Something about that just grated on Sariah’s nerves. No one should be that serene. It was unnatural.
Joshua sighed in response to Leslie’s statement. “Fine.”
He pulled little Josh out of his harness and handed the child over to Leslie. The woman took a step back, and if Sariah wasn’t mistaken, it looked like there was a look akin to fear in her eyes.
“Oh, no… I wasn’t saying that I was…” she sputtered.
“What?” Joshua challenged her. “You can’t have it both ways. Either you help me out with Josh or the kid gets traumatized.”
Her lips pressed into a thin line, she held out her arms for the babe. The stiffness with which she took little Josh told Sariah all she needed to know about Leslie’s experience level with infants.
Sariah was forced to hold back a chuckle. Turned out the sober companion had kryptonite after all. And it was babies.
“Come on,” Joshua reprimanded her. “He’s not toxic.”
“I don’t know about that,” she murmured. “I saw what he spit up just a few minutes ago.”
Sariah was about to step in and help out when her phone rang. Her boss in the BAU, Agent Tanner.
“I wanted to let you know that we’ve got someone coming in to consult with you on this one,” came his voice over the phone.
“You called in an outside consultant?” she asked.
“You’re not in trouble, Agent Cooper, if that’s what you’re suggesting.” There was a slight pause. “This is a bit of a strange one. It’s not an outside consultant.”
“Not an…?” This was making less sense by the second.
“Right,” came the response. “And he requested this, not me.”
“Who requested this?” Sariah prompted him, after there was a pause.
“Ah, yes… er,” Tanner muttered. “It’s Agent Kent Harbinger.”
With that, Sariah lost all words.
She knew Kent Harbinger. Well, she didn’t know him know him, but she’d been one of the students in that first class of his at Quantico. The one that had gone down in history as one of the most interesting lectures in the history of Quantico. And one that had gotten the professor fired.
The man was a legend.
He was also an arrogant son of a bitch.
She finally regained her powers of speech. “When… when is he getting here?"
“Ah, right,” Tanner hemmed. “He… um… well, he should be just about there.
At that instant, a taxi pulled up and a tall man with olive skin stepped out of the back. He looked like everyone’s idea of a well put-together lawman.
There was only one problem.
He was not Kent Harbinger.
* * *
How the hell did Ruben let things like this happen?
Actually, come to think of it, he knew just how he let things like this happen. And he could sum it up in two words.
Nicole. Usher.
Okay, Nicole Harbinger now, but that name still stuck in his craw. He might have moved on, but he couldn’t be the only one that could see the train wreck that was going to come sooner or later. Baby or no.
There was a tiny voice in the back of his head that was whispering that if he was really as over Nicole as he said, he would never have agreed to come here to take Kent’s place. The bastard pushes his way onto a BAU team, and then decides that he’s too busy playing daddy to show up?
Typical.
The team that greeted his eyes as he stepped out of the taxi was unlike any other he’d ever seen. He knew from the file he’d read that only one of these individuals was from the BAU. The rest had been picked up along the way.
Kind of weird, if you asked him. But what did he know?
“Hello,” he said, stepping out into the middle of the group, trying to discover the tensions that might lurk there. “I’m Detective Ruben Torres.”
Reading the room. It was something that Kent would do, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t a good idea. Kent had plenty of good ideas. He was just an asshole.
“I’m Agent Cooper.”
The sharp-looking African American woman moved to greet him, looking over his shoulder at the cab behind him. There appeared to be some confusion showing in her expression.
“I thought Agent Harbinger was coming.”
“Sorry. Something came up,” Ruben answered, aware of how lame that sounded. And why was he covering for the guy?
“Not a problem,” the woman reassured him.
There was a flicker of something on the woman’s face that turned into a smile so fast Ruben almost didn’t catch it. But he’d been fielding shit for not being Harbinger for years. He knew what it looked like when he saw it.
“So…” he said, looking down at the body. “What have we got?” A sudden impulse struck him and he added, “Frat party gone awry?”
Silence.
It was the kind of statement the profiler would have made. And if Kent had said it, every woman in the vicinity would have giggled and swooned. But these three just stared at him, each one’s face a mask of concerned non-amusement.
“Sorry, just some homicide humor,” he muttered. Clearing his throat, he turned back to the body in front of them. “But I’m seeing here that our guy has the same penile mutilations as the others.”
Joshua Wright let out a sigh. “Why is this guy here?” The man’s dog, looked like some kind of Boxer mix, cocked her head to the side, appearing for all the world like she was asking the same question as her owner.
Well, Ruben could see that this was going to be one hell of a good experience.
* * *
Reggie shot Joshua a look, trying to communicate to him without speaking that he needed to play nice with the detective. Joshua just ignored her. That was happening more and more of late.
Perhaps for a logical reason, in this case. She realized that she was trying to stand as close to Sariah as she could, without appearing to stand too close. Awkward. She shifted away a step.
Then Bella perked her head up. Just as Reggie noticed the dog’s reaction, there was a sound that made the entire group spin around. It was the bright chatter of a crowd of people. There were guests headed straight toward them. It looked like close to fifteen families, around fifty individuals.
