Before he Kills (A Mackenzie White Mystery—Book 1) by Blake Pierce Page B

listened to him
explain to Porter that he always deleted his browsing history to get rid of
cookies and junk in his cache. She let Porter discuss this age-old excuse with
him while she peeked out into his hallway. There were no pictures on his walls,
just clutter on the floor along the walls. Among the mess, she saw an empty box
that raised an alarm.
    Mackenzie walked back into the living
room as the conversation between Porter and Traylor continued to get a little
more heated.
    “Excuse me,” she said, speaking over
them. “Mr. Traylor, I don’t doubt you. I’m fairly certain you had nothing to do
with the murder of Hailey Lizbrook. I will tell you that a lot of factors were
pointing to you, right down to the poles behind your shed out back. But no, I
don’t think you killed anyone.”
    “Thank you,” he spat sarcastically.
    “White,” Porter said, “what are you—”
    “But I am going to need you to
tell me what other inappropriate things you’ve been involved in.”
    He looked surprised, almost insulted.
“Nothing,” he said. “I know my record isn’t stellar. Once you’re a registered
sex offender, your life never goes back to the way it was. People look at you
differently and—”
    “Save it, please,” Mackenzie said. “Are
you sure you haven’t been involved in anything you shouldn’t?”
    “I swear it.”
    Mackenzie nodded and then looked to
Porter with a thin smile. “Detective Porter, would you like to cuff him or
should I do it?”
    Before he could answer, though, Traylor
was on the move. He collided with Mackenzie, trying to knock her down and make
his way to the hall. He clearly hadn’t been expecting her to be so solid,
though. She braced her feet and locked her knees as Traylor rammed into her,
causing him to rebound in confusion.
    “Shit,” Porter muttered, fumbling for
his service pistol.
    As he scrambled for his gun, Mackenzie
threw a hard elbow into Traylor’s chest as he tried to pivot around her. He let
out a whoof and gave her a surprised look. He started dropping to a
knee, but before it even touched the floor, Mackenzie grabbed him by the back
of the neck and slammed him down to the floor.
    Traylor cried out as Mackenzie planted a
knee into his back and whipped out her handcuffs like a magician working with
handkerchiefs.
    “Never mind,” Mackenzie said, cutting
her eyes at Porter. “I’ll do it.”
    With that, she slapped the cuffs on
Traylor’s wrists as Porter stood motionless, his hand still frozen by his hip
where his gun still remained holstered.
     
    *
     
    Mackenzie looked at the plastic bag and
was sickened by what she was pretty sure was on the USB drives inside. There
were eleven of them in all. After some harsh interrogation, they’d discovered
that these USBs were what Traylor had been going for when he’d made the mistake
of trying to dash past Mackenzie.
    “Hot damn,” Nelson said, looking a bit
too happy as Clive Traylor was placed into the back of a police cruiser. “It’s
not the arrest I wanted today, but I sure will take it.”
    A little less than an hour had passed
since Traylor had denied being involved in anything suspicious. In that hour,
his laptop had been confiscated and his history had been recovered. Several USB
drives had also been found in the house, filled with photos and videos. With
what was found on his computer, including websites visited in the last two
days, and the USB drives, Clive Traylor had been in possession of more than
five hundred images and twenty-five videos of child pornography. More than
that, he was selling the files online. The most recent transaction had been to
an IP address in France for a sum of two hundred dollars—a transaction that had
been confirmed by Traylor’s bank.
    Clive Traylor had been nowhere near the
cornfield where Hailey Lizbrook had been killed two nights ago. Instead, he had
been online, distributing child pornography.
    When Mackenzie had seen the icon for
incognito browsing software on