The chair’s back shattered on impact. If Ruben had been conscious even a little bit, he could have escaped, but unfortunately that wasn’t the case. The guy was way stoned. Maybe too stoned. The tall detective’s skin was looking a little waxy.
Paggie hurried to rise like he was going to take advantage of her while she was down.
There were rules to this game after all.
Now that she was up, she was more than fair game though.
Sirens wailed in the distance.
Time to get to work.
Paggie must have sensed his renewed urgency, as she swung her wrench in his general direction.
See? This is just too easy. Now that her abdomen was open, he threw a punch right at her solar plexus. She doubled over, the air rushing involuntarily out of her lungs.
It was no stretch to grab her by the arm, spin her around and force her against the wall. He pulled out a syringe filled with heroin from his pocket, flipped the cap off with his thumb nail then jabbed the needle into her jugular vein.
She screamed, but the deed was done.
Kent backed off as Paggie’s balance wavered.
“How’s it feel, darlin’? Don’t worry, it wasn’t a lethal dose. Luckily, you participated in the beating of your victims, so I have other options.” Kent had a strict rule about killing serialists as they had killed. He wanted them to know exactly how it felt. Exactly.
Paggie’s pupils constricted and dilated as she stumbled. Somehow she came up with a large hunting knife. Kent backed, bumping into Ruben who had somehow gotten himself up into a sitting position. He groped at his ankle.
At first, Kent didn’t know what in the hell the detective was doing, then he realized that Ruben had a back-up gun in an ankle holster. Guess the big guy was trying to even the odds.
Ruben sloppily got the gun out and tossed it…to Paggie.
Was this some heroin-high induced mistake or had Ruben really just armed his psychotic fiancée? Did Ruben hate Kent that much?
Probably, as Paggie picked up the small snub-nosed gun.
Luckily the heroin was kind of kicking Paggie’s ass. She swayed back and forth, her aim following suit.
Fine.
This sudden turn of events would make the story all the more interesting.
Maybe too interesting, as Paggie brought the gun up, aiming square at him.
* * *
The damn roadwork on Third had killed their momentum. They were stuck in gridlock traffic.
She dialed her phone. “Joshua, get me out of this.”
There was a second pause, then Jimmi responded. Did they really share a brain, as Kent contended? “You are going to have to go onto the sidewalk for two blocks then make a sharp right, down the alley and onto Birch.”
Nicole didn’t hesitate. She swerved up onto the sidewalk, driving through about a zillion red caution cones. Pedestrians threw themselves out of her way as she streaked down the sidewalk.
Two blocks went by in a flash. There was that sharp right. She had to use her emergency brake to execute the turn, then punched it down the alley, driving through a dumpster obstacle course.
Still, she accomplished the gauntlet without a scratch to the Mustang.
She’d like to see Kent accomplish that. You know, once she saved him from Paggie, the pleasant Polynesian serial killer.
“Any answer at Ruben’s?” she asked into the phone.
“No. And all the back-up has been delayed. We’ve got nobody close.”
Damn it.
“Glick is looking for you,” Joshua said.
“Let him know I’m en route,” Nicole said, just before she disconnected the call.
How could the day have gone so horribly wrong so quickly?
Nicole hit Birch and opened up the Mustang’s engine.
Let’s see what you’ve got, baby.
CHAPTER 19
Kent dropped. There was nothing subtle or sophisticated about the move. He just needed to get out of the trajectory of that bullet. Now.
The shot went high as Kent army crawled as fast as he could across the grimy floor. Really? He’d expected Ruben’s basement floor clean enough to eat off of.
Paggie shot several more times, all equally off their mark. The heroin was providing another service that Kent had not expected to need.
That Ruben. Just when he thought he had the guy figured out.
Sirens grew louder outside their little passion play.
Then a bullet ripped through his arm. Kent hadn’t been quite quick enough on that one. He dodged, taking cover behind a bench he overturned. Bullets ripped through the wood. One slicing down his side. Blood stained his shirt.
