[Harbinger 01.0] Plain Jane

by Carolyn McCray

  “Yes, that one.” Rapidly, she tried to think like Kent. How could she spin this situation to her advantage? “He’ll be coming out to look for me in a little while. I want you to tell him exactly what you told me. Exactly. Okay?”

  “Okay,” the boy said extending his hand. Nicole went to shake it, but he pulled back. “No, I want twenty bucks.”

  Nicole gave a grim smile, then pulled out her wallet. She pulled out two bills. “Here’s forty. Make sure I’m out of sight before you tell him, right?”

  The boy pocketed the money so quickly it was almost a sleight of hand. “Right.”

  Without hesitation, Nicole walked away from the boy and into the darkened alley. Once out of sight, she drew her weapon and slowed her pace. This guy had taken Kent, and without much of a struggle.

  What chance did she have against him?

  As Nicole progressed down the alley, the light waned even further. She looked back over her shoulder. Safety was only forty feet away. Everything in her head told her to turn back. Get a strike team to assault whatever structure there was at the end of the alley, but her gut said to go forward. One step at a time. One foot at a time.

  Halfway down the alley, a brick wall came into view. And up above that dead end was a small camera, its red light blinking ominously.

  Her gut was right.

  With more urgency, Nicole covered the rest of the distance to find a large, rusted metal door slightly ajar. She checked all around it. Nothing. The detective opened it further as the hinges screamed in protest.

  She was going to have to squeeze through. Not the best strategic position to be in going into an unknown, hostile environment. But what else could she do?

  Figuring it was exactly what Kent would do, Nicole shimmied her way through the door and found that it led into a large, dark warehouse. The rafters were so high that Nicole could not clearly make out the ceiling. A sniper could be up there. A net waiting to sweep down.

  Anything.

  “This is such a bad idea,” she whispered.

  Taking her first step across the wide space, something scrambled under foot. Startled, Nicole tried to track the movement with her gun, but it was too erratic. Finally it stopped. Two yellow eyes blazed from under a desk.

  A cat. A black cat.

  A black cat had just crossed her path. She wasn’t normally superstitious, but come on.

  “Why couldn’t he just have kidnapped me?”

  Stilling the shake of her hands, Nicole continued across the cavernous warehouse. “Kent is so much better at this lurking crap than I am.”

  CHAPTER 94

  Kent tugged against his chains. Intellectually he knew there were at least four fulcrum points along his restraints where they were the most likely to break, but his chafed wrists were telling him it just wasn’t happening. Plain Jane wasn’t a risk taker. He wasn’t impulsive. Finally giving up, he slumped back against the damp wall.

  “You should’ve kidnapped her,” he said.

  The screen saver dissolved as letters typed. “Why?”

  “Because, duh.” Kent rattled his chains. “This is a little uncomfortable.”

  “So sorry to inconvenience you.”

  Kent sighed and leaned back. If the psycho was busy talking to him, he couldn’t exactly be out killing Nicole. He needed to buy as much time as possible.

  “So, why uteri?” Kent asked, slipping back into his I’m-not-laughing-with-you, I’m-laughing-at-you attitude. “Were you an overdue baby? Not breast-fed long enough?”

  “You would like it if it were that simple.”

  “Yeah, I would.” That was probably the first truthful statement he had made to the killer. This whole typing, mechanized-voice thing was not giving Kent the insight he needed. Tone of voice. Cadence. Eye position. Those were the needles on the compass.

  “You’re going to have to do better than that before Nicole gets here, or I won’t let you watch.”

  That got Kent’s attention. He sat more erect. His back stiff. Unfortunately by doing so, he was giving Plain Jane way more information than he was getting.

  “You like watching her?” it asked. “Stalking her?”

  Kent’s mind reeled. How long had the killer been watching Nicole? And him? Without these answers, it was difficult to know which tack to take. He chose cryptic. “We have a complicated relationship.”

  “So she wanted you to take those pictures at her boyfriend’s house?”

