“Ah, Dr. Charan,” the captain rumbled. “This is Special Agent Kent Harbinger, a profiler with the BAU.”
Mala recognized the name. “Ah, Agent Harbinger. I’ve heard a bit about you in my circles.”
“Call me Kent,” the man insisted. “Are you a profiler as well?”
“Sort of. A psychologist,” she replied. “That stunt of yours back in the classroom at Quantico has become a bit of a legend.”
He grinned, then turned to Janey and went down on one knee so that he was on her level. “Hey.”
Janey nodded, a quick smile lighting up her face.
“Her name’s Janey. She doesn’t speak,” Mala warned him.
Kent assessed Janey. “Oh, she speaks plenty. Just not out loud.” He gazed into Janey’s face for a moment, then chuckled. “Oh, you are so right, girlfriend. Gimme five.”
Janey slapped his uplifted palm and grinned at him. She then held up her bear. The profiler looked at the stuffed animal for a moment and then solemnly reached out a thumb and a finger to shake the bear’s small paw.
“Nice to meet you, too,” he said to the toy.
Janey brought her bear back into her arms and hugged it to her chest, smiling up at Kent.
This could not be the Kent Harbinger that Mala had heard about. The man was said to be brilliant, yet arrogant… even rude… to colleagues. There were even whispers of a dark side. Kleptomania and fetishes. This couldn’t be the same man, as he laughed heartily with Janey, tickling Popeye and getting Janey to giggle.
Mala hadn’t heard Janey giggle in… well ever.
“Adults are kind of stupid a lot of the time,” Kent said, getting down on one knee so he could be at eye’s level with Janey. He apparently was agreeing with something that was silently transmitted between him and the girl. Janey then put her hand up and Kent finished the high five.
Maybe there was another Kent Harbinger. This simply could not be the same man that staged a crime scene at Quantico orientation, making the class believe he had been killed, then when his ruse was discovered told the class that the blood had been HIV laced.
Even though that too had been a lie, Kent had gotten the can and there were dozens of lawsuits ranging from emotional damage to attempted murder.
Yet here the infamous profiler knelt playing patty cake with Popeye.
“Ah, Keane. Darc.” Captain Merle grumbled in his deep voice.
Mala lifted her head as the two detectives entered.
“Who is this?” Darc asked, pointing at Kent, his tone flat.
“Special Agent Kent Harbinger, on loan from the BAU,” the captain stated.
“The FBI’s getting involved in this?” Trey asked. He then punched Darc in the arm. “See? I told you this was huge.”
But the bald detective just stared at Kent. “Why is he here?”
“Whoa, Darc,” Trey said, stepping in between the profiler and his partner. “Chill, dude.”
“We have a case to work,” Darc stated, his intonation flat.
Kent stepped around Trey to face off with Darc. “Pretty much why I’m here, Savant.”
Mala tensed. Darc sometimes got a little twitchy when it came to his Asperger’s.
The odd profiler looked from Trey to Darc and then back to Trey. “So… let’s go camping.”
Mala wasn’t sure what she had been expecting, but whatever it might have been, it hadn’t been that.
CHAPTER 3
Janey watched as the new man, Kent, and Darc stared at each other.
She moved over to Darc’s side and slid her hand into his, the one that wasn’t holding Popeye. Her bear was saying something about how pretty much every grown-up didn’t seem to like Darc, and that maybe that should tell Janey that he was a big fat jerk.
Janey told Popeye to shush. He was just mad that they hadn’t gone out for frozen yogurt. Silly bear. Didn’t he know that being here at the station was so much better?
Popeye made a raspberry sound, but Janey just ignored him.
Darc was still staring at Kent like he was mad. When she could see that he wasn’t going to stop making his non-faces at Kent, Janey went over to the other, smaller man and put her hand up on his chest. Kent looked down at her and smiled.
“I know, I know,” he said with a hint of a laugh in his voice. “But he has to learn, sweetie.”
