[Harbinger 01.0] Plain Jane

by Carolyn McCray

  He held his breath as the can nearly tipped over. Finally, Rebecca got the wheels aligned and continued down the sloped alley toward the curb. With his heart somewhere between his chest and his throat, Kent watched her finish with the trash, then head to the front door again.

  Kent moved ever so slightly to the left, trying to extract his ass from a thorn, when Rebecca paused at the first step to her porch. Her gaze swept the area, lingering near Kent.

  Damn, the woman didn’t have just a twenty-foot radius, but something akin to a thirty-foot zone.

  Motionless, he ignored the pain from the scratches as Rebecca’s lips turned downward. Then, as if she determined the area threat free, she bounded up the steps and, without hesitation, picked up the groceries and headed into her house.

  It took another ten seconds before Kent let out a hissing breath. Even then his hands shook. That had been close.

  He had let his fear almost blow his cover. By overreacting to a perceived danger to Rebecca, he almost endangered her further. Maybe Nicole wasn’t the only one a little too close to the case to be one hundred percent objective.

  Before he realized it, his cell phone was open and Nicole’s number was up on the screen. Kent knew he should call and apologize. There was no reason she couldn’t be on this stakeout with him. She had earned that place when she extracted the information out of Rebecca.

  Still, he closed his phone. Even if he called Nicole, what would he say? I’m sorry?

  Not very likely.

  Those words did not come easily or very frequently.

  CHAPTER 55

  Sitting in Ruben’s car parked across the street from Nancy’s house, Nicole looked down at her cell phone yet again. And yet again it showed no missed calls. No Kent.

  “He’s not going to call,” Ruben said as he watched Nancy’s house through binoculars. “At least not in this lifetime.” The second part he mumbled. Loud enough that she heard it but quiet enough that they could both pretend she didn’t.

  Trying to keep her mind off Kent, Nicole surveyed the street. The dark van at the corner was theirs. It contained an array of surveillance equipment, including face recognition software. Torres was optimistic, unrealistically in her opinion, that when this mystery man of his showed up they could somehow, through shots of the back of his head, identify him.

  Nicole sighed deeply. She didn’t even realize she had done it until he turned to her.

  “Something wrong?” Ruben asked.

  “No. Not at all.” She tried to sound convincing, but wasn’t sure if she had pulled it off. Probably because there was something wrong. Or at least something that felt wrong. Being cooped up in the sedan for hours had become stifling.

  To just sit here and wait, and wait, and wait. Kent wasn’t doing that. He was out, rooting through Rebecca’s garbage or stalking her at the movie theater. Something, anything more exciting than this.

  “Hey, are there any chips in the stash?” Ruben asked.

  Nicole opened the glove box to find a stakeout kit nearly identical to hers. Food, plastic utensils, and napkins. She rooted through the items, but could not find any chips. “Sorry. We’ve only got peanuts left.”

  Ruben took the food. “Kind of like old times, eh?”

  Giving a shrug, Nicole gazed out her window. Ruben took the hint and went back to his binoculars. Seconds stretched into minutes. Finally, she couldn’t take it.

  “Is this all we’re going to do?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Just sit here?” she asked.

  Ruben cocked his head as if she was speaking a foreign language. “Um…Sitting here, quietly, unmoving is pretty much the definition of a stakeout, Nikki.”

  Before she changed her mind, she opened her door.

  “Where are you going?”

  Nicole was not sure, but she had to get out.

  Ruben grabbed her arm. “Nikki, what are you doing?”

  “I’m going to get some fresh coffee.”

  Nicole was already down the street as Torres said, “Starbucks is the other way.”

  She shrugged. “There’s one this way, too.”

  The detective quickened her pace so that his next words were just a murmuring in the wind.

  CHAPTER 56

  Perched in a tree across from Rebecca’s bedroom window, Kent watched her disrobe. For a B cup, the meter maid’s bosom was not half bad. Not as good as Nicole’s of course, but whose was?

