Nicole could not keep her chest from heaving. Could not keep gooseflesh from rising in response to his touch. She could keep from speaking, though. Kent would be forced to stop before he’d gone too far by morgue security. She wasn’t worried. Was she?
Still, his fingers played with the top button of her blouse. Nicole stared defiantly into his eyes, but Kent did not hesitate to unbutton it. A gasp escaped before she could stifle it. The defiant stare was forgotten as she looked down at what Kent was doing. His fingers ever so tenderly opened the blouse to reveal the curve of cleavage.
“I’ll undo them all,” the profiler threatened softly.
Still she held strong.
Kent unbuttoned another, revealing the lace edge of her bra. “Let that Conquistador of yours find you like this.”
“You wouldn’t,” her voice trembled despite all effort to steady it.
Obviously he would, as he tugged the third button open.
Nicole’s will broke, and the words spilled out over one another. “If you can’t prove yourself at the briefing, Glick is pulling you off the case.”
Kent’s expression was unreadable as his finger traced down the edge of her bra. “See, that was not so hard after all.” Despite her acquiescence, he still unbuttoned another, exposing her front-loading bra. “Still trying to protect me, Nic? Just like old times? Hmmm?”
He pressed his thumb against her bra’s clasp.
She could scream, but did she really want someone interrupting him?
“Bored with your pedicured boy?” His index finger leveraged against the other side of the clasp. Just a little more pressure and the bra would spring open.
All this one-handed. She couldn’t do that, and there was no way Ruben would even attempt it.
He rubbed his rough cheek against hers. “Miss our old times, Nic?” Kent waited for a response, but Nicole no longer possessed language skills. It did not matter that she could not answer him, as she did not really know. What were their old times but a blur of passion and pain?
His thumb and forefinger worked the latch, straining the fabric, pulling it across her nipples, hardening them.
Nicole did not think it possible, but Kent leaned in even closer, bringing his lips next to her ear. Another millimeter and he would be kissing her. Telling her that he loved her, just like he used to. Only heightening the romanticism of the gesture, a light rain began to fall.
Kent’s tone was not altogether kind. “Don’t ever try to manipulate me, Nic.” He pulled back to look her in the eye. “You don’t have it in you.”
To complete his demonstration of power, Kent twisted the clasp until it almost opened, then let it fall back to her skin, still locked as he backed away. A mixture of relief and disappointment flooded through Nicole as she watched a man she once loved pull away from her.
Kent wasn’t just backing up, he was walking away.
Embarrassment replaced arousal. “You can’t leave me like this!”
The profiler kept walking as raindrops splashed on her face, making it hard to tell if she was crying or not. “Kent!”
He didn’t turn around. “The key’s up your sleeve.”
CHAPTER 25
Had any morgue attendant ever, ever, ever in the history of morgue attending gotten as lucky as he had tonight? Joshua wondered as he watched Detective Usher squirm to get out of her restraints.
First to have a Plain Jane victim come in on his shift. That put tonight on the map right out of the gate. Then some psycho broke into the morgue?
That was, like, the first time in over two years.
Joshua had thought the coup de grâce had been the perv sneaking back into the crypt and getting caught red-handed, literally, in the victim’s belly. Little did the attendant know that he would be treated to an off-the-hook peep show to boot!
For the seventeenth time, Joshua made sure the VCR recorded the parking lot camera’s feed. For once this antique electronic equipment came in handy. It provided a permanent recording of tonight’s parking lot action.
And it was not even over yet. Detective Usher still squirmed to unlock the cuffs. Her movements were kind of like a slow S&M go-go dance. Joshua could not have imagined a better scene. The unforgiving rain soaked through her shirt. And while he could not see them clearly, those dark nipples of hers stood out in stark contrast to the clinging bra.
How did he get so lucky? But he’d almost jinxed himself. When he first came back from the crypt after he cleaned up the mess, Joshua noticed the perv and Usher having a fight by the car. Being a generally good citizen, Joshua almost called O’Fallon to help her.