Janey just lifted an eyebrow at Kent, and he laughed as he backed away from Darc and reached over to ruffle Janey’s hair. She smiled back at him. He was funny.
“Fine. Fine,” the man said to Janey. “I’ll behave if he will.”
“We do not require help,” Darc said, his tone coming out flat as the pancakes that Mala sometimes tried to make Janey on Saturday mornings. That meant that he was mad.
Afraid, Popeye corrected her. She told him to hush up.
Why would Darc be afraid of Kent?
* * *
There was a grey wash over Darc’s vision. Seeing the profiler there with Mala and Janey had created a reaction inside of Darc that he could not understand.
After a long moment of silence, the captain sighed. “Darc, he’s the best of the best. And we can always use a little help, especially when we have so many dead bodies.” He then turned on his heel and marched back toward his office without a backward glance.
The profiler looked around at the group, clapped his hands together and began rubbing them against one another. “So, that’s all settled. I already know where we’re going to set up base camp.”
“Wait, wait, wait,” Trey stepped in. “Let’s not be hasty. This case is a sweet one, but I’m not sure it’s worth staying out there overnight for.”
“Look. Do you want to catch the Sasquatch or what?” Kent asked.
The threads of logic inside Darc’s mind stirred about with each statement the profiler made. Even through the emotional grey haze, there was no sense to this search.
And with each passing moment he was in Kent’s presence, the haze thickened.
* * *
Trey was over the freaking moon, in spite of the fact that this Kent guy wanted to go out camping. That was something he could deal with in a minute. After they bonded.
“You think it’s Bigfoot, too?” he asked.
“Um, duh,” the profiler answered. “Trust me I wouldn’t have traveled half-way across the country for a few teenage killings out in the woods. I have bigger fish to fry back home.”
Darc just stood there, looking like he was carved of granite. Seriously, some guys had no appreciation for what a big deal this was.
Mala, on the other hand, was giving the profiler an assessing look. She cocked her head at the man, like she was trying to figure out what made him tick.
“All right,” she said. “I’ll go. I love camping, and Janey doesn’t have to be back to school until Tuesday.”
Trey looked at the doctor, registering his surprise. “You two are coming along? You sure that’s a good idea?”
“Oh, come on,” Mala answered. “It’s not like there’s really a huge man-beast out there in the woods. And we’ll be surrounded by men with guns.” She made a face. “I might be more frightened of that, come to think of it.
Kent glanced from Mala down to Janey and smiled. “I’m good with them coming along.” Then he paused. “But, I may need to take a side trip first.”
Yeah, buddy, Trey thought. You and me both.
Maggie was not going to love this.
* * *
The second Kent stepped into the great room of the suite, Nicole was there, wearing nothing but the robe provided by the hotel, just observing him with a cool gaze. This didn’t look good.
Time to go on the offensive.
“Hey, I was thinking…” Kent said, waving his hand at the suite. “This isn’t really us.”
Nicole raised an eyebrow. “Oh, it may not be you, but it’s definitely me.”
“Yeah,” Kent said, clearing his throat. “But there’s such amazing camping around this area. I thought we could go o
ut and commune with nature.”
“Oh, is that what you thought?” she asked, moving over to the table and picking up a newspaper. She tossed it onto the floor at Kent’s feet.
Uh oh.
“Really, Kent? Really?” she demanded.
“I know,” he agreed, shaking his head. “Newspapers are so outdated. You can stay updated just by reading the titles of articles on the Internet.”
“Kent,” she warned. “Did you not think I would figure it out?” She pointed to a picture of a large hominid on the front page of the paper. “Sasquatch? That’s what we’re here for?”
Busted. There wasn’t much he could do now.
Kent shrugged, his default response when he couldn’t see a clear win here.
“Fine,” she said, her tone resigned. “But I’m not leaving this hotel. And I’m going to rack up every single charge I can think of while I’m here.”
Kent cocked his head. Nicole wasn’t usually this understanding. London had turned out to be a happy disaster, but was she really going to let him off the proverbial hook without even a good elbow to the rib?
