The Harbinger Collection: Hard-boiled Mysteries Not for the Faint of Heart (A McCray Crime Collection)

by Carolyn McCray

  “No more than you, Mr. Sissypants,” Kent answered. “Now screw my girlfriend!”

  Nicole opened her thighs to allow Yvent to bring his hips to her pelvis. Yvent didn’t know what to do with his hands, so Nicole let go of the ledge for a second and placed his hands on her waist.

  “Wait,” Yvent said. “Are you sure that you’re safe?”

  No, she wasn’t. However, Trudy had done this for years and never fallen before. How did she keep herself stable? Then Kent grabbed her calf and brought it over Yvent’s thigh. Nicole followed suit with the other leg and wrapped them both around Yvent’s legs. She wasn’t going anywhere now.

  “Well, what are you waiting for?” Kent asked. “Let’s get this party started.”

  * * *

  Yvent held his breath as Nicole began rocking his hips, forcing them too close together. He had that feeling as blood rushed from his head to further south. The same feeling he had if he turned on Cinemax a little too late in the evening.

  Baseball. Wasn’t that what you were supposed to think to avoid an unwanted erection? Unfortunately, he was not that fond of the sport, and for the life of him couldn’t think of a single stat or game to take his mind off of Nicole’s smokin’ hot body.

  This was wrong—so wrong. Even if the detective and the profiler had signed off on it, it was still wrong.

  “How is this going to help us, exactly?” Yvent asked. “Don’t you usually worry about the victim, and not the killer so much?”

  Kent cocked his head. “I need to know a baseline about the killer to understand who he hunts.”

  “Then why not try to target the killer, rather than the victim?”

  “That’s so been done before,” Kent said with a roll of his eyes. Yvent needed to keep the profiler talking, though, to distract him from how Nicole’s body was affecting his own.

  “The killer seems like a smaller pool,” Yvent said.

  “Really?” Kent challenged. “Trying to find a fairly attractive but uptight, sexually repressed guy who’s ashamed of masturbating?” Kent nodded his head to the other detective. “We might as well bring Ruben in.”

  “Kent,” Nicole chided.

  Even though it wasn’t his name, Yvent’s body reacted to her warm breath on his neck. This was crazy. He wouldn’t be able to hide his body’s natural response much longer. All he could think was, not again. Please not again.

  Nicole, though, seemed to have no problem as they dry humped. She reported coolly, “I am really digging my shoes into his calves to stay secure. Trudy had five inch heels, didn’t she?” Nicole asked Kent.

  “Yes,” the profiler answered.

  “I think we should have CSI really go over the tips of those heels. There may be trace from his pants, or even skin, if she ripped the cloth.”

  “I’ll take care of that as soon as we are done,” Yvent said, desperate to think of anything but Nicole’s soft thighs and beautiful neck.

  “So what went wrong?” Kent asked. “Right now, this is just a standard trick.”

  Yvent felt pressure building up in his chest. Well, in other places too, but it was making it hard to breath. Even faking it was too close to the real thing, and he’d promised his grandmother he’d wait until marriage before sex. The one time he had tried, well, it hadn’t gone so well. Like American Pie level not well.

  Nicole’s legs were like vices, driving his pelvis into hers. He couldn’t do it. Not without his attraction being clear, not only to Nicole but to Kent as well. Breathing faster and faster, Yvent had to get out of the situation.

  “No,” Yvent said. “That’s enough.” But Nicole’s legs wouldn’t let him go.

  * * *

  Nicole wasn’t sure if Yvent was faking a panic attack, or actually having one. His eyes were dilated to the point of black, and he was shaking his head even though Nicole wasn’t sure if he knew that he was.

  “No,” he moaned, grabbing hold of her thighs and trying to push them aside. “Let me go.”

  But Nicole used to go to the gym regularly, and had excellent abductors. She held firm as her fingernails dug into the concrete ledge.

