Before He Feels

***

Stateton’s only motel was a surprisingly well-kept little square of a building called the Staunton County Inn. It held only twelve rooms, nine of which were vacant when Mackenzie walked into the lobby and requested a room for the night. Now that McGrath knew about their relationship, she and Ellington no longer worried about renting two rooms just to hold up appearances. They booked a single room with one bed and, after a stressful day of driving in the heat, made good use of it the moment the door closed behind them.

Afterward, as Mackenzie showered, she couldn’t help but appreciate the warm feeling of being wanted. It was more than that, though; the fact that they had started peeling off clothes the moment they were alone and had access to a bed made her feel like she was about ten years younger. It was a good feeling, but one she tried very hard to keep in check. Yes, she was enjoying things with Ellington, and whatever was occurring between them was one of the most exciting and promising things to happen to her in recent years, but she also knew that if she wasn’t careful she could let it interfere with her work.

She sensed that he knew this, too. He was risking the same things as she was: reputation, mockery, and heartbreak. Although lately, she wasn’t sure if he was too worried about heartbreak. As she got to know him better, she was pretty sure Ellington was not the type of guy who slept around or treated women poorly, but she also knew that he had just come out of a failed marriage and was being very cautious about their relationship – if that’s what they were choosing to call it.

She was getting the sense that Ellington would not be too shaken up if things ended between them. As for her…well, she wasn’t sure how she might take it.

As she stepped out of the shower and dried off, Ellington was there, in the bathroom. It looked like he had planned to join her in the shower but had just missed his chance. He was giving her a look that held a bit of his usual slyness but also something concrete and stoic – something she had come to think of as his “work expression.”

“Yes?” she asked playfully.

“Tomorrow…I don’t want to do it, but maybe we should split up. One of us head up to Treston while the other stays here and works with the local PD and the coroner.”

She smiled, realizing just how in sync they could become from time to time. “I was thinking the same thing.”

“You have a preference?” he asked.

“Not really. I’ll take Lynchburg and Treston. I don’t mind driving.”

She thought he was going to argue, wanting to take the time on the road instead. She knew he didn’t particularly like driving, but he also didn’t like the idea of her being out on the road all by herself.

“Sounds good,” he said. “If we can wrap the day up with new information from the home in Treston with whatever information we get from the coroner down here, we could maybe get this thing tied up quickly like everyone is expecting.”

“Sounds great,” she said. She planted a kiss on his mouth as she passed by.

A thought passed through her mind as she headed back out into the room, one that made her feel almost lovesick but could not be denied.

What if he doesn’t feel the same way about me as I feel about him?

He’d felt slightly distant over the last week or so, and while he had done his best to hide it from her, she’d seen it here and there.

Maybe he realizes just how much this could affect our work.

It was a good reason – a reason she often thought about herself. But she couldn’t worry about that right now. With a coroner’s report being delivered any moment now, this case had the potential to get rolling pretty quickly. And she knew that if her mind were on matters of Ellington and what they meant to one another, it might roll on by completely.

CHAPTER SIX

When they split up the following morning, Mackenzie was surprised to notice that Ellington seemed particularly somber about it. He hugged her a bit longer than usual in the motel room and looked rather depressed when she dropped him off at the Stateton PD. With a wave through the windshield as he walked inside, Mackenzie headed back for the main road with a two-hour-and-forty-minute drive ahead of her.

Being in the woods, the signal on her phone was spotty. She was not able to place a call to Jones’s second potential suspect, Robbie Huston, until she was about ten miles outside of Stateton city limits. When she finally got the call to go through, he answered on the second ring.

“Hello?”

“Is this Robbie Huston?” she asked.

“It is. Who’s asking?”

“This is Agent Mackenzie White with the FBI. I was wondering if you’d have time to chat this morning.”

“Um…can I ask what about?”

His confusion and surprise were genuine. She could tell even over the phone.

