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)

ONCE FORSAKEN (Book #7)

ONCE COLD (Book #8)

ONCE STALKED (Book #9)

MACKENZIE WHITE MYSTERY SERIES

BEFORE HE KILLS (Book #1)

BEFORE HE SEES (Book #2)

BEFORE HE COVETS (Book #3)

BEFORE HE TAKES (Book #4)

BEFORE HE NEEDS (Book #5)

BEFORE HE FEELS (Book #6)

AVERY BLACK MYSTERY SERIES

CAUSE TO KILL (Book #1)

CAUSE TO RUN (Book #2)

CAUSE TO HIDE (Book #3)

CAUSE TO FEAR (Book #4)

KERI LOCKE MYSTERY SERIES

A TRACE OF DEATH (Book #1)

A TRACE OF MUDER (Book #2)

A TRACE OF VICE (Book #3)

PROLOGUE

Joey Nestler knew that he’d make a good cop one day. His father had been a cop and so had his grandfather. Joey’s grandfather had actually taken a bullet in the chest in 1968, sending him to early retirement. Being a cop was in Joey’s blood and even though he was only twenty-eight years old and was being given crap assignments, he knew that one day he would rise to the top.

Today was not that day, though. They’d assigned him another stupid bait-and-chase task – grunt work. Joey knew he had at least another six months of these bullshit assignments. That was fine with him. Coasting through Miami in a cop car during late spring was a pretty sweet deal. The ladies were eager to try on their skimpy shorts and bathing suits as the weather got nicer, and such things were easier to pay attention to and enjoy when he was tasked with menial duties.

He’d get right back to scanning the streets for such beauties when he was done with his most recent chore. He parked in front of the ritzy townhouses, each new set of homes bordered by a pretentiously well-maintained set of palm trees. He got out of the patrol car in no great hurry, pretty sure he was about to walk into a simple domestic dispute case. Even so, he had to admit that the details of the assignment piqued his curiosity.

A woman had called the precinct earlier that morning, claiming that her sister was not answering phone calls or emails. Usually that would not draw much interest at all, but when they ran the address of the sister, it was directly beside a townhouse that had called with a noise complaint the night before. Apparently a dog had been barking furiously all night. Phone calls and knocks on the door to get the owners to shut up went unanswered. And when the police called the woman back to inquire about her sister, it was confirmed that her sister did indeed have a dog.

And now here I am, Joey thought as he walked up the stairs to the front door.

He’d already stopped by the landlord’s office to retrieve a key, and that in and of itself made the task a little more interesting than his typical busy-body assignments. Still, he felt underused and a little silly as he knocked on the door. Given everything he knew about the case, he didn’t even expect an answer.

He knocked again and again, his hair sweating beneath his cap in the sun.

After two minutes, still no answer. He was not surprised.

Joey took out the key and unlocked the door. He cracked it open a bit and shouted inside.

“Hello? This is Officer Nestler with the Miami PD. I’m entering the house and – ”

The barking of a small dog interrupted him as it came rushing toward him. It was a Jack Russell terrier and while it tried its best to intimidate the strange man at the door, it also looked a little scared. Its back legs were trembling.

“Hey, buddy,” Joey said as he stepped inside. “Where’s your mommy and daddy?”

The little dog whined. Joey stepped further into the house. He had made two steps into the small foyer, heading for the living room, when he smelled the awful stench. He looked down to the dog and frowned.

“No one has let you out in a while, have they?”

The dog hung its head, as if it had perfectly understood the question and was ashamed of what it had done.

Joey walked into the living room, still calling out.

“Hello? I’m looking for Mr. or Mrs. Kurtz. Again, this is Officer Nestler of the Miami PD.”

But he got no answer, and he was sure he wouldn’t get one. He made his way through the living room, finding it spotless. He then entered the adjoining kitchen and placed his hand to his face to cover his mouth and nose. The kitchen was where the dog had decided to use the bathroom; puddles of urine were all over the floor and two piles of feces were in front of the fridge.

