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

by Carolyn McCray

  “You don’t think I feel this way after each murder? That I should have been faster, smarter, braver?”

  Nicole didn’t know what he felt, let alone how she felt. She just wanted to get away, as far away as possible from this feeling of someone clutching her heart with sharp nails.

  Kent pulled her into his arms again. “Nic, you can’t let this get under your skin.”

  She used her hand to push away from him. “We joked about her backhand. She was alive this morning.”

  Kent nodded. “And Nic, I should have realized that Rhonda was way too aggressive on the court for Wallflower.”

  “Whereas Emilyn was more passive on the back court,” Nicole stated.

  “Exactly,” Kent said. “I’m not even sure if Wallflower wasn’t at the tennis court for Rhonda, but then found Emilyn. We might never know. All we do know is that we were close. Really close. We are within an arm’s reach of him. You have to take comfort that Emilyn’s murder will help save another woman.”

  “You might be able to,” Nicole said, leaving his arms completely. “I need to get away.”

  Kent’s eyebrows pulled together as she got into her car. “Where are you going?”

  “I don’t know,” Nicole said honestly. “I just need to get away.”

  “But what about the case?” Kent asked.

  “I’m officially off of it until at least Monday,” Nicole said, never so glad to be on forced administrative leave.

  Kent’s expression grew even more concerned. She patted his hand. “Don’t worry. I’ll see you later at home.”

  “Later, then?” Kent asked.

  “Yes,” Nicole said, then chuckled a sad chuckle. “Now get back on the job, Harbinger.”

  With a half-hearted wave, Kent stepped back onto the sidewalk, allowing Nicole to rev the engine, feeling the power of the one hundred horsepower engine. She squealed away from the curb, trying to put Emilyn and her guilt long behind her.

  * * *

  Ruben watched Nicole peel away and Kent walk back toward the crime scene. He stopped the profiler at the yellow tape. “One hundred feet, remember?”

  The profiler stopped, frowned, then looked back over his shoulder.

  “She going to be alright?” Ruben asked.

  “Yeah,” Kent breathed out. “She just needs some room to figure out she’s just human. Not Supercop.”

  See? That was the difference between Ruben and Kent. Right now, if he were dating Nicole, he’d be in his SUV, running sirens and lights trying to catch up with her.

  Long ago, during a fight, Nicole had told Ruben that she felt suffocated with him, and with Kent, she felt like she was flying free. He’d never really understood what she meant until now.

  Ruben’s instinct was to protect Nicole, even from herself. Kent’s instinct was to trust her. Put that way, Ruben hated that Kent was actually the more mature one on this. Could he change, though? Did he want to change to be more like Kent?

  Um, hell no. So maybe Paggie was the right fit for him. She’d not only appreciate him driving after her sirens blaring, she would kind of expect it. Maybe that’s what relationships were about. Not who was better than whom, but who simply fit better, naturally, with whom.

  Kent seemed to shake off his melancholy. “Anything on the pics?”

  “Joshua is working on building a mosaic of Wallflower,” Ruben answered.

  “Joshua?” Kent asked. “I thought he was in the hospital?”

  Ruben shook his head. “The wound didn’t penetrate into the peritoneum, so they released him about an hour ago. He went straight to the lab to help out with the camera and memory stick and finish up with the condoms.”

  “Gotta give it to the weirdo, he is dedicated,” Kent said with a chuckle.

  The morgue assistant made Ruben’s skin crawl, however even he had to admit Joshua was extremely helpful. Maybe too helpful.

  * * *

  Joshua was on his third espresso. He needed to jumpstart his brain after the morphine they’d given him at the hospital. Kent needed him. Nicole needed him. Hell, the whole city needed him. He couldn’t be all groggy and high in some bed.

  Now he was tired and wired at the same time. Not a great combo.

  Not that it didn’t sound nice, but he was running with the big dogs. His days of being stoned just for the hell of it were over.

  “What do you have?” Kent asked as he walked in. Most people might be put off that the profiler didn’t engage in small talk or niceties, but Joshua appreciated it. He was no good at all the polite stuff, either.