Then he realized that not only was the detective not putting up much of a fight when the perv made the cuff switch, he was pretty damn sure she was into it.
Hey, maybe that’s how cops blew off steam. Who was he to judge Usher’s lifestyle?
And did it get hot or what? Joshua was honestly surprised the rain did not turn to steam when it hit those two. Then the perv, right when it was getting good, walked off. Which simply confirmed the attendant’s opinion that the guy was cracked. Who walked away from a body like that?
Wet and hot?
Joshua watched Nicole struggle some more. He could hardly wait to get home and put some music to this show.
“Anything happen?”
The attendant jumped at the security guard’s voice. The old man should have been down until at least five.
Flicking off the monitor, Joshua answered, “Nope.”
“Thought I heard some clanging around.”
“You’ve been hearing things…again.”
O’Fallon’s face clouded. Joshua knew how it goaded the old man to think he might be going senile. Which usually accounted for most of the fun the attendant had on the graveyard shift. But not tonight.
Risking a glance to the VCR, Joshua made sure the red light still glowed brightly. Damn, wouldn’t the geezer go back to bed before Usher ended her live show?
O’Fallon yawned. “As long as everything is quiet.”
“Oh, yeah.”
The old man was not ten steps away before Joshua flipped back on the monitor, only to be disappointed that not only had Usher gotten out of the cuffs and re-buttoned her shirt, but she was already back in the car.
He could only hope that the tape caught the end of the show.
Hell, who needed Pay-Per-View porn when you got on-the-job-action like this?
CHAPTER 26
As a wan light shone through the bullpen window, Ruben tried to keep himself busy with his paperwork. After getting no sleep between Joann’s death and now, he had downed four extra-tall coffees in a row.
He had a caffeine buzz that urged him to pace in front of the packed house that had gathered for the briefing. Although nine-tenths of them weren’t here for his insights. They waited for Kent’s grand appearance.
Ruben glanced over at the near-to-bursting crowd. He had never seen so many cops, both uniforms and detectives, crammed into the bullpen.
Focusing on the board, he adjusted Joann’s autopsy report. Ruben wanted all the information to be perfectly in order. The backgrounds, original police reports, autopsy reports, and family interviews. Everything. The items needed to be assembled in the correct sequence so his talk went smoothly.
No matter Kent’s predilection for bizarre, unorthodox behavior, Ruben knew that he still needed to provide a commanding presentation for Glick to take the award-laden profiler off the case. And Ruben did not just want Kent playing second-string. He wanted the lunatic off the case completely. Out of Nicole’s life completely.
Out of their lives completely.
Ruben peeked to the clock again. 9:12. He looked to his captain, who looked at Nicole. His partner, in turn, looked toward the door. No Kent. No hint that Kent was even going to show up. Typical.
Wouldn’t that be perfect? The vaunted profiler simply forfeiting his position?
Glick would have to pull Harbinger from the case.
Ruben l
ooked at his captain. How much longer was Glick going to give Kent? They had a lot of ground to cover.
“He’s late,” Glick demanded of Nicole.
Of course, she rose to his defense. “I’m sure—”
“He’s not coming.”
“Not coming?” a hidden voice asked. Ruben recognized the voice, but could not believe he had heard it. Kent continued, “I wouldn’t dream of missing this.”
Ruben sighed. There was no doubt it was Kent, but where in the hell was he? The room was filled to capacity, but no profiler. Then Ruben tilted the profile board to reveal Kent lying on a desk, reading a comic book.
Things definitely weren’t going Ruben’s way anymore.
CHAPTER 27
Kent stayed recumbent, seemingly intent on his comic as he soaked in the room’s reaction. Ruben was way too easy to read. If the detective were a cartoon character he would have steam coming out his ears and strange icons bulging in and out of his eyes in a distorted caricature.
