A laugh erupted before Nicole could stop it. Harbinger wasn’t even on official duty, yet was closer to solving the case then they had come in months. “I’m sorry, sir, but I’ve got to follow up a lead.”
“Without Torres?”
Definitely without her partner.
* * *
Kent sat at a corner table in the back of the Decadence Café. He blew on his hot chocolate, causing the whipped cream to tremble and dance across the dark surface. Everyone else around him was drinking an iced tea, or iced latte, or iced something or other. Given the fact that it was ten o’clock at night and still ninety degrees with one hundred percent humidity, Kent didn’t blame them.
However, he found the warmer it was outside, the warmer he liked his drink. Call him a contrarian that way.
As he waited for his hot chocolate to cool just below scalding temperatures, Kent studied those around him. More than half of the patrons he and Nicole had lured here. You could tell them from their furtive glances and barely contained excitement and shame. He had made sure to tell each of them to order something different, with a twist.
Never before had café-goers been so interested in what everyone else was eating. Who would be brave enough to get up and introduce themselves to their supposed blind date? Kent had certainly manipulated each of them, but that didn’t mean that he hadn’t tried to match each of them with someone compatible. It felt like it was his civic duty.
He might be a puppet master, but he liked to think of himself as a benevolent one. Well, perhaps not benevolent, but at the least indulgent. The café door opened to reveal a petite brunette with a badge on her hip. Once again, he pulled a string, and look who followed.
Nicole spotted him and headed straight over. “Special Agent Harbinger.”
“Please,” he said, indicating to the chair across from him. “Once you’ve seduced together, I believe you should be on a first-name basis.”
“Kent, then,” Nicole said as she sat down. “You weren’t called in.”
Leaning back, Kent took a sip of the hot chocolate. The barista had been right. That shot of spearmint really did liven up the drink. “I never said I was.” Off of her frown, he continued. “Your paramour was the one that ousted me as a profiler. I was simply observing.”
She cocked her head. Both of them knew there was nothing simple about his presence here, but she didn’t push it.
“So how was it?” Kent asked.
Nicole shrugged. “It’s good that we’ve eliminated Munz and can move on.”
“That’s not what I asked though, is it?” he pointed out.
The detective shifted in her seat, her fingers playing with an empty sugar packet. “I could…” she stopped, then started again. “It was like I could sense his internal resistance, then the cracking of his composure. Not in a psychic way, just in a…” Nicole pointed to her midline, “Physical way.”
Kent knew exactly what she was describing. Most cops called it their gut, but really it was a complex set of visual and auditory clues, filtered and sorted by the brain, before the autonomic system sent the message down to the belly. There was very little instinct about it. For the most part, it was a learned craft that could be cultivated if one wished and was willing to risk opening themselves up to it.
“Again, not what I asked.”
Nicole let the packet go. “It felt pretty damned good.”
Kent grinned. That’s what he’d thought. “And what do you think of our handiwork?”
“What do you mean?”
“Look around,” Kent said. “Recognize anyone?”
Nicole turned in her seat, surveying the room. “I don’t —” She stopped herself, then swung back to him. “No. They can’t be.”
“Oh, but they are,” Kent said, then took another sip. “Can you guess who’s who?”
A smile flickered at the edge of her lips as she studied those around her. She pointed to the chubbiest of the bunch. “Chastity4U?”
“Very good,” he purred. “And MelissaOTK?”
Nicole nodded toward a redhead wearing a dark purple bustier.
“Now, knowing what you do,” Kent stated, “reimagine your profile of the killer.”
The detective’s eyes narrowed. “He certainly has far more social skills than we had anticipated.”
“Online,” Kent reminded her. “That is a whole other set of skills. But I was speaking more to his baseline personality.”
“What do you mean?”
How this reminded Kent of his days of teaching at Quantico. Okay, so it was only for one class, but still. There was a certain thrill to watching someone else’s mind expand.
“Talk to me about how he disposes of the bodies.”
