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.
From somewhere deeper inside the storage area, the sound of scuffing filtered through to them.
Who knew what might be ahead, but they couldn’t wait. Not when the killer might be within reach. As they stepped into the maze of supplies Nicole wished, not for the first time, that the profiler had come along.
CHAPTER 4
Kent opened the front door to the house, glad that Roy had left it unlocked. Or at the least left a lock easy enough to pick. He wasn’t into splitting hairs. With one last glance over his shoulder to the barn, Kent entered the house. Nicole and Ruben had chosen to explore the killer’s dissecting grounds. He was far more interested in his seduction grounds.
Flicking on the light, Kent found a rather average-looking living room. Actually, it was a perfectly crafted average-looking living room. How long had it taken Roy to build this perfect balance of familiarity and individuality?
The furniture was arranged to make the fireplace the focal point of the room. The stonework gave the room an earthy, grounded feeling. The pictures that lined the mantle imparted a homey air. It was everything you would expect of a country house. The house felt lived in. Quite the accomplishment for a psychopath to achieve.
Kent ran his finger along the back of the suede coach. How many men and women had Roy brought here before he actually got the nerve to do something about the urges he was feeling inside? Kent could imagine the number of potential victims that had bailed once they drove down that long, dark, dirt road. Others must have high-tailed it out of here once they realized how isolated the house was.
With each failure, though, Roy learned something new. All of those dry runs had taught him how to create an environment that soothed and comforted. He had also honed his skill at choosing victims that were either such extreme risk-takers, or so desperate for attention that they would actually enter the house.
Didn’t they notice the warning signs? No matter how cozy Roy tried to make the place, there were telltale signs of mental illness. The newspapers by the fireplace were stacked with precision. Not a page out of place. Kent would guess they were in perfect chronological order, as well. The wood in the fireplace was so neatly positioned that it could be in an ad for the Boy Scouts. Also, there wasn’t a phone to be seen. Not that house phones weren’t on the decline as cell phones grew in prominence. But way out here? There should have been some kind of antique rotary phone somewhere within reach.
And the lack of animals? Did no one notice that, this being a farm, there wasn’t a single animal sound? Not a moo or a bray or even a bark? Kent was fairly sure that old Roy had practiced his craft on those poor denizens long before he ever made the leap to humans. That was how most serial killers started out. Really, animal control officers should just be allowed to make arrests on children guilty of animal cruelty. It certainly would stem the tide of adult serial killers.
Shots rang out from the barn, jarring Kent from his musings. He probably should go out there and see what the kids were doing, but why? Kent had already led them here by the nose. Did he really need to capture the killer for them, as well?
Instead, he closed his eyes and imagined that an unsuspecting victim sat on the couch. What would Roy do next? He didn’t have the social skills to fool anyone for long in person. He would want to immobilize his victim as quickly as possible.
The obvious next step in this process would be for Roy to offer his “guest” something to drink. He would want them to be at ease. Which must be why Roy had redesigned the house so that you could see into the kitchen from the living room. He would want to keep an eye on his victim the whole time.
The layout also served to decrease suspicion on the part of the victim. It was one thing to walk into a stranger’s house and sit down in their living room. It was quite another to have that stranger disappear into the bowels of the house. Left to their own devices, most would pick up the subtle clues that something wasn’t quite right.
By having an open floor plan, Roy could now keep talking to his victim as he went into the kitchen, keeping them engaged and unaware. That did lead to a slight problem, however. Since Roy was in full view of his victim, how did he get the syringe he needed to inject the paralytics?
Kent crossed into the kitchen, bypassing the oak kitchen table and going to the refrigerator. It was stocked with the usual suspects. Milk, lettuce, ketchup, cheese, grapes, etc., plus a single bottle of chilled white wine. Kent pulled it out,
setting it on the counter as Roy must have done. What next?
Opening the freezer, Kent took a step back. Well, at least he’d found the cousin. Or at least that’s what it looked like was stored there in a variety of plastic containers. Clever. It was a risk, of course, to have a dead body in one’s freezer, but Kent imagined how it made Roy feel each and every time he opened the door. To see his accomplishment right there. It was probably what got Roy through those first few killings.
