by Ben Hopkin
For a third time, there was silence on the other end of the conversation. Then Kent heard something unexpected.
Lady Cordelia Blackwater laughed.
“Oh, Kent… I’m not quite sure what to say. I’m afraid you might be a bit disappointed.”
Only the tiniest of sounds alerted Kent. A soft scraping of a shoe, the change of the air. Kent began to turn when he felt a stabbing pain in his chest and heard the whisper hiss of a gun fired with a silencer.
His body reacted without any conscious choice on his part. He sank to the ground, and as he did so, he watched as a figure emerged from the fog. A form that had become familiar to him over the course of the day.
Chief Superintendent Locroft.
His mustache drooped a bit in the wet fog, but his posture was still ram rod straight. In his hand was a pistol that was pointed now directly at Kent’s head.
The Superintendent looked past Kent into the darkness.
“Mother,” he called out to the Lady Blackwater. “Are you all right?”
* * *
Nicole heard the quiet gunfire and watched as her husband crumpled to the ground. Every part of her body cried out in agony as she watched him fall.
He wasn’t dead. He couldn’t be.
But it hardly mattered, as the gunman stepped forward, pointing his weapon directly at Kent’s head. He moved closer…. one step, two steps. There was no way he could miss at that close range.
Her husband was about to be shot in cold blood, and there was nothing she could do. Fury and fear gave Nicole strength, and she yanked her legs underneath her, pulling her arms down sharply at the same time she yanked them away from each other.
The tie snapped at the same time a sharp pain shot up her arms. She was free. Hurt, but free.
The sound had alerted the man with the gun, who was peering into the darkness that surrounded Nicole and Cordelia. The weapon, for the moment at least, was no longer pointed at her fallen husband.
His words still reverberated in her ears. Had he really said what she thought he had said?
Mother?
Cordelia’s voice rang out close to Nicole. “I’m taking care of it, darling. Do stay focused on the task at hand.”
The gun swiveled back toward Kent, but Nicole had little attention to spare. At the same moment, a foot lashed out and caught her in the jaw. She pitched backward, hitting the ground hard.
“It hurts, doesn’t it, dear?” the lady asked. “Most people don’t expect it from me, I’ll admit. You see, I work out.”
As Nicole began to pick herself back up, she heard a shift that allowed her to move back just as a fist came out of the darkness toward her. Instead of hitting her straight on, the fist struck her a glancing blow of the side of her face.
“You’re wondering about my boy, I’m sure. A youthful indiscretion. One that my family would not allow to interfere with my bright future. As a respectable woman of society.”
A foot landed just below Nicole’s knee, bending it back. Nicole gasped in pain.
“But we found one another, my boy and I. And vowed to change the world.”
A fist to the kidney, and Nicole felt agony shoot through her. She pulled back, searching for the dark figure in the black shadows.
But then she heard a sound that chilled her to the core. The sound of a shot fired.
No.
Wait. That had been the sound of gunshot. Full gunshot, without a silencer.
She looked over in time to see Locroft’s body drop to the ground in front of Kent. An attractive, short woman stepped into her view. She knelt down by Kent’s side and felt for a pulse, then did something else that Nicole couldn’t see.
At her side, Cordelia seemed to take in what had just happened. There was a sharp intake of breath, then a low moan issued from her.
When the woman… Nicole had no idea who she was… stood back up, she called out to Cordelia.
“Kent has a problem with guns. I don’t.”
But Cordelia’s voice rang out next to Nicole. At the same moment, the muzzle of a gun was pressed against the side of her head.
“Drop it,” Lady Blackwater called out to the woman, her voice trembling. “I’m holding a gun to the head of Kent’s dear, sweet wife.” Cordelia pressed the gun harder against Nicole’s temple. “And I’m afraid that affects not only her, but the child she’s carrying.”
The woman helping Kent didn’t move for a long moment, but then lowered her weapon. Another pause, and the gun hit the dirt.
