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  Predator

  A Miranda and Parker Mystery

  Book 14

  by

  Linsey Lanier

  Copyright © 2019 Linsey Lanier

  All rights reserved. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, please return to your online distributor and purchase your own copy.

  Thank you for respecting the author’s work and helping her earn a living.

  Felicity Books

  ISBN: 978-1-941191-56-9

  ###

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  What’s wrong with Mackenzie?

  PI Miranda Steele knows something has been eating away at her teenage daughter for months now. Does Mackenzie know her real father was a psychotic serial killer?

  Miranda’s afraid to ask and this time, Parker has no answers.

  But when her precious daughter goes missing, Miranda goes into a tailspin. Now she’s forced to ask the most painful question of all.

  Has Mackenzie’s emotional state caused her to fall victim to a sexual predator?

  You’ll want to read this exciting, fast-paced thriller because it’s a story readers say they can’t put down.

  Edited by

  Editing for You

  Books by Linsey Lanier

  Linsey’s Amazon Author page

  THE MIRANDA’S RIGHTS MYSTERY SERIES

  Someone Else’s Daughter

  Delicious Torment

  Forever Mine

  Fire Dancer

  Thin Ice

  THE MIRANDA AND PARKER MYSTERY SERIES

  All Eyes on Me

  Heart Wounds

  Clowns and Cowboys

  The Watcher

  Zero Dark Chocolate

  Trial by Fire

  Smoke Screen

  The Boy

  Snakebit

  Mind Bender

  Roses from My Killer

  The Stolen Girl

  Vanishing Act

  Predator

  (more to come)

  OTHER SUSPENSE BOOKS BY LINSEY LANIER:

  Chicago Cop (A cop family thriller)

  Steal My Heart (A Romantic Suspense)

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Chapter Sixty

  Chapter Sixty-One

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  Chapter Sixty-Five

  Chapter Sixty-Six

  Chapter Sixty-Seven

  Chapter Sixty-Eight

  Chapter Sixty-Nine

  Chapter Seventy

  Chapter Seventy-One

  Chapter Seventy-Two

  Chapter One

  She plodded along the concrete walkway of the interstate bridge, head down, barely aware of the cars whizzing past her.

  She felt numb and yet she shivered a little in the chilly March wind. She’d worn too light of a jacket. Not that it would matter soon.

  It was her time.

  Everyone has a time, her mother used to say.

  She’d been thinking about her mother a lot lately. The headaches brought on the memories. In her mind, she could see her mother stretched out on the old worn couch, dressed in the robe with the pretty blue flowers she used to wear, her hair a tangled mess. She could smell her breath. The odor made her sick, just like it used to.

  She hadn’t learned until much later it was the smell of alcohol. She’d been too young to recognize it then. But she could remember those words.

  Everyone has a time.

  Her mother had been talking about her father.

  She had never known him. He’d left before she was born. Her mother would call him names and cuss at his imaginary figure going out the door. Then she’d call her names. “You’re too stupid for words,” she’d say. “Why did I ever have you?”

  And then one day she’d told her her father was dead. When she asked how that could be, all her mother had said was that it had been his time.

  “Everyone has a time,” she’d told her.

  The wind grew stronger as she reached the edge of the bridge where the railing stopped and the concrete barrier began. Her head pounding, she stared up at the chicken wire fence mounted high atop the ledge.

  She peeked over the barrier and saw a small concrete platform about five feet down. That would work.

  She blinked at the cars buzzing by down below the overpass. So many of them. All going so fast. Where were they heading? To soccer practice? To games? Shopping? It was the weekend.

  How nice it would be to know who you are and where you were going every day.

  She never had.

  And then there was that girl at school. The junior with the perfect brown hair. The words she’d said about her at lunch on Friday still burned in her heart. Even now, she could feel her cheeks reddened. She’d been so humiliated.

  The girl hadn’t been mean, exactly. Just superior. Far above her, anyway.

  That’s when she’d known she’d never be good enough. Not for her faceless father. Not for her drunken mother. Not for the kids at school. Not for anyone. She’d never ever be good enough.

  That’s when she knew it was her time.

  She took off her jacket and laid it over the rail. The wind whipped through her, rippling her lightweight short-sleeve top.

  Closing her eyes, she put her hands on the concrete and drew in its rough cold surface.

  Minutes went by. Her hair blew around her face as her brain swam with hurtful words from her past, from her mother, from the girl at school, from deep inside her own mind. She breathed in the cold air, searching for the courage for what had to be done.

