Before he Sees

“Where was that?” Mackenzie asked.

“Dupont Circle.”

“What time would you say she got off the bus there?”

“Probably around eight forty-five or so,” Michael answered. “No later than nine o’clock for sure.”

“We can check that in our records,” Mrs. Percell said.

“That would be great,” Bryers said.

Mrs. Percell went back to work behind the grimy little desk as Michael looked at the agents forlornly. He looked back to the picture on Bryers’s phone and frowned. “Something bad happened to her?” he asked.

“In fact, yes,” Mackenzie said. “So if there’s anything you can tell us about her that morning, that would be great.”

“Well, she was carrying a case, like the kind salespeople carry around. Not like a briefcase, but a tacky case, you know? She sold stuff for a living – like health supplements and things like that. I was guessing she had a customer she was seeing.”

“Do you know which bus she got on after yours?” Mackenzie asked.

“Well, I don’t recall the number of the bus, but I remember seeing Black Mill Street up on the destination indicator in the windshield. I thought that was pretty sketchy…no reason for that pretty little thing to be going to that part of town.”

“And why is that?”

“Well, the neighborhood itself is okay, I guess. The houses aren’t too bad and I think most of the folks are decent people. But it’s one of those places where the not-so nice people hang around and do their business. When I was trained for this job six years ago, they filled the drivers in on places to keep an eye out for danger. Black Mill Street was one of them.”

Mackenzie thought all of this over and realized that they had gotten all of the valuable information there was to get from Michael Garmond. She wanted to seem efficient in front of Bryers but she also didn’t want to seem as if she wasted time on trivial details.

“Thank you very much, Mr. Garmond,” Mackenzie said.

From the desk, Mrs. Percell added: “The stop at Dupont Circle was at eight forty-eight, Agents.”

When they turned and made their exit, they were quiet until they made it back to the stairs. When they started climbing them, it was Bryers who broke the silence.

“How long have you been in Quantico?” he asked.

“Eleven weeks.”

“So you’re probably not familiar with the outskirts of the city, huh?”

“No.”

“Never been up to Black Mill Street?”

“Can’t say that I have,” Mackenzie said.

“You’re not missing much. But hey, maybe we won’t have to go that far. We’ll start at Dupont Circle and have a look around. Maybe we can find something on the security cameras.”

“Now?”

“Yes, now,” Bryers said. There was an edge of annoyance to his voice, the first sign that he was beginning to tire of carting around the rookie no matter how promising she was. “When there’s a killer on the loose, we don’t really punch a clock.”

Several retorts came to her tongue, but she kept them choked down. He was right, anyway. If she’d learned anything from her ordeal with the Scarecrow Killer, it was that when you were chasing down a killer that seemingly had no MO, every minute was precious.

CHAPTER FIVE

Dupont Circle Station was just starting to slow down from the busyness of the five o’clock afternoon rush when Mackenzie and Bryers arrived. The conversation along the way was once again surface-level and stale as Bryers remained quiet and reserved. As they stepped out of the car and walked toward the station, Mackenzie truly felt awkward for the first time. She didn’t think he resented her yet, but he was likely having second thoughts about whatever scheme he and Ellington had cooked up.

Bryers finally cracked their silence as they entered the station. He stepped to the side of the doors and watched the crowd of people threading through the place.

“You familiar with this place?” he asked.

“No,” Mackenzie said. “I’ve always gone through Union Station.”

Bryers shrugged. “It doesn’t matter which station you’re at; there’s always going to be a corner somewhere that’s a little seedier than the rest of the place. The rough part is that it’s usually well hidden.”

“So you’re thinking she was taken on her way back home? You think someone grabbed her here when she was in between buses?”

“It’s a possibility. What do you think?”

“I think we should be checking Black Mill Street. You and the bus driver said the place was bad news.”

“And we’ll probably end up there,” Bryers said. “But I’m playing a hunch here. You work this city long enough you start to accumulate a sort of hunch about certain things.”

His cryptic talk was annoying, but she figured she could actually learn something if she could just shut up and watch. After a minute or so of standing by the doors and watching the crowd, Bryers moved slowly forward, motioning for Mackenzie to follow him. She stayed close, but not so close that she was crowding him. He walked through the crowd nonchalantly, as if he had no real purpose for being there. He blended in quite well; only someone who really took the time to study him might suspect that he was some sort of law enforcement official.

They made their way through the main concourse and out toward where six buses were waiting. Passengers were stepping off of two of the buses while the others idled, waiting for passengers. As they headed toward the buses, Mackenzie looked at the destination indicators above the windshields. As far as she could tell, the next stops for these buses were all within the DC historic district or Georgetown.

“Over here,” Bryers said.

Mackenzie looked away from the buses and stayed behind Bryers as he walked further down the concourse. The buses were behind them now as the crowd thinned out a bit. Out of nowhere, the scene seemed to change simply by rounding a corner. There were fewer people in casual or business-casual attire. She saw a homeless man sitting against the wall and three teenagers dressed in mostly black, adorned with large earrings, nose piercings, and tattoos everywhere.

Bryers slowed as they rounded this corner, again taking in the scene. Mackenzie did the same, trying to observe the layout of the place and the makeup of the people the same way he did. It only took a few seconds before she saw something that instantly put her on guard.

A young man with a short, nearly military buzz haircut and dressed in a plain T-shirt and jeans was speaking to a girl that was surely no older than sixteen. Mackenzie knew the look on her face because it was easy to read on most girls her age: she was liking the attention the guy was giving her, but was also uncomfortable in being approached. She saw that the guy had a hand in his pocket. She was pretty sure he wasn’t packing, but there were numerous other things that he could be concealing.

Without looking over his shoulder to speak to her, Bryers asked: “You see him?”

“Twenty-something buzz-cut speaking to the minor?” she said.

“Bingo.”

Still, they did not move. Mackenzie knew why even though she already didn’t like the way the scene was playing out. Bryers was waiting for the creep to make a move – to do something that would warrant someone of Bryers’s authority to step in and intervene.

They watched the scene unfold as they did what they could to blend in. Mackenzie felt herself wanting to surge forward as it played out predictably. The guy inched closer and closer. He was doing a lot of smiling and trying to look the girl in the eyes. She smiled back flirtatiously but looked at the ground more than she looked at him.

Slowly, he reached out and touched her shoulder. His hand rested there for a while before the girl stepped awkwardly away. The creep followed up by laughing and then stepping into her, placing his arm around her. He tried pulling her close but the girl stepped away. A look of frustration flashed across the guy’s face before he stepped forward again, with a bit of anger this time. When he reached out to put his arm around her again, Bryers stepped forward. Mackenzie followed along, trying to make herself remain in the role of a student.

“Is there a problem here?” Bryers asked, stepping into the girl’s path. “Is this guy harassing you?”