Before he Kills. Blake Pierce

years. When Mackenzie checked her phone, she saw that Nancy, as usual, had acted quickly.

      The mail Nancy had sent back read: Not much, I’m afraid. I’ve attached the briefs on the few cases I did find, though. Good luck!

      There were only five attachments and Mackenzie was able to look through them pretty quickly. Three of them clearly had nothing to do with the Lizbrook murder or the case from ’87. But the other two were interesting enough to at least consider.

      One of them was a case from 1994 where a woman had been found dead behind an abandoned barn in a rural area about eighty miles outside of Omaha. She had been tied to a wooden pole and it was believed that her body had been there for at least six days before being discovered. Her body had gone stiff and a few woodland animals – believed to be bobcats – had started eating at her legs. The woman had a lengthy criminal record, including two arrests for soliciting sex. Again, there had been no clear signs of sexual abuse and while there had been lashes on her back, they had not been nearly as extensive as what they had found on Hailey Lizbrook. The briefing on the murder said nothing about numbers being found on the pole, though.

      The second maybe-related file concerned a nineteen-year-old girl that had been reported as kidnapped when she did not return home for Christmas break from her freshman year at the University of Nebraska in 2009. When her body was discovered in an empty field three months later, partially buried, there had been lashes on her back. Images were later leaked to the press, showing the young girl nude and engaged in some sort of lurid sex party at a fraternity house. The pictures had been taken one week before she had been reported missing.

      The last case was a bit of a stretch, but Mackenzie thought they could both potentially be linked to the ’87 murder and Hailey Lizbrook.

      “What you got there?” Porter asked.

      “Nancy sent me briefs from some other cases that might be linked.”

      “Anything good?”

      She hesitated but then filled him in on the two potential links. When she was done, Porter nodded his head as he stared out into the night. They passed a sign telling them that Omaha was twenty-two miles ahead.

      “I think you try too hard sometimes,” Porter said. “You bust your ass and a lot of people have taken notice. But let’s be honest: no matter how hard you try, not every case has some huge link that is going to create some monster case for you.”

      “So humor me,” Mackenzie said. “At this very moment, what does your gut tell you about this case? What are we dealing with?”

      “It’s just some basic perp with mommy issues,” Porter said dismissively. “We talk to enough people, we find him. All this analysis is a waste of time. You don’t find people by getting into their head. You find them by asking questions. Street work. Door to door. Witness to witness.”

      As they fell into silence, Mackenzie started to worry about just how simplistic his view of the world was, how black and white. It left no room for nuance, for anything outside of his predetermined beliefs. She thought the psycho they were dealing with was far too sophisticated for that.

      “What’s your take on our killer?” he finally asked.

      She could detect resentment in his voice, as if he really hadn’t wanted to ask her but the silence had got the best of him.

      “I think he hates women for what they represent,” she said softly, working it out in her mind as she spoke. “Maybe he’s a fifty-year-old virgin who thinks sex is gross – and yet there’s also that need in him for sex. Killing women makes him feel like he’s conquering his own instincts, instincts he sees as gross and inhuman. If he can eliminate the source of where those sexual urges come from, he feels in control. The lashes on the back indicate that he’s almost punishing them, probably for their provocative nature. Then there’s the fact that there are no signs of sexual abuse. It makes me wonder if this is some sort of attempt at purity in the killer’s eyes.”

      Porter shook his head, almost like some disappointed parent.

      “That’s what I’m talking about,” he said. “A waste of time. You’ve got yourself so far into this you don’t even know what you think anymore – and none of that is gonna help us. You can’t see the forest for the trees.”

      The awkward silence blanketed them again. Apparently done speaking, Porter turned the radio up.

      It lasted only a few minutes, though. As they neared Omaha, Porter turned the radio back down without being prompted this time. Porter spoke up and when he did, he sounded nervous, but Mackenzie could also hear the effort he was putting forth to sound like he was the one in charge.

      “You ever interviewed kids after they lost a parent?” Porter asked.

      “Once,” she said. “After a drive-by. An eleven-year-old boy.”

      “I’ve had a few, too. It’s not fun.”

      “No, it’s not,” Mackenzie agreed.

      “Well look, we’re about to ask two boys questions about their dead mom. The topic of where she works is bound to come up. We have to handle this thing with kid gloves – no pun intended.”

      She fumed. He was doing that thing where he spoke down to her as if she were a child.

      “Let me lead. You can be the comforting shoulder if they start crying. Nelson says the sister will also be there, but I can’t imagine she’d be any reliable source of comfort. She’s probably just as wrecked as the kids.”

      Mackenzie actually didn’t think it was the best idea. But she also knew that when Porter and Nelson were involved, she needed to choose her battles wisely. So if Porter wanted to take charge of asking two grieving kids about their dead mom, she’d let him have that weird ego trip.

      “As you want,” she said through clenched teeth.

      The car fell into silence again. This time, Porter kept the radio turned down, the only sounds coming from the shifting of pages in Mackenzie’s lap. There was a larger story in those pages and the documents Nancy had sent; Mackenzie was sure of it.

      Of course, for the story to be told, all of the characters needed to be revealed. And for now, the central character was still hiding in the shadows.

      The car slowed and Mackenzie raised her head as they turned down a quiet block. She felt a familiar pit in her stomach, and she wished she were anywhere but here.

      They were about to talk to a dead woman’s kids.

      CHAPTER FIVE

      Mackenzie was surprised as she entered Hailey Lizbrook’s apartment; it was not what she had expected. It was neat and tidy, the furniture nicely centered and dusted. The décor was very much that of a domesticated woman, right down to the coffee mugs with cute sayings and the pot holders hanging from ornate hooks by the stove. It was evident that she had run a tight ship, right down to the haircuts and pajamas on her sons.

      It was very much like the family and home she always dreamed of having herself.

      Mackenzie recalled from the files that the boys were nine and fifteen; the oldest was Kevin and the youngest was Dalton. It was clear as she met him that Dalton had been crying a lot, his blue eyes rimmed with puffy red splotches.

      Kevin, on the other hand, looked angry more than anything else. As they settled in and Porter took the lead, it showed perfectly clear when Porter tried speaking to them in a tone that was somewhere between condescending and a preschool teacher trying too hard. Mackenzie winced inside as Porter spoke.

      “Now I need to know if your mother had any men friends,” Porter said.

      He stood in the center of the room while the boys sat on the living room couch. Hailey’s sister, Jennifer, was standing in the adjoining kitchen, smoking a cigarette by the stove with the exhaust fan running.

      “You mean like a boyfriend?” Dalton asked.

      “Sure, that could be a male friend,” Porter said. “But I don’t even mean like that. Any man that she might have spoken to more