  It was bad enough to be criticized by Nicole and other cops, but to have a serial killer call you out on your eccentric behavior? “Hey, at least I managed to keep my psychosis within legal bounds.”

  “Your habit of ‘borrowing’ others’ items?”

  Wow, not only called out but bitch-slapped as well. “Okay, but at least I keep them under felony level.”

  “That’s up for debate. For now, I must go meet my future mother…”

  There was a pause, and the screen saver tried to come up, but another message flashed. “I should thank you, really. I never would have chosen Nicole if it weren’t for you.”

  The screen blurred again. “No!” Kent yelled, then restrained himself. “Damn it, throw me a bone here.”

  “Why don’t I show you?”

  A loud sound came from across the room. The grinding, then catch of a motor. The room shook from the effort of the engine.

  Kent plastered himself against the wall. What in the hell was happening? Then he realized that the far wall was not really a wall at all, but a door. A huge metal door that was rumbling open.

  He squinted. His eyes were so used to the dark that even the soft light peeking in caused them to hurt.

  Finally the door swung open completely. He blinked to clear his vision, then blinked again. What stood before him seemed impossible. Impossibly huge. Impossibly…

  Well, just impossible.

  CHAPTER 95

  Ruben nodded as a uniform told him what he already knew. The canvas had turned up squat. Just like they did every time Plain Jane struck. He looked over as the sea of blue parted to allow Glick to enter the convenience store. “Captain.”

  Glick glanced around the room. “Where’s Usher?”

  “Cooling off.” Ruben indicated the front door.

  “Well, when she hears this, she’s going to want to come back in and talk to our little Joshua, here.”

  They both glared at the morgue attendant.

  “What?” the kid asked.

  The captain didn’t seem to believe the kid’s innocent tone either. “We found two preserved uteri in your apartment.”

  Joshua squirmed. “Yeah, about those.” Clearing his throat, his words came out more panicked. “I can explain!”

  Glick looked around. “Usher really should be here.”

  Ruben pulled Joshua to his feet. “I’m through chasing her. If she wants to be a part of this, then she needs to stay put.”

  “Your call,” Glick said, then turned to Joshua. “Now, you were going to explain?”

  CHAPTER 96

  Nicole reached the far side of the warehouse. Nothing. She’d found only abandoned machinery.

  Rusted over, abandoned machinery. This place must have been deserted for decades. Then she noticed a shadow deeper than the rest in the corner. A trapdoor. By the lack of dust, it had clearly been opened recently. Nicole jerked it open. A long flight of stairs descended into darkness.

  “Oh, this just keeps getting better and better.”

  The detective did a four-point check around the opening. She searched for any hidden trip wires or explosives. It appeared clean. Looking over her shoulder, Nicole could barely make out the door she had come in.

  Should she go back? The detective looked at the stairs. Or should she go down? There was no question in her mind what Kent would do.

  With a prayer on her lips, she carefully climbed down the steps. Once to the landing of the basement level, she spotted a dim light down the narrow corridor.

  Still cautious, Nicole cr
ept toward the illumination, keeping an ear open for backup.

  What was taking Torres so long?

  “Damn it, Ruben,” she grumbled to herself. “The one time I need you up my ass…”

  To her shock, a bizarre mechanical voice answered her. “That’s your problem, always relying on men.”

  Spinning around, Nicole tried to get a bead on the sound’s source. “Why don’t you come out here and face me like a man?”

  “It is very unlikely that’ll ever happen.”

  Nicole resumed her forward movement, but tilted her head, trying to get a bearing on the voice. “You can’t look me in the eye, can you?”

  “Oh, I’ve looked you in the eye.” The voice was so distorted that Nicole couldn’t tell if Plain Jane was happy, upset, or proud of the fact. “That’s how I chose you. You will be the one to nurture me.”

  Nicole couldn’t help snorting. “Bad call. If you knew me at all, you’d know I’m not the nurturing type.”

  The detective spotted a door at the end of the hallway. A door that was bolted, apparently locked from the outside.