Nicole opened her mouth, but shut it again. She thought a bit longer before answering. “He is a bit of a showman.”
“Exactly,” Kent concurred. “After all that work and flare, do you really think he would be content to sit back and let the police take it from there?”
“You aren’t suggesting…”
Kent was about to acknowledge that that was exactly what he was suggesting when the café door opened again. A tall, ravishing brunette entered, her long black dress hugging every curve. Her heavy eyeliner expertly applied, then smudged just enough to give that smoky look.
“Ah, but here is the showstopper,” Kent stated.
Nicole turned to take in the new beauty as the grin fell and was replaced by a frown. “Jaime? The EMT?”
Ah, if a picture was worth a thousand words, the look on Nicole’s face was worth a million.
“But…but…” Nicole balked. “Why would you lure her here?”
“Oh, my darling,” Kent cooed. “I allowed her to lure me.”
* * *
Nicole didn’t bother to open her mouth. Gibberish would just fall out. Her mind had to grasp the several bombshells that had just been dropped.
First Kent was suggesting, or, more like the profiler, telling her that the killer had inserted himself into the investigation. That someone she knew was the killer. Second, Jaime standing in that doorway. The EMT that had lured Kent here.
She couldn’t be the killer, could she? Everything about her was so wrong for the crime, yet here she stood, not looking a thing like she did while on the job. She had transformed from mousy to seductress in a few short hours.
The woman’s dark eyes passed over Nicole, then flickered back. Recognition registered. The smooth self-confidence was replaced by a look of barely contained panic. Jaime turned on her heel and headed back out the door.
Nicole knocked her chair over rushing to follow. “Police,” she announced as the room turned to her. Dodging past MelissaOTK, Nicole hit the door and burst out onto the street. No Jaime, though. Just her partner. He must have followed her here. Under other circumstances Nicole would have found that a bit overbearing—right now, though, it was a godsend.
“Ruben, did you see Jaime?”
“The EMT?” Ruben asked, glancing around the empty street.
Nicole didn’t have time to explain. “Did you see a woman in a long black dress? Hot? Smoking hot?”
“Yes, she hurried off to the south, but—”
Not bothering to answer him, Nicole struck off, knowing that Ruben would follow.
“I don’t understand,” her partner said as he hurried to catch up. “Actually, I don’t think I understand the last few hours.”
And Nicole really couldn’t help him, not while busy checking out side alleys trying to find Jaime. The EMT couldn’t have gotten very far. Not in those stilettos. Then she heard it. The click of heels against the pavement. Nicole took the next left, rushing down the alley. Was that a flash of red from the bottom of the EMT’s designer shoe?
Pulling her weapon, Nicole quickened her pace. While Ruben un-holstered his weapon, as well, he didn’t sound any more sure than he had been a moment ago. “We are chasing down Jaime?”
There she was! Nearly to her car. They couldn’t let her get
away, but they were pretty damned far off. Then an arm reached out from a doorway and clotheslined the woman. Jaime flew off her feet, landing on her back, clutching her throat. Kent stepped from the shadows, adjusting his cuff links.
“What the hell is going on?” Ruben demanded.
Nicole got Jaime up, patted her down, making sure that she wasn’t carrying a weapon. “Jaime has been using chat rooms to lure victims.”
Ruben took a step back. “Do you mean that…”
Catching her breath, Nicole nodded to the profiler. “Kent thinks that the Professor inserted themselves into the investigation. Jaime was the first on the scene this morning.” Nicole found a small label in Jaime’s purse. It read “Ureter.”
Ruben read the label. “You crazy—”
“Wait,” Jaime croaked out, trying to clear her throat. “I didn’t kill anyone.”
“We will see about that,” Nicole said, handcuffing the EMT.
“No,” Jaime said. “I just sold the crime scene photos.”
Kent stepped forward, “No, that’s not all you did.”
The EMT nodded slowly. “And stole evidence to sell to the murder memorabilia auctions, but that’s it.”