Who in the hell had let them in?
Without any discussion, Had, Reggie, Joshua and Bella tried to form a tight circle around the crime scene, hoping that no one would see the body. Leslie, still holding the baby, remained off to one side. At the same time, Agent Cooper and Detective Torres rushed forward, trying to divert the flow of customers from the horrific sight that awaited them at the archery range.
At least the body was in an area that was off the main path. Most everyone was headed over to the apple orchard or the main gift shop.
“Wait! Stop!”
It was Torres, yelling as he chased after a small figure that was headed right toward the rest of the team. And the mutilated corpse.
This was not good.
She was a little girl, dressed up as Katniss from The Hunger Games. So far, she’d managed to evade both Sariah and Torres, and showed no signs of slowing down.
And then she caught sight of the body.
The screams pierced the air, and heads swiveled around to find out what was going on. Instead of moving away from the scene, now they were all moving toward it.
So much for keeping this murder under wraps.
CHAPTER 2
Joshua started to move away from the body, pulling Bella along with him, to try to give Agent Cooper and Detective Torres some help. But right at that point, the two were joined by local law enforcement. Within minutes, the rest of the guests had been diverted and crime scene tape was going up.
As for the little girl in the Hunger Games outfit, she would probably need therapy.
There was a sound of crunching gravel behind him, and Joshua turned to see what it was. The owner of the Peter Pumpkin Patch, Peter Gesner, approached the crime scene once more. Jos
hua felt Bella stiffen at his side.
This was the man responsible for almost getting their crime scene contaminated.
“I’m sorry!” the man called out as he got within speaking distance. “I don’t know how that happened!”
“Sheer negligence?” Joshua speculated, staring the man down. “Criminal, perhaps?”
Bella growled her agreement.
Reggie put a hand on his arm, but he shrugged it off. He had no desire to be reprimanded by her right now. Or comforted, either. It was hard to tell what her gesture had been intended to communicate.
“It wasn’t me,” the owner protested. “One of my employees must have gotten here late and just opened up the gate.” He looked around. “How bad was it?”
“Depends,” Coop said, glancing down at the body. “How do you feel about your customers seeing this?”
The man frowned. “Not good. Not good at all. Someone’s going to get fired over this, I promise you that.” He glanced around at the faces surrounding him. “How long are we looking at before…?”
His gesture took in the grotesque form of the teenage boy on the ground. The teenage boy that, up until yesterday, had worked for him.
“Compassionate, aren’t you?” Joshua grumbled. “So worried about the well-being of your employees.”
“We’re in the middle of a crime scene,” Reggie stepped in to explain to the owner, looking like she was trying to defuse the tension. “It will take as long as it takes.”
“Yeah, I get that,” the man said. “I just… Well, it’s awkward timing.”
“Murder usually is,” Agent Cooper said.
“You’re the proprietor? Had you seen this young man around the farm before?” the new detective asked. What was his name?
Torres. That was it. This guy was a total waste of space.
“He was an employee,” Joshua snapped. “Catch up, Torres.”
“Fine,” Torres said, clenching his jaw. He then turned back to the owner. “Know anyone that might want to hurt him?”
Peter looked down at the body again. “No, but that doesn’t mean much. I don’t interact all that much with the employees. You’ll have to ask my wife.”
“That would be me,” came a voice from behind them. “I can help.”
A woman stepped into their circle, slipping her arm through Peter Gesner’s. The owner of the Pumpkin Patch seemed to stiffen for a moment, then collected himself.
“This is my wife, Alyson,” he said. “The brawn behind the operation.”
Something in his tone told Joshua that things might not be all that great between them at the moment. His jaw seemed tight as he gave her name to the group and he seemed to be trying to get as far away from her as he could without unlinking her arm from his. Bella whined at his feet, looking back and forth between the husband and wife.
“I can’t apologize enough about the guests getting in. Ingrid was running the gate, and she had no idea what was going on.” From the way she said the girl’s name, Joshua could only guess that the Ingrid in question was operating one mental level above a rock.
“Anything we should know about your employee?” Coop pressed, honing in on what she must see as the pertinent information. “People that might not get along with him?”
“Angry boyfriends, maybe,” she said with a shrug. Peter’s face went even tighter at that, and Alyson seemed to respond to his mood, as she sighed. “Byron was usually attached to some young woman’s arm when he wasn’t working. And those young women would swap places a lot. Sometimes in the same day.”
“Bit of a player?” Had asked. The woman nodded, and Joshua watched her face grow grim as she glanced down at the body and winced.
“I don’t remember seeing him with anybody,” Peter said, giving his wife an odd look. “If it was getting in the way of his work, I should have…”
“Well, you’re always stuck in that office,” Alyson answered. “I was handling it.”
Peter frowned and started to say something, then seemed to rethink. “Right.”
At that point, a large man dressed in the severe black clothing of the Amish stalked toward them from the main farm. Everything about his manner spoke of extreme irritation, from his brisk gait to the hard expression on his face.