  “Quite the contrary. You practically have Kent suckling at your breast, he’s that dependent upon you.”

  With extreme caution, Nicole inspected the locking mechanism. It just looked like a simple bolt and latch.

  “You are desperate to find him, aren’t you?”

  Yes she was, but Nicole wasn’t going to admit that to psycho boy. Ever so carefully she unhooked the bolt and slid it back. No explosion. No flying daggers.

  “Go on, go inside. See how low your man has been brought down.”

  Clenching her jaw, Nicole’s mind whirred. Clearly it was a trap. God, how she wished it had been she who was kidnapped. Kent would know what to do. But he wasn’t here. Or at least on this side of the door. Resolved, she transferred her gun to her left hand and jerked the door open.

  But it was empty.

  There was a computer screen at one end and a set of chains at the other, but no Kent. No anyone.

  “What?” Nicole asked as the mechanical voice echoed the question, sounding equally surprised.

  CHAPTER 97

  “Watch out!” Kent yelled as he tackled Nicole.

  As they tumbled to the ground, the glint of a metal garrote narrowly missed her neck. While Nicole’s reaction was to fire into the darkness, Kent scrambled up and ran for the door, but it slammed shut in his face.

  They were locked in.

  Nicole looked down at handcuffs dangling from his wrist. “How did you get away?”

  “Like I haven’t collected a pair of keys in my travels?”

  Nicole’s hand flew to her belt.

  “Not yours,” he reassured her.

  “Then how?”

  “Purposeful forgetting.”

  Once Kent had realized he was handcuffed and he had the key, lifted from the meter maid’s house, he put that knowledge in the furthest crevices of his mind. He needed to believe that he had no hope of escape if he wanted Plain Jane to believe him to be captive.

  Nicole seemed shaken, confused. “Then why the hell didn’t you just get out of here an hour ago?”

  Like most goal-based serial killers, Plain Jane had realized that victory felt hollow without an audience.

  Usually they reached out to the press rather than kidnapping their profiler, but the killer liked defying the odds at each and every turn. Kent had felt confident Plain Jane would take no action against him until Nicole arrived. There had been no real reason to escape until the moment was ripe.

  “I knew he was bringing you here. Of course I wasn’t counting on getting locked in, but hey, I’m still batting five hundred…” He rushed on, “And by the way, I don’t take your stuff. Any of it.”

  “Right,” Nicole said as she checked the locked room, as if he’d missed some obvious “open” sign.

  “What have I ever stolen?”

  “My car, for example.”

  “That was borrowing,” Kent asserted again.

  Nicole cocked an eyebrow.

  “What?” he asked. “What of yours have I stolen?”

  A strange look passed over Nicole’s face. It looked like she was going to say something, then pulled up short. Was she angry? Scared? Kent would never know because her attention became distracted as she coughed.

  “What’s that smell?”

  “That would be formaldehyde,” he said pointing to the other side of the room, at the opened metal door.

  “What’s through there?”

  There were no words to describe what lay beyond that door. Even if he somehow found the words, Kent knew they would sound ridiculous. And even if he could somehow make it sound plausible, Nicole would never believe him.

  “You’ve got to see it to believe it.”

  CHAPTER 98

  Ruben watched as Joshua gesticulated wildly with his cuffed hands. He had only halfheartedly listened to the morgue attendant’s story. This was one of those wastes of time you just had to endure to make sure you covered all your bases.

  “See? See? There’s no way I’m the killer!”

  Glick didn’t seem any more impressed by Joshua’s lengthy, convoluted explanation than Ruben.

  And the younger man seemed to sense it. “Come on. Why would I keep two wombs at home and leave the rest somewhere else?” Joshua jumped up and down in place. “I’m telling you. I just took those two after the women were in the morgue. I did not kill anyone!”

  “Where’s Harbinger?” Ruben asked, already knowing what the kid was going to say.

  “I don’t know!” Joshua squealed. “I told you! The only reason I came to the store was because of that e-mail!”

