Read Before he Kills (A Mackenzie White Mystery—Book 1) for Free Online Page A

out a croaky,
“Thanks.”
    Mackenzie and Porter made their exit,
walking down a set of wooden steps and into the apartment complex parking lot.
When they were a safe distance away from the apartment, Mackenzie closed the
distance between them. She could feel the immense anger coming off of him like
heat but ignored it.
    “I got a lead,” she said. “Kevin says
that his mother was working toward filing a restraining order against someone
at work last year. He said it was the only time he had ever seen her visibly
mad or upset about something.”
    “Good,” Porter said. “That means that
something good came out of you undermining me.”
    “I didn’t undermine you,” Mackenzie
said. “I simply saw a situation falling apart between you and the oldest son,
so I stepped in to resolve it.”
    “Bullshit,” Porter said. “You made me
look weak and inferior in front of those kids and their aunt.”
    “That’s not true,” Mackenzie said. “And
even if it was true, what does it matter? You were talking to those kids
like they were idiots that could barely comprehend the English language.”
    “Your actions were a clear sign of
disrespect,” Porter said. “Let me remind you that I’ve been at this job for longer
than you’ve been alive. If I need you to step in to help me, I’ll damn well
tell you.”
    “You ended it, Porter,” she replied. “It
was over, remember? There was nothing left to undermine. You were out the door.
That was your call. And it was the wrong call.”
    They had reached the car now and as
Porter unlocked it, he looked over the roof, his eyes blazing into Mackenzie.
    “When we get back to the station, I’m
going to Nelson and put in a request to be reassigned. I’m done with this
disrespect.”
    “Disrespect,” Mackenzie said, shaking
her head. “You don’t even know what that word means. Why don’t you start by
taking a close look at how you treat me.”
    Porter let out a shaky sigh and got in
the car, not saying anything else. Deciding not to let Porter’s tense mood get
the best of her, Mackenzie also got in. She looked back to the apartment and
wondered if Kevin had allowed himself to cry yet. In the grand scheme of
things, the beef that existed between her and Porter really didn’t seem all
that significant.
    “You wanna call it in?” Porter asked,
clearly pissed that he had been overstepped.
    “Yeah,” she said, taking out her phone.
As she pulled up Nelson’s number, she couldn’t deny the slow satisfaction that
was building inside of her. A restraining order placed a year ago and now
Hailey Lizbrook was dead.
    We got the bastard, she thought.
    But at the same time, she also couldn’t
help but wonder if wrapping this thing up would really be this easy.

CHAPTER SIX
     
    Mackenzie finally arrived home at 10:45,
exhausted. The day had been long and draining but she knew that she would not
be able to sleep for quite a while. Her mind was too focused on the lead that
Kevin Lizbrook had supplied. She’d called the information in to Nelson and he
assured her that he’d have someone call the strip club and whatever law firm
Hailey Lizbrook had been working with to get her restraining order.
    With her mind firing off in hundreds of
directions, Mackenzie put on some music, grabbed a beer from the refrigerator,
and ran herself a bath. She was typically not fond of baths, but tonight every
muscle in her body was wound entirely too tight. As the tub filled with water,
she walked through the house and tidied up from where Zack had apparently
waited until the last minute to go to work again.
    She and Zack had moved in together a
little over a year ago, trying to take every possible step they could in their
relationship that might prevent marriage for as long as possible. Mackenzie
felt that she was ready to get married, but Zack seemed terrified of it. They’d
been together for three years now and while the first two of those years had
been great, the latter part of their