At his side, a woman who might have been his wife seemed to be trying to hold him back. Her expression was strained, and it was clear that the man was having none of it.
Alyson snapped her fingers. “Oh, with all of those guests rushing the gate, I forgot why I came over. Stoltzfus is here and wanting to talk to you.”
Peter made a face. “All right. Guess I’d better go deal with it.” He moved off to intercept the large man.
Alyson turned a look at Reggie. “Amish. They make damn good furniture and baked goods, but sometimes dealing with them can be a bit… problematic.”
From where the two men had met, an argument could be heard. Reggie turned her attention to the altercation.
“…always the same with you English anymore. Just as things get to being good, there must be something come along to make it bad.”
“Isaiah, please,” Peter was saying. “Can’t we talk this through?”
The big Amish man’s face was bright red as he placed his hands on Peter’s chest and shoved. Hard. The owner of the Pumpkin Patch staggered back, and the Amish woman at Isaiah’s side gasped and stood in between the two men.
“Isaiah! Remember the Ordnung. Check your wrath.”
Isaiah seemed to come to himself at that point. After taking a deep breath, he faced Peter Gesner once more.
“What is there to be talking about? You will gather my goods together and I will be picking them up this afternoon.”
With that, the man turned on his heel and stormed back toward a horse and buggy that Reggie hadn’t seen before. She was well versed enough in the history of the area to know quite a bit about the Amish and their culture. But knowing it was one thing. Seeing it was something else.
“Amish prick,” Peter mumbled as he returned to the group.
“Problems?” Coop asked.
Peter lifted his head up. “Oh, that? No, not really.”
“I thought the Amish were pacifists,” Reggie chimed in. “He seems pretty pissed.”
“Isaiah’s a bit of a hothead.” Sighing, Peter shook his head. “But it’s not that bad. It’s just that he can be a bit… judgmental at times. We sell Isaiah’s stuff out of our gift shop.” He glanced over his shoulder at the departing buggy. “Well, we did, anyway.”
“Sounds like that might be a pretty big loss for you,” Detective Torres said.
It was phrased as a statement, but it was clear to Joshua that it was a question. And a pointed one, at that. Okay, so maybe the detective wasn’t completely useless.
Peter gave a grim chuckle. “The commission on that stuff maybe accounts for a whopping ten percent of our revenue. If that.”
“Still, that’s not nothing,” Coop said, stepping in on Torres’ side. “Have there been any other problems between you?”
“Just the occasional fit of self-righteous indignation from Isaiah.”
“Who was the woman with him?” Joshua asked.
“That’s Christy, his wife,” Alyson answered. “She’s the only reason he would work with us at all. Good woman.”
“Christy?” Reggie asked, surprise in her tone. “That’s not really much of an Amish name, is it?”
“No, it’s not,” Peter responded. “She converted. Used to be a nurse practitioner. Met Isaiah and fell in love.” It was clear from the way he spoke that he thought the woman was insane.
“I think it’s romantic,” Alyson chastised her husband. “And now she sort of acts as the doctor for their community. Keep them from having to go out among the “English” for their healthcare.
Joshua tried to imagine giving up electricity for someone. That wasn’t something he could see happening anytime soon.
Out of the corner of his eye he caught sight of little Jo
sh, still in the arms of his sober companion. Okay, maybe there was one person for whom he’d sacrifice that much.
Then Bella pushed at his leg. Fine, fine. Two.
But right now, he couldn’t afford to get distracted by thoughts of Josh or Bella.
They had a killer to catch.
* * *
Had looked over the area, making sure that everything was secured.
Now that everything was cordoned off, things had settled down a bit. Now it was just the challenge of redirecting curious guests of the farm, as they tried to find out what was going on back behind the tape.
The CSI team was processing the scene, and the Gesners were back inside the farm, trying to figure out how to salvage the day. Had didn’t envy them.
“You didn’t think there was something weird between those two?” Joshua was asking Coop. “Gesner was acting like his wife was wearing some kind of repellent.”
“I’m not sure their marital issues have anything to do with this murder,” Torres stated, seeming to brush the statement aside.
“Really?” Joshua probed. “Because as far as I can tell, this murder has a pretty strong sexual context to it.” He gestured at the boy’s genitalia. “Just sayin’ ”.
“It’s worth following up on,” Coop said, looking from one of the men to the other. “And maybe we can do that without the whole mine’s bigger than yours shtick? What do you say?”
Joshua glanced away, frowning, but after a moment, Torres nodded his head. Seemed like the detective was interested in getting things done, in spite of the shade Joshua was throwing his way.
Much as Had hated to admit it, the guy was better about taking a reprimand than Joshua was, any day of the week. Although the fact that he had been willing to overlook the tension between the husband and wife was not great.
Reggie, who was standing next to Coop, seemed to be backing the BAU agent up. “They said the kid was a bit of a Don Juan. Maybe he was hitting on the wife?”
“Or maybe there’s a financial angle we aren’t seeing yet,” Had chimed in.
Joshua frowned. “Any financial problems would be more likely to rule Peter and Alyson out. This murder has to be hurting their bottom line.”
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