“Good. Now kick it away from you,” Lady Blackwater said.
This was the moment. While Cordelia’s attention was elsewhere. Nicole moved to the side at the same second she brought up her hands to grab a hold of the gun and wrench it out of her hands. The weapon fell to the ground, and Nicole reached up to rip off her gag.
She screamed out to the woman who was helping Kent.
“I have her gun!”
Then a sharp blow connected with her jaw and sent her sprawling to the earth. Lights flashed briefly in her vision and then dimmed to black.
* * *
There hadn’t been a chance in hell that Kyra was going to stay on the other side of the bridge. And it had only taken her a minute or two to realize it.
This was an opportunity to catch the Jack the Ripper copycat, and she wasn’t about to sit on the sidelines. She fully intended to be right in the middle of the action.
Kyra heard Kent’s wife cry out, and almost bent down to pick the gun back up. But she straightened up without retrieving the weapon.
That was not how this was going to go down. Not this time.
Kyra abandoned caution and sprinted toward the last sounds she had heard. It was dark under the bridge, and all she could see were the vaguest of silhouettes.
Kyra had a decision to make. Check on Nicole or go after Lady Blackwater. She knew the choice that Kent would make. She darted in the direction of the fleeing serial killer.
“It is over, Cordelia,” Kyra stated, hoping that Blackwater’s response would give her a location.
It worked. Kyra heard a sharp intake of breath and shifted directions, angling toward the sound. The woman’s breath was labored, the sound of her breathing amplified by the concrete of the bridge overhead and to the side.
“So which is it going to be, Cordelia? Are you going to try to make it out on the other side of the bridge? Escape out into the night? Or make your stand here in the dark, where you’re most comfortable?”
The sound of Lady Blackwater’s steps changed, grew more hesitant. It sounded as though she was taking in Kyra’s words and considering them.
Good.
Kyra called out to her again. “You’re found out, Cordelia. There’s no way out for you now. The world knows who you are.”
Her voice came back, its location just a bit off from what Kyra had thought, so she corrected her course once more. The lady’s tone was ragged with exertion and fear.
“I don’t matter. It’s not about me.”
“No,” Kyra replied, putting on a burst of speed. “It’s not about you.”
She caught up to the woman and grabbed a hold of her shoulder, spinning the older woman around.
“It’s about your victims.”
Pulling out the scalpel she’d retrieved from Kent, Kyra lashed out at the woman, slicing out to catch the woman across the bridge of the nose. Cordelia cried out in pain.
“It hurts, doesn’t it?” Kyra crooned. “Your adrenaline levels are high, which is causing your blood to pump faster. You bleed more. Feel more.”
Another cut, this one catching the woman on her eyelid. Another gasp of pain.
“This is what you did to Catherine. Do you remember? How did it feel when you cut into her?”
A cut to the left cheek. Cordelia was crying now, her sobs catching with her lack of breath.
“And now for the more painful cuts,” Kyra said, her tone calm and measured.
She grabbed a hold of the woman by the neck.
The need for care was paramount here. She dragged the scalpel across the skin of Cordelia’s neck, just barely penetrating the skin.
“You can feel it, can’t you? The life draining out of you?”
Now shallow cuts to the thighs, the abdomen. Just enough to draw blood.
“You know you’re going to die, but you don’t know when. You pray for mercy, but no mercy is coming.”
Kyra pushed the woman down to the ground, and pulled out handcuffs, slapping them on the lady’s wrists. Cordelia gasped in surprise.
“Oh, that’s right,” Kyra quipped. “I’m not going to kill you.”
As if that were a trigger, the woman began squirming underneath Kyra, her cries becoming more acute.
“You see, I might be Kent’s protégé, however we are not the same. He’d kill you right now, but I want you to live. To feel your victim’s fear. But then I want you to keep feeling it. For the rest of your life.”
She stood over Cordelia, feeling the flush of victory.