Nicole looked to Kent, who didn’t seem surprised. Nor did he correct Jaime.
“She isn’t the killer?” Nicole asked, feeling her heart sink in her belly.
“Oh, heavens no,” Kent answered. “I mean, we already know who the killer is. Don’t we?”
* * *
“What the hell are you talking about?” Ruben demanded, stepping forward, taking charge.
“It’s the crime scene photographer,” Kent answered, nonplussed. “Didn’t I tell you?”
“No,” Nicole snapped.
“Oops, my bad.”
Ruben felt like he’d just walked in on a Wagner opera halfway through, in its original German. “Nikki, what is going on?”
But she didn’t answer. Instead, her brows furrowed as she frowned. Clearly, her mind was whirring a mile a minute. Unfortunately, Ruben couldn’t wait for her to come up for air.
“What makes you think that Roy is the killer?” asked the detective.
“Um,” Harbinger said, acting as if Ruben wanted to know why the sun rose in the morning. “He had access. He had suppressed rage. He was the only one at the crime scene that reacted when I called the killer stupid. Clearly he has body image issues—do I need to go on?”
“Yes,” Ruben growled. “Yes, you do. Because no jury in a millennium is going to convict on that thin of, Jesus, it isn’t even evidence.”
The profiler didn’t seem shaken at all. If anything, the more Ruben pushed, the calmer Harbinger became. “Perhaps a routine internet search might show that the photographer’s biological mother, not the mother that raised him, was an anatomy professor at the local med school.” Ruben was about to comment on how that still wasn’t enough when the profiler continued. “The mother that left poor little Roy when he was a small child in order for her to go and have a sex change. That mother.”
As much as Ruben did not want to admit that Harbinger was on to something, he could not ignore a set of coincidences like that. He flipped open his phone. “Dispatch, I am going to need the address of —”
“Really?” the profiler asked. “You are going to the house of the mastermind? Like he’s going to have his killing grounds in that little apartment. The guy can’t even fit a full Foreman Grill. He had to buy the mini.”
“He’s right,” Nicole added, finally coming back to the conversation. “He would need somewhere much more isolated to set up a full anatomy lab.”
Ruben ignored the dispatcher, who was asking him to finish as he snapped his phone closed. Gritting his teeth, he asked what had to be asked. “And I assume, Harbinger, that you know where that is?”
“Well,” the profiler chuckled. “An educated guess might be his second cousin on his father’s side. Nice farm parcel of land on the outskirts of town which has had low electricity consumption except on the nights of the abductions and murders.”
If Ruben had had time to glower, he would have. Clearly that wasn’t an educated guess on the profiler’s part. He’d done his research and leapt miles ahead in the case. In a matter of freaking hours. Plus he’d nailed the fact that Munz was a necro, and had somehow caught Jaime as a crime scene thief. Oh, and he was, all the while, in a tuxedo.
Nicole got her phone out. “I’ll get us back up.”
Although Ruben wasn’t quite sure why. They had double “O” profiler with them.
* * *
Nicole held onto the car door handle as Ruben took a corner way too fast. The tires squealed as they made the turn down a gravel road. Dust kicked up before she could roll up her window.
The sound of the siren wailed overhead as red and blue lights flashed. Ruben’s urgency had gotten them here before their backup. Nicole’s eyes found the rearview mirror. Kent’s reflection seemed oddly at peace. Eyes closed, his lips moved in what looked like a chant or meditation. The profiler was certainly unpredictable.
Of course, he’d captured dozens of serial killers over the course of his career. He probably didn’t have the same butterflies in his stomach as she did.
The tires crunched their way down the lane. Ruben cut the siren and lights as they took another right-hand turn. This road didn’t even have gravel. Kent had certainly been correct regarding the isolation of the farm. Trees lined the lane, blocking any view ahead until the road emptied out into rolling pastures.
A dark house sat in the middle of a field, with a large barn off to the left. It seemed empty. The only illumination came from their headlights slicing through the darkness. Ruben pulled them to a stop.