  Shaking off the thought, Kent scanned the rest of the neighborhood. The street had settled into the quiet lull of suburbia. The stillness was punctuated by an occasional bark of a dog, or meow of a cat.

  Every once in a while the loud sound of wheels screeching would echo off the pavement. Some stupid teenager thinking it proved his manhood because he could step on a gas pedal hard enough to lay rubber.

  Kent sighed. Why didn’t serial killers target teens? Especially overly macho, testosterone-poisoned ones? If that were the case, he could easily retire. Oh, who was he kidding? Then he’d just be staking out the very teens that annoyed him.

  Kent scrutinized the surrounding yards. If his instincts were correct, the killer would be lurking as well.

  Watching. Waiting. Just like the profiler.

  But the two men had very different agendas. If Plain Jane kept to his pattern, the psycho would be wearing a texturized vinyl overcoat. Something that on first glance would look like a normal coat, but on closer inspection it was made of a slick, low-transfer, water-repellant material. Just what the killer ordered.

  Torres had tracked down manufacturers for months for such an outer garment, but had come up empty. The Internet had spawned too much untraceable commerce to be able to follow a lead like that anymore.

  In one of the pockets, the killer would have a large scalpel blade. Stainless steel. No rust. Most likely even sterilized. This psycho didn’t take any chances.

  There had been a great deal of speculation about the type of handle that could hold such a large blade, and the ME determined it was not a standard surgical handle. One of the junior beat cops had worked on a ranch and suggested the killer might be using an equine handle. Those were strong and rugged enough to cut through horsehide.

  The entire squad had spent a month tracking down veterinarians, to no avail. This killer was too smart, too thorough to have left a trail as wide and paved in gold as that.

  No, the only way to catch this psycho was to get to his victims first. Then lie in wait.

  With such a strongly stylized killer like this, if you knew his end game, you had him by the balls. You had him, because he needed to kill again. And not just anyone.

  No, Plain Jane no longer needed food or even oxygen. His sole sustenance was the feel of a uterus in his hands.

  And any uteri would not do. This psycho needed a brunette of childbearing age with a history of abortion. These select women were his sirens. They sent out a call, to him and him alone, that the killer had to answer.

  Kent hated to tell the wacko, but he’d picked up the frequency. He had Plain Jane in his crosshairs.

  With all this knowledge, why didn’t he feel more confident? Kent knew, beyond a sliver of a doubt, that Rebecca was the next victim. He also knew that the killer would strike tonight. He knew this more surely than the fact that he himself would wake up alive tomorrow.

  Kent’s trepidation had nothing to do with what he knew, but what he did not know. For all his trying, he had yet to nail the “why.” He could feel his pulse quicken at Rebecca’s picture, but he couldn’t verbalize why. And the “why” was the all, because the “why” completely consumed the killer.

  The “why” was the only reason his heart still beat. And that “why” Kent did not know.

  It left him uneasy. He was missing something. Some motivation important enough that it let Joann get killed last night. Something that endangered Rebecca right at this moment.

  When he looked up again, the meter maid had already changed into her pajamas. His mental ang
uish had only gypped him of the money shot.

  The brunette left the bedroom and moved toward the living room. He’d need to reposition soon, but not until the lights of the neighborhood were extinguished, as even those late night Jay Leno fans went to bed. Then the night was his. The street, his.

  Tonight, this would end. Tonight, Kent would have a “talk” with Plain Jane and put things right.

  CHAPTER 57

  Nicole’s ankle hurt, yet she walked on. Perhaps if the detective had known the second Starbucks was quite this far away, she might have reconsidered the closer coffee shop.

  She had wanted to stretch her legs to get some relief from the awkward truce with Ruben. But now she found herself far outside Nancy’s block. Closer really to Rebecca’s neighborhood.

  The street was dark and more than a little menacing. Most of the businesses were long closed. If she were not armed, Nicole might have even felt a little spooked. The only thing that kept her moving was the bright green and white neon sign at the end of the block. Hot coffee beckoned.