“Besides,” she added. “I really like getting paid.”
She shouldn’t have underestimated Cordelia though. The old woman, even wounded, lunged forward, slamming Kyra into the wall. The blow caused stars to spin in Kyra’s vision, just long enough for the old woman to wrench the scalpel from Kyra’s hand.
The blade pressed against Kyra’s throat. With each bound of her pulse, her jugular vein glanced against the smooth, cold scalpel.
Lady Blackwater’s lips were spread in a broad smile. “Kill my son, will you? Think you can beat me with this scrawny blade?”
The older woman pressed down, Kyra felt warm blood dribble down her neck.
“We shall see who is victorious!” Cordelia cackled.
Then her eyes dilated and the scalpel fell from the Lady’s hand. As Cordelia slid to the floor, Kent came into view.
“That is why you kill them, Kyra,” Kent said, then stumbled to the side.
Kyra ran over to him. “You were shot.”
Kent shrugged, “Please,” he said, pulling back his shirt to show a metal chest plate. “Like I couldn’t steal some armor from all the stupid museums we were at.”
Then he tilted, over, falling face first onto the stone.
* * *
Nicole paced in her hotel room. The clock showed 10:58. Two more minutes.
The EMTs had arrived quickly to the site and gotten her up. By then Kent and everyone else was gone, with the exception of the dead policeman.
After letting the EMTs take her pulse and such, Nicole snuck off into the night. She had no idea where the others were and if she didn’t get out of there by the time the police showed up, she’d be giving her statement until dawn.
No, if Kent survived, and when didn’t Kent survive? He would be at the hotel by 11pm.
However as the minutes ticked by and the clock turned over to 11:00 pm, Nicole gulped. Maybe her husband wasn’t quite as good as he thought he was.
Then she checked her cell phone. The hotel clock was two minutes early.
Okay, he could still make it. 10:59.
Or not.
Nicole’s hand went to her belly. Kent had to survive. His child needed to know him, not just about him.
But as her cell phone turned over to 11:00 she realized that maybe the child never would.
The door jerked open and Kent stumbled into the room. “It’s still 11:00” he exclaimed.
Nicole caught her husband as he pitched forward. “What happened?
Kent pulled up his shirt, showing off a really nasty bruise on his sternum.
“You were shot, I saw it,” Nicole said.
“I had plate armor under my shirt.”
Of course he had.
“Help me to the bed,” Kent urged, using the chair to help keep him upright.
Nicole obliged and dumped her husband onto the bed.
Kent winced, “The shot might have broken a couple of ribs.”
“Might have?” Nicole pressed. “Didn’t you go to the hospital?”
Kent shrugged it off, then grimaced. “And be late for you? Never?”
Nicole smiled. She couldn’t bust his chops for something that she did herself. She lay down on the bed beside him, carefully draping her arm under his bruised ribs.
“Okay, time for me to fulfill my promise,” Kent said trying to rise.
Nicole gently pushed him back down onto the bed. “I think that can wait until you’re better.”
“Nope, I always keep my word,” Kent said, struggling to get up.
Nicole threw a leg over his. “What will pleasure me tonight is for us to be together, alive. That is about as thrilling as I want to get right now.”
“Sissy,” Kent said, but Nicole noticed that he breathed a sigh of relief as he lay back down.
Nicole leaned over and put her lips against his. Instead of kissing back, Kent frowned.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Kent replied way too fast.
Nicole pressed just enough to get him to wince. “I asked what’s wrong.”
“Well… you see… I mean…”
What? Kent at a loss for words. This was going to be good.
“Spit it out.”
“Kyra kissed me,” Kent blurted like he was a little boy who got his hand caught in the cookie jar.
Nicole’s eyes narrowed. Jealousy threatened to surface, but she knew her husband all too well.
“Back it up,” Nicole said “Who would want to kiss you, of all people?”
“Hey!” Kent exclaimed. “A lot of women find me very attractive.