Kent closed the freezer and opened the drawer closest to the refrigerator.
Ah, there they were.
Lined up in a nice neat row like a set of prized heirloom cutlery were syringes, each precisely filled to the three milliliter mark. Right next to them was a corkscrew.
How easy to grab a syringe as you pulled out the corkscrew. Again. Clever.
The slightest scuff alerted Kent that he was no longer alone. Grabbing a syringe, he twisted around just as Roy took a swing at him…with a trocar. Kent ducked, using his arm to block the blow. The stainless steel shaft clanged against the limb, hitting Kent’s radial nerve, numbing his hand. An expert blow by someone way too familiar with anatomy. The syringe fell, useless, to the floor.
Why did psychopaths always want to put up a fight? Kent didn’t know, but damn, they always did.
Using his only functional hand, Kent grabbed the heavy, solid oak kitchen chair, knocking it back, tripping Roy in the process. For such a tubby old man, Roy recovered quickly. That trocar, with its sharp tip, came arcing overhead, aiming for Kent’s jugular. His only option was to dive under the table. A loud whack sounded as the stainless steel hit the table, digging deep into the wood. That would have been Kent’s flesh. So far he had not been injured by a trocar, and he planned to keep it that way.
Nicole and her partner must have figured out by now that Roy had escaped using the Prohibition-era tunnels running from the barn to the house, right? Although the two detectives had not been too quick on the draw so far.
Roy, on the other hand? He was all too quick, pulling the trocar out of the splintered wood, getting ready for another blow. Kent pushed another chair out of the way and tried to make for the kitchen door, but Roy had anticipated the move. More than likely, a few of his earlier victims had tried that play.
This kitchen was its own little battleground —one in which Roy had the home court advantage. Kent changed course abruptly, spinning on his heel, grabbing for the freezer handle. Roy couldn’t correct in time, and he slammed the stainless steel instrument into the open freezer door.
Containers of cousin fell from the freezer, covering the floor like human ice cubes.
“Did you mean to kill him?” Kent asked, trying to distract Roy from the fact that Kent was unarmed. Roy didn’t seem like the talkative type though. Instead, the man lunged again, only this time his foot hit a slick spot and he careened toward the sink.
Kent snatched the syringe from the floor. Just as Roy turned, the trocar angled toward Kent, he slammed the syringe into the killer’s arm, pumping the contents into Roy’s flesh.
Still, the trocar’s sharp tip found Kent’s neck, pushing against his skin, trying to find his jugular. If that happened, Kent knew that he would bleed out before anyone could stop it. But the tip didn’t dig any further.
How could it, as Roy’s arm lost its strength and his muscles went lax?
“Was that a single dose in the syringe?” Kent asked as he pushed the plunger all the way down. By the way Roy’s eyes dilated, it hadn’t been. “Oh, so that was an overdose, then?”
Roy tried to speak but his lips just made a flapping motion.
“Is that how your victims tried to scream, Roy?” Kent grabbed the killer’s arm and turned the trocar away from his own neck and toward Roy’s. “Did they see it coming? Did they flail?”
Well, Roy certainly was. Kent took some grim satisfaction as the killer’s arms flopped around like fish just pulled from the water. Pushing harder, Kent brought the tip of the trocar up to Roy’s neck, letting the sharp edge lay against his skin.
“Could they feel the blood rush out of them? Did they know the exact moment they passed the point of no return?”
By Roy’s dilated pupils and fluttering eyelids, Kent guessed that they did.
Before he could help Roy really get in touch with his victim’s feelings, the door burst open. “Kent!”
* * *
Nicole raced over as Roy fell to the ground. Kent’s knees buckled and she caught the profiler while still holding her gun on the downed killer. “Are you okay?”
Ruben charged in behind her. He dropped to his knees, checking Roy’s pulse. “He’s alive, but barely.” Her partner glared at Kent. “What the hell happened here?”
“Self-defense.”
“With a syringe and trocar?” Ruben demanded.
The profiler shrugged. “You use the gifts that God gives you.”
Her partner flipped his phone open and tried to dial for help, but there was no signal. Luckily, sirens sounded in the distance. Their backup. Finally.
“I’ll flag them down,” Ruben said as he rushed from the room.