“I don’t have to go,” Kent stated and okay, that sounded lame even to his ears.
“Right,” Nicole replied, rolling her eyes. Hey, that was his move. “We came all the way across the country and you are just going to sit in this room cuddle up with me, keeping my green tea hot?”
Yeah, no. There was no world in which that was going to happen. He loved his wife, but there were limits.
“Stop looking like I kicked a puppy,” Nicole stated, “I’m giving you what you want, so go enjoy your ‘investigation.’”
All right, those air quotes were really unnecessary.
Just as he was about to speak, “his” phone rang. He answered it quickly. “Yeah, Joshua, can I get back to you?’
The excited voice on the other side didn’t seem ready to hang up though. “You aren’t going to believe it, but just two miles south of the kill site, a park ranger found some supposed Sasquatch scat! It had little particles of quail in it and everything.”
All right, that was a bit too excited for poop, even Bigfoot poop, plus Nicole was glaring at him.
“Great, Joshua, we’ll discuss this later,” Kent said then abruptly disconnected the call as Joshua was rambling on about something.
“Whose phone is it now?” Nicole asked, looking the most pissed about the phone. Really? Because there was so much more to be pissed at. But maybe he should be thankful it was just the phone in her sights.
“Dr. McGregor.”
“The ME?” Nicole asked for clarification.
Kent nodded, “The guy doesn’t even use it. Look,” he said shoving the phone forward. “It still has its default screensaver. I mean I am doing the phone a favor by actually using it.”
A grin danced at the edge of her lips.
“Go on, get going,” she said, shooing him off. “Be home by 11 pm.”
“As always, my love. I am a man of my honor.”
That got her to flash a full blown smile.
He went to leave when Nicole turned around. “Oh, and Kent?”
He wrenched his attention away from her naked form. “Yes?”
“This is the last time I go on vacation with you.”
“Not even Scotland?” Kent asked trying to sound wounded.
“Especially not Lochs and their monsters”
Apparently Nicole had caught onto his game.
“Fine. 11 then,” Kent said as he left the hotel room. He could hear Nicole already on the phone asking to have hot stones added to her massage package.
This was going to be one expensive vacation. But a chance to go after Bigfoot? It was well worth it.
CHAPTER 4
Mala finished whittling the magnesium off the flint and steel, and gathered the shavings into a tiny pile, right next to some shredded bark from a nearby dead log.
One strike, and the magnesium flared white, igniting the tinder.
They had fire.
Kent whistled his appreciation. “Survivor Woman. I wouldn’t have expected that.”
Janey, standing by the profiler’s side, grinned up at him.
Trey walked over. “Um, you do know we have matches, even waterproof ones?”
Camping had always been a bit of an obsession with Mala. She loved the outdoors with a passion that was surprising to most people who knew her. But she hadn’t had an opportunity to get out since Janey had come into her life.
Trey had been fidgeting ever since leaving the city behind. His argument with Maggie hadn’t helped either. She didn’t need to hear the conversation to know it hadn’t gone well. Trey’s expression and pleading tone had told her everything she needed to know.
Mala glanced over to the profiler. Somehow in the amount of time it had taken Mala to get her extensive camping gear together, the profiler had changed into jeans and tee shirt and had a full camping set.
Knowing his file, Mala had to wonder if Kent had paid for it all or just “lifted” it.
Did it matter, right now?
“I’m surprised you are indulging in this wild goose chase,” Mala stated.
“Wild goose chase,” Trey snorted.
Kent however gave a smile. “Well, once you’ve discovered who Jack the Ripper was, you need to find new challenges.”
Ah, there was the Harbinger arrogance Mala had heard so much about.
“My understanding is you actually wrote a paper on Sasquatch’s existence in grad school.”
Kent simply shrugged, poking a stick into the fire, stoking it. For such a city guy he seemed unusually at ease in the woods. Far more than anyone else in their group.