“About a resident of the Wakeman Home for the Blind that I believe you know. I can’t reveal more than that over the phone. If you could give me just five or ten minutes of your time this morning, I’d appreciate it. I’ll be coming through Lynchburg in about an hour.”

“Sure,” he said. “I work from home, so you’re welcome to just come by my apartment if you want.”

She ended the call after she got his address. She plugged it into her GPS and was relieved to see that getting to his apartment would only add another twenty minutes to her drive.

On the way to Lynchburg, she found herself far too distracted by the facts of this current case, bogged down with the hundreds of unanswered questions surrounding her father’s old case and the new death that had brought it back to light. For some reason, the same people who had killed her father had killed someone else in a very similar fashion.

And once again, they had left a cryptic business card behind. But why?

She’d spent weeks trying to figure it out. Maybe the killer was just cocky. Or maybe the cards were supposed to lead investigators to something else…like a twisted sort of cat and mouse game. She knew that Kirk Peterson was still on the case – a humble and dedicated private detective back in Nebraska whom she didn’t know well enough to trust completely. Still, the fact that someone was actively keeping the trail as fresh as possible was reassuring. It made her feel like the puzzle might be nearly shut to her but that someone had snuck a piece off of the table and was holding on to it, determined to put it in at the very last moment.

She’d never felt so defeated by anything else in her life. It was no longer a question of whether or not she could bring her father’s killer to justice, but more about putting a decades-old mystery to rest. As her mind was wrapped around it all, her phone started ringing. She saw an the sheriff’s number in the display, answering and hoping for some sort of clue to the current case.

“G’morning, Agent White,” Sheriff Clarke said on the other end. “Look, you know the cell reception down here in Stateton is crap. I’ve got Agent Ellington here, wanting to speak to you really quick. His cell phone couldn’t get the call out.”

She listened to the phone being jostled on the other end as it was handed over to Ellington. “So,” he said. “Lost without me yet?”

“Hardly,” she said. “I’m meeting with Robbie Huston in a little over an hour.”

“Ah, progress. Speaking of which, I’m looking at the coroner’s report right now. Hot off the presses. I’ll let you know if I find anything. Randall Jones is coming in pretty soon, too. I might see if he’ll let me speak to a few of the other residents up at the home.”

“Sounds good. I’ll be driving past cow pastures and empty fields for the next three hours.”

“Ah, the glamorous life,” he said. “Call if you need anything.”

And with that, he ended the call.

This was how they exchanged barbs back and forth all of the time. It made her feel a little foolish for her earlier worries about how he was feeling about whatever it was that was evolving between them.

With the phone call having brought thoughts of her father’s old case to a close, she was able to better focus on the case at hand. The digital thermometer on her car’s dash told her that it was eight-eight degrees outside already…and it wasn’t even nine o’clock yet.

The trees along the side of the back roads were impossibly thick, hanging over the road like an awning. And while there was something mysteriously pretty about them in the weak light of an early southern morning, she couldn’t wait for the wider expanses of major highways and four lanes that would lead her toward Lynchburg and Treston.

***

Robbie Huston lived in a trendy little apartment complex near the central heart of Lynchburg. It was surrounded by college-owned bookshops and coffee corners that likely only thrived due to the large private Christian college that loomed over most of the city. When she knocked on his door at 9:52, he answered almost right away.

He looked to be in his early twenties – wiry, uncombed hair, and the sort of soft complexion that made Mackenzie think any work he’d ever done was from behind a desk. He was cute in a frat boy sort of way and was on the verge of either excitement or nervousness to actually have an FBI agent knocking on his door.

He invited her inside and she saw that the inside of the apartment was just as nice and modern as the outside. The living area, kitchen, and study were all one large room, separated by small ornate dividers and flooded with natural sunlight that poured in through two huge picture windows on opposite walls.

“Um…can I get you some coffee or something?” he asked. “I’ve still got some left in my morning pot.”