Before He Preys (A Mackenzie White Mystery—Book 9)

PROLOGUE Once, when she was a girl, Malory Thomas had come to this bridge with a boy. It was Halloween night and she was fourteen. They’d been looking down into the water one hundred and seventy-five feet below, looking for the ghosts of those who had committed suicide from the bridge. It was a ghost story that had circulated through their school, a story Malory had heard all her life. She let that boy kiss her that night but had pushed his hand away when it went up her shirt. Now, thirteen years later, she thought of that innocent little gesture as she hung from that same bridge. It was called the Miller Moon Bridge and it was known for two things: being an awesome and secluded make-out spot for teens, and the number one suicide location in all of the county—maybe in the entire state of Virginia for all she knew. In that moment, Malory Thomas did not care about the suicides, though. All she could think about was holding on to the edge of the bridge for dear life. She was clinging to the side with both hands, her fingers curled against the rugged wooden edge of it. Her right hand could not get a good grip because of the enormous bolt that went through the wood, affixing the strut along the side to the iron beams beneath it. She tried to move her right hand to get a better grip but her hand was too sweaty. Moving it even an inch made her fear that she’d lose her grip completely and go falling all the way down to the water. And there wasn’t much water there. All that awaited her below were jagged rocks and countless coins stupid kids had tossed off the side of the bridge to make pointless wishes. She looked up to the rails along the edge of the bridge, old rusted trestle rails that looked ancient in the darkness of the midnight hour. She saw the shape of the man who had brought her here—a far cry from that brave teenage boy from thirteen years ago. No…this man was hateful and dark. She did not know him well but knew enough to now know for sure that something was wrong with him. He was sick, not right in the head, not well. “Just let go,” he told her. His voice was creepy, somewhere between Batman and a demon. “Please,” Malory said. “Please…help.” She didn’t even care that she was naked, her bare rear end dangling from the edge of the Miller Moon Bridge. He had stripped her down and she was afraid he would rape her. But he hadn’t. He’d only stared at her, run a hand along a few places, and then forced her to the edge of the bridge. She thought longingly of her clothes scattered on the wooden beams behind him, and had a sick sort of certainty that she would never wear them again. With that certainty, her right hand cramped up as it tried to get used to the shape of the bolt beneath it. She cried out and felt all of her weight slip over to her left hand—her much weaker hand. The man hunkered down, kneeling and looking at her. It was like he knew it was coming. Even before she knew the end was there, he knew it. She could barely see his eyes in the darkness but she could see enough to tell that he was happy. Excited, maybe. “It’s okay,” he said in that odd voice. And as if the muscles in her fingers were obeying him, her right hand gave up. Malory felt a tightness all the way down through her forearm as her left hand tried to hold up her one hundred and forty pounds. And just like that, she was no longer clinging to the bridge. She was falling. Her stomach did a cartwheel and her eyes seemed to tremble in their sockets as they tried to make sense of how fast the bridge was moving away from her. For a moment, the wind rushing past her felt almost pleasant. She tried her best to focus on that as she scrambled for some kind of a prayer to utter in her final moments. She only managed a few words—Our Father, who art…—and then Malory Thomas felt her life leave her body in a sharp and crushing blow as she slammed into the rocks below.