“Good to know,” Kent said. “But why would Nicole go there?”
“It’s where we used to hang out when we were on patrol,” Ruben explained.
“Nicole loved that place,” Glick said. “She hated giving it up once she got her gold badge.”
“Okay,” Kent said. “So Nicole was upset and went back to an old, comforting haunt. Wallflower must have been watching the crime scene and followed her there. Jimmi.”
“On it,” the tech said. “I’ve already tracked Nicole’s path through traffic cams. Now I just need to look for someone shadowing her. There!” Jimmi shouted, pointing to a dark van. “That car is showing up in nearly three quarters of the same intersections as Usher.”
Joshua may not have all the fancy computer skills that Jimmi did, but he could run a DMV search with the best of them. “The van was stolen yesterday,” he reported.
“Crap,” Ruben said behind them.
“Alright,” Kent said. “We need to figure out who was on last night at O’Malley’s and find out where they live so we can question them.”
Just as Joshua went to start the search, Ruben stepped forward. “No need. The owner, Gilly O’Malley, is always on at night and lives above the pub.”
“Go,” Glick said, nodding to the door. “I’ll call him and give him a heads up.” The captain glanced to his watch. “By now he should be setting up for lunch.”
“What can I do?” Joshua asked as the men headed out.
Kent turned to him. “Check on Dr. Pollen. We need that common ground he thought he could find with the nasal swabs.”
Joshua nodded. He was all over it. Flipping open his phone, he called the university.
Then Yvent walked in, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, with a broad smile on his face. “So what did I miss?”
Oh, no he didn’t just say that.
* * *
Nicole’s eyes had adjusted to the dank light. She was in a cellar. Past her metal enclosure were rows and rows of onions on a rope, and potatoes were stacked in a pile in the corner.
She was being kept some place rural. Really rural. Which sucked. Right now, the search for Wallflower was an urban hunt. How did they not see this rural connection?
A loud clunk announced that a door was being opened above her. Bright sunlight blinded her for a moment. Her hands flew over her eyes to block out the startling light. The sound of birdsong swelled from outside.
Then a figure was thrown in. Nicole stepped to the left and caught the woman as she tumbled inside. Then the door closed again, slamming metal against metal.
“Are you alright?” Nicole asked.
The younger woman with dull red hair and huge freckles nearly screamed in her ear. “No! No, I’m not alright.” The woman dug at her belly. “He injected me with fly eggs! Why would someone do that? Why?”
“Shh,” Nicole said, smoothing the woman’s hair. “Breathe, just breathe.”
“Why?” The woman demanded. “I’m going to have maggots in my belly in a few hours.”
“I know,” Nicole said. “I have them too, but panicking isn’t going to make them grow any slower.”
The woman blew air out of her mouth, then sucked in a nice big breath, blowing it out again.
“What’s your name?” Nicole asked. “I’m Nicole.”
The woman seemed to calm down a bit. “I’m Megan.”
“Okay, Megan, good. We just need to keep it together, okay?”
“No, it isn’t okay,” Megan said, escalating again. “What is okay about any of this?”
“I know, I know.” Nicole tried to settle the woman down. Nicole needed to stay calm and collected. She needed to be ready for any microscopic chance to break out of here, and she couldn’t do that with the other victim freaking out. “It sucks to be captured by a serial killer.”
“A serial killer?” Megan nearly screamed. Damn, that girl had a loud voice, and a tone that could cut through cement. “You mean he’s done this before?”
“No,” Nicole said, then corrected herself. “Well, yes, he’s killed before. However, it was different.”
Very different, actually. Wallflower was way off script.
“Usually he killed the women right away, then injected them with the fly eggs post-mortem. It seems like he is evolving.”
“Evolving?” Megan asked with a sniffle.
“Yes, if a serial killer begins to get sloppy or increase his kill rate, we consider that devolving. If, however, he changes his pattern to become more refined, we consider that evolving.”
“Well, he did try to kill me.”
