Before He Takes

Before He Takes
Blake Pierce

A Mackenzie White Mystery #4
From Blake Pierce, bestselling author of ONCE GONE (a #1 bestseller with over 800 five star reviews), comes book #4 in the heart-pounding Mackenzie White mystery series.

In BEFORE HE TAKES (A Mackenzie White Mystery—Book 4), newly minted FBI agent Mackenzie White is ordered to take on a new and disturbing case. Women are going missing in rural Iowa, and a pattern is emerging. It is feared a serial killer is on a rampage, his pace increasing. Given her Midwestern roots, Mackenzie is chosen as the perfect fit.

But Mackenzie is reluctant to return to the Midwest, this time to a starkly rural setting that reminds her too much of her upbringing, of her own ghosts in her closet. She also seeks her own father’s murderer, with darkness haunting her at every turn of her trip. Plunged deep into the world of farms, of silos, of slaughterhouses, of long stretches on empty highways, Mackenzie feels as if she’s falling back into the depths of her psyche, and into the nightmares she always feared to face.

In the deadly game of cat-and-mouse, she finally realizes the psychosis of the killer she is up against, and comes to realize that the land of her upbringing is holding even darker and more twisted horrors than she could imagine.

A dark psychological thriller with heart-pounding suspense, BEFORE HE TAKES is book #4 in a riveting new series—with a beloved new character—that will leave you turning pages late into the night.

Book #5 in the Mackenzie White Mystery series will be available soon.

Also available by Blake Pierce is ONCE GONE (A Riley Paige mystery—Book #1), a #1 bestseller with over 800 five star reviews!

Blake Pierce

Before He Takes (A Mackenzie White Mystery—Book 4)

Blake Pierce

Blake Pierce is author of the bestselling RILEY PAGE mystery series, which includes seven books (and counting). Blake Pierce is also the author of the MACKENZIE WHITE mystery series, comprising five books (and counting); of the AVERY BLACK mystery series, comprising four books (and counting); and of the new KERI LOCKE mystery series.

An avid reader and lifelong fan of the mystery and thriller genres, Blake loves to hear from you, so please feel free to visit www.blakepierceauthor.com (http://www.blakepierceauthor.com/) to learn more and stay in touch.

Copyright © 2016 by Blake Pierce. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior permission of the author. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Jacket image Copyright Bullstar, used under license from Shutterstock.com.

BOOKS BY BLAKE PIERCE

RILEY PAIGE MYSTERY SERIES

ONCE GONE (Book #1)

ONCE TAKEN (Book #2)

ONCE CRAVED (Book #3)

ONCE LURED (Book #4)

ONCE HUNTED (Book #5)

ONCE PINED (Book #6)

ONCE FORSAKEN (Book #7)

MACKENZIE WHITE MYSTERY SERIES

BEFORE HE KILLS (Book #1)

BEFORE HE SEES (Book #2)

BEFORE HE COVETS (Book #3)

BEFORE HE TAKES (Book #4)

BEFORE HE NEEDS (Book #5)

AVERY BLACK MYSTERY SERIES

CAUSE TO KILL (Book #1)

CAUSE TO RUN (Book #2)

CAUSE TO HIDE (Book #3)

CAUSE TO FEAR (Book #4)

KERI LOCKE MYSTERY SERIES

A TRACE OF DEATH (Book #1)

A TRACE OF MUDER (Book #2)

PROLOGUE

This would be the last time she did a book signing in some small town no one had ever heard of. She needed to speak to her publicity manager and let him know that just because a town has a bookstore, it is not a major metropolis. Sure, she might seem like a high-maintenance diva by making such a request, but she didn’t care.

It was 10:35 at night and Delores Manning was driving down a two-lane road in some long-forgotten neck of the woods in Iowa. She was well aware that she had made a wrong turn about ten miles back because it was shortly after that when her GPS had crapped out. No signal. Of course. It was just the cherry on top of what had been a miserable weekend.

Delores had been on this stretch of road for at least ten minutes. She’d seen no stop signs, no houses, nothing. Just trees and a surprisingly gorgeous night sky overhead. She was seriously thinking about just stopping in the middle of the road and pulling a U-turn.

The more she thought about it, the more that seemed like a good idea.

She was about to hit her brake pedal to come to a stop when a popping sound filled the car. Delores cried out in fear and surprise, but her scream was drowned out by the sudden thunk of the car as it seemed to drop several inches and then careened hard to the left.

She managed to jerk the car back into a somewhat straight course but realized that she could not fight against it—there was too much drag. Giving up the fight, she managed to guide the car to the side of the road, parking it a little more than half off of the pavement. She cut her hazard lights on and let out a heavy sigh.

“Shit,” she said.

That sounded like a tire, she thought to herself. And if that’s the case…hell, I don’t even remember if there’s a spare in the trunk. That’s what I get for taking this deathtrap of a car with me everywhere. You’re about to be a bigshot author, girl. Spring some money on planes and rental cars every now and then, huh?

She popped the trunk release, opened the door, and stepped out into the night. There was a nip to the air, as winter was bearing down on the Midwest, sneaking in behind fall. She pulled her coat tight to her body and then pulled her cell phone out. She was not at all surprised to see the No Service reading; she’d been seeing it continuously for the last twenty minutes or so, ever since her GPS app had stopped working.

She looked at her tires and saw that both the front and the rear on the driver’s side were flat. More than that, they were pancaked. She saw something glimmering out of the front tire and dropped to a knee to see what it was.

Glass, she thought. Really? How did glass pop my tires?