“So?” Kent asked. “Ready to talk yet?”
Bridget smiled as the producer grimaced in her grip.
“Why aren’t you Buzz Kill?” Kent demanded. “Prove it to me.”
Bridget gave a sigh and set her chin on her producer’s shoulder in an almost playful manner. That was if she didn’t have a knife in the woman’s back. Now the TV host was just playing with them. “I couldn’t be Buzz Kill because at the time of the third murder I was across town killing two other people.”
Nicole kneeled down next to the cameraman, checking his vitals. “He’s lost a lot of blood.” When he didn’t respond she asked pointedly. “Kent?”
He knew what she wanted. She wanted him to fix the situation. She wanted to get both victims out of there and to take Bridget down. The only problem was Bridget undoubtedly had more knives. The woman liked her blades.
Right now all he could do was make certain that Bridget wasn’t Buzz Kill and hope that his assessment was wrong and the EMTs could in fact help the victims.
Until the EMTs arrived, he needed to keep Bridget talking.
“Tell me who,” Kent asked, ignoring the glare he got from his fiancée and her partner.
“They will be a middle-aged couple,” Bridget explained. “They were walking to a restaurant and took a wrong turn and ended up in a sketchy neighborhood. I made it look like a mugging gone wrong. I knifed them both in the abdomen and watched them bleed to death.”
Ruben’s gun shook in his hand. He seemed to be taking all of this rather personally. No shot went off though. If he shot Bridget, invariably the knife would come out, dooming the producer.
“So your alibi for not being Buzz Kill is that you were killing other people?” Jimmi asked.
Bridget shrugged. “I told you I wasn’t Buzz Kill and I didn’t know anything about that necklace. I am a predator plain and simple.”
“So how many others?” Kent asked. “The total?”
“Twenty seven,” Bridget informed them. That was a higher number than he expected. The TV host had been a busy little girl. The two murders she committed in his town hadn’t even made his radar. Bridget continued. “A total of twelve, all faux-botched muggings. All around the country.”
Kent nodded. See? The bright and the attractive usually got away with it. “All in bad neighborhoods?”
Bridget nodded. “They shouldn’t have been there in the first place. It was their fault to begin with. I just finished the statistical equation.”
“They came up to you for help?” Kent asked. The total perversion of the plan coming to light. She would act like she was being helpful. Who would suspect the TV host as being anything other than nice?
Well, except her soon to be ex-producer and cameraman.
That got Bridget to smile. “Perfect wasn’t it? Imagine their surprise when I pulled the knife. Most of them couldn’t believe it. One guy even laughed at me. Well, I was the last one to laugh.”
“Do you know who Buzz Kill is?” Kent asked.
Bridget’s face fell. “If only I did, but no. I didn’t run across anything about him.”
* * *
Nicole watched the interaction between Bridget and Kent very, very closely. As a matter of fact she was squinting so hard that it was giving her a headache.
But Kent had what he’d come for. He got Bridget to not only admit that she was a serial killer, but to do a little of it right in front of them.
Nicole had been too slow on the draw. It had all happened so quickly. One moment Bridget was in the middle of a war of words with Kent and the next she was pulling blades out of who knew where.
Kent stalked in front of the tall TV reporter who was all but holding her producer up. The woman didn’t look like she had much time left as her lipstick no longer gave her lips color any more.
“Kent…” Nicole warned.
She knew that the profiler liked to go at his own pace, but he didn’t have the luxury of that right now.
Of course her fiancé ignored him.
“Once she dies they’re just going to shoot you,” Kent explained.
Nicole cringed. Not exactly something out of the hostage negotiator book.
Bridget pulled the producer closer. “What will be will be.”
“I thought you wanted to go out with a bang?” Kent challenged. “Yes, I know when they shoot it will be bang, bang, but really? That’s how you want the story to end? Just another killer shot in a standoff. Passé, if you ask me.”