  Joshua nodded to the large screen in front of them. He hit a button and the composite of all the different pictures came up. It formed an image of a man from the back.

  “No face?” Kent said.

  “Sorry, no,” Joshua said. If he could have delivered a face, he would have, but he couldn’t produce an image that wasn’t on the film. “This is the best that I could do with what Reggie took.”

  “Not much to go on,” Ruben said. Always the spoilsport. Joshua could see why Nicole had ditched him for Kent.

  “Well, I can tell you the guy is about five-ten. Caucasian. And he buys cheap suits.”

  “Basically my profile,” Kent said.

  “But look at this,” Joshua said, zooming in on the guy’s left wrist. There was a cufflink. It was the crest of Yale University.

  “So he’s a bulldog,” Kent said. “I’m going to need you to cross-reference everyone who graduated, what, from two thousand to twenty-oh-eight?”

  “Ahead of you,” Joshua said. “Based on the lack of gray hair and scalp thickness, I age this guy out at twenty-eight to thirty-two. I’m already scouring Yale’s yearbook database for matches.”

  Kent grunted, which was the profiler’s equivalent to praise. Or, at least, Joshua hoped so.

  “Anything else?” Ruben asked.

  Why did the tall detective always make him feel so inadequate? “From the photos, yes. I had them take a fresh nasal swab and will personally take it over to the university in the morning to compare to the others.”

  “Alright,” Kent said. “Feels like that’s all we can do tonight.”

  He nodded to Ruben. “Tomorrow morning at the station, then?”

  Ruben nodded back, then turned to Joshua. “Text me if you find anything else.”

  Yeah, right. Like he’d tell Ruben first—but Joshua knew enough not to say that to Ruben’s face. “You got it.”

  * * *

  Nicole’s eyes burned from un-spilt tears. She really didn’t know if she could do this anymore. She so tried to be just like Kent.—impervious to the deaths, letting them fuel her rather than empty her tank.

  She couldn’t get the sight of Emilyn’s awesome backhand out of her mind. Nicole could still feel her sweaty palm in hers as she took the win so graciously. The young woman’s handshake had been firm but kind. No lording the victory over her, or insulting Nicole with some kind of lame, “great game for somebody of your age.”

  Did Emilyn’s parents know what an amazing daughter they had raised?

  And to have some madman steal all that Emilyn was seemed so incredibly pointless.

  Nicole really wanted to go to Emilyn’s parents and express her condolences, but how could she? Not without revealing her guilt. They were bound to ask Nicole how she knew Emilyn. How was she supposed to answer?

  “Oh, I met her while protecting another girl, sorry.”

  She knew what Kent would say. That if anyone was to blame for Emilyn’s death, it was him. He was the experienced profiler. That it was on his shoulders to have identified Emilyn as Wallflower’s next victim.

  But he had been on the outside, looking in. Nicole had been on that court. She had spent nearly two hours with the young woman. She should have known. She’d known that Wallflower was there, watching them. She should have known his interest had shifted.

  Those tears that had threatened since she’d heard the news of Emilyn’s death decided to gush out. With blurr
y vision, Nicole pulled her Mustang to the curb. She sobbed long and hard. Having someone else’s life in her hands no longer felt comfortable. Nicole now felt like, instead of them being safe, she was more likely to bobble it without even realizing it.

  She’d walked away from that court feeling proud of playing a pretty damned good game of tennis, rather than worried for Emilyn’s life. How far off the mark could she be?

  Finally, the tears and rib-aching sobs stopped—at this point, probably from dehydration.

  Where in the hell was she, anyway? Wiping tears away, Nicole looked out the windshield. She didn’t even recognize the neighborhood. How far had she driven?

  Then she spotted a bar. O’Malley’s Irish Public Place.

  Nicole patted her Mustang’s steering wheel. “Good job,” she told the car.

  This was her old haunt when she was on patrol. It was a popular cop bar. She hadn’t been back since she made detective. That was just how it worked. Blues didn’t mix with golds. Detectives had their own bar across town.

  How many beers had she nursed here in her first few years on the beat? Each time a domestic violence victim yelled at her for breaking up the fight. Or the kid she’d vouched for with the DA went on to rob another convenience store.