  A shout made her open her eyes again.

  The
cars down below were slowing. There must be a traffic jam up ahead. She thought she heard tires screech behind her. And a cry.

  But her head was so fuzzy with memories, she couldn’t make out anything.

  She had to go.

  Then a strong female voice came from the sidewalk beside her. “Hello, young lady.”

  She turned and saw a police officer coming toward her.

  No.

  “Don’t be alarmed. I thought you might like to talk a little.”

  Talk? What was there to talk about? Nothing would change. Nothing would ever change.

  Again she peered over the railing. Cars were stopped in their lanes. Flashing lights came from a fire truck a few yards beyond the overpass. A group of firemen were assembling a large yellow inflatable thing just below her. It looked like a raft she’d been on at summer camp one year.

  They were trying to stop her.

  No.

  She slung a leg over the rail.

  “I just want to ask you a question.” The woman sounded friendly, but she wasn’t. “What’s your name, honey?”

  She didn’t answer.

  Instead she held onto the rail, pulled her other leg over, and let herself drop down to the concrete platform. It was only about a foot wide. She had to be careful or she’d land in the trees.

  “C’mon, sweetheart. Don’t do that.”

  “Leave me alone.” Trying to position herself, she clung to the iron bar of the railing now over her head.

  “I just want to talk to you.”

  The woman leaned over the rail and a strong hand gripped her arm.

  “Let go of me.”

  “I’m sorry I can’t do that.”

  The grip was tight. The pain confused her. “You’re hurting me.”

  “I don’t mean to do that. I’m just here to help.” The woman kept on talking, but she couldn’t make out the words.

  She was in too much of a panic. She looked down. The men below were pointing up at her and moving the yellow raft thing so it would catch her.

  If she was going to do it, it had to be now.

  She looked up and glared at the woman. “Let go of me, I said.”

  She pulled her arm away as hard as she could. The officer’s nails scraped her skin as she lost her grip.

  She lost her balance and fell backward.

  Her feet left the narrow platform. She tumbled down toward the pavement below. Down past the bare tree branches. Past the beams of the overpass. Past the stains on its concrete supports.

  Down, down, down.

  And into darkness.

  Chapter Two

  Mackenzie Chatham sat at the desk in her room, staring at the image on her computer screen.

  It was a video of herself, dressed in a sparkling pink outfit and going into one of the hardest moves in the routine she had performed at Regionals a year and a half ago.

  She turned, shimmied backward in time to the upbeat music. And then as the tempo got faster, she went into her sit spin, twirling round and round until she was a blur.

  As the music ended, she came out of the spin, raised her arm, and ended with ice shavings spraying from her skates and a triumphant smile on her face.

  With a sigh, Mackenzie stared at the frozen frame.

  She could still remember her adopted mother taking her to the rink for the first time when she was six years old. She’d been mesmerized by the beautiful skaters and how smoothly they moved across the ice. When it came time to don her own pair of skates and venture out onto the rink, her heart had pounded with excitement.

  She’d fallen in love with the sport and decided she was going to be the very best at it.

  But that hadn’t happened.

  Her old coach had called last week. Just to check up with her and see how things were going, she said. But Mackenzie knew she was hoping she’d say she was ready to get back to skating. Mackenzie had tried. She had even coached Wendy for a while, but she’d dropped it.

  It wasn’t that she didn’t want to skate anymore.

  It was the memories of that madman.

  The bullet he’d fired at her that shattered her leg. The long recovery. She could still feel it when the weather was bad. And she had nightmares about it, though she hadn’t told anyone about them.

  Her mother—her real mother—had saved her from that man.

  She was so strong and brave. Mackenzie wanted to be like her. She thought she could. She thought if she tried, she could get past what had happened.

  But then there was that other matter.

  She closed the video and turned back to the window with her homework problems for Biology class. They were studying Genetics. Mendel’s principles. DNA and alleles and probability.

  The problems were about peas. Which combination of recessive and dominant traits would produce a green pea or a yellow pea.

  She clicked the answer to the first question and got it right.

  If only things were so easy in real life. If only the teacher would get to the next topic. This one was freaking her out.

  She turned from the screen and checked her phone. She hadn’t heard from Ambrose in a few days. They’d had sort of a fight.