Nicole knew exactly what Kent was trying to do by appealing to Bridget’s ego, she just wasn’t sure she could have kept the pressure up under these circumstances. As it was, she wasn’t even at the center of the situation and her ears rang with her pulse. It was quick and sharp driven by the adrenaline coursing through her veins.
“Come on, Bridget,” Kent implored. “You didn’t seek me out just to be killed by someone else.”
“I didn’t plan to get killed by anyone,” Bridget stated.
Kent chuckled as only he could. “Really? You actively sought the most efficient profiler in the world and thought you were going to skim right past me?”
“Oh and I would have it if hadn’t been for --”
Kent held up his hand “It is always ‘if it hadn’t been for’ Bridget. That’s how killers get caught. You guys mess up or we get lucky.”
Bridget by now looked to be fuming, but Nicole was pretty sure that is exactly what Kent wanted.
“You wanted to face me down. Toe-to-toe. Nose-to-nose.”
Bridget frowned but didn’t argue.
“We can still do that. Exchange me for your producer. Let’s get out of here and get down to business.”
* * *
Kent watched as the internal battle played out across Bridget’s face. She liked the relative safety of hiding behind her dying producer because after all, the TV host was a coward. On the other hand, Bridget wanted to prove she wasn’t a coward. What was a serial killer going to do?
Take the bait.
“You got bored, Bridget. You know as well as I do that killing becomes as stale as a drug addiction. Each kill becomes a little less exciting. You are just chasing the high, my dear. Don’t you want to feel that invigorated again, one last time?”
Kent could tell that she did. You could see it in her eyes, yet concern lingered. Psychopaths might not know normal fear like the rest of the human species, however they did have an overdeveloped sense of self preservation.
He needed to leverage that.
“Once your producer goes limp they are going to fire. That is certain death, or you could take your chances with me.”
“How would it work?
“Both of the cops are going to put down their guns.”
“Like hell we are,” Ruben snorted.
Kent turned and glanced at Nicole. Ruben was inconsequential in this equation. Nicole was the one that would decide.
“Our only hope at saving both of them is to do as I say.”
Nicole’s eyes scanned his face. She could read him like a book. He wasn’t lying. She lowered her weapon and set it on the ground. “You better know what you are doing,” she groaned.
But she already knew that he did or she wouldn’t have lowered her weapon. Nicole then looked to Ruben. “Do it.”
The tall detective looked like he wanted to argue, but in the end just gave an odd grunt and put his gun on the floor.
“There,” Kent stated as he turned back to Bridget. “Now you are going to allow Detective Usher to come over and stabilize the knife before you and I take this outside.”
Bridget’s eyes shifted back and forth. “What is to stop her from overpowering me?”
Kent rolled his eyes. “Um, the third blade you’ve got in your belt.”
A smile lifted Bridget’s lips. “Touché.”
“And you can put it to my neck before Nicole comes over to take your producer.”
That synched the deal. He could read it in her expression before she even s
aid.
“Deal.”
Kent obligingly walked over and offered Bridget his neck. The AI investigation into this incident would ask him how he knew Bridget wouldn’t just slice him open right then and there. His answer would be that he didn’t know. He rolled the dice.
You could see the same question play out over Nicole’s features as the TV host put the blade to his skin. Right over his near decapitation scar. Ya, that was a little tender.
He flinched and Nicole took a hurried step forward.
“Whoa,” Bridget warned, digging the metal into his skin.
“It’s okay,” Kent tried to reassure his fiancée. “Just get the producer so we can get this over with.”
Nicole did as asked, slowing her pace, coming from the other side, apparently putting a hand on the knife.
Kent couldn’t see the hand off, but he felt it. Suddenly Bridget was all about him. Now there wasn’t just a knife to his neck, but fingers gripping tightly into his arm.
The producer made a gurgling moan as Nicole tried to lower her to the floor.
“Let’s go,” Bridget said, moving them toward the door.
