Deadly Reckoning

by Robin Mahle

  Deadly Reckoning

  A Kate Reid Novel

  Robin Mahle

  HARP House Publishing, LLC.

  Published by HARP House Publishing

  March, 2018 (1st edition)

  Copyright ©2018 by Robin Mahle

  All Rights Reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, by any means, including mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, or broadcast. The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Cover design: Covermint Design

  Editor: Hercules Editing and Consulting Services www.bzhercules.com

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  About the Author

  Other Works

  1

  The old Datsun pickup blew through the narrow lane that snaked between the tall trees. Their bare branches intertwined and arched over the road. A few dried leaves on the ground whirled in the truck’s wake. Even as December’s bitter remains were left behind, January did nothing to raise the spirits. And in Crown Pointe, Kentucky, the small town that once thrived on a booming mining industry, bitter spirits were all that remained. Especially for Tommy Conroy, who was behind the wheel, and Joanne Waverly, the young couple trapped in a dying town.

  With shaky hands, Joanne counted the money again, laying out each bill on her legs clothed in ripped jeans. “We should’ve got more.”

  “They ran out of pop. What were we supposed to do? What we should’ve done was get there earlier,” Tommy replied.

  To some people in this town that had been forgotten by the rest of the country, pop was a hot commodity. Once a month, when the food stamps arrived, the grocery stores marked down their cases of pop, and those with stamps who were lucky enough to get there before the stock disappeared cleaned out the inventory. The idea then was to sell off the cases to the smaller mom and pop grocery stores for cheaper than wholesale. The end result was a roughly 50 cents on the dollar return in cold hard cash. And voila, cash for food stamps. This was how they got the money to buy the drugs. Mostly opioids like OxyContin, but heroin was a fine substitute and was becoming cheaper than the pills anyway.

  “It’s gonna have to be enough.” Tommy continued toward the hills. “Besides, we’re almost there, so just keep your shit together. You’re getting agitated and your nose is running.”

  Joanne used the back of her hand and wiped her nose, darting an angry glare at Tommy. “Yeah? Maybe you should drive faster in this piece of shit truck of yours.”

  “You wanna walk?” he shot back.

  She peered through the passenger window. “Just hurry is all.”

  He turned onto the unpaved path that led to the cabin near the edge of town. “We’re here, all right?” The small pickup rolled to a stop behind an old Chevy Caprice. He grabbed the gear shift and put it in park before killing the engine. “You just let me do the talking. I can already see you ain’t right. And we got no one else to go to right now.”

  “Fine.” Joanne opened the door in a huff and stepped out.

  He walked around the pickup. “I’ll tell you what, why don’t you just sit tight here? I’ll go inside. Better that way. We don’t know these people and it’s best if they don’t see both of us.”

  “Fine. I’ll wait.” She stepped back into the truck and watched him approach the front door.

  With glassy eyes and worsening symptoms, she noticed the door open but couldn’t see the person inside. Tommy disappeared beyond the threshold. She began picking at her fingernails, fidgeting with the radio, and wiping her nose until it turned red. The eternity of his departure was becoming unbearable, until finally she spotted him again. A smile on his face, he made his way toward the car. Relief was coming and just in the nick of time.

  Joanne pulled up from her slumped position with anticipation. As he drew near, though, her brows furrowed. A man she couldn’t quite place followed behind him. She raised her chin at Tommy, as if to bring to his attention he was being followed. Because what frightened her most of all was the look on the man’s face. Had Tommy shorted him the money?

  Tommy picked up on her gesture and turned around. From inside the truck, Joanne spotted the man raise a bat overhead. And just as quickly as the bat appeared, it crashed down against the side of Tommy’s skull. “No!” She braced herself against the passenger door.

  The force of the blow knocked Tommy to the ground and he disappeared from her view. And the man now headed straight for her. She scrambled to crawl into the driver’s seat. The key was still in the ignition, an act that just might save her life. But in her panicked state, she fumbled with the gearshift. Shaking and screaming, she tried to start the engine. Joanne peered through the windshield, hoping Tommy might rise up, but he hadn’t. If she wanted to live, she would have to leave him behind.

  At last, the engine turned and rumbled. With her hand on the gear shift, she thrust the small pickup into reverse, grinding the gears. Next to her, the window shattered. The bat was now inches from her face, painted with Tommy’s blood. Another scream ripped from her throat, and then she was silenced.

  BAU Senior Unit Agent Nick Scarborough switched off the projector. “Duncan, would you mind turning on the lights?” The lights of the conference room burned brightly. “Thanks. There is one other thing I’d like to mention before wrapping up. I’d like to offer my congratulations to Reid, who has completed her training hours and is now officially part of the team.” He nodded to Kate.