Nicole grinned despite herself, and the rest of the room…well the rest of the room was abuzz.
Ah, he had not made an entrance this good since his first day teaching advanced profiling techniques at Quantico. In huge, bold letters, he had scrawled across the blackboard “Powers of Observation,” then hid up in the rafters. Students had filed in, clearly a little concerned that their new professor was not at the front of the classroom.
Concern turned too freaked-out when one brave student risked a journey up to the podium and found blood smeared across the syllabus and a trail of red footprints leading to the emergency exit.
He didn’t even reveal himself when the dean showed up to investigate Kent’s mysterious disappearance. The profiler didn’t even budge when security was summoned to the scene of the mysterious “crime.”
Harbinger had just sat up there, silently laughing his ass off at the supposed brightest and best scrambling around trying to organize a manhunt. Finally he couldn’t contain himself. It had been his own snort of amusement that had given him away.
Yeah, that had been a great entrance. Of course, shortly thereafter he’d been fired. But still. The look on the dean’s face alone was worth it. Okay, maybe he should not have lied to the students and told them he had used HIV-infected blood as the lure. But come on, the scare those students got would ensure that they never investigated a potential crime scene without gloves ever again. Unfortunately, the Bureau did not see it his way, and off to the think tank he went.
Out of the corner of his eye, Kent looked over the sea of blue uniforms and typical detective suits. They were all still trying to figure out how he had gotten behind the board and exactly when.
You know, sometimes fieldwork really was rewarding.
Glick recovered first. “Are you going to join us?”
Kent snapped his comic closed, very dramatically, as he swung upright. “And miss Wunderkind’s solving of the Sphinx’s riddle?” He slapped the desk for emphasis as he rose. “Not on your life.”
“Enough of the drama, Harbinger. Get over here.”
He complied. Ruben didn’t even try to hide his glower. Therefore, Kent made sure to sit right next to Nicole. Far closer than polite society usually allowed. Ruben looked like he was going to intervene, then regrouped and turned to the crowd.
“Let me clarify. I am not going to solve anything—”
“Now that’s bold,” Harbinger chided. Ah, after the night he had, this was going to be fun.
Ruben tried to move on as if Kent had not just interrupted him. “I’m just here to take a fresh look at all the evidence collected so far…”
Torres glared, as if challenging the profiler to speak up.
Kent was going to enjoy this briefing more than he thought. “Don’t keep us in suspense.”
Even through the detective’s naturally dark cheeks, you could see a flush of red. Before Ruben could retort, Glick stepped in. “Enough.”
Oh yeah, the profiler was definitely glad he showed up this morning.
The captain fixed Kent with a frown, then turned to Torres, “Go on.”
He could feel Ruben’s gaze, but Kent had already opened his comic book and was not about to give the detective the satisfaction of feeling like he had backed him down.
No one got that satisfaction.
CHAPTER 28
Nicole shifted uncomfortably next to Kent. She should have been pissed at him. He had left her handcuffed to her car in the middle of a downpour, for hell’s sake. It had been quite the stunt he had pulled, but in retrospect, what had she thought trying to play at Kent’s level of gamesmanship?
Last night he had simply reaffirmed himself as the master and she, the groveling student.
Now she worried for Ruben. Her partner had thrown down a king-size gauntlet at Kent’s feet. Just as she had done. Already, before the briefing even began, Kent had scored the first point. The people in the room craned their necks, not to see Ruben, but to watch the profiler.
Despite their fight the night before, Nicole still respected the effort Ruben put into living up to his gold badge. She caught his eye and nodded for him to proceed. Waiting for Kent’s acknowledgment was nothing more than a losing proposition.
Ruben started, then stopped and took a deep breath, then continued, “We have seen seventeen victims so far.”
“Wrong,” Kent chimed in.
“Seventeen confirmed victims,” he added.
“Nope. Thirty-one and counting.”
