“Ruben, did you see Jaime?”
“The EMT?” Ruben asked, glancing around the empty street.
Nicole didn’t have time to explain. “Did you see a woman in a long black dress? Hot? Smoking hot?”
“Yes, she hurried off to the south, but—”
Not bothering to answer him, Nicole struck off, knowing that Ruben would follow.
“I don’t understand,” her partner said as he hurried to catch up. “Actually, I don’t think I understand the last few hours.”
And Nicole really couldn’t help him, not while busy checking out side alleys trying to find Jaime. The EMT couldn’t have gotten very far. Not in those stilettos. Then she heard it. The click of heels against the pavement. Nicole took the next left, rushing down the alley. Was that a flash of red from the bottom of the EMT’s designer shoe?
Pulling her weapon, Nicole quickened her pace. While Ruben un-holstered his weapon, as well, he didn’t sound any more sure than he had been a moment ago. “We are chasing down Jaime?”
There she was! Nearly to her car. They couldn’t let her get away, but they were pretty damned far off. Then an arm reached out from a doorway and clotheslined the woman. Jaime flew off her feet, landing on her back, clutching her throat. Kent stepped from the shadows, adjusting his cuff links.
“What the hell is going on?” Ruben demanded.
Nicole got Jaime up, patted her down, making sure that she wasn’t carrying a weapon. “Jaime has been using chat rooms to lure victims.”
Ruben took a step back. “Do you mean that…”
Catching her breath, Nicole nodded to the profiler. “Kent thinks that the Professor inserted themselves into the investigation. Jaime was the first on the scene this morning.” Nicole found a small label in Jaime’s purse. It read “Ureter.”
Ruben read the label. “You crazy—”
“Wait,” Jaime croaked out, trying to clear her throat. “I didn’t kill anyone.”
“We will see about that,” Nicole said, handcuffing the EMT.
“No,” Jaime said. “I just sold the crime scene photos.”
Kent stepped forward, “No, that’s not all you did.”
The EMT nodded slowly. “And stole evidence to sell to the murder memorabilia auctions, but that’s it.”
Nicole looked to Kent, who didn’t seem surprised. Nor did he correct Jaime.
“She isn’t the killer?” Nicole asked, feeling her heart sink in her belly.
“Oh, heavens no,” Kent answered. “I mean, we already know who the killer is. Don’t we?”
* * *
“What the hell are you talking about?” Ruben demanded, stepping forward, taking charge.
“It’s the crime scene photographer,” Kent answered, nonplussed. “Didn’t I tell you?”
“No,” Nicole snapped.
“Oops, my bad.”
Ruben felt like he’d just walked in on a Wagner opera halfway through, in its original German. “Nikki, what is going on?”
But she didn’t answer. Instead, her brows furrowed as she frowned. Clearly, her mind was whirring a mile a minute. Unfortunately, Ruben couldn’t wait for her to come up for air.
“What makes you think that Roy is the killer?” asked the profiler
“Um,” Harbinger said, acting as if Ruben wanted to know why the sun rose in the morning. “He had access. He had suppressed rage. He was the only one at the crime scene that reacted when I called the killer stupid. Clearly he has body image issues—do I need to go on?”
“Yes,” Ruben growled. “Yes, you do. Because no jury in a millennium is going to convict on that thin of, Jesus, it isn’t even evidence.”
The profiler didn’t seem shaken at all. If anything, the more Ruben pushed, the calmer Harbinger became. “Perhaps a routine internet search might show that the photographer’s biological mother, not the mother that raised him, was an anatomy professor at the local med school.” Ruben was about to comment on how that still wasn’t enough when the profiler continued. “The mother that left poor little Roy when he was a small child in order for her to go and have a sex change. That mother.”
As much as Ruben did not want to admit that Harbinger was on to something, he could not ignore a set of coincidences like that. He flipped open his phone. “Dispatch, I am going to need the address of —”
“Really?” the profiler asked. “You are going to the house of the mastermind? Like he’s going to have his killing grounds in that little apartment. The guy can’t even fit a full Foreman Grill. He had to buy the mini.”
“He’s right,” Nicole added, finally coming back to the conversation. “He would need somewhere much more isolated to set up a full anatomy lab.”
Ruben ignored the dispatcher, who was asking him to finish as he snapped his phone closed. Gritting his teeth, he asked what had to be asked. “And I assume, Harbinger, that you know where that is?”
“Well,” the profiler chuckled. “An educated guess might be his second cousin on his father’s side. Nice farm parcel of land on the outskirts of town which has had low electricity consumption except on the nights of the abductions and murders.”
If Ruben had had time to glower, he would have. Clearly that wasn’t an educated guess on the profiler’s part. He’d done his research and leapt miles ahead in the case. In a matter of freaking hours. Plus he’d nailed the fact that Murz was a necro, and had somehow caught Jaime as a crime scene thief. Oh, and he was, all the while, in a tuxedo.
Nicole got her phone out. “I’ll get us back up.”
Although Ruben wasn’t quite sure why. They had double-”O” profiler with them.
* * *
Nicole held onto the car door handle as Ruben took a corner way too fast. The tires squealed as they made the turn down a gravel road. Dust kicked up before she could roll up her window.
The sound of the siren wailed overhead as red and blue lights flashed. Ruben’s urgency had gotten them here before their backup. Nicole’s eyes found the rearview mirror. Kent’s reflection seemed oddly at peace. Eyes closed, his lips moved in what looked like a chant or meditation. The profiler was certainly unpredictable.
Of course, he’d captured dozens of serial killers over the course of his career. He probably didn’t have the same butterflies in his stomach as she did.
The tires crunched their way down the lane. Ruben cut the siren and lights as they took another right-hand turn. This road didn’t even have gravel. Kent had certainly been correct regarding the isolation of the farm. Trees lined the lane, blocking any view ahead until the road emptied out into rolling pastures.
A dark house sat in the middle of a field, with a large barn off to the left. It seemed empty. The only illumination came from their headlights slicing through the darkness. Ruben pulled them to a stop.
“I’m thinking the barn,” her partner stated, then looked over his shoulder to the profiler.
“What?” Kent responded. “I’m just along for the ride.”
Ruben shook his head, checking his weapon. “How long until our backup arrives”?
Nicole pulled her phone out. No bars. No reception. “They can’t be too far behind us.”
Ruben looked in the rearview mirror, to the profiler. “Aren’t you going to prep your weapon?”
“Me?” Harbinger asked. “I don’t carry a gun.”
“What?” Ruben exclaimed, then shook it off. “Then just stay in the car.”
The profiler shrugged, then closed his eyes again. Ruben glanced to Nicole. “We can wait.”
There wasn’t much worse she could imagine than sitting here waiting and waiting as her stomach churned while adrenaline sang in her ears. Her toe tapped against the floor of the car. “At least, let’s check out the barn.”
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 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 carefully hand written with the names of each organ. 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. 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 in reach.
And the lack of animals? Did no one notice that, on 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.
Got Thrills? A Boxed Set (A McCray Collection) Page 7