Before he Kills

She was tied to a large wooden pole that ran up her back and stopped two feet above her head. Her

Any other time, the dawn’s first light on the tops of the cornstalks would look beautiful to her. She watched as the first light of day danced along the stalks, creating a muted gold color, and she tried with all she had to find the beauty in it.

knew there was something much deeper going on here. Something unlike anything she had ever encountered. This was not what happened in the cornfields of Nebraska. Mackenzie approached the body and walked a slow circle around it. As she did, she sensed the other officers watching her. She knew that some of them felt she took her job far too seriously. She approached things a little too closely, looked for threads and connections that were almost abstract in nature. She was the young woman who had reached the position of detective far too fast in the eyes of a lot of the men at the precinct, she knew. She was the ambitious girl that everyone assumed had her eyes on bigger and better things than a detective with small-town Nebraska law enforcement. Mackenzie ignored them. She focused solely on the body, waving

Any other time, the dawn’s first light on the tops of the cornstalks would look beautiful to her. She watched as the first light of day danced along the stalks, creating a muted gold color, and she tried with all she had to find the beauty in it.

other time, the dawn’s first light on the

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without the prior permission of the

There was heavy padding and bandaging along the left side of his head but she was relieved to see that all of the IVs had been removed since she last saw him.

the wooden pole before Mackenzie knew there was something much deeper going on here. Something unlike anything she had ever encountered. This was not what happened in the cornfields of Nebraska. Mackenzie approached the body and walked a slow circle around it. As she did, she sensed the other officers watching her. She knew that some of them felt she took her job far too seriously. She approached things a little too closely, looked for threads and connections that were almost abstract in nature. She was the young woman who had reached the position of detective far too fast in the eyes of a lot of the men at the precinct, she knew. She was the ambitious girl that everyone assumed had her eyes on bigger and better things than a detective with small-town Nebraska law enforcement. Mackenzie ignored them. She focused solely on the body, waving away the flies that darted everywhere. They hovered spastically around the woman’s body, creating a small black cloud, and the heat was doing

Any other time, the dawn’s first light on the tops of the cornstalks would look beautiful to her. She watched as the first light of day danced along the