“I’m thinking the barn,” her partner stated, then looked over his shoulder to the profiler.
“What?” Kent responded. “I’m just along for the ride.”
Ruben shook his head, checking his weapon. “How long until our backup arrives”?
Nicole pulled her phone out. No bars. No reception. “They can’t be too far behind us.”
Ruben looked in the rearview mirror, to the profiler. “Aren’t you going to prep your weapon?”
“Me?” Harbinger asked. “I don’t carry a gun.”
“What?” Ruben exclaimed, then shook it off. “Then just stay in the car.”
The profiler shrugged, then closed his eyes again. Ruben glanced to Nicole. “We can wait.”
There wasn’t much worse she could imagine than sitting here waiting and waiting as her stomach churned while adrenaline sang in her ears. Her toe tapped against the floor of the car. “At least, let’s check out the barn.”
Getting out of the car, Nicole glanced one last time to the profiler, who seemed perfectly content to meditate in the backseat. Strangely, that bugged her. How many doors had she rushed though without a second thought? And with Ruben by her side? He’d take a bullet for her. No, make that an entire clip. Then why did her legs feel a little rubbery as she walked away from the car?
Perhaps it was the fact that they were going after a predator this time. Not some street punk or even a hard-core gang-banger. This was a man who had killed, then worked right alongside of them. He had lured half a dozen people to their death without raising a single red flag. Nicole wasn’t all that much in a hurry to see what he had in his barn.
Maybe waiting in the car hadn’t been such a bad idea after all.
Then Ruben gripped the handle on the barn door and pulled. It didn’t budge. Carefully, they made their way to the small side door. Her partner turned the handle. It gave. Backing up, Ruben indicated for her to open the door. Nicole pointed her gun down and out to the side as her other hand found the knob. She gave it a sharp twist, then shoved the door forward, her left foot sliding forward to stop the rebound.
Ruben charged through the doorway, his gun up and ready. Nicole entered swiftly after him, their flashlight beams crisscrossing the room. Which turned out to be rather small. Silver glistened back
at them, but it wasn’t surgical equipment. Instead, it was halters and bridles. Tack. Horseback riding equipment.
Nicole hissed out a breath. Nothing out of the ordinary here.
Her partner crossed over to another small door.
They repeated the process, but this time, they entered a cavernous space. Instead of a barn with stalls and hay bales, they found a cement-lined floor and a fully functional surgical suite. Huge operating lights flooded the room, making the stainless steel equipment shine brilliantly.
The rows of scalpels. Trocars. Rib spreaders. Everything you would need to dissect a human.
Pinching her nose closed, Nicole tried to ignore the strong smell of iron and formaldehyde. Blood and preservative. She could taste it with each breath.
“Dear God,” Ruben breathed out.
Nicole joined him at a tray of labels. Each to be carefully written with the names of each organ in the victim’s own blood. There were at least ten new sets. Ten new victims the killer had planned on dissecting.
In the still air, Nicole heard the faintest sound of dripping. She looked down at the ground. It had recently been hosed down. Nicole tried not to imagine what the killer had washed away. But if the drain was still dripping…
“He’s here,” Nicole whispered.
Ruben’s gun went up as his gaze swept the large chamber. There didn’t seem to be any other exit, and there didn’t seem to be any place to hide. Yet water still ran in small rivulets down the concrete. And if the tack room was the only way out, there was no way Roy could have slipped past them.
But where could he be?
She took the right side of the room as Ruben took the left. They checked behind and under each and every cabinet, table, instrument stand. Anything that provided the least bit of cover, but still they found nothing.
Ruben then pointed to a tall glass-lined cabinet. Nicole crossed the room, setting up on the other side of the object. She noticed small grooves in the floor where the hidden door must have been swung open and shut many times.
With a heave, Ruben shoved the cabinet away from the wall, revealing another doorway. This one led into a labyrinth of medical supplies. Boxes were stacked to the ceiling, blocking their view forward.
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