Empty food and water dishes were on the other side of the kitchen. Feeling bad for the dog, Nestler filled the water bowl with water from the kitchen sink. The dog started to lap at it greedily as Nestler left the kitchen. He then went to the flight of stairs just off of the living room and headed up.

As he came to the hallway at the top, Joey Nestler felt what his father had called a cop’s gut instinct for the first time in his career. He knew right away that something was wrong up here. He knew that he was going to find something bad, something that he had not been expecting.

He drew his gun, feeling a little foolish as he made his way down the hallway. He passed a bathroom (where he found another puddle of the dog’s urine) and a small office space. The office was a bit of a mess but there were no signs of distress or red flags.

At the end of the hall, a third and final door stood open, revealing the master bedroom.

Nestler stopped in the doorway, his blood running cold.

He stared for a full five seconds before stepping inside.

A man and a woman – presumably Mr. and Mrs. Kurtz – lay dead on the bed. He knew they were not sleeping due to the amount of blood on the sheets, walls, and carpet.

Joey took two steps inside but stopped. This was not for him. He needed to call this in before he went any further. Besides, he could see all he needed to from where he stood. Mr. Kurtz had been stabbed in the chest. Mrs. Kurtz had had her throat slit from ear to ear.

Joey had never seen so much blood in his life. It was almost dizzying to look at.

He backed out of the bedroom, not thinking of his father or grandfather, not thinking of the great cop he one day wanted to be.

He stormed outside, got to the bottom of the stairs, and fought against a heavy wave of nausea. As he fumbled for the shoulder mic on his uniform, he saw the Jack Russell come rushing out of the townhouse but didn’t care.

He and the little dog stood in front of the house as Nestler called the scene in, the dog yapping at the sky as if somehow that could change the horrors that lay inside.

CHAPTER ONE

Mackenzie White sat at her cubicle and habitually ran her index finger along the edges of a business card. It was a business card that she had been fixated on for several months now, a card that was somehow linked to her past. Or, more specifically, to the murder of her father.

She came back to it whenever she closed a case, wondering when she would allow herself to take some time off from her actual job as an agent so she could return to Nebraska and view the scene of her father’s death with reinvigorated eyes that were not regulated by an FBI mentality.

Work was burning her out lately and with each case she cracked, the lure of the mystery surrounding her father grew stronger. It was getting so strong that she was feeling less of a sense of accomplishment when she closed a case. The most recent had been bringing in two men that had been masterminding a plot to get cocaine into a Baltimore high school. The job had lasted three days and had gone so smoothly that it hadn’t seemed like work at all.

She’d had more than her fair share of notable cases since coming to Quantico and being pushed through the ranks in a whirlwind of action, back-room dealings, and close calls. She’d lost a partner, managed to piss off just about every supervisor she’d ever had, and made a name for herself.

The one thing she didn’t have was a friend. There was Ellington, sure, but there was some sort of tainted chemistry between them that made forming a friendship difficult. And she’d officially given up on him, anyway. He’d rejected her twice now – for different reasons each time – and she was not going to be made a fool of again. She was fine with their working relationship being the only thread holding them together.

Over the last few weeks, she had also gotten to know her knew partner – a clumsy but eager rookie by the name of Lee Harrison. He was being handed an assortment of paperwork, busy duty, and research, but he was doing a splendid job. She knew that Director McGrath was just seeing how he’d handle being inundated with so much busywork. And so far, Harrison was winning everyone over.

She thought faintly of Harrison as she looked at the business card. She had asked him on a few occasions to research any businesses called Barker Antiques. And while he had come up with more results than anyone else in the last few months, all leads had still come to a dead end.

As she thought about this, she heard soft footsteps approaching her cubicle. Mackenzie slid the business card under a pile of papers beside her laptop and then pretended like she was checking her email.

“Hey, White,” a familiar male voice said.

The guy is so good that he can practically hear me thinking about him, she thought. She swiveled around in her chair and looked at Lee Harrison peering into her cubicle.

“None of this White, stuff,” she said. “It’s Mackenzie. Mac, if you’re feeling really brave.”

