Before He Sins

Christy started to tremble. She wasn’t sure she’d call what she had been doing an affair or not. She’d only kissed the man once and had called it out for what it was then. But she had continued to see him, had continued to let herself be lifted up by his words of praise and adoration – words her own husband had stopped uttering to her years ago.

She could almost feel that sin burned away from her as the sun rose higher in the sky, casting golds and soft oranges around the edges of Blessed Heart. If she needed any further sign that she was supposed to be confessing her sins to a priest on this particular morning, that was it.

She came to the steps of Blessed Heart with a heaviness on her shoulders. But she knew that within moments, it would be gone. She could return home, her sins confessed, her heart unburdened, and her mind —

When she reached the front doors, Christy screamed.

She backed away, still screaming. She nearly fell down the concrete stairs as she stumbled back. Her hands went to her mouth, doing very little to muffle the scream.

Father Costas was hanging from the doors. He had been stripped down to his underwear and there was a long horizontal cut on his brow. His head hung down, looking toward his bare feet, which were dangling two feet above the concrete stoop. Little tendrils of blood dripped from his toes, collecting in a dingy pool on the stoop.

Crucified, Christy thought. Father Costas has been crucified.

CHAPTER ONE

Following her last case, Mackenzie White had done something she had never once done before as a working woman: she had asked for a vacation.

She’d requested a two-week vacation for a number of reasons and within just a single day, she knew she had made the right decision. She’d wasted no time in bolstering her reputation when she had come to the FBI. By no design of her own, she had ended up handling high-profile cases that seemed to come looking for her. Not only that, but she had excelled at them and had impressed all of the right people in Quantico and DC. After successfully wrapping up numerous cases and putting her life on the line on a monthly basis, she thought two weeks of paid vacation wasn’t too much to ask.

Her superiors had agreed – and even encouraged it. She was sure they’d get a kick out of knowing how she had been spending most of that time – in numerous gyms and workout facilities, getting her body into better shape, sharpening her instincts and skills. She had a solid base for all of the important things. She was adept at hand-to-hand combat. She was eerily good with a firearm. She was much stronger than most other women she had gone through the academy with.

But Mackenzie White was always wanting to improve upon herself.

That’s why, eight days into her two-week vacation, she was working up a sweat and a multitude of sore muscles at a private gym. She was pushing herself away from the corner of one of several boxing rings, giving her sparring partner a nod of gratitude. She was stepping into a second practice round and was fully expecting to get defeated. And that was okay.

She’d only been practicing Muay Thai for a little over a month now. She had gotten good enough at it that she was comfortable introducing another, lesser known, fighting style with it. With the help of a private instructor and a hell of a lot of determination, Mackenzie had also started training in Yaw-Yan, a Filipino style of kickboxing. Mixing the two was rather unorthodox but she and her trainer had worked on a way to utilize them both. It pushed Mackenzie physically, to the point where her shoulders and calves felt like slabs of brick.

She felt those muscles responding now as she stepped to her partner. They touched gloves and resumed their session. She immediately dodged a jab and countered with a low jab of her own.

It was, in a way, like learning a new style of dance. Mackenzie had taken part in dance classes as a girl and had never forgotten the importance of footwork and focus. They were disciplines she carried with her into her first job as a street cop, then into her job as a detective out in Nebraska. Those basic disciplines had also helped her immensely as an FBI agent, saving her life on more than one occasion.

They also came rushing back to her as she sparred. She tried out her new moves and instruction, using a series of downward kicks and elbow attacks combined with more traditional kickboxing attacks. She used the surprised expression of her sparring partner as fuel, motivating her. Sure, it was just practice, but she felt the need to excel there as well.

It also helped to clear her mind. She always associated each punch, kick, or elbow strike with something from her past. A left jab was directed at years of neglect with the Nebraska PD. A back-handed attack with her right swatted away the fear the Scarecrow Killer case had instilled in her. A pivot and jab was a blow to the heart of the endless stream of mysteries coming out of her father’s old case.

If she was being honest with herself, it was that case that had pushed her to learn these new fighting disciplines – to make sure she continued to evolve as a fighter. She had received a note from someone involved…someone in the shadows who apparently knew who she was.

She still saw that note in her mind’s eye as she sparred.