  But Yvent’s reaction became even more exaggerated. He forced his hands between her knees and his waist and shoved her legs apart. No leg machine was going to overcome a full-grown man’s panicked action.

  The sudden, jarring motion threw Nicole off balance, and her upper body, already tilted back, fell backward. Her hands lashed out as Yvent tried to reach her before she fell over, but it was too late. Her fingernails raked down his arm.

  This was it. She was falling to her death.

  Then a hand caught her, steadying her on the ledge. “There ya go. I’ve got you.”

  Trembling from the adrenaline rush, Nicole allowed Kent to pull her back over the ledge. He kept his hand on her waist as she found her footing.

  “Well,” Kent said, sounding way more chipper than he should after her near miss. “I think we figured out what happened.”

  The profiler turned to Joshua. “Focus on the condoms with pre-ejaculate fluid and no semen.” Kent turned back to her. “I don’t think he finished the deed.”

  “I am so sorry,” Yvent said.

  Nicole shook her head. “We never should have put you in that position.”

  “What are you talking about?” Kent said. “That was perfect. Pitch perfect.”

  And Nicole really couldn’t argue. From those few uncomfortable moments they had learned so much. To go back and check Trudy’s heels. To recheck Trudy’s fingernails and, possibly most importantly, to check for a condom that wasn’t full. That would probably drop the pool of condoms from several hundred to maybe a handful.

  Maybe the French did have it right.

  * * *

  Well, this had been an unmitigated success. Kent now had more insight into Wallflower than he ever had before. Kent could feel him now. And now that he had Wallflower’s emotional core, he could much more successfully hunt his victims.

  He helped Nicole away from the wall as his phone buzzed at his hip.

  Kent looked down at the text. “Jimmi just confirmed that the flies inside the victims were of two different species.”

  Another fascinating aspect to the case.

  “What does that mean?” Yvent asked.

  “It means we get to go for a ride to the bug farm!” Kent announced, although, strangely, no one seemed to be very excited about it.

  “Are you kidding me?” Nicole said.

  “What? The killer’s selection of fly type might be very important on building our profile.”

  “The college’s entomology department makes the gravesite look like Disneyland,” Yvent stated.

  Since no one was quickening to the idea, Kent just started walking toward the exit. They would follow in his wake. They always did.

  Kent trotted down steps for ten floors until he hit the ground floor. Who needed a gym while you were hunting a serial killer? They seldom took the straight, easy route.

  Just as he had predicted, Nicole, Yvent and Ruben had followed. Joshua was still documenting and logging all the condoms.

  Just as well. Kent feared what Joshua’s copious honeysuckle hair gel would attract at the entomologist office.

  Kent got into Nicole’s car as Yvent loaded into Ruben’s SUV.

  Based on the look on everyone’s face, this was going to be fun.

  CHAPTER 6

  Yvent felt his stomach clench as Ruben drove them up to the college’s entomology department. It wasn’t like there was a cloud of flies around the building. As a matter of fact, it was as short and squat as the rest of the building. However, just knowing what was going on inside of this one made even the unadorned concrete walls appear ominous.

  Like every other little boy, Yvent had had a fascination with insects as a child. He’d had an ant farm and grown flies from maggots, but he’d outgrown it. Especially after earlier. He could still hear the buzzing in his ears. That was a sound that was going to wake him for years
to come.

  Ruben pulled the SUV into a parking stall. “You don’t have to come in, you know.”

  Yvent raised an eyebrow. “Really? And still be an intern of Kent’s?”

  “You can’t live your life trying to constantly please a man who is, at his core, un-pleasable.”

  “Yet, look at you,” Yvent said. “You could have requested a transfer from this station. You could be off, happily solving crimes on the other side of town.”

  The detective’s jaw worked up and down. “Your life,” he said as Ruben opened the door.

  Yvent felt temporarily sorry. Ruben’s ego had clearly been bruised by this case and it wasn’t his place to remind the detective of everything that he’d lost. But Yvent was also very tired of people treating him like a child. He’d graduated from Quantico, for goodness sake. That was not an easy feat, especially given that he couldn’t study for a whole twenty-four hours during the Sabbath.