  The attendant certainly seemed sincere. Where in the hell was Kent? Ruben wanted the profiler out of the picture, but not like this. Not a fucking martyr to the cause. Not a ghost to constantly haunt Nicole.

  Glick looked around again. “Damn it, where’s Usher? We need her take.”

  “Yes! Yes!” Joshua agreed emphatically, nodding his head over and over again. “Get Usher. She’ll tell you. I might collect body parts, but I’m not a sicko!”

  Ruben was about to disagree with the guy when his cell phone rang. It was dispatch. He listened but couldn’t believe the news. Tonight really couldn’t get much worse.

  He turned to Glick. “Joshua may, somehow, some way, be telling the truth.”

  “He’s got two uteri on his bedroom dresser.”

  “And I’m taking no consolation in being right.” Glick obviously didn’t understand, so Ruben continued. “But remember Martin? The guy Kent insisted was absolutely, positively not Plain Jane?”

  “Yes.”

  He indicated to his cell. “He escaped custody.”

  “When?”

  “An hour ago. About the time Kent disappeared.”

  “Oh no! We’ve got to get Usher.”

  Ruben put a hand on his captain’s arm to stop him from going outside to find her. “In her state, she’s no good to us. No good to Kent right now.”

  CHAPTER 99

  Nicole stood dumbfounded, speechless. The stench of the formaldehyde closing off her nostrils. Kent had not been kidding. The sight was unbelievable.

  Perhaps if she had not seen picture after gruesome picture of the real organ, Nicole might not have known what she was looking at. But after being on this case for seven months? She knew exactly what this enormous monument was modeled after.

  Before them stood a huge, no, gigantic womb.

  The thing towered over them. It must have been at least twelve feet tall. An enormous metal scaffolding supported the structure’s weight.

  “I don’t understand…” were the only words Nicole could find in a moment like this.

  Kent, as always, had a different perspective. “Looks like he wanted one of his very own.”

  On closer inspection Nicole realized that the structure was actually a patchwork of tissue. “Oh my…” She paced. “He stitched together the women’s wom
bs.”

  “The mother of all uteri.” Kent made a dramatic gesture like a carnie. “I give you the über-uterus!”

  Nicole didn’t bother to chide him. She knew the profiler kept emotions at a distance, using his wit to make himself feel invulnerable. But even he must have noted that it had taken a lot more than a few dozen uteri to create this massive womb.

  How many women had this psycho killed? And Ruben had sneered when Kent had suggested Plain Jane had taken over thirty women.

  Nicole would now have to double that number.

  The two silently circled the monstrosity. So many women dead. And for what? To build this sick quasi-womb? This nearly completed, sick quasi-womb. At the very top she could see one small area of frayed tissue. The place for one last uterus. One last victim.

  “Why would he do this?”

  Kent shook his head. “Okay, not even I’m whacked enough to understand.”

  That wasn’t very reassuring, though. If the profiler didn’t understand, then how could she hope to? Or was this just one of those aberrations that no one would ever understand? The more she studied this towering labor of psychosis, the more so many questions rose in her mind.

  “And why pick only women who had abortions?”

  “Talking to the wrong guy here.”

  Finally irritated by his cavalier attitude, Nicole shot back, “Okay, if not you, then who?”

  For once Kent sounded serious. “I’ve gotten so…” The profiler paused as if he had forgotten how to express true emotions. True feelings. “So close to him. To his mind. But I just can’t nail this guy’s core pathology.”

  Despite the looming uterus, Nicole looked to Kent. That was the most honest she had ever heard him, so the detective took a risk and began speculating out loud, opening herself up to his potentially harsh criticism.

  “It kind of made sense when we were going under the assumption that he thought that the victims did not deserve to have a womb after an abortion, but now this…”

  They both looked upward. Besides the sheer horror of that much loss of life, you had to marvel at the audacity of it. How long had it taken the killer to so meticulously stitch together all this tissue? And to stitch the tissue so tightly that it was watertight?