Stop looking…

Naturally, she intended to do just the opposite. And that’s why she was currently in the ring, her gaze focused and her muscles as taut as violin strings.

When she landed a blow to her opponent’s solar plexus and then a padded-elbow strike to her sparring partner’s ribs, the session was called from the side of the ring. The judge was smiling and nodding as he softly applauded.

“Okay, Mac,” he said. “Give it a break for a while, huh? You’re at an hour and a half today.”

Mackenzie nodded, dropping her stance and again tapping gloves with her sparring partner – a twenty-five-year-old male who had the build of an MMA fighter. He gave her a quick grin over his mouthpiece and made a quick exit through the ropes.

Mackenzie thanked the judge and then headed for the locker rooms. Her muscles were sore to the point of trembling, but she enjoyed it. It meant she was pushing herself, stretching herself to new limits.

As she showered and slid into what Ellington referred to as her gym swag (an Under Armour tank top and a pair of black dry-fit leggings), she reminded herself that she had one more workout for the day. She hoped her arms were done trembling by then. Sure, Ellington would be there to help, but she had several rather heavy boxes to move around this afternoon.

While she had been technically living at Ellington’s apartment for the past few days, today would be the day she actually moved things in. It was yet another of the many reasons she had asked for a two-week vacation. The thought of trying to move over the course of a weekend had not appealed to her. Plus, she figured, this was yet another way she was growing and evolving. Trusting someone else enough to share a living space and, as cheesy as it seemed, her heart, was something she had been incapable of until a few months ago.

And as soon as she was changed into her gym swag, she found that she could barely wait to start moving things in. Sore or not, she put a little extra speed in her step on the way to the parking lot.

***

The upside to not being a materialistic person was that when it came time to move, there was very little to pack up. As such, a single trip in Ellington’s pickup truck and a rented U-Haul did the job. The move itself took less than two hours thanks to the elevator in Ellington’s building, and in the end, she really didn’t have to lift that many boxes.

They celebrated the move with Chinese food and a bottle of wine. Mackenzie was tired, sore, but immensely happy. She’d been expecting to feel nervous and maybe even a bit of regret over the move, but as they started unpacking boxes over their dinner, she found that she was excited for this next stage of her life.

“Here’s the deal,” Ellington said as he placed a box cutter to a stream of packing tape along the top of one of the boxes. “You need to tell me now if I’m going to find any overly embarrassing movies or CDs in these boxes.”

“I think the most embarrassing CD you’ll find is the soundtrack to that awful nineties remake of Romeo and Juliet. But what can I say? I really liked that Radiohead song.”

“Then you’re forgiven,” he said, cutting into the tape.

“How about you?” she asked. “Any embarrassing media lying around?”

“Well, I got rid of all of my CDs and DVDs. Everything’s digital. I needed to free up the space. It’s almost as if I had a sneaking suspicion that this sexy FBI lady was going to be moving in with me one of these days.”

“Good instincts,” she said. She walked over to him and took his hands in hers. “Now…this is your last chance. You can back out now before we start taking things out of the boxes.”

“Back out? Are you crazy?”

“You’ll have a girl living with you,” she said, pulling him close. “A girl that tends to like things neat. A girl that can get a little OCD.”

“Oh, I know,” he said. “I’m looking forward to it.”

“Even all the ladies’ clothes? You willing to share your closet?”

“I have very few clothes,” he said, leaning in close to her. Their noses were almost touching and a heat that they had gotten used to was starting to build between them. “You can have all of the closet space you want.”

“Makeup and tampons, sharing a bed, and another person dirtying up dishes. You sure you’re ready for that?”

“Yeah. One question, though.”

“What’s that?” she said. Her hands traveled from his hands to his arms. She knew where this was going and every sore muscle in her body was ready.

“All of those ladies’ clothes,” he said. “You can’t be leaving them on the floor all the time.”

“Um, I don’t intend to,” she said.

“Oh, I know,” he said. He then reached down and lifted the tank top off of her. He wasted no time in doing the same to the sports bra underneath. “But I probably will,” he added, throwing both to the floor.

He kissed her then and although he tried leading her into the bedroom, their bodies did not have the patience. They ended up on the living room rug and although Mackenzie’s sore muscles protested the hard floor under her back, other parts of her body overruled them.