Rushing in before Ruben could retort, Nicole tried to soften Kent’s abrupt disagreement. “Only if you include the missing women who fit the victim profiles from the greater Boston area and Toronto.”
“Which I’m not.”
“Mistake.” The tone wasn’t aggressive, just definitive.
Nicole had to give Ruben credit. Instead of playing into Kent’s tit-for-tat game, her partner turned to their superior. “Captain?”
The older man frowned, his grey eyebrows nearly touching. “Harbinger, you will have to wait for your turn.”
In typical fashion, Kent did not acknowledge the captain as he read his comic book. The profiler could make compliance appear so very defiant. Nicole gave Ruben an encouraging smile. Kent could not keep up this juvenile behavior forever.
Seemingly poised, Ruben pointed to the long row of photos that showed both happy, smiling pictures of the victims and their gruesome crime scene photos, then lastly their autopsy shots. It was a brutal reminder of what was at stake. They were not here to salvage their reputations but to save another brunette from this violent death.
Ruben’s tone sobered. “All the women have been between the ages of twenty-nine and thirty-four. Natural brunettes, but a mixture of races. No children.”
Her partner could not help but look over to Kent.
The profiler showed Nicole his comic. “You know the meta-message that the red bow on Minnie Mouse’s forehead signifies, don’t you?”
Nicole cringed. Ruben needed to stop playing into Kent’s hand. The profiler could have shamed Einstein at a physics convention. To his credit, her partner seemed to sense this and decided to move on.
“There have been no direct or casual links between the victims.” Ruben pointed to the long sheets of police reports detailing their families, work history, and basically the victims’ entire lives. “We have run down their work histories and the places they frequented: grocery stores, restaurants, doctors, gyms, clubs, even fast food joints. Nothing connects them.”
Kent made a loud raspberry sound.
“Nothing. No common thread. No common connection. They must have been picked at random.”
“Wrong again, but thanks for playing.”
CHAPTER 29
There wasn’t much Kent ever regretted, however, that off-handed barb at Torres was one of them.
Not because he feared his rival’s brilliant repartee, but because it opened up a line of questioning that Kent did not want to go down at the moment.
“R
eally? And what is their connection?”
Keeping defensiveness from his voice, Kent answered, “I didn’t say I knew.” Then kicked up his arrogance quotient. “I know, however, that I should still be looking for one.”
Thankfully, Glick stepped in before Ruben could retort. “Then let’s keep the peanut gallery to a minimum.”
Acting his usual bastard self, Kent went back to his comic, this time to hide his frustration. While he might let Nicole think he came to the briefing to please her or that his ego drove him to go toe-to-toe with Torres, the actual reason was a little too raw for his taste.
Last night, after watching from the bushes to make sure that Nicole un-cuffed herself and left safely, Kent had roamed the city alone, on foot. The profiler knew that he needed to pick a new high-probability victim, but he did not have much hope that the outcome would be much better than Joann’s. He was missing something. Some vital clue.
The killer’s motive eluded him. How could he protect these women if he did not know why the psychopath wanted them? Kent knew the superficial characteristics of the victim types: their height, weight, and hair color, but the killer had a core need that the profiler could not identify—a slim piece of information that tied all the women together.
In the dead of night, wandering the city, Kent had come to the harsh reality that he was tapped out. Inspiration was fickle and had fled the jurisdiction. Unfortunately, Kent knew of only one way to jump-start it. He needed to be challenged. He needed to be forced outside his previous conceptions of the case. The profiler needed to push against someone. Someone almost as good as himself.
While he would never admit it, even under the threat of death, Kent knew that person to be Ruben. The guy was uptight, but thorough. If there was anyone who could jog his intuition into high gear it was going to be the detective.
Ruben continued with his analysis. “Based on the systematic, meticulous pattern to these killings, we can surmise that the killer is Caucasian—”
“Nope.”
“Between the ages of twenty-two and twenty-nine.”
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