  Several months had passed since she had been offered the apprenticeship with Agent Noah Quinn. And in that time, she’d had to complete additional training that was required for all new BAU agents. But that was over now. She was here and she was one of them. Nevertheless, the question of her acceptance weighed heavily on her mind. Quinn, her new supervisor, had made her feel welcomed, but she believed the others were still reserving judgment. Perhaps seeing her work a case would sway them, but to date, nothing had come down the pike except for consultations with a few field offices. It wasn’t like the WFO. They were smaller and much more hands-on, and Kate missed that. She also missed Dwight and Alicia, her partners. Dwight was now SSA Jameson, the WFO’s resident BAU agent, and Alicia Vasquez was essentially second-in-command, as Kate had been until her departure last summer. They were still in need of a third but hadn’t found the right fit as of yet, at least, according to Dwight. Since she left, he’d told her it would be difficult to fill her shoes, but she didn’t think so.

  “Good job, Reid.” SSA Cameron Fisher, a New Yorker and perpetual toothpick chewer, was the first to offer a pat on the back. “Welcome aboard.” Fisher was the guy who worked with the field coordinators for the NCAVC. A few years older than Nick, the lean man who stood just shy of six feet with a pointed chin, ridiculo
usly high cheekbones, and a thick head of graying hair was good at his job. But then, it took the best of the best to be a part of this team.

  Agent Eva Duncan was still a bit of an enigma to Kate. Athletic with long, thick caramel hair and skin to match, she was on the downhill slide to forty, beating Kate to it by about five years, and Kate was a hair’s breadth taller. She handled a variety of tasks, from providing expert testimony to assisting field agents with crime analyses. Duncan was the go-to agent and someone Kate should get to know better.

  Finally, there was Agent Levi Walsh. And right away, Kate saw something special in him. He had kind eyes, deep blue, that somehow still held wonder in them. The man had seen too much sun, leaving a mild leathery look that would worsen in his later years, though he was just around forty now. The former military man was rough around the edges, but there was something attractive about him she couldn’t quite place. He was the team’s investigative analyst who offered suggestions and guidance to local law enforcement regarding threat response. In other words, in the case of their unit, if a predator was on the loose, Walsh would use Quinn’s profile and provide the local police with critical response tactics to protect the public and help track down the unsub.

  Kate stood to learn a great deal from all of them and waited for the chance. But her heart lay in profiling. And that was Agent Quinn’s job. The younger, baby-faced man, much too refined for her taste, was smart and ambitious. There were things she’d already picked up from him. Things she couldn’t quite tell yet if they would be to her advantage or his.

  As the others offered their best wishes, it was Quinn who closed out the meeting. “We are very glad to have you here, Reid. It’s about time I got some help around here.” He smiled as the team broke up and the room cleared. “One second, Reid. You have a minute?”

  “Sure.”

  Quinn waited for Kate to enter his office, then closed the door behind him. “Have a seat.” He returned to his desk. “So, now that it’s official, I wanted to talk to you about something.”

  “I’m all ears.”

  “I was thinking about conducting a study that would broaden our understanding of the mind of a sociopath.”

  “Okay.” It wasn’t unusual for a profiler to publish a paper in his field, but Kate couldn’t figure out why he was telling her this, unless he wanted her to do the leg work.

  “I wanted to bring this up because I’d like to get your input on a case you were personally involved with.”

  And now she understood. He wanted to pick her brain about Hendrickson. “Look, I get the curiosity factor, but I’ve worked exceptionally hard at putting the past behind me. I’m sure you can understand that.”

  “I do. Absolutely. And I wouldn’t want to rehash what you went through.”

  “Good.”

  “As I understand it, Scarborough asked something similar of you a long time ago, when you were at the Academy.”

  She measured his request with some restraint. “He did. But it was a brief lecture he was giving and I did answer a few questions. Which, in hindsight, I wasn’t ready for at the time.”

  “This wouldn’t take place in front of any group. This would simply be me asking you questions that could offer further acumen.”

  “I don’t know. To be honest, the fact that this is coming up now when we’ve been working together for some months is a bit of a surprise.”

  “The completion of your hours was required before we could do this on the books, so to speak. But hey, I understand and I certainly don’t want to put you in a position that makes you at all uncomfortable. But I would like to ask that perhaps down the road you might consider making such a contribution.”

  “I’ll consider it. In time.”

  Handle’s Bar was the favorite hangout of the WFO team. It was also the place Kate met Quinn for the first time, not realizing who he was and humoring him at the behest of Agent Vasquez. The fact that he’d hit on her way back then was something she still teased him about on occasion. His face turned a light shade of pink at the mere mention of it.

  But tonight, Kate was here not as part of the WFO team, but to see her friends who had taken the reins and just wrapped up a case. The first one without her. So they were going to celebrate.