  Slightly winded, she entered the aroma-filled restaurant. The place was empty except for a lone employee mopping the floors. Her grandfather would have called this type of guy a beatnik. Nicole would say he was more of a heroin chic.

  How looking like a junkie became fashionable, she would never know, but this young man fit the bill. Fine, straggly hair. Thin, almost to the point of gaunt. The forest green and tan uniform did nothing for his sallow complexion. Yet for all those faults, the guy was attractive.

  As a matter of fact, the more she looked at him, the more he fit Ruben’s profile. Could the killer be someone this innocuous? There were so many Starbucks in town that he could transfer all over the city, and they wouldn’t know it.

  Nicole chided herself for letting her imagination run away with her. The walk in the dank night had made her more than a little paranoid.

  Clearing her throat, Nicole said, “When you get a chance, I’d like a tall latte.” Then thinking about the long, late night she added, “And a double shot of espresso.”

  The employee turned. “Sorry, we’re closed.”

  Confused, Nicole looked at the door. But he was right. The place closed at midnight. Her memory had failed her. It was the store just a block and a half away from Nancy’s house that was a twenty-four-hour one.

  Okay, she wasn’t going back to Ruben without coffee.

  “Look, I know you’re closed, but I just walked… Like a hell of a long way. I’ll take anything you’ve got.”

  “It’s the bottom of the pot.”

  “Even better.”

  This got a brief smile from the brooding youth. “It’s your intestinal lining.”

  “I’ll take the risk.”

  Nicole rubbed her hands together, trying to prepare for the long walk back as the employee poured her a tall coffee. He was about to throw out the rest of the pot when Nicole spoke up. “Is there enough for a second cup?”

  The guy swirled the pot. “If you count the sludge.”

  “We’ll have to make do.” Nicole watched as he stirred in the hot milk. How she wished Kent were here. He could tell her everything she needed to know about this guy. Like why did he dress like a slacker when obviously he had some intelligence under that grossly over-moussed hair? Guess maybe he thought it would help him score with the hipster chicks? Nicole seriously doubted it.

  “The same, then?” he asked.

  “Yes.” Then Nicole thought better of it. “But no sugar.”

  “You don’t want any sweetener?”

  “Nope.”

  The kid shrugged again and made the second cup.

  Little did he know that he had just helped her have an epiphany.

  CHAPTER 58

  In the pitch dark, Kent fiddled with the lock on a neighbor’s car. It was getting too cold to stay out in the open, and he always liked Buicks anyway. With a final flick of the wrist, the car unlocked, and he opened the door, thankful it was an older model without an alarm. He was not in the mood to crack open the steering column and disengage one.

  Settling in, he didn’t even flinch when the passenger’s side door opened. Nicole had tried to be stealthy, but he had sensed her watching him break into the car. She handed him a cup of coffee.

  While he was not surprised by her presence, the peace offering seemed odd. Nicole had been pretty pissed off the last time he had seen her. Usually it took her days to come down off an anger buzz that high. Kent looked at the coffee with a certain degree of suspicion.

  “Double sugar?” he asked.

  “Like I wouldn’t remember.” She gave him that lopsided grin that got him each and every time.

  “What’s your El Cid going to say about this?”

  Waiting for her answer, the profiler took a huge gulp of the coffee, then started gagging.

  Double sugar?

  Shit, there was not a granule of sweetener in this sludge. If this had been Nicole’s car, he would have spit it out, staining the rug as a fitting punishment.

  “That’s for ditching me,” she stated in a flat tone, then handed him four packets of sugar.

  Tentatively taking the sweetener. “And this?” Checking the edges to make sure they had not somehow been tampered with. Kent asked, “What are these for?”

  “For helping me out.” Nicole took a long sigh. “I know you didn’t want to…at least not at first…”

  Kent couldn’t help himself. He knew she was struggling to share something, but he was happier when she was pissed at him. “And Ruben said you weren’t perceptive.”

