2nd Cycle of the Harbinger Series Collection

by Carolyn McCray

  A cry came over his ear bud. “Nicole?”

  Another cry and a string of curses. Kent didn’t break character, if anything he bumped his hip up against Ruben’s as they strolled along the sidewalk. They headed north, the opposite direction of the other couple last night.

  There was more scuffling on the other side of the line. Why wasn’t Kent worried?

  “It’s okay guys,” Jimmi rushed to say, then he got a little squirrely. “Um Nicole, well, Nicole…it looks like the