Kent leaned heavily into Nicole as he retorted. “You do that.”
She helped the profiler into a kitchen chair. She ran her hands over his arms, chest, neck. “Are you injured?”
“A few blows to my pride perhaps…”
How Kent could go into the ring with a vicious serial killer and come out of it without a scratch was beyond her, but here he was. The only thing out of place was a few hairs. She combed them back in place with her fingers.
“What took you so long?” Kent asked softly. It was only then that Nicole realized they were only inches apart.
Taking a step back, she couldn’t look the profiler in the eye. “We followed a noise into the storage area.”
“And the shots?”
“Um…a rat. But in our defense,” Nicole hurried on, “it was a really big rat.”
Kent smiled, his eyes softening as he chuckled. The expression was incongruent, yet oddly consistent with the profiler’s personality. “That’s when you figured out that Roy had doubled back?”
Nicole nodded. “We hurried back to the main room and I found the trap door under the surgical table.”
“You found it? Like it was hidden and you deduced its location?” Kent asked, narrowing his eyelids. Seriously, the guy was half psychic.
“Well, Roy didn’t close it completely shut,” Nicole admitted.
Her eyes shifted to the man lying, like a broken doll, on the floor, his legs askew and neck bent at an awkward angle. She couldn’t bring herself to straighten him out. To think, for all this time she had casually chatted with him. Thought of him as an okay kind of guy. He’d even bought her coffee, for Christ’s sake. And she’d returned the favor.
“What really happened?” she asked.
“You would like to know, wouldn’t you?”
The profiler’s gaze bored into her. His eyes scanning back and forth across her face almost like he was reading a book. Could he see that being a junior partner in a Midwest City’s police department hadn’t been her career goal? Could he see that she’d written down “FBI agent” in her kindergarten dream job book? Did he know that dream had been shattered when her father had been diagnosed with MS? How her brother had gotten to go off to Harvard law school, but Nicole had had to stay close by to help with her father’s illness?
A barely perceptible grin returned to Kent’s lips as Ruben and the rest of their backup rushed into the room. “Not here,” the profiler whispered. “Later.”
His voice had been so soft that it seemed like he hadn’t even breathed the words. Especially not as the room filled with the chatter of cops and EMTs. Ruben barked orders, trying to contain the chaos, but The Professor had been caught. There would be no containing that.
Yet the profiler simply watched the scene with what appeared to be a sense of amusement. Like it was just another day at the office for him. And it p
robably was. What would it feel like to have the audacity to go up against a serial killer, alone? And to have the confidence that you could win?
Nicole didn’t know, but damn if she didn’t want to give it a try.
* * *
Ruben signed yet another form as Roy was wheeled out of the house toward the ambulance. Out of the knot of first responders, Captain Glick strode up the steps of the farmhouse and entered the living room.
“Excellent job, Torres.”
Grinding his teeth, Ruben flicked his eyes towards Harbinger. “I can’t take all the credit, Captain.”
“Sure you can,” the profiler said as he leaned against the doorframe. “I just came along because I thought we were getting ice cream.”
Glick frowned. The captain wasn’t any too fond of humor, let alone sarcasm. “I don’t understand.” Ruben went to explain when Glick held up his hand. “I’ll read about it in the report.”
“Captain!” a uniformed cop called out from the back of the house.
Before moving off, Glick turned to Ruben. “A thorough report. A painstakingly thorough report.”
“Yes, sir,” Ruben answered.
The captain wasn’t two feet away when the profiler pushed off the doorframe. “Well, I’ve given my statement, so I think I’ll be off.”
“Yeah,” Ruben responded, more relieved than he should have been. “You do that.”
The dig just didn’t work when Harbinger looked ready to hit the town in that tux of his. Then Ruben noticed Nicole heading toward the door.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Ruben asked, before thinking it through.
“Kent offered his expertise on a few of my cold cases,” Nicole said, although her partner wouldn’t meet his gaze. “And since he’s leaving in the morning…”
Expertise. Right.
Ruben knew enough about Nicole to know that he couldn’t strong-arm her into staying, as much as he wanted to. He tried a different tactic. “Whoever writes up the report gets the collar.”
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 88