Damn. Luckily, with the way she was firing, Paggie was going to run out of bullets quickly.
Once Paggie’s firing pin hit metal, Kent was close enough to spring up, grabbing the hunting knife she had dropped. He stabbed her in the thigh.
The look of shock was enough of a reward. Lunging, he pulled the blade across her skin, leaving a line of bright red blood. Quickly, he sliced her up and down. Shallow wounds that bled profusely. Paggie held out her arm, trying to protect herself.
“Please, no,” she wailed in that tone that druggies got. Panicked, but slurred.
“Is that what they asked?” Kent demanded. “Is that what the boy begged, as Bute shoved him into the meat grinder?”
“Yes,” she sobbed.
Kent backed away. Paggie collapsed to the floor in apparent relief.
“Thank you, thank you,” she murmured, trying to staunch the pulsing blood from her leg wound.
“Oh, don’t thank me,” Kent stated, wiping the blood off his blade onto his pant leg. “You see, technically your victims bled to death.”
The killer’s eyes dilated, as she looked down at the growing pool of blood around her.
“I am just returning the favor.”
“No,” she cried, already weaker than before.
A moan from behind him reminded Kent there was another victim in the room. He rushed over to Ruben, who didn’t look so good. Kent pulled another syringe from his pocket.
“Thought I might have to use this on myself,” Kent said, as he lifted the syringe over his head, then arced it down and plunged the needle into Ruben’s chest, into his heart, then pumped the adrenaline into his body.
Gasping, Ruben sat straight up, clutching his chest.
Kent pulled the syringe out, as Ruben rose and rushed over to Paggie. She had slid down to the floor, her blood creating a red moat around her.
“Hey, no problem. You’re welcome,” Kent said to Ruben, then looked down to his own wounds. The arm seemed like it was a minor wound and his gut wound was only seeping.
All in a day’s work, Kent supposed.
* * *
Ruben cradled Paggie, as she bled to death. There was no point trying to hold off any one wound. Kent had created too many of them. The profiler did know how to do one thing well. Kill serial killers.
And there was no doubt in Ruben’s mind that Paggie was in fact a brutal, psychotic serial killer. Still he loved her. Even after all that she’d said. And all the positions she’d performed with Bute, a piece of his heart still loved her.
In this crazy mixed up day, when he found out that Paggie was a serial killer, it came as no great shock that the asshole profiler was still alive. Just another nail in Ruben’s coffin.
Of course, the bastard was alive. Of course, he killed Paggie. Isn’t that how Ruben’s luck went?
“How could you?” he hissed at Kent.
“What part?” Kent replied in his usual glib tone. “Save your ass from your own fiancée or survive her attack after you armed her?”
Ruben snapped his head to the side, so that he didn’t have to look Kent in his arrogant face.
“Shh…” he encouraged Paggie, who was trying to mouth something. “The EMTs will be here soon.”
“I…” Paggie struggled to say. “I’m so…”
“Shh.”
“I’m so not sorry,” Paggie said, then went limp.
“See?” Kent said from behind them.
If he’d been close enough, Ruben would have punched the bastard.
Paggie lay completely lifeless in his arms. Ruben buried his head into her thick dark hair, crying like a baby.
Not even footsteps from above could rouse him.
* * *
Nicole rushed down the steps, her gun pointed off to the side. She was first on the scene.
What would she find down there?
Like she said, nothing good ever came from basements.
Luckily the lights were on down there. She hit the floor, swinging left then right, making sure there was no one lurking in the corners.
Before her looked like a slaughter.
Bute was dead just a few feet from the stairs, his head bashed in. Kent was bleeding, but sitting up, propped against the wall. On the far side of the room, Ruben, coated in blood sobbed loudly, rocking the body of Paggie.
More cautiously, Nicole moved into the room. She bent down to check Bute’s pulse just to be sure. He was dead all right.
Crossing over, she knelt by Kent. “What the hell happened?”
“The usual,” Kent replied, cryptic as usual.
“Are you okay?” Nicole asked, looking down at his blood soaked shirt.
