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 probably 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.”
She reached out and patted his shoulder. Patted. “You deserve it, Ruben. You put in all the legwork.” After giving his arm a little squeeze, she turned for the door.
Once she was past the profiler, Harbinger winked at him. “I wouldn’t wait
up.”
Ruben tried to count to ten, however he couldn’t even think of what came after the number one. Glick came up from behind.
“Is Nicole leaving with the profiler?” Glick asked. All Ruben could do was nod. The captain squinted into the night. “And isn’t that your car they’re taking?”
“Yep.”
Why was it that on the night of catching his first serial killer, Ruben felt like the loser?
“Guess it’s best they get to know one another,” Glick said, clearly not in tune with Ruben’s inner landscape. “Harbinger’s requested to transfer here as a consultant.” Of course he had. Glick continued, “And the FBI has already approved it.” Of course they had. “The serial killers of this city are going to have to sit up and take notice,” Glick finished.
As the captain moved off, Ruben stared out past the knot of police vehicles and watched the lone car leaving the crime scene until it disappeared behind the trees. Ruben doubted that serial killers were the only ones that needed to take notice of the profiler.
Damn it.
Want more Kent, Nicole and Ruben? Check out the Harbinger Murder Mystery Collection here.
HACKED – the prequel short story to the Robin Hood Hacker Collection (Encrypted)
CHAPTER 1
FBI Special Agent Zachary Hunt slammed his shoulder into the suspect, sending the guy reeling into the wreath hanging on the church’s door. Kind of served the suspect right after committing his crime right in front of the sanctuary, and on Christmas Day no less.
“Don’t even try to get away,” Zach growled as he put his knee into the suspect’s back, patting him down.
Zach’s partner, Ellard Macconi, trotted up, none too quickly, the gray at his temples slick with sweat. “Congratulations, Special Agent, you’ve caught yourself a jaywalker.”
“It’s a crime on the books that we are sworn to enforce,” Zach replied, although not exactly wholeheartedly. In his defense, the guy had ran. Who runs after an FBI officer yells for you to stop? “Have Warp run his name against outstanding arrest warrants.”
“Look,” Ellard said. “I get it. You’re a little frustrated that a three-day-long stakeout hasn’t panned out, but –”
“Are you going to take care of this?” Zach asked as he held out the suspect’s wallet. “Or should I?”
The older agent frowned, but accepted the wallet. “I doubt even Warp is in today.”
Zach cocked an eyebrow. Warp leaving his cyber den? Not very likely, even on Christmas Day. Ellard must have realized the same thing, as he got his phone out and called the field office.
“Come on, man,” the suspect whined. “It’s Christmas, dude. Lighten up.”
“Did you know that nearly three-fifths of all pedestrian deaths occur due to jaywalking?” Zach asked the guy. “Nearly five thousand deaths and one hundred thousand injuries annually. So, in essence, I just saved your life.”
“Yeah, right,” the guy snorted. “Do you know how pissed my wife is going to be if I’m late for dinner at her parents’ house?”
Zach ignored the question. He could only imagine the suspect’s wife would be as pissed as Zach’s fiancée must beright now, sitting, waiting for him at his mother’s apartment. So be it.
“Well, well,” Ellard said, walking back over to them. “Zachary Hunt, you were right again. This gentleman has an arrest warrant out, ironically, for failing to stop at a crosswalk.”
“I can explain that!” the suspect yelled. “You can’t lock me up. Not today of all days.”
“Watch me,” Zach said, guiding the suspect to the car.
“You realize we could let him off with a warning,” Ellard suggested.
“Yes, yes, a warning,” the suspect agreed.
Zach, again, ignored both of them. “And have him fail to appear, again? I don’t think so.”
“Jeez,” the suspect sighed. “Aren’t you supposed to be hunting down, like, super-criminals or something? Why are you picking on me?”
Ellard shrugged and patted the suspect on the back. “Sorry, kid, but you chose the absolutely wrong day to jaywalk in front of Agent Hunt.”
Protecting the suspect’s head, Zach helped the man into the car, then walked around to the driver’s side door. Ellard, though, lingered near the back of the car.
“What are you doing?” Zach asked. “We’ve got to drop him off, then get back out on the search.”
“The Robin Hood Hacker isn’t going to strike today,” Ellard said, bluntly. “Even world–class hackers take Christmas off.”
Jerking open the car door, Zach wasn’t so sure.
* * *
Ronnie, a.k.a. the Robin Hood Hacker, braced her feet against the metal wall and scooted up another foot up the shaft. It was slow going, climbing up the building’s small crawl space meant mainly for pipes and electrical cabling. Not a thirty-something hacker who was a tad bit out of shape.