Ruben didn’t look all that worried though. No surprise there. Kent bet the detective wouldn’t mind at all if Bridget ended him. Then Ruben might actually have a shot at Nicole.
As they passed by the cameraman, Bridget hissed in Kent’s ear, “Grab the camera.”
Slowly, making sure that the TV host followed him down as he kneeled beside the dying man with a knife in his chest, he reached for the camera.
“Sorry,” he said as the man flinched at his touch.
“You warned us,” the cameraman whispered as he handed over the camera.
Yes, in fact, Kent had, but whoever listened to him?
At the least, the night was looking up.
CHAPTER 14
Nicole put pressure on the wound while she tried to keep the knife as stable as she could all the while watching Bridget drag her fiancé out the door with a blade to his throat.
Had she just let Kent get marched to his death?
Ruben had rushed over to the cameraman and was having equally bad luck trying to stop the bleeding. Crimson stained the otherwise grey tile floors.
“Here,” Joshua said, handing her his rumpled up jacket.
She would take it. At the least to blot up some of the blood.
Sirens wailed, yet no EMTs had arrived yet.
“Jimmi,” Ruben barked. The tech was still sitting perched on his stool. He hadn’t moved since Bridget knifed down the TV crew. “Go to the building entrance and help guide the EMTs here.”
“What?” Jimmi responded then his eyes cleared. “Ya, sure. On it.”
He hopped off his stool and ran out the back door to the room. Smart move, the tech didn’t want to cross paths with Bridget and Kent.
“Please,” the producer moaned. “Please let go.”
“I can’t,” Nicole stated. “It’ll just be a few more seconds.”
Or at least that’s what Nicole hoped.
“Tell my parents I’m sorry I didn’t tell them.”
Nicole had been to enough bedsides to know that it wasn’t uncommon to have confession time. She really didn’t want to be the bearer of this woman’s secrets. “Shhh,” she tried to encourage, but the woman wouldn’t stop.
“They don’t know I’m gay,” the woman said. “Will you….” The producer licked her lips then continued. “Will you please be the one to tell them so they don’t find out on the news?”
Nicole squeezed the woman’s hand. What else could she say? “Of course.”
“Tell them… tell them I was happy.”
Before Nicole could answer the woman gave out one last rattled breath, then fell still. Nicole tried to rouse her, with no luck. She checked the woman’s pulse. No heartbeat.
Nicole rocked back on her heels and looked to Ruben who shook his head and backed away from the cameraman.
Both dead. So far, Kent had been right on the mark.
* * *
This was a long ass hallway. And given the time of evening, most of the offices and laboratories were locked. Bridget had checked each door, jiggling it before moving on. They needed to find a place to resolve this, otherwise Kent wasn’t going to have to shave for quite some time.
Two EMTs burst into the hallway then skidded to a stop. Kent indicated down the hall. “They’re down there.”
The men seemed confused and more than a little hesitant to go past them.
“It’s fine,” Kent reassured them. What a bunch of sissies. He was the one with the knife to the throat. “Go.”
The men, with their backs to the wall, shimmied past.
“But don’t go far,” Bridget stated. “We’re going to be needing you soon.”
“We?” Kent questioned. “Don’t you mean, you?”
What was Nicole always telling him? It was probably best not to provoke the psychopath especially one with a knife to your neck. Well, he paid the price as she dug the blade a little bit deeper. Kent could feel warm blood trickle down his neck. He really didn’t want to get more stitches. He already looked a little bit like a Frankenstein home science project gone wrong.
Finally Bridget found an open door and pulled them into a small laboratory. It looked like maybe it was a DNA lab. There were a lot of boxy machines and tons of pipettes.
Once Bridget shut and locked the door behind her, she pulled the knife away and shoved Kent to the center of the room. He set the camera down, pointing toward the future battle field.
There were a number of weapons that Kent could have picked up, but he didn’t bother. The only weapon he wanted was the one in Bridget’s hand.
She arced the knife back and forth in an effort Kent guessed to impress him? Ya, not going to happen.