“What do you mean, try?” Nicole asked. “Start at the beginning.”
Megan took in another deep breath. “I was at this stupid dating mixer. There were no interesting guys, so I was about to leave when I spotted this cute guy at the bar. We hit it off right away.”
“What was his name?”
“John Smith,” Megan said, then lowered her eyes. “I know, I should have gotten the hint that wasn’t real with that name, but he was nice and polite and pulled out my chair for me.”
Nicole remembered Kent saying that good manners went a long way. He wasn’t wrong.
“Anyway, he offers to take me for a ride in the country.” Megan hurried along. “I know I shouldn’t have gone, but he had a Mercedes, and by then, I was a little tipsy.”
Nicole put her hand on Megan’s arm. “No matter what you did, you didn’t deserve this.” The last thing Nicole needed was for Megan to go into some kind of shame spiral, along with being panicked. That was not a good combination.
“Then?” Nicole prompted.
“Then we parked up on a hill and looked at the city lights. It was great. Nice. He leaned over and I assumed we’d make out, but then his hands were on my neck, choking me.”
“What stopped him?”
Megan shook her head. “I don’t know. He just stopped. I was choking and sputtering. Then he brought me here, tied me down, and stuck fly eggs in me.”
Nicole put an arm around Megan, trying to keep her from going hysterical again. “We’re going to get out of here.”
“Why?” Megan challenged. “Has anyone else ever escaped from him before?”
“No, but I am a police detective,” Nicole answered.
“Yeah, who is down here with me, so nothing personal, but I’m not liking our chances.”
Nicole pulled Megan close and stroked her hair. “Ah, but my boyfriend is an FBI profiler.”
“And that’s supposed to impress me?” Megan snorted.
At the least the girl had fire. That was going to come in handy.
“Yes, actually it should,” Nicole replied. “He will find us.”
“How can you be so sure?” Megan sniffled, melting into Nicole’s arms.
“Because he knows if he doesn’t, he’ll never find another girlfriend that will put up with his crap.”
Nicole was rather proud of herself. That was a joke that Kent would have made in such a dire situation. Now she just had to pray that the profiler was as good as she said he was.
* * *
Kent felt helpless, and he hated feeling helpless. Ruben was driving as fast as he could across town. But every minute they didn’t know where Nicole was, was eating into Kent’s soul.
He never should have let her walk away. He should have followed her. He should have kept her safe.
“It’s not your fault,” Ruben said, like somehow he had graduated to mind reader. “Nicole is an adult.”
“When I want your opinion,” Kent said, “I’ll ask for it.”
Ruben shrugged. “Nicole would tell you the same thing.”
“At this point, I seriously doubt it,” Kent said. If he could talk to her right now, she’d probably be ragging on him that he wasn’t attentive enough. That was his girl. Fiercely independent, yet expecting him to be there for her no matter what. He normally loved that about her. It kept him on his toes. But the fiercely independent side of her had gone off the ra
ils last night.
“Let’s give that brain of yours something else to think about,” Ruben said as he swerved around a car and ran a yellow light. “This is way outside of Wallflower’s comfort zone. I mean, he didn’t even take Rhonda because she was too aggressive at the net. Why take a cop?”
Kent had actually been wondering that ever since this morning, when he realized that Nicole hadn’t come home last night voluntarily.
“I think he was worried that maybe she saw him yesterday at the tennis courts?” Kent ventured.
“Then why haven’t we found a body?” Ruben asked. “We’ve got patrols checking every single dirty alley in the city.”
“I don’t know. I think that Wallflower may be as confused as we are.”
Kent could only hope so. Hopefully, Wallflower had abducted Nicole in a panic, but now that he had her, maybe he was liking the feeling of having a cop under his thumb. Maybe he would keep her alive to keep the sensation going.
That is what they had to hope for. Otherwise, Nicole would be the next body they found.
CHAPTER 18
Ruben couldn’t catch up with Kent, even with his longer stride. The profiler was out of the car and barreling toward the pub. He was at the door, banging on the glass, demanding to be let in.