  He had been getting pushy about wanting her to come to Boston for a visit, but Mackenzie just wasn’t ready for that. He told her he’d back off and give her some space. The truth was she wasn’t sure how she felt about the sixteen-year-old boy who had found her online.

  Sure, his photo was really cute, and he was smart, and sympathetic when she’d bared her soul and hinted at the secret she’d been hiding from everyone else for so long.

  But she didn’t really know him, did she?

  She had just brought up the text box and was composing a message in her mind, when another text came through.

  It was from Wendy.

  OMG, OMG.

  A stab of fear went through Mackenzie. Had Wendy told her mother she was talking to a boy she’d met online?

  Biting her lip, she typed a response. What’s wrong?

  It’s Ella. OMG.

  That wasn’t at all what she’d expected. The only Ella she knew was at school. You mean Ella Skinner?

  Yes. You won’t believe what she did. I can’t even say it. OMG. Turn on the news.

  Mackenzie reached for her mouse, opened the site for the local news station, and clicked on Breaking News.

  A local newsperson in a red dress was talking in front of a blue screen. She said one of the interstates had been shut down near an overpass.

  Mackenzie blinked at the film.

  There were cars stopped in the middle of the road pointing every which way. Police cars and ambulances, their lights flashing. Officers and firemen were everywhere, some on the bridge, others on the road down below. The camera zoomed in to a large yellow object that looked like an oversized mattress. Beside it, EMTs were hoisting the body of a young girl onto a gurney.

  Was that Ella?

  Mackenzie grabbed her phone again and furiously began to thumb another text.

  I see it. What’s going on?

  An instant later, Wendy’s frantic reply came. Ella tried to kill herself. I think she did. We have to do something.

  No, that couldn’t be possible. Ella wouldn’t do that. They’d all had lunch together Friday at school. Well, it had started that way. Guilt tugged at her heart. Was that what had happened? No, it couldn’t be. It just couldn’t.

  Tears began to fill her eyes.

  Wendy was right. They had to do something.

  But what?

  And then she knew. There was only one person who could find out what really happened to Ella.

  Quickly she turned to her contacts and pressed the number.

  Chapter Three

  Miranda Steele lay on the big cozy bed in Parker’s penthouse, gazing up into her gorgeous husband’s sexy gray eyes and feeling more love for him than she ever had before.

  He’d gotten a new mattress that had the feel of a waterbed but was light and airy as a cloud.
But it was that handsome face of his that had her melting like butter on a burner. With wisps of his dark hair peppered with gray falling over his forehead, and his to-die-for body he was impossible to resist.

  Even though he’d added a few scars to his collection over the past few months.

  He bent his head and kissed her, sending tingles over every inch of her.

  Mmm.

  She broke the kiss and let out a low laugh. “Makeup sex is the best kind.”

  “It is indeed,” Parker murmured in his low, drool-inducing voice.

  Last night had been rough.

  When they’d gotten back to the penthouse after a dinner at one of their favorite restaurants, Miranda had brought up their last case and what they’d learned about the person they had dubbed the “Man in Boston.”

  She said to Parker, as she had two weeks ago, that they should go after the guy. At least find out who he was. She’d thought by now Parker had had enough time to recover from the shock of what his father had told him in New York.

  But she’d been wrong. The wound was as raw as ever.

  Parker got angry. She got huffy. And they’d ended up having a bitter argument.

  They’d gone to bed without even saying goodnight to each other.

  Okay, she’d decided when she woke up this morning. She’d have to wait for him to heal some more before she brought the Man in Boston up again.

  She wasn’t going to drop the subject.

  But right now, she had other things on her mind.

  Parker nuzzled her hair with his nose and started to move inside her. “Shall we try for an encore?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  She grasped at the sheets as her heart fluttered, and her body came alive beneath him. No one had ever made her feel what Parker did. She’d never experienced such intense passion until this magnificent man had come into her life.

  No one had ever made her feel the way he did. Safe. Warm. Protected.

  Maybe a little too protected at times, but she was getting used to that, at last.

  With a growl, she rolled him over and was about to go in for the kill when her cell buzzed.

  “Let it go,” he murmured pulling her to him and kissing her harder as he pressed into her.

  “Oh.” Her heart and body melted at the same time.

  But the darn phone kept ringing. She might have been able to ignore it if it wasn’t so weird-sounding. It was a clown laughing ridiculously.

  Then a silly voice said, “Hey, answer the phone! Aren’t you going to answer the phone? Why don’t you answer the phone?”