  He’d been one out of only three students from the academy to be put up for this internship, and Kent had chosen him. He was not going to disappoint his mentor.

  So even though the building looked like the gates of hell to Yvent, he followed Ruben through the door.

  The hallway looked like any other college hallway. Nondescript tile floors and walls lined with corkboard bulletin boards that were so crammed with school flyers and band gig announcements that they looked like multi-dimensional art, all the colors a garish reminder that they were on college grounds.

  Yvent wished that he could say that this all calmed his nerves. It did not. As a matter of fact, having one of his favorite places in the world, a college, be home to a bug collection felt like a violation. Like he could never walk down a university hallway again without thinking of bugs.

  “Still time to turn back,” Ruben said.

  But no way. No how.

  The only sound in the hallway was the click-clack of Nicole’s heels on the tile floor. He should probably feel worse that he had nearly killed the attractive detective, but his takeaway from that experience was that it had unfolded exactly how Kent had hoped. Which, in turn, should make him mad at the profiler. To have used his emotional vulnerability like that was unprofessional at best and downright cruel at worst.

  Yet he wasn’t upset at Kent at all. If anything, it made him respect the profiler even more. The guy would go there. If it furthered the case, he’d simply go there. That was why Yvent was walking down this damned hallway. He needed to go there as well.

  If he’d thought he’d found his calling at Quantico, Yvent had been wrong. He’d found it here with Kent. Just like at Quantico, all of the personality quirks—studious, withdrawn, contemplative—that had separated him from his peers all his life had suddenly become a boon. Even now, his lack of sexual experience had helped them gain insight into a killer.

  What would these flies give them?

  To be honest, Yvent was a little loath to know.

  * * *

  Nicole could hear the buzzing even out in the hallway as they made their way to the professor’s office. She looked back at Yvent, whose face was as white as a sheet. She didn’t blame him. Even though she’d only gotten swiped by the periphery of the swarm, she was none too eager to go into this guy’s office.

  Kent, however, had a spring to his step and showed absolutely no hesitation as he opened the door labeled “Head of the Department of Entomology.”

  The smell was the first thing that hit Nicole. A smell so strong you could taste the decomposition. Her eyes scanned the walls to the large laboratory. Each was lined with huge enclosures that contained thousands of flies each. And their food? Rotting meat.

  How lovely.

  “Dr. Schlesinger?” Kent asked of the man sitting at a dissecting microscope. The guy didn’t look like he heard the profiler. But who could hear over the constant, pressing buzzing all around them?

  They had to get close enough for Kent to tap the professor’s shoulder for him to even notice. The doctor jumped at the contact, nearly knocking over his microscope.

  “Oh!” he exclaimed, looking over the four invaders of his lab.

  Kent put his hand out. “Special Agent Harbinger. I believe our CSI tech spoke to you about us coming over to discuss a case.”

  “Yes, yes, of course,” the man said. He might have been attractive if it weren’t for the tiny, tiny John Lennon-esque wire rimmed glasses. As Nicole looked closer, they weren’t spectacles, they were magnifying glasses. So odd.

  Odder yet was the man’s wardrobe. His clothes looked like they were three sizes too large, as if they had fit when he’d put them on, then he’d lost fifty pounds and forgot to change. Plus, they were wrinkled enough that it looked like he’d slept in them all week.

  Which wouldn’t be far off, given all of the empty takeout containers strewn around and over in the corner was a small cot.

  Nicole asked before thinking, “You sleep here?”

  The professor shoved his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “My little darlings have such a short lifespan. I’d hate to think they were alone during any of it.”

  “What exactly do you do here?” Yvent asked, the horror plain on his face.

  “I study the effects of temperature, humidity, and food sources on insect growth to more accurately determine forensic entomology.”

  He pointed to the enclosures lining the walls. Then it was as if the professor saw the mess around him for the first time. He suddenly hopped up from his stool and began cleaning off the counters.