“Until you open your mouth.”
“Again, hey!”
“Kent, come on. Unless you’re in seduction mode, most women are put off by your… well… you.”
Kent frowned. “You are really making your husband feel super desirable.”
“You know what I mean. I feel lucky that I get to see the real you and love the real you. Who else has that chance? Tell me more about this Kyra.”
Kent took in a deep breath, making himself wince. “She’s the one that saved me.”
Hmmm, that woman was a swarthy petite beauty, but still there was something else going on here. “And why exactly would she want to kiss you?”
“Um, because I’m irresistibly hot?”
“Don’t say you didn’t ask for it,” Nicole pushed a finger along the outside of the black bruise.
“Okay, okay,” Kent said, moving his arm to protect his rib as he chuckled. “I saved her from a serial killer.”
“Well, that sounds more likely.”
“And the killer was her father….”
“And there it is!” Nicole said, pointing her finger to the ceiling. “And did you kiss her back?”
“No, of course not,” Kent stated.
Nicole leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “Then we’re good.”
“Really?” he asked.
“Really,” Nicole said, lying down next to him again. She snuggled up against his side.
“So how’s it feel to have solved the most evasive serial killer case of all time?”
“Pretty damn good,” Kent admitted, putting his arm around her and pulling her close.
“Good. Because tomorrow we’re going to Westminster Abbey.”
“You know what?” Kent asked. “Tourism sounds just fine by me.”
Just like their wedding, their honeymoon was one for the record books.
EPILOGUE
Kyra hurried through the teeming tourists and their baggage, trying to catch Kent before he got past security at Heathrow Terminal 5. The airport was one big window, girded about with steel and paved with tile. Skylights above allowed for natural light to stream down into the enormous structure, creating a mix of the manmade and the natural. It wasn’t a beautiful building, but it was impressive.
Peering about the huge space inside, Kyra caught sight of Kent, his sinuous movements marking him even from this distance away. After being up all night and
through the day trying to finish up the paperwork on the case, she didn’t want to miss the chance to thank the profiler for what he’d done.
Kent hadn’t even pretended to feel remorse for dumping all of the cleanup at her feet. She supposed it was only fair. Hadn’t made it any more fun to do though.
Somehow, after taking a bullet to the chest, Kent had managed to stay away from any doctors, and had not only returned back to his hotel room for the night, but had been out and about in London all day. He was impressive, no doubt about it. Even if he had been protected by a plate of armor.
“Kent,” she called out to him, and both the profiler and his wife turned around. Oh. Right. She was going to have to deal with Nicole as well.
Kyra had known that, on some level. But being faced with the woman she’d tried to steal Kent away from was more surprising than she might have expected.
Catching up to the couple, she spoke to Kent. “I just wanted to say…” She hesitated. Kent didn’t love receiving thanks or getting complimented. So she’d make it about her, instead.
“I wanted to say that I’m a better profiler after working with you.”
“Of course you are,” Kent agreed, with a cock of his head. “Duh.”
His response was so… him. It might have been amusing to Kyra under normal circumstances, if she hadn’t needed to do this next part. She turned to Nicole.
“And I also wanted--”
Nicole held up her hand. “Don’t. I get it.”
Kyra’s planned apology died on her lips. That was a much more toned down response than she would have expected a newlywed wife to have toward the woman that had kissed her husband.
Nicole gave her a slow shake of the head. “Talk to my husband, and then stop by and have a chat with me for a sec. Then we’ll call it good.”
That was… uncomfortable. Which in and of itself was uncomfortable. Kyra wasn’t used to these kinds of emotions running amok inside of her. But at the end of the day, a chat with Kent’s wife was probably a lot less than Kyra deserved to have happen to her.
It could be a hell of a lot worse.
Kent stepped off to the side, motioning for her to join him. There was an empty area that formed a bit of an alcove, a place for tired travellers to sit and rest for a moment.