  “There you are!” Alicia Vasquez stood from the booth. “I thought maybe you guys got too big for your britches and decided to ditch us.” She embraced Kate.

  “Never. Just got caught up in traffic.” Kate squeezed Alicia as though she hadn’t seen her in years when it had only been a few months. “Dwight.” Her heart soared at the sight of her friend. She missed him so much. Missed both of them. But she and Dwight shared a special bond and it had been difficult being away from him.

  “Hello, gorgeous.” Dwight kissed her cheek and turned to Nick. “Good to see you too, brother.” A firm handshake followed but not without a pat on the back between the men who also shared a strong bond.

  “Feels like old home week,” Nick slipped into the booth after Kate. “So, you just closed out a case, I hear.”

  “You heard correctly.” Dwight raised a hand to get the waitress’ attention. “What are you drinking?”

  “Coke is fine,” Nick replied.

  “Right.” Dwight was only one of two people who knew Nick was working to control his drinking. “Kate, what are you having?”

  “A glass of red will do for me, thanks.”

  “Got it. A Coke and a house red,” he said to the waitress. On her departure, he continued. “You’re all official-like, now, eh?”

  “That’s what they tell me. Guess I’ll have to wait till I get that paycheck to know for sure.”

  “I couldn’t be prouder of you, Kate.”

  “Same here, my friend.” Alicia held up her glass for a toast. “Here’s to getting the gang back together again.”

  “Congratulations to both of you on your investigation,” Nick said. “Couldn’t have been easy when you’re down a man.”

  “I’ve got a few promising candidates on tap, but this one over here,” Dwight glanced at Alicia, “she came through. Her work was invaluable. I couldn’t have done it without her.”

  “Thanks, boss. So, Kate, how’s Quinn? Treating you right, I hope?”

  “So far so good.”

  “You ever give him shit about him hitting on you here?”

  “Nah.” Kate felt compelled to issue the white lie in order to shield Nick.

  He eyed her as if he already knew better but dismissed it with a sip on his Coke.

  “He did ask me something today, actually, that I thought was a little odd. He asked if I could help him on a study he wanted to conduct. But that it would involve picking my brain about Hendrickson.”

  “Are you serious?” Nick appeared concerned. “What did you say?”

  “Well, I said it wasn’t something I wanted to relive and asked if I could take a pass—for now.”

  “And was he okay with that?” Dwight asked.

  “Seemed to be. Didn’t say anything to me after that. Still, you know I’ve been working around him for several months now and he’s never said one word about Hendrickson. Now all of a sudden, he’s got an interest?”

  “Maybe he’s just looking to get published? Would do a lot for his career,” Nick replied.

  “Maybe. Still, kind of a shitty thing to ask someone.” Alicia eyed Kate. “And to be honest, it’s not like he couldn’t find out most things just by reading your file. I mean, come on. The Academy conducts enough psych tests before passing you anyway. There’s probably a few hidden gems in there he could expose.”

  “Thanks, Alicia. I appreciate that.” Kate’s reply came off a little more sarcastic than she intended.

  “I didn’t mean…”

  “No. It’s okay. I’m not bothered by it. Really. Hendrickson is nothing if not an interesting case study. I, of all people, recognize that. But it’s just not something I prefer to recall if I don’t have to.”

  The group seemed to shake off the topi
c, and as the evening wore on, the old team rehashed old stories until the time had come to call it a night.

  Nick tossed back the rest of his third soda. “You about ready to head home?”

  “Probably should,” Kate replied. “I’m sure we all have an early start tomorrow. It was so great seeing you guys. It’s been too long. Let’s make sure that doesn’t happen again.”

  “Just try to keep us away.” Dwight readied himself to leave.

  The four of them walked outside, leaving together as they all had so many times before from this bar, only they wouldn’t see each other again for a while. It was just the way of things, no matter how good their intentions were.

  The valet was bringing around Nick’s car. “Here you go, sir.”

  “Thank you.” He turned to the others. “Thanks again for setting this up. And congratulations to you both. Good night.”

  As they drove away, Nick began, “That was a lot of fun. It was really good seeing those two again. I miss them.”

  Kate held her hands near the vent and waited for the air to warm them. “It was fun. I never doubted those two could handle anything that came their way.” She noticed he became quiet. “You okay? You really do miss them, don’ t you?”

  “Oh, it’s not that. I mean, I do miss them, but I was just thinking about what Quinn asked you today.”

  “Already forgotten. It’s no big deal. I told him no and he backed off. No pressure.”

  “I know. It’s just that I hope with you there, working for him, he doesn’t try to sway you. Honestly, you’ve got enough on your plate trying to learn the ropes without any added pressure.”