CHAPTER ONE

The rain was coming down steadily, just hard enough so that Mackenzie White could not hear her own footfalls. This was good. It meant that the man she was chasing down would not be able to hear them, either.

Still, she had to advance with caution. Not only was it raining, but it was late at night. The suspect could easily use the darkness to his advantage just like she could. And the weak flickering streetlights were doing her no favors.

With her hair nearly soaked and her rain coat so wet that it was basically plastered to her, Mackenzie crossed the deserted street in a near march. Ahead of her, her partner was already at the targeted building. She could see his shape crouching low by the side of the old concrete structure. As she neared him, illuminated only by the moonlight and a single streetlight a block away, she tightened her slick grip on the Academy-issued Glock she carried in her hands.

She was starting to like the feel of a gun in her hands. It was more than a sense of security but something closer to a relationship. When she held a gun in her hands and knew that she was going to shoot it, she felt an intimate connection to it. She had never felt this while working as an underappreciated detective in Nebraska; it was something new that the FBI Academy had chiseled out of her.

She reached the building and huddled up along the side of it with her partner. Here, at least, the rain was no longer pelting her.

Her partner’s name was Harry Dougan. He was twenty-two, well-built, and cocky in a subtle and almost respectable way. She was relieved to see that he looked a little unnerved, too.

“Did you get a visual?” Mackenzie asked him.

“No. But the front room is clear. You can see that much through the window,” he said, pointing ahead of them. There was a single window there, broken and jagged.

“How many rooms?” she asked.

“Three that I know of for sure.”

“Let me lead,” she said. She made sure it did not sound like a question. Even here in Quantico, women had to be assertive to be taken seriously.

He gestured for her to go ahead. As she dashed in front of him, she slid to the front of the building. She peered around and saw that the coast was clear. These streets were eerily empty and everything looked dead.

She gave a quick motion for Harry to come forward and he did without hesitation. He was holding his own Glock steady in his hands, holding it low to the ground in their pursuit, just like they had been trained to do. Together, they crept toward the front door of the building. It was an abandoned concrete slab of a place – maybe an old warehouse or storage place – and the door showed its age. It also made it obvious that it was open, a dark crack revealing a sliver of the building’s interior.

Mackenzie looked at Harry and counted down with her fingers. Three, two…one!

She pressed her back tight against the concrete wall as Harry went low, pushed the door open, and strafed inside. She wheeled in behind him, the two of them operating like a well-oiled machine. However, once inside the building, there was almost no light. She quickly went for her flashlight at her side. Just as she was about to click it on, she stopped herself. A flashlight beam would be a dead giveaway for their location. The suspect would see them far in advance and could likely escape them…again.

She replaced the flashlight and reclaimed the lead again, creeping in front of Harry with the Glock now trained ahead to the door on her right. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she could see more details of the place. It was mostly barren. A few soggy cardboard boxes were pressed against a far wall. A sawhorse and several old cables lay discarded near the back corner of the room. Other than that, the central room was empty.

Mackenzie walked toward the door to her right. It was really just a doorway, the actual door having long been removed. Inside, shadows concealed nearly everything. Other than a broken glass bottle and what looked to be several rat droppings, the room was empty.

She stopped and started to turn around when she realized that Harry was following far too close behind her. She nearly stepped on his feet as she backed away from the room.

“Sorry,” he whispered in the dark. “I thought it – ”

He was cut off by the sound of a gunshot. This was instantly followed by an oof noise from Harry’s mouth as he went to the ground.

Mackenzie pressed hard against the wall as another blast came. The shot pounded the wall from the other side; she could feel the impact of it against her back.

She knew that if she acted quickly, she could take the perp down right now rather than engaging in a shootout from around the wall. She looked at Harry, saw that he was still moving and coherent for the most part, and reached out to him. She hauled him through the doorway, out of the line of fire. When she did, another shot came. She felt it go just over her shoulder, the air whizzing around her raincoat.

When she had Harry to safety, she wasted no time and decided to act. She grabbed her flashlight, clicked it on, and tossed it out the door. It clattered on the ground seconds later, its white beam dancing wildly along the floor on the other side of the wall.