“So enlighten me.”
“If you read my paper, then you should already know.”
Mala twisted some dried grass together to serve as more kindling. “Let’s say I didn’t actually read the article.”
“Ah, a highline skimmer are you?” Kent teased. Was there a bit of seduction in his gaze? Wasn’t his pregnant wife back at the hotel? “Not very academic of you. You should read opposition papers to expand your horizons.”
Kent just went from a seducer to a scolding authority figure. How did he do that, and why was she feeling so defensive? No one else seemed to notice. Janey was still gazing up at Kent with her puppy dog eyes and Trey was mumbling about dirt in his shoes.
Janey reached out and squeezed Kent’ s hand.
“Okay, I do love a good audience,” Kent conceded to Janey’s silent request. Those two had formed an unnatural bond so quickly.
It was said that Kent’s greatest forte was his ability to charm his way to a killer.
Those skills were not exaggerated.
“You see, I don’t give much credence to the tabloid photos or camper run-ins with the creature.”
Mala nodded, glad he was seeing some reason. Trey’s face clouded over.
“Hey, I thought you were on my side.”
“I do however believe the Seehatik tribe. And the many other Native American tribes, but especially the Seehatik.”
Mala made sure the fire was catching, then looked at Kent. He seemed completely and utterly sincere. “I’ve never heard of that tribe.”
Kent nodded. “Because the Native Americans in his area have kept them a secret. The Seehatiks are considered the Mountain Devils and the tribes here did not want the white man thinking it was them that destroyed their camps.”
* * *
Kent watched the wheels in the psychiatrist’s brain turning. She clearly was well read and well informed. Such types didn’t like to be blind-sided by new information. Information they probably should have researched themselves.
Although her back wasn’t as stiff as he would expect. Her eyes shone with curiosity rather than defensiveness. Interesting.
“According to the Native American Chronicler Totsgi, the Seehatik were rumored to stand six and a half to seven feet tall with excessive body hair.”
“Isn’t that
a bit odd?” Mala said with a playfulness in her voice. “Native Americans are known for their smooth skin and minimal body hair.”
Oh, how Kent loved a spirited discussion with another intellectual.
It was always so gratifying to see the look on their faces when he shattered their reality.
“That is because most Native Americans are descended from East Asian stock. However the Inuit tribes in the north are descended from Southern Asia and can grow full beards and have significant body hair.
Mala cocked her head. “I’d never thought of it that way.”
There it was. The beginning of the end to Mala’s constrained worldview.
“And there is the Karankawa tribe in Texas. Most of the men stand well over six feet and can reach seven feet in ten percent of their population.”
Mala frowned. “But they are in Texas.”
Kent smiled. Oh, she was playing his game and he held all the cards. “But they immigrated there. As much as we are supposed to say Native Americans, they were not ‘native’ to this area. All of the tribes are descended from early man that immigrated over the Bering Straits to North America. Scientists believe these immigrations came in waves, depending on how iced over the Strait was. There were decades between these crossings, with clans of different descent.”
Mala rocked back onto her heels staring at Kent. That’s right. Mind officially blown.
If he had his laptop he would have hashtagged that and put it in a Tweet.
“So you are saying that this tall tribe migrated through here and interbred with the ancestors of the Seehatiks to create tall and well haired Native Americans who were shunned by the other tribes and lived in the caves of the Pacific Northwest.”
Kent nodded, Mala was pretty quick on the uptake, but she’d better be if she was consulting on serial killer cases.
“Walking this forward, you believe this tribe of Seehatiks has been mistaken for an animal called Bigfoot and is responsible for these deaths.”
“Oh God, no,” Kent replied. “We’ve got a serial killer on the loose. The poor Seehatiks are being blamed.”
“Wait, what?” Trey said coming nearer to the fire.
* * *
The 2nd Cycle of the Darc Murders Omnibus (the acclaimed series from #1 Police Procedural and Hard Boiled authors Carolyn McCray and Ben Hopkin) Page 2