Before He Preys by Blake Pierce

Author:Blake Pierce [Pierce, Blake]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Blake Pierce
Published: 2018-03-23T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY

Mackenzie was glad Kingsville was just over an hour away from DC; it made the back and forth monotony of it all much more bearable. She wasn’t stranded like she typically was when she was on assignment elsewhere in the country. Because of the close proximity, it only took her forty-five minutes to get from Kingsville to Herndon, which would place her only twenty minutes away from DC when she was done.

The business card Haggerty had given her was for a man by the name of Oswald Gates. The card claimed he was an LPC specializing in “achieving peace and rest through group settings.” He’d seemed agreeable enough on the telephone and although he had not maintained a phobia-based group in over a year, he jumped at the chance to meet with her.

His office was located in a small brick building right in the center of the city. When Mackenzie parked in front of it, she took the plain generic building for the sort of place that held AA meetings regularly, and where there were probably thrift sales or bake sales for local charities on the weekends. Perhaps a little unfairly, she figured it was the perfect place for people to gather to discuss their fears.

She entered the building and found that it smelled of Pine-Sol and strong coffee. She figured it was a community center of sorts, complete with a corkboard in the hallway with fliers, posters, and announcements about upcoming events. At the end of the hall, she found Oswald Gates’s office. He was turned away from the door, digging through a battered gray filing cabinet. Mackenzie knocked on the door and Gates turned around to face her. He was a middle-aged African-American with a well-kept beard that covered most of his neck. He wore a pair of reading glasses that made his eyes look enormous.

“Hi, Mr. Gates,” she said. “Thanks for meeting with me on such short notice.”

“Of course,” he said. “You know, Kingsville being so close, I’ve heard about those suicides. But I gathered on the phone with you that you think there might be something more to it?”

“That’s the way it’s looking,” Mackenzie said. “As I said, I got your number from Jan Haggerty and she thought you might be able to offer some more insights into the mindset of someone who has a fear of heights.”

“I can certainly try,” he said. He slapped at a pile of files he had no doubt pulled from the filing cabinet behind him. “What would you like to know?”

“How much experience do you have with people with acrophobia?”

“A pretty good deal. Fear of heights is the most common fear among humans. It’s so common that most people don’t even think about coming to support groups for it because they think it’s perfectly normal. I have worked with a few, though.”

“Do you recall any who were aggressive? Do you find that aggressions or maybe even depression seems to be linked to a fear of heights?”

Gates took a moment to think about that and then shook his head.

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