Following the clattering noise, Mackenzie whirled her body out of the doorway. She was crouched low, her hands skimming the floor as she curled herself into a quick, tight roll. As she rolled hard to the left, she saw the shape of the perp directly to her right, still focused on the flashlight.

Coming out of her roll, she extended her right leg with a vicious amount of force. It caught the perp on the backside of the leg, just below the knee. The suspect buckled a bit and that was all she needed. She sprang up and wrapped her right arm around his neck as he sagged and brought him hard to the ground. With a knee to the solar plexus and a deft motion with her left arm, the perp was down, trapped, and quickly disarmed as his rifle went to the floor.

From somewhere else within the old building, a loud voice said, “Halt!”

A series of bright white bulbs popped on with audible clicks, flooding the building in light.

Mackenzie stood up and looked down to the suspect. He was smiling up at her. It was a familiar face – one she had seen in her training modules several times, usually barking orders and instructions at the agent trainees.

She held her hand out and he took it from his place on the floor. “Damn good work, White.”

“Thank you,” she said.

From behind her, Harry stumbled forward, holding his stomach. “Are we absolutely certain they’re just packing bean bags in those things?” he asked.

“Not only that, but these are low-grade,” the instructor said. “Next time we’ll use the riot bags.”

“Awesome,” Harry grunted.

A few people started filing into the room as the Hogan’s Alley run came to an end. It was Mackenzie’s third session in the Alley, a mock-up of a derelict street that was heavily used by the FBI in training agent trainees for real-world situations.

While two instructors stood by Harry, letting him know what he had done wrong and how he could have prevented being shot, another instructor headed directly over to Mackenzie. His name was Simon Lee, an older man that looked like life had dealt him a crap hand and he had responded by beating the hell out of it.

“Amazing work, Agent White,” he said. “That roll was so damn fast that I barely saw it. Still…it was a little reckless. If there had been more than one suspect out here, it could have gone totally different.”

“Yes, sir. I understand.”

Lee smiled at her. “I know you do,” he said. “I tell you, at the halfway point of your training cycle, I’m already over the moon about your progress. You’re going to make an excellent agent. Good work.”

“Thank you, sir,” she said.

Lee took his leave and walked elsewhere into the building, speaking with another instructor. As they started to file out, Harry came over to her, still grimacing a bit.

“Well done,” he said. “It doesn’t hurt half as bad when the person that came out on top is exceptionally pretty.”

She rolled her eyes at him and holstered her Glock. “Flattery is useless,” she said. “Flattery, as they say, gets you nowhere.”

“I know,” Harry said. “But would it at least get me a drink?”

She grinned. “If you’re paying.”

“Yeah, I’ll pay,” he agreed. “I wouldn’t want you to kick my ass.”

They exited the building and walked back out into the rain. Now that the drill was over, the rain was almost refreshing. And with several instructors and consultant agents skimming the grounds to end the night, she finally allowed herself to feel proud of herself.

Eleven weeks in, she had passed through the majority of the classroom-oriented part of her Academy training. She was almost there…about nine weeks away from wrapping up the course and potentially becoming a field agent for the FBI.

She suddenly wondered why she’d waited so long to leave Nebraska. When Ellington had recommended her for the Academy, it had essentially been her golden ticket, the push she needed to test herself, to break out of what had been comfortable and safe. She’d gotten rid of the job, the boyfriend, the apartment…and she’d picked up a new life.

She thought of the flat expanse of land, the cornfields, and the open blue skies that she had left behind. While they held their own specific beauty, it had, in a way, been a prison for her.

It was all behind her now.

Now that she was free, there was nothing left to hold her back.

*

The rest of her day proceeded with physical training: push-ups, sprints, crunches, more sprints, and selective weights. For her first few days at the Academy, she had hated this sort of training. But as her body and mind had gotten used to it, it seemed to her that she actually craved it.

Everything was done with speed and precision. She ran through fifty push-ups so fast that she wasn’t aware of the burning in her upper arms until she was done with them and headed for the mud-flecked obstacle course. With just about any sort of physical activity, she had gotten into the mindset of thinking that she wasn’t really pushing herself until her arms and legs were trembling and her abs felt like slabs of serrated meat.