He smiled awkwardly. It was clear that Harrison had not yet figured out how to speak to her or, for that matter, how to really even act around her. And that was fine with her. Sometimes she wondered if McGrath had assigned him as her sometimes-partner just to get him accustomed to never being sure where he stood with his coworkers. If so, she thought, it was a genius move.

“Okay then…Mackenzie,” he said. “I just wanted you to know that they’ve just finished processing the dealers from this morning. They want to know if you need any more information from them.”

“Nope. I’m good,” she said.

Harrison nodded but before he left, he gave her a frown that she was starting to think was a trademark of his. “Can I ask you something?” he asked.

“Of course.”

“Are you…well, are you feeling all right? You look really tired. Maybe a little flushed.”

She could have easily ribbed him about such a comment and made him very awkward but she decided not to. He was a good agent and she didn’t want to be the sort of agent (really not much more than a rookie herself) that hassled the new guy. So instead, she said: “Yeah, I’m good. Just not sleeping much lately.”

Harrison nodded. “I get that,” he said. “Well…good luck with resting.” He then gave that trademark frown of his and took off, probably on to tackle whatever busybody work McGrath had lined up for him next.

Distracted from the business card and the countless unsolved mysteries it presented, Mackenzie allowed herself to leave it behind. She caught up on her emails and filed away some of the papers that had started collecting on her desk. She did not get many chances to experience these less-than-glamorous moments, and for that, she was thankful.

When her phone rang in the midst of it all, she grabbed for it anxiously. Anything to get away from this desk.

“This is Mackenzie White,” she answered.

“White, it’s McGrath.”

She allowed the briefest of smiles to cross her face. While McGrath was far from her favorite person, she knew that whenever he called her up or even came by her cubicle, it was usually with an assignment of some sort.

It appeared that this was why he was calling. Mackenzie didn’t even have time to say hello before he was speaking again, in his usual rapid-fire way of communicating.

“I need you in my office right away,” he said. “And bring Harrison with you.”

Again, Mackenzie was not given a chance to respond. The line was dead before a single word could bounce from her tongue.

But that was fine with her. Apparently, McGrath had a new case for her. Maybe it would sharpen her mind and give her that one last moment of clarity before she possibly stepped aside for a while to concentrate on matters with her father’s old case.

With a bubbling sort of excitement pushing her, she got up and went off in search of Lee Harrison.

***

Watching the way Harrison behaved in McGrath’s office was a great way for Mackenzie to ground herself. She watched him sitting rigidly at the edge of his seat as McGrath started speaking to them. The younger agent was clearly nervous and eager to please. Mackenzie knew that he was a perfectionist and that he had something very close to a photographic memory. She wondered what his memory was like – if he was perhaps soaking up each word that came out of McGrath’s mouth like a sponge.

He reminds me a little bit of me, she thought as she also focused on McGrath.

“Here’s what I’ve got for the two of you,” McGrath said. “Yesterday morning, the Miami State Police called us up and filled us in on a series of murders down there. In both cases, the murders were of married couples. So that’s four bodies. The murders have been fairly brutal and bloody and so far, there seems to be no obvious connection. The brutal style of the killings, as well as the fact that they were married couples, killed in bed, is making the state PD down there think it’s a serial killer. I personally think it’s too early to make such a claim.”

“You think it could just be coincidence?” Mackenzie asked.

“I think it’s a chance, yes,” he said. “Anyway, they’ve asked for our help and I want to send both of you down. Harrison, this would be a great opportunity for you to get into the field and get your feet wet. White, I expect you to oversee him, but not boss him around. Got it?”

“Yes, sir,” Mackenzie said.

“I’ll have the details and flight arrangements sent your way within the hour. I don’t see this taking any more than a day or two. Any questions?”

Mackenzie shook her head. Harrison gave a brisk “No sir,” and Mackenzie could tell that he was doing his very best to rein in his excitement.

She couldn’t blame him. She felt it, too.

Despite what McGrath thought, she already sensed this case would be far from routine.

Couples.

This was a first for her.

And she could not help but feel that this “routine” little case was going to get far worse.