“Alright there, lad,” the owner said as he opened the door.
They rushed inside. Kent didn’t wait until they were settled, he started peppering the owner with questions. “Did you see her last night?” Kent flashed a picture of Nicole to the man.
“Sure. It’d been a while, I will tell you that, but there she was in all her glory. Missed the lassie these years. Hard when they grow up and move away.”
“Was she with anyone?” Kent asked.
“You certainly expect an old bartender to remember a lot, don’t you?”
Ruben stepped between them before Kent punched the old man. “Do you have any CCTV in here?”
The old man shook his head.
“Which is why I need you to start remembering a little faster,” Kent pressed.
“Not at first. She came in alone, pretty upset. She ordered a scotch, straight-up, before her usual Guinness.”
“And?” Kent demanded.
“She met up with a bloke she seemed to know,” the barkeep said, nodding to the corner of the bar. “Next thing I know, she looks hammered and he’s helping her out to her car.”
“It didn’t occur to you that something was wrong?” Kent said. Ruben made sure that the profiler didn’t do anything that he would regret later.
“The girl usually could hold her liquor, but she clearly knew the guy, and he looked like law enforcement. I thought the scotch had gotten to her.”
“Clearly she was drugged, and you just let a serial killer walk out with her!”
Kent spun away in disgust. Ruben put his hand out, though. It wasn’t the old man’s fault that Wallflower had outflanked them. “Can you come down to the station and work with a sketch artist?”
“I could, but he had a cap and glasses on—not sure what good it would do.”
Kent threw his hands up in the air. “Thanks—just thanks.”
The profiler wasn’t exactly at his best right now.
“Even so, you might remember something, even if it is tiny, that could help us.”
The barkeep nodded. “Anything to help Nicole out.”
For some reason, that made Ruben choke up, but he couldn’t lose it, not with Kent punching the wall.
Ruben went over. “Kent, I really need you to be an arrogant prick right about now. Tell me why he drugged her.”
“Clearly, he didn’t feel like he could subdue her. He is scared of her.”
“And does that help us or hurt us?”
“How the hell should I know?” Kent shouted, heading for the door.
Ruben grabbed him by the arm. “Because everyone puts up with your crap because you can think like a serial killer, so get to it.”
Kent’s face clouded over and Ruben was pretty sure that the next punch was coming his way, but then the profiler blew out a long breath.
“It helps us. The killer has been looking to increase his high. The kills just aren’t as gratifying as they were. I think he’s digging the challenge.”
“So that buys us time?” Ruben asked.
“Yeah. Until he works up the nerve to take a run at her, I think it does.”
“Alright then, let’s get back to the station and see what Jimmi and Joshua dug up.”
* * *
“What’s going to happen to us?” Megan asked. At least the pitiful sobbing had stopped. Although Nicole shouldn’t judge the young woman. That’s how most people would react. But after spending a few years with Kent, that just wasn’t Nicole.
“I don’t know,” she answered.
“What do you mean?” Megan questioned. “I thought this guy had done this a bunch of times.”
“He has,” Nicole answered. “But not like this. If he had, you’d be dead.”
Oh, there went the sniffles again. What would Kent say? Be a chick, Nicole.
“But he didn’t,” Nicole reassured the girl. “Every minute we are alive is a minute we could get rescued.”
“Or maggots could eat their way out of our stomach,” Megan added, descending into tears again.
Nicole had tried to ignore the feeling, like someone was walking on her grave. Ignore the rumblings in her abdomen. She was pretty sure that if she just didn’t think of the fly eggs, they wouldn’t hatch.
“Hey, hey,” Nicole said, lifting Megan’s chin to force the younger woman to look at her. “I need you rested and ready, okay? We don’t necessarily need a knight in shining armor. We may get our own chance, but I need you on board. Can you do that for me?” Nicole asked.