They began circling one another.
“The rush you’d hoped it would be?” Kent asked.
“Oh, so much more,” Bridget said, her voice cracking just a little. Kent could see the excitement in her knife hand. It was shaking. Good old adrenaline. So helpful, unless you are OD'ing on it, then not so much. “And imagine how it is going to feel when I am standing over your dead body.”
Kent didn’t bother to respond it was such a stupid statement. Bridget for all her kills was an ambush killer. Most serial killers were. Or blitz attackers. They used surprise to their advantage. Seldom were they the stand and fight kind of killers.
No, that would be too hard.
Bridget was used to taking down unsuspecting, unarmed civilians. This was really going to be a treat for her.
“Let’s see what you’ve got.”
Bridget came at him straight, her knife high above her head. Psycho-style. Ya, that might work in the shower, but not on Kent. He easily knocked her arm to the side, then came in with a nice punch to the solar plexus.
The TV host “ooffed,” doubling over, but keeping the knife.
She looked mighty pissed as she rose back up. Kent wasn’t sure if it was from the pain or the embarrassment. Well, there was plenty of both to still go around.
Bridget tried a slice from the side, about waist high, but she telegraphed the move from her shoulder so Kent was able to step aside, then send a kick to the back of her knee. The tall TV host stumbled forward.
It really was just a little bit pathetic. Like he was a cat toying with a mouse. But didn’t Bridget kind of deserve it? She more than likely just killed her entire TV crew.
Besides, Kent had to stay alive until he could find his moment to disarm her.
Bridget became more cautious. Faking first, waiting for a response from Kent that didn’t come. He wasn’t about to give her any advantage. He was not stupid enough to tip his hand by falling prey to feints.
Quickly she became frustrated with his lack of response. “Not nearly as fun as you let on to be,” she said.
Ya, sorry. I forgot I was supposed to entertain you in this little dance of death.
Kent outwardly thou
gh only shrugged. He needed her bored and impatient. He needed her to grip that knife as tightly as she could for as long as she could. Obviously she’d never been in a prolonged knife fight before. The biggest problem in a long fight was that your hand began to cramp. That was why, unless you were actively attacking someone, you loosened your grip and allowed the muscles in your palm to relax.
Bridget on the other hand was gripping that knife like her life depended on it. Only occasionally would she release just a little to relieve the cramp, then grip again. Big mistake.
Kent watched her hand out of the corner of his eye, timing the release re-grip cycle. Clearly the woman had never taken any hand to hand combat classes. Kent guessed that might have raised a few red flags if she were ever questioned about the murders. She had to look as harmless as she did to get away with it.
But now? Now she was in a completely different league.
“Oh just you wait,” Kent said just before he rushed her.
As predicted she raise her knife over her head, apparently not realizing that was the absolute weakest, most vulnerable position you could take. And exactly the right one for his plan to work.
He came up hard with his forearm, knocking into her hand just as her muscles forced her to relax her grip. The knife flew into the air. Bridget was too shocked to lunge for it, so Kent was able to grab it mid-air and using a compact, stable backhanded swing, he sliced across her neck.
Blood gushed from the two severed jugular veins. He hadn’t been able to go too deep but he didn’t need to.
Bridget gasped, grabbing her neck. Her eyes showed every ounce of shock and dismay.
“That’s how you do it, you moron.”
And for the record, Kent didn’t feel bad at all about taunting a dying serial killer.
“Seriously, you serialists, need to really practice on more difficult prey. You get weak and lazy.”
Maybe he should add that to his list. You can always catch the ugly and the stupid and now apparently the lazy asses too.
Bridget stumbled, wobbling on those high, high heels of hers. Not the most functional shoes to kill in. The TV host really should have thought this through.
One hand on her neck, she reached out with her other hand like Kent was supposed to help her or something.
The Harbinger Collection: Hard-boiled Mysteries Not for the Faint of Heart (A McCray Crime Collection) Page 77