There were sixty trainees in her unit and she was one of only nine women. This did not bother her, probably because her time in Nebraska had hardened her to not really caring about the gender of the people she worked with. She simply kept her head down and worked to the best of her abilities, which, she wasn’t too proud to say, was pretty exceptional.

When the instructor called time on her last circuit – a two-mile run through muddy trails and forest – the class broke apart and went their separate ways. Mackenzie, on the other hand, took a seat on one of the benches along the edge of the course and stretched her legs out. With nothing much else going on for the day and still pumped from her successful stint in Hogan’s Alley, she figured she’d head out for one last run.

As much as she hated to admit it, she had become one of those people that liked to run. While she wouldn’t be enlisting in any themed marathons anytime soon, she had come to appreciate the act. Outside of the required laps and courses in her training, she found time to run along the wooded trails of the campus that sat six miles away from the FBI headquarters and, subsequently, about eight miles away from her new Quantico apartment.

With her workout tank top drenched in sweat and a flush in her face, she rounded out her day with a final sprint around the obstacle course, leaving the hills, fallen logs, and nets out of it. As she did, she noticed two different men watching her – not out of some sort of lustful daydreams, but in a sort of awe that, quite frankly, spurred her on.

Although, truth be told, she wouldn’t mind a few lustful glances here and there. This new svelte body she had worked so hard for deserved to be appreciated. It was weird to feel so comfortable in her own skin, but she was growing to like it. She knew Harry Dougan liked it, too. But so far, he’d said nothing. Even if he were to say something, Mackenzie wasn’t sure what she would say in return.

When her last run (just under two miles) was wrapped up, she showered in the training facilities and grabbed a pack of crackers from the vending machine on her way out. She had the rest of the day at her disposal; four hours to do whatever she wanted before hitting the treadmill at the gym – a little routine she’d managed to fall into just to stay one step ahead of everyone else.

What to do with the rest of her day? Maybe she could finally finish unpacking. There were still six boxes in her apartment that she had not cracked the packing tape to. That would be the smart thing to do. But she also wondered what Harry was up to this evening, if he would hold good for his drinks request. Did he mean tonight or some other night?

And, beyond that, she wondered what Agent Ellington was doing.

She and Ellington had nearly met up a few times but it had never stuck – likely for the best, as far as Mackenzie was concerned. She could go the rest of her life without being reminded of the embarrassment that had occurred between them back in Nebraska.

As she tried to decide what to do with her afternoon, she headed for her car. As she slid the key into the door lock, she saw a familiar face go jogging by. The jogger, a fellow agent-in-training named Colby Stinson, saw her looking and smiled. She jogged over to Mackenzie’s car with energy that made Mackenzie think that Colby was starting her run, not wrapping it up.

“Hey there,” Colby said. “Did the class leave you behind?”

“No. I snuck in an extra run.”

“Well, of course you did.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Mackenzie asked. She and Colby knew one another fairly well, although it might be a long shot to say that they were friends. She was never sure when Colby was being funny or trying to get a rise out of her.

“It means that you’re super-driven and a bit of an overachiever,” Colby said.

“Guilty.”

“So what are you doing?” Colby asked. She then pointed to the pack of crackers in Mackenzie’s hand. “Is that lunch?”

“It is,” she said. “Sad, huh?”

“A bit. Why don’t we go grab something? Pizza sounds awesome to me.”

Pizza sounded good to Mackenzie, too. But she really didn’t feel like suffering through small talk, especially not with a woman that tended to lean a little too close to the gossipy side of conversation. Yet, on the other hand, she also knew that she needed more in her life than training, extra training, and holing herself up in her apartment.

“Yeah, let’s do that,” Mackenzie said.

It was a small victory – stepping out of her comfort zone and trying to make friends in this new place, in this new chapter of her life. But with each step, a new page was turned and she was, quite frankly, eager to start writing.

*

Donnie’s Pizza Place was only half full when Mackenzie and Colby arrived there in the afternoon, the lunch crowd thinning out. They grabbed a table in the back and ordered a pizza. Mackenzie allowed herself to relax, resting her sore legs and arms, but was not able to enjoy it for long.

