete, she heard a paint pellet strike the back of the post. In the silence that followed, she heard Cousins and Shawn chuckling on the bench.

“This should be fun to watch,” Cousins said.

“You say fun,” Shawn said. “I say painful.”

Through their thin laughs, Mackenzie couldn’t help but smile at the situation. She knew Harry would shoot her; they didn’t have the type of relationship where he fawned all over her and would just let her win. They were both in the same boat – graduating tomorrow as new agents.

However, they had spent a lot of time together both in an academic setting and in friendlier situations. Mackenzie knew him well and knew what she needed to do to get him. Almost feeling bad for doing so, Mackenzie leaned out slowly and fired, striking the wheel on the car he was hiding behind.

He came out of hiding right away, popping up over the hood. She faked to the right, as if she were going back behind the post. Predictably, that’s where he fired. Mackenzie reversed her direction and rolled to the left. She leveled out on her stomach, brought her gun up, and fired.

The shot took Harry in the right side of his chest. The yellow paint was almost as bright as the sun in the shadows he was hiding in.

Harry dropped his shoulders and tossed his gun out into the lot. He came out from around the car and shook his head, amazed.

“I’m out.”

Mackenzie got to her feet and tilted her head, frowning at him.

“You mad?” she asked teasingly.

“Not at all. That was a sweet move.”

Behind them, Cousins and Shawn were clapping. Further behind them, Bryers stepped out of his car and joined in. Mackenzie knew he had been worried about her but he’d also been honored to come with her. One part of the tradition to this exercise was that one seasoned agent had to tag along just in case something went wrong. It happened from time to time. The way Mackenzie had heard it, some guy had been hit in the back of the knee back in ’99. He’d had to graduate on crutches.

Bryers joined them as they gathered together at the bench. He then reached into his pocket and withdrew the five hundred dollars that he had been holding for them – cash they had all contributed to the pot. He handed it over to Mackenzie and said:

“Was there really ever any doubt, guys?”

“Good work, Mac,” Cousins said. “I’d rather it was you take me out than one of these jokers.”

“Thanks, I think,” Mackenzie said.

“I hate to sound like an old fart,” Bryers said, “but it’s nearly one in the morning. Get home and get some rest. All of you. Please don’t come to graduation all tired and out of it.”

That bizarre feeling of happiness spread through Mackenzie again. This was her group of friends – a group of friends she had come to know well ever since returning to a somewhat normal life following McGrath’s little experiment with her nine weeks ago.

Tomorrow, they’d all be graduating from the academy, and, if everything shook out the way it was supposed to, they’d all be agents within the following week. While Harry, Cousins, and Shawn had no delusions about starting their careers off on illustrious cases, Mackenzie had more to look forward to…namely, the special group of agents McGrath had mentioned to her in the days following her last unexpected case. She still had no idea what that entailed, but she was excited about it nonetheless.

As their small group broke up and went on their separate ways, Mackenzie felt something else that she had not felt in quite some time. It was the sense that the future was still very much ahead of her, still unfolding and within her reach. And for the first time in a very long time, she felt like she had a great deal of control over the direction in which it was headed.

*

Mackenzie looked at the bruise on Harry’s chest and even though she knew her first emotion should have been compassion, she couldn’t help but laugh. The place where she had hit him was flaming red, the irritation spreading about two inches in all directions. It looked very much like a bee sting and, she knew, hurt much worse.

They were standing in her kitchen and she was wrapping an ice pack in a dishcloth for him. She handed it to him and he held it there comically. It was clear that he was embarrassed but also touched that she had invited him back to make sure he was okay.

“I’m sorry,” she said sincerely. “But you know, maybe I can take you out for coffee on the winnings.”

“That must be some damn good coffee,” Harry said. He drew the ice pack away from his chest and scrunched up his nose when he looked down to the spot.

As Mackenzie watched him, she realized that although he had been to her apartment more than a dozen times and they had kissed on a few occasions, this was the first time he’d ever had his shirt off in her apartment. It was also the first time since Zack that she had seen a man this close to her partially undressed. Maybe it was the adrenaline from winning the contest or because of graduation tomorrow, but she liked it.

She stepped forward and placed her hand on the unharmed side of his chest, over his heart. “Does it still hurt?” she asked, stepping even closer.

“Not right now,” he said, grinning nervously.

She slowly slid her hand over to the mark and touched it gingerly. Then, working only on the female instincts she had long ago shoved down and replaced with obligation and boredom, she leaned in and kissed it. She felt him tense up immediately. Her hand then found his side, pulling him closer to her. She kissed his collarbone, then the base of his shoulder, then his neck. He sighed and drew her even closer.

As was usually the case with them, they were kissing one another before either of them knew what was happening. It had only