Megan sniffled again, wiping her eyes with the back of her arm. “Yeah. I can do that.”
“I just need like five minutes of bravery out of you,” Nicole said, knowing that this would be a stretch. The problem was that Wallflower had picked Megan for her demure qualities. The girl just didn’t have a lot of fight in her.
Which gave Nicole some insight into Wallflower. In a flash, she realized why Wallflower hadn’t killed Megan last night. It would have been too easy. It wasn’t giving him the thrill he was craving.
Nicole gulped. Which meant she was the thrill he was after now.
* * *
Yvent got out of Kent’s way as he rushed into the media room. Screens lined the place, making it look just a little sci-fi. Yvent didn’t make the mistake of making any kind of inappropriate offhanded remark this time.
How could he know that Nicole had been taken? Except for from the dozens of emails he hadn’t read yet.
Jimmi was totally prepared, though, and got his multimedia show on the road. “Alright, so Nicole went straight to the bar last night. Then she was headed east before her phone got shut down. Now, they didn’t take her car, but they were in this one.”
Jimmi showed them a nondescript van. “Unfortunately, that van was stolen last night, so that was a dead end.”
“You’ve got nothing, then,” Kent said, his head hung low, looking at his hands.
“I didn’t say that,” Jimmi said. “I backtracked the car and found an ATM camera with an angle on the car theft.”
They watched a tall man with dark hair break into the car and drive away.
“That was pretty useless,” Kent said.
“Then I backtracked the guy, though. And voilà!” Jimmi hit a button and showed a late-model dark SUV. “Now the plates are really blurry, but I am going pixel by pixel to try to get the license number.”
“I thought of that!” Joshua announced, kind of awkwardly.
“Thanks,” Kent said, nodding to the group.
“Well?” Captain Glick asked as he entered.
“Nothing concrete yet,” Kent reported, “but they are working on it.”
“We’ve got another possible victim,” Glick reported. “A girl didn
’t come home from yoga class last night. A Megan Wheeler.”
“But no body?” Kent asked.
“Not yet,” Glick said with a shake of his head.
“Well, finding Nicole is the best way to find Megan.” Kent turned to Joshua. “What’s going on with the pollen?”
“He wasn’t in yet, but his students said to expect the report after nine.”
Everyone looked to the clock. It was 9:05.
* * *
Kent felt a phone vibrate on his hip. It wasn’t his, of course. It was Ruben’s. He found an email from the university. His hands shook as he opened the file.
“The guy found a lot of non-specific pollen, but the standout in the samples was a lot of orchid grains.”
“Orchids?” Ruben asked.
Kent’s eyes narrowed and he turned to Yvent. “At least fifteen different species of orchids, including the Bulbophyllum and Dracula species.”
Yvent looked around like Kent was talking to someone behind him.
“Which I believe is one of your hobbies, isn’t it Yvent?”
The younger man backed away to the door, but Glick cut him off. “Maybe…”
“How could you know that, Kent?” Ruben asked.
“It is the most pretentious plant in the world,” Kent answered. Plus, he’d heard his protégé boast about his prize-winning jewel orchids.
His usually cocky, insufferable protégé suddenly was all stammer and pasty faced. “It’s not me,” he protested. “There are plenty of orchid enthusiasts in this city.”
“But how many of them knew Nicole? How many had all the time in the world last night to stalk and take her?” Kent pressed. He could get the kid to break.
“Someone is setting me up!” Yvent protested.
“And exactly who could that be?” Kent demanded. “Who could know your exact orchid inventory?”
“Anybody!” Yvent practically squealed. He rushed over to the keyboard. “Look, if you google my name, my orchid articles come up before my FBI ones.”
To prove that fact, the search engine did find plenty on Yvent. The entire first page was devoted to orchids.
“That doesn’t prove anything,” Kent countered. The more he thought of it, the more Yvent being Wallflower gelled.
The Harbinger Collection: Hard-boiled Mysteries Not for the Faint of Heart (A McCray Crime Collection) Page 52