  How maudlin she’d been back there. She’d taken all those petty insults to heart. She’d questioned whether she was cut out to be a cop. If only she’d known the true weight of the job, Nicole wouldn’t have given pimps’ insults a second thought.

  Where better to drown her sorrows tonight?

  Nicole got out of the Mustang, locked her up, and went into the bar.

  She would let Kent worry about Wallflower. Tonight, she just wanted to forget.

  CHAPTER 17

  Kent awoke with a start. Light streamed in through the window. Clearly, he’d forgotten to close the curtains last night when he fell into bed, clothes on. Kent had expected Nicole to awaken him when she came in. He’d changed the password on the security system so that she couldn’t sneak in.

  Blinking several times, Kent scanned the bedroom. No Nicole. Was she that much in a funk, that she somehow made it in quietly, then slept on the couch?

  Rising, his head complained. It had been several nights since he’d gotten enough sleep. Why was it that you felt worse once you did get some sleep? Not exactly nature’s way of positive feedback.

  He flared his nostrils. No aroma of brewing coffee, so the chances that Nicole was in the house were slim to none. That girl liked her java. He raced to the guest room and sneaked a peek, just in case she had slept in, as well.

  No Nicole.

  He trotted down the stairs, “Nic?”

  This was so not like her. She was as steady and constant as the Northern Star. She said that she would come home. Ipso facto, she should be here.

  He made it to the main level and rushed into the living room. The couch’s pillows were undisturbed. She hadn’t slept there, either. Getting more and more worried, Kent went into the kitchen. There wasn’t a dish out of place. He checked the trash—no Starbucks cup.

  Closing his eyes, he tried to tamp down the growing panic.

  If she didn’t come home, where in the hell was she?

  * * *

  Nicole’s mouth tasted like ass. She hated to be so crude—however, she also had to call it like she tasted it. Her brain felt fuzzy, yet raw. She could barely keep one thought in her mind. Yet it was a big thought.

  Where the hell was she?

  The last thing she remembered was walking into O’Malley’s bar. No, she remembered ordering a Guinness—then the world went blurry. Nicole felt the ground in which she lay. It was cool to the touch, and grainy. A dirt floor, then. Given the wan light, she must be in a basement of some sort.

  Not a great start to her day.

  How could she have been abducted and not remember it?

  Given the throbbing of her head, she must have been drugged. So was it Wallflower, or not? He didn’t use drugs. Or, at least, not yet. The serialist was evolving at such a rate, using drugs to subdue his victims was not out of the question.

  Then her hands flew to her belly. There was one way to find out. Slowly, she lifted her shirt to find four tiny needle marks on her belly.

  Gulping air, Nicole tried not to panic. He’d injected her with fly eggs just like the rest. How long ago? How many hours did she have before her belly burst with maggots?

  Freaking out isn’t going to make them grow any slower, Kent’s voice said as a disembodied voice.

  Even the imaginary profiler in her head was annoying. Annoying, but right.

  Nicole steeled herself. Okay, so she’d been kidnapped and injected with fly eggs. It wasn’t so bad, right? She was still alive. Which was a bit of a mystery, but she would take it.

  What would Kent do right now?

  Unfortunately, the profiler would probably have a stolen chainsaw or something up his sleeve. Nicole had nothing. No gun. No handcuffs. Nothing. Wallflower had stripped her of her police belt.

  Great.

  She knew that last year she had wished that Plain Jane had kidnapped her instead of Kent. Now, though? In a dirty cellar with fly eggs in her belly, Nicole was re-thinking that wish.

  * * *

  Ruben knew there was something wrong even before he opened his eyes. His hand flew to his waist, but of course, in bed, he didn’t have his gun on.

  “She’s gone,” a voice said above him.

  How Ruben prayed that the voice wasn’t that of the profiler. Then he opened his eyes, and lo and behold, Kent stood over him.

  “Is Nicole here?” he asked, as if this was all normal.

  “No,” Ruben said, shaking his head, sitting up in bed. “This is Paggie’s place. Why would she be here?”