“A through and through to the arm. Not sure about my flank wound, but I’m not passed out, so I can only assume the bullet didn’t hit a vital organ.”
Good to know.
“The EMTs aren’t far behind,” Nicole reassured him.
“Wahoo,” Kent replied.
Okay, he certainly didn’t need her.
She rose, holstering her gun, and walked over to Ruben and Paggie. She checked her partner’s fiancée, but there was no pulse. How could there be with all that blood? No one could survive that kind of acute loss.
Ruben was still clinging to the body, crying into Paggie’s hair.
“Ruben,” Nicole murmured. “Ruben, she’s gone.”
“Because of him,” Ruben growled, looking over Kent’s shoulder.
Nicole glanced in that direction. Kent had risen and was standing behind her.
“Where’s a meat grinder when you need one,” Kent said.
Her husband wasn’t making this any easier, that was for certain. “Kent!”
“What? It’s what she deserved. An eye for an eye and all.”
Despite him being injured, Nicole still threw a solid elbow into his side.
“Hey!” Kent protested. “I saved him and he tried to get me killed.”
“What are you talking about?” Nicole asked.
“Ask him.”
Nicole turned to her partner who was extricating himself from the body.
“And I’d do it again,” Ruben murmured, as he lay Paggie’s head softly onto the floor.
“Do what?” Nicole demanded.
Ruben frowned, rising to his feet. “I gave Paggie my back-up gun.”
“For what purpose?” Nicole asked, possibly more horrified than she had ever been at any of Kent’s antics.
“To defend herself from Kent,” Ruben explained very routinely. Like it was the most logical thing to say.
“Ruben!” Nicole exclaimed. “You could have gotten Kent killed!”
“Oh please, he’s like a really annoying tom cat that sits outside your window meowing about his conquests,” Ruben shot back. “He’d already shot her up with heroin. It was she that was in danger from him.”
* * *
“Hey, I got shot, twice,” Kent felt like he needed to remind everyone.
Nicole put up a hand though to shut him up. If he didn’t love her so much, he’d take offense at that.
“Ruben, this is serious,” Nicole said.
“Kent was going to execute her, not arrest her. I had to try to stop him.”
Nicole put her hand on her hip. Oh, Ruben was in big trouble. It was nice to be on the other side of that maneuver. Usually it was Kent on the other side of Nicole’s evil eye.
“I’m not going to apologize, not even for you, Nikki.”
“I’m not looking for a freaking apology,” Nicole shot back. “I am looking for a consensus.”
Sirens were closing in. The place would be crawling with cops and CSI any second.
Nicole turned to Ruben. “You. You were unconscious and have no idea how Paggie got your gun.” Kent’s wife swiveled to face him. “And a lot was happening and you have no idea how Paggie got Ruben’s back-up gun.”
“And why exactly am I lying for him?” Kent demanded.
“You aren’t. You are lying for me,” Nicole stated. “How does it feel to have the shoe on the other foot?”
Not very good, Kent had to admit. This sucked.
“Look, you intentionally forgot half your life for a case. Just forget this. For me,” Nicole pleaded.
Damn. He couldn’t deny her anything. And especially not this. She was right. She’d lied nearly every day for him. He could do this for her.
“Fine.”
* * *
“I did it though, Nikki,” Ruben said. “I should own up to it.”
“Oh, here we go,” Kent said, rolling his eyes. “The Paladin has returned. Pure and white and unblemished.”
If only he could punch the profiler’s smug face, but Nicole stood between them, as she always did.
“You were high on heroin, right?” Nicole retorted. “You were not rational at the time, Ruben.”
He’d felt pretty rational when he’d done it though. “But --”
Nicole put up a hand. “No, buts, Ruben. I need you as a partner and you can’t do that if you assisted a serial killer against a profiler. You just can’t. You admit to this and you ruin your life.”
It didn’t sit easily with Ruben. He truly felt justified in what he had done, but he couldn’t face down Nicole’s glare.
What she didn’t seem to understand is that his life was already ruined.
The remains of his hope for the future lay on his basement floor.
Cops with their guns bristling rushed down the stairs followed by EMTs.
He just gave Nicole a nod. He wouldn’t mention how Paggie got the gun.
Ruben felt like he was letting his dead fiancée take the fall for this one.
As Nicole rushed over to organize the arriving emergency services, Ruben decided that Paggie kind of owed him, as his sternum ached from the shot of adrenaline Kent had given him to reverse the effects of the heroin overdose.
Kent to the freaking rescue once again.
God, the profiler was insufferable as he strutted around the crime scene.
One day, Kent would pay for his arrogance.
Ruben was going to make sure of it.
* * *
Joshua seldom went out to crime scenes, he was more of a lab rat, but come on. He had to make an appearance at this one.
And what a crime scene it was. Blood splatter painted the walls like a decorator had ordered it just so. It was going to take days to separate out whose blood was whose and where the blow or shot came from.
“Um, take a look at this,” Jimmi said, calling Joshua over.
Gloved, his friend held Ruben’s ankle holster in his hand.
“What’s wrong?”
“Look,” Jimmi said. Indicating to several fingerprints bright pink with dusting powder. “These are Ruben’s.”
“So? The holster is his.”
“Yes, but his are the only prints.”
Joshua didn’t understand what the big deal was. Sometimes Jimmi kind of got hyped up on nothing. “Again, so?”
“Well, if Paggie took the gun from his holster, why aren’t her prints on the strap?”
Okay, maybe Jimmi wasn’t exaggerating. This was odd.
“I don’t see a problem here,” Nicole said, standing over Jimmi’s shoulder. Ruben had gone with Paggie’s body and Kent was at the hospital having his bullet wounds assessed, after much pr
otest by the profiler. Nicole had finally glared at him until her husband had gotten onto the gurney.
“But there should be several prints from Paggie, if she freed the gun from the holster.”
Nicole smiled, but it didn’t seem like her usual kind of smile. “What if Ruben went to free the gun, but was interrupted and then later Paggie grabbed the gun and just pulled it out?”
“But Ruben didn’t say that he popped the strap…” Jimmi said, still clearly confused.
It was dawning on Joshua what Nicole was aiming at.
“There are some smudged prints, I assume?” Nicole asked, but she already knew the answer to that. There were always smudged prints. A detective of Nicole’s caliber knew that.
“Well, yes but --”
“No buts,” Nicole responded. “For all we know those smudges came from Paggie.”
Jimmi’s forehead wrinkled. “Maybe not, however the smudges have several whirls similar to Ruben’s.”
Nicole cocked her head. “Similar to? How many points match?”
Joshua’s friend took in a deep breath, unable to look at Nicole square in the face. “Three.”
“And the legal threshold is six, isn’t it? So legally those smudges can belong to any person. In our case, Paggie.”
Jimmi went to open his mouth again, but Nicole frowned.
“I can count on you to report your legally upholdable findings, can’t I?”
Jimmi looked to Joshua then back to Nicole. “Yeah, sure.”
Nicole walked off, heading up the stairs and out of the basement.
Joshua looked into Jimmi’s eyes. “Is she suggesting what I think she is suggesting?”
Joshua didn’t answer out loud. But if Nicole was suggesting that it was Ruben who pulled his own back-up gun and gave it to Paggie, then hell yes, that was what she was saying.
Jimmi’s eyes got big. “Holy crap.”
So now not only had a cop given a gun to a serial killer to fight off an FBI profiler, but now they were part of the cover up.
Could the day get any better?
EPILOGUE
Nicole walked into her bedroom to find Kent holding Logan, rocking him gently. If she wasn’t still processing the horror from earlier that day, she would have thought it was a Hallmark moment.
But Kent could have been killed by Ruben’s gun. It still seemed impossible, but there were the bandages on Kent’s arm and midriff. Had she been right to suppress that knowledge?
2nd Cycle of the Harbinger Series: The continuation of the #1 Hard-boiled/Police Procedural smash Plain Jane Page 18