“The FBI just posted another warning,” Quirk’s voice sounded in her ear. “They’re still describing you as a late-twenties male who probably lives in your mother’s basement.”
They both chuckled at that. Typical profile. The FBI really went more on averages than actual insight. Because, twenties? She wished she’d had this skill level a decade ago. Male? Her detailed, intricate work should have given them a hint it wasn’t a guy. And living in her mother’s basement? Not even close.
If anything, she was saving up to buy her own country with the tiny percentage of money she took out of each job. She was all about wealth redistribution for the poor, but come on. A girl had to keep a little something for herself and Quirk. There was altruism, and then there was just plain stupid.
“And nothing about an accomplice,” her assistant said. “Do they really think any one person could do all of this by themselves?”
Ronnie didn’t bother to mention that she had been doing pretty darned well on her own for eight years, but Quirk was right. The young man had brought her game up to a new level. They’d quadrupled their take once he’d come on board. Unicef could thank Quirk later.
“Just make sure they don’t get wind of us,” Ronnie said as she grabbed hold of a pipe, repositioned her feet and moved up another foot. “I’ll be in the penthouse soon.”
Quirk snorted. Even though they only had audio communications via her ear bug and sub-vocal cord implants, Ronnie could swear she could see Quirk’s meticulously-shaped eyebrow arch up. “Darling, you still have four floors to go.”
Damn Quirk and his heat sensing capabilities.
“How many times have I told you?” he continued. “Three days of weights, three days of cardio and some light Pilates on your rest day.”
Yeah, Ronnie was lucky to swing up and out of bed every day. But Lord knew that she didn’t want to start the fitness argument again. “Yes, Mom.”
Unfortunately, Quirk took that as a compliment. “That’s better.”
Ronnie stopped, pressing her ear against the metal wall. Christmas music drifted from the elevator on the other side. “Jingle Bells,” she thought. Yes, it was going to be a very merry Christmas for several NGO relief organizations. Funded by the rather Scrooge-like oil company that was hiding nearly ten billion – yes, that was billion dollars in a slush fund. The money should have been earmarked for cleaning up spills, but no, the corporation used it for private jets and raucous parties.
Not anymore. Not if Ronnie had her way with their servers.
“Um, are you actually going to hack something, Ronnie?” Quirk asked in her ear. “Or are you practicing for an audition for Cirque du Soleil?”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Ronnie said hefting her way up another foot. She would have made it farther, but a rather large set of pipes loomed above her. “Quirk, I thought you said there weren’t any junctions in this access tunnel?”
“There aren’t.”
“Really, because some nice copper fittings here are saying otherwise.” She took a picture with her phone and sent it to Quirk. Between her and her assist
ant, they could pretty much hack their way around anything. Except a physical obstacle such as a pipe junction. Unfortunately, she needed to get past the pipes to get to the penthouse where the main servers were kept. Guess the oil company figured no one would be looking for them in the CEO’s office. They were wrong.
Months of planning had gone into this hack. Everything down to the last detail mapped out. And now it was all to be undone by pipes? It was so…dumb.
“Well?” she asked, scooting up a few more inches to see if there was a way around the jumble of pipes. There wasn’t.
“Tasking.”
Quirk and his love of all things Star Trek. Normally, Ronnie found it cute. Stuck in a tight, humid crawl space listening to jolly Christmas jingles that mocked her life choices? Not so cute.
“We are going to have to go to Plan B,” Quirk finally informed her.
“Plan B sucks, though,” Ronnie answered, trying to keep her frustration in check. She had probably failed, but at this point she didn’t care.
“What can I say, darlin’?” Quirk shot back. “Unless you can get emergency liposuction in that access space, you’ve got to cut a hole in the wall and get on top of that elevator before the guards go on their hourly rounds.”
Just because Ronnie knew what she had to do didn’t mean she liked it.
Pulling out what looked like an ordinary laser pointer, Ronnie hooked it up to a small battery-powered supply in her backpack. The pen was no longer a laser pointer but an actual laser laser.
“Don’t forget your glasses,” Quirk reminded her.
“Please,” she responded, then dug through her pack to find the glasses.
Ronnie would never admit it to Quirk, but she was a tad flustered. She had to get her head back into the hack. Crap happened out in the field. That’s actually why she liked going out into the field. Why she didn’t mind having to break into the actual main server. She liked the challenges of working outside of the cold room. Until, of course, the challenges surfaced. Then the challenges just annoyed her.
Got Thrills? A Boxed Set (A McCray Collection) Page 8