  “I’m so sorry,” he apologized. “We’re not used to having much company around here.”

  “How can you stand the smell?” Ruben asked, frowning and taking a handkerchief to cover his nose.

  “I had a bicycle accident as a child,” The professor said. “Hit my head. When I woke up, I had no sense of smell.” The man shrugged. “So it doesn’t bother me at all.”

  Kent had that look he always got when there was too much small talk. That look that said, “I am the only one interested in solving this case any time soon.”

  Nicole redirected the conversation back into the clinical arena. “Did our tech send you the information regarding the flies and maggots?”

  The man’s head bobbed up and down a little like he was his own bobble-headed doll. “Yes. Fascinating. Such an interesting use of the fly’s life cycle.”

  Not exactly how she would describe it, but Nicole didn’t interrupt him.

  “And is there any significance of the species of flies he choose?” Kent asked.

  “Not really. The first was Musca domestica.” When no one seemed to know what he was talking about, the professor explained, “The common housefly.”

  “And the second?” Kent asked.

  “Fannia Canicularis,” the professor stated, then filled in the blanks all by himself. “The lesser house fly.”

  “So nothing special about them?” Nicole asked.

  “Nothing special?” the professor said, his voice going up an octave. “They may be common, but they are special.” He pointed to an enclosure filled with buzzing flies. “Did you know that the Musca has a longer orgasm than most human males?”

  * * *

  Kent was certain that that fact brought down the house at entomology conferences. Unfortunately for the professor, they were not at one.

  “Illuminating, and I’m certain the flies appreciate it,” Kent said. “However, not helpful to the case.”

  “Did you also know that the female regulates the sex of her offspring?”

  “Again, not helping me zero in on the killer.”

  Ruben stepped forward. Kent had practically forgotten that the tall detective had been with them. “And the means of injection? Anything that you can tell us about that?”

  The professor picked up a large-barreled plastic syringe attached to a blunt needle.

  “We use these to transfer eggs from one enclosure to another,” the professor explained. “While we use blunt needles, the barrel tip fits any re
gular hospital needle. The eggs are small enough they would have fit though a 27 gauge needle.”

  The guy looked like that was supposed to be significant.

  Yvent spoke up from the back of the room, although it sounded as if he were gagging a bit, which wasn’t surprising, since the room was buzzing like a high-frequency tower. “That’s the gauge they use in insulin needles. Small enough that they don’t really leave a mark unless you are looking for one.”

  The professor nodded his head. “Perhaps if I had samples from the other victims so that I might see a pattern in the species, I might be more help.”

  Ruben nodded. “We will get you those as soon as we collect them.”

  Kent hated it when a lead didn’t pan out. “Any idea why he might change species? I mean, if he were trying to denigrate the bodies, why switch flies?”

  The professor’s eyes dilated and he practically jumped back a step. “Why in the world would you think that he was trying to denigrate the bodies?”

  “Um,” Kent said, “because there were maggots?”

  “Do you realize that without maggots, the world would be overrun by rotting corpses? That maggots provide an essential function to the ecosystem? Your killer might be trying to simply bring the bodies back into the natural lifecycle faster.”

  “Yeah, serial killers are usually not eco-friendly.”

  “Remember, maggots are also used to clean dirty wounds. The killer might have been trying to purify the bodies.”

  “Again,” Kent said. “You weren’t at the funeral. There was nothing pure about it.”

  The professor shrugged. “I am just saying, keep an open mind regarding the killer’s motive around the fly eggs.”

  Always good advice. Was the killer as much a bug lover as the professor? Did he see himself fulfilling a higher calling rather than just grossing everyone out?

  “Thank you,” Nicole said, offering her hand to the professor.

  “Sorry I wasn’t more help,” the man said. “I can hardly wait for those other specimens.”

  Kent could hardly wait either, if it meant a return trip to the laboratory. Just the look on Yvent and Ruben’s faces would be worth it.