Colby sat forward and sighed. “So, can we address the elephant in the room?”

“There’s an elephant?” Mackenzie asked.

“There is,” Colby said. “But it’s dressed in all black and sort of blends in most of the time.”

“Okay,” Mackenzie said. “Explain this elephant to me. And tell me why you’re waiting until now to mention it.”

“Something I never told you is that the first day you showed up at the Academy, I knew who you were. Just about everybody did. There was a lot of whispering. And that’s why I’m waiting to tell you now. As we get to the end of this, I don’t know how it is going to affect things.”

“What whispering?” Mackenzie asked, pretty sure she already knew where this was going.

“Well, the important parts are about the Scarecrow Killer and the meek little lady that bagged him. A little lady that was so good being a detective in Nebraska that the FBI came calling.”

“That’s a rather glorified version of it, but yes…I recognize that elephant. You said the important parts, though. Are there other parts?”

Colby looked suddenly uncomfortable. She tucked a strand of her brown hair nervously behind her ear. “Well, there are rumors. I’ve heard some agent played a hand in getting you on board. And…well, we’re in a male-driven environment. You can imagine how the rumors go.”

Mackenzie rolled her eyes, finding herself embarrassed. She had never stopped to wonder what sorts of hushed rumors might have been circulating about her and Ellington, the agent that had indeed played a large part in getting her a shot at the Bureau.

“Sorry,” Colby said. “Should I not have said anything?”

Mackenzie shrugged. “It’s okay. I guess we all have our stories.”

Apparently sensing that she may have said too much, Colby looked at the table and sipped nervously from her soda. “Sorry,” she said softly. “I just thought you should know. You’re the first real friend I’ve made here and I wanted to be as blunt as possible.”

“Ditto,” Mackenzie said.

“We good?” Colby asked.

“Yeah. Now how about you throw out some other topic to talk about?”

“Oh, that’s easy,” Colby said. “Tell me about you and Harry.”

“Harry Dougan?” Mackenzie asked.

“Yes. The would-be agent that seems to undress you with his eyes every time you’re in the same room together.”

“Nothing to tell,” Mackenzie said.

Colby smiled and rolled her eyes. “If you say so.”

“No, really. He’s not my type.”

“Maybe you’re not his type,” Colby pointed out. “Maybe he just wants to see you naked. I wonder…what type are you? Deep and psychological, I bet.”

“Why do you say that?” Mackenzie asked.

“Because of your interests and tendency to excel in profiling courses and scenarios.”

“I think that’s a common misconception about anyone interested in profiling,” Mackenzie said. “If you need proof, I can point you to at least three aging men on the Nebraska State Police.”

Conversation dwindled down to the mundane after that – their classes, their instructors, and so forth. But all the while, Mackenzie seethed on the inside. The rumors Colby had mentioned were the exact reason she had decided to stay under everyone’s radar. She had not gone out of her way to make many friends – a decision that should have afforded her plenty of time to get her apartment set up.

And under it all was Ellington…the man that had come into Nebraska and changed her world. It sounded clichéd to think such a thing, but it’s essentially what happened. And the fact that she still couldn’t get him out of her head was slightly nauseating.

Even as she and Colby shared pleasantries as they finished their lunch, Mackenzie wondered what Ellington was up to. She also wondered what she would be doing right now if he had not come strolling through Nebraska during her attempt to bring down the Scarecrow Killer. It was not a pleasant image: she’d probably still be driving those agonizingly straight roads, bordered by either sky, fields, or corn. And she’d likely be partnered with some chauvinist prick that was just a younger and more stubborn version of Porter, her old partner.

She did not miss Nebraska. She did not miss the routines of the job she’d had there, and she certainly did not miss the mindset. What she did miss, though, was knowing that she fit in. More than that, she was in the top tier of people in her department. Here in Quantico, that wasn’t true. Here, she had massive competition and she had to fight to stay at the top.

Fortunately, she was more than up for the challenge and was happily leaving the Scarecrow Killer and her life before his arrest behind.

Now, if she could only get the nightmares to stop.