  “Yeah. Tonight I realized that I promised if you helped that you could work the case your way. No interference. No ragging. No second-guessing.” She looked up. Her eyes were just a little melancholy. “That’s what we agreed to.”

  “I believe it was absolutely no interference, ragging, or second-guessing.”

  His words came out harsher than he meant, for Nicole’s lips turned downward as she reached for the door. “I just wanted to let you know that I remembered the conditions of your assistance, and I’ll be honoring them from here on out.”

  Kent didn’t know what to say.

  This was uncharted emotional waters for the both of them, and not a life jacket in sight. Finally, Nicole broke the impasse by pulling his comic book from her jacket and offering it to him. “No more bribery. No more coercion.”

  He accepted the first edition Archie comic. It was in mint condition. Double mint condition. UV-protected Mylar bag. Acid-free backing board, and not even a crease on the spine. It was one of a kind. By the time he was finished appreciating its pure beauty, she was halfway out of the car.

  “Nic.”

  His former lover turned back. Still sad, but a glint of hope. “Yes?”

  “Have we discussed the skewed gender modeling of Veronica and Brutus?”

  “No.” A look passed across Nicole’s face that he hadn’t seen in four years. “No, we haven’t.”

  So much had happened between them, some of it painful, yet somehow Nicole’s expression had exactly the same amount of embarrassment and excitement as she did the first time he’d asked if she wanted help. Equally surprising was how good it felt to see that look on her face and have her sit back down next to him.

  Letting that warmth reach his voice, Kent said, “Well, you obviously need some tutoring, then.”

  Kent pointed out several subtle social cues on the cover and was rewarded by Nicole leaning her shoulder against his. The gesture didn’t wash away years of problems, but the profiler no longer felt cold.

  CHAPTER 59

  Ruben looked down the empty street, then at his watch, then at his cell phone, then back down the street. Nicole had been gone over an hour and a half. No one had heard from her.

  If this were a few months ago, he would have been worried and called. No, that wasn’t true. A few months ago, he wouldn’t have needed to call because his partner never would have gotten out of the car.

  Each
and every time he thought Nicole had finally, finally, finally caught a glimpse of what an asshole Harbinger was, some invisible bell would ring and like Pavlov’s dogs, she would go running back to him.

  What kind of hold did the profiler have over her? How much better in bed could Kent be?

  Frustrated, Ruben rubbed his eyes. It was getting late, and so far this intensive surveillance had come up with squat. After hours of twisting Glick’s arm to throw his support and manpower behind his plan, it looked like they were going to leave empty-handed. Most of the attacks had taken place between eleven p.m. and two a.m. They were an hour outside that window.

  The grand sum of their accomplishments this evening was having pulled over a guy in a Malibu and finding out he had an outstanding warrant for unpaid child support.

  So while Ruben had gotten a deadbeat dad off the street, there was no sign of Plain Jane.

  “Did you see that guy?” the squad’s resident techno-geek, Cody, asked into Ruben’s earpiece.

  Startled, he sat up straight. He’d nearly forgotten the radio in his ear. “No. Where?”

  “Ten o’clock. In a trench coat, if you can believe it.”

  Ruben scanned the street quickly. Cody was right. A man, trying awfully hard to look casual, despite wearing a floor-length trench coat and baseball cap, walked down the street toward Nancy’s house.

  Using the binoculars, Torres confirmed it was an Orioles cap. Quickly he looked down at the store video stills. Baltimore it was.

  Adrenaline flowed through his veins. This was it. This was he. As he grabbed the radio, his finger shook just the slightest bit. Besides catching a serial killer, for a single night Ruben might actually be able to eclipse Kent.

  “Blue and yellow teams be ready to move.”

  CHAPTER 60

  Nicole’s body felt nice next to him as Kent carefully used a latex glove to turn the comic’s page. It was already absolutely hedonistic to open the Mylar bag in a car without humidity control, but Kent wasn’t about to add skin oil residue to the damaging mix.