  Kent frowned. “This is going to sound weird, but I was really, really, really hoping that she was cheating on me with you. Maybe a threesome to burn off some grief.”

  “What’s going on?” Paggie asked in a groggy tone from beside Ruben.

  He rubbed her shoulder. “Don’t worry. It’s just Kent.”

  “Kent?” her tone sharpened as she rolled over and witnessed the profiler for herself. To his surprise, she shook her head. “I guess I did get fair warning.” Then she rolled back over.

  “What the hell are you doing here, Kent?” Ruben asked.

  “Nicole—she didn’t come home last night. I already checked your house, and she isn’t there either. And we both know that she is too cheap to rent a hotel room. Wallflower has her.”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Let’s not jump too far ahead,” Ruben said, wiping his face, trying to shed the last webs of sleep. “In the mood she was last night? She might have just gotten hammered and is sleeping it off somewhere.”

  “Jimmi checked. Her phone is not just off, but the battery has been removed.”

  That was not good.

  “Besides, if she was drunk, she could have called a cab or just hail any cop on the street and they would have given her a ride.”

  Kent was right. As a detective, Nicole had the largest designated driver pool in the world. All one hundred and seventy-five police officers on duty last night would have helped her get home without question.

  As Kent paced, Ruben began to get worried, as well.

  “But how?”

  “I don’t know,” Kent answered, a bit more shrilly than usual. “But it’s the only explanation for her disappearance.”

  The profiler reached over and pulled the covers off Ruben. “We’re meeting everyone down at CSI headquarters.”

  Ruben’s hands went to his groin. He’d been sleeping in the nude.

  “Oh, well,” Kent said, turning away. “Glad to see you and Paggie are moving forward.”

  Ruben gathered up the comforter and wrapped it around his waist as he made his way to the chair where his clothes were draped. “Jimmi know her last known location?”

  “He is tracking that down, along with traffic cam footage of her car.”


  Crap, that was right. Her Mustang was a classic. No GPS transponder.

  “Come on, come on, come on,” Kent harassed him. “We’ve lost too much time already.”

  Slipping his pants on, Ruben looked over his shoulder as Kent paced and muttered.

  “I slept in. I never sleep in. Never. How could I have slept in?”

  Ruben was pretty sure that Kent wasn’t talking to him, nor expecting an answer. He’d never seen the profiler so agitated.

  “We’ll figure this out,” Ruben said.

  “Yeah, right. You mean, I’ll figure this out.”

  Okay, that sounded a hell of a lot more like the old sanctimonious Kent. And right now they needed that prick. Nicole needed him to be as much of a dick as humanly possible.

  His dickishness was their secret weapon.

  * * *

  Joshua fidgeted in his chair. Jimmi was busy doing all the tech stuff, leaving Joshua to just sit there. He was used to being the one to do stuff. In truth, he probably didn’t need to be here, but after Kent’s frantic call earlier this morning to check to see if Joshua had heard from Nicole, Joshua couldn’t sit it out on the sidelines.

  He’d told Jimmi that he was here in geek solidarity, but with Nicole missing, the fact was that Joshua needed to be on the front line. Although that front line was a bit uncomfortable at the moment. Captain Glick was pacing behind them, asking for updates every few seconds. Didn’t he understand that Jimmi couldn’t miraculously make the CPU run any faster? If Captain Glick wanted faster data, he needed to find it in the budget to upgrade their computer systems.

  “Well?” Kent asked, even before he was in the room.

  Jimmi pointed to the screen. “Detective Usher’s last known whereabouts were in this general area. I’ve triangulated the position from her cellphone’s last ping off the network.”

  The profiler’s eyes scanned the map. “That’s all the way across town. I don’t think we’ve ever even been over there, let alone someplace Nicole would go voluntarily.”

  “Hold on,” Ruben said. “Glick, isn’t that where O’Malley’s is?”

  “O’Malley’s?” Kent questioned.

  Joshua could handle this one. “It’s a cop bar. Amazing, amazing potato skins. The bacon is perfectly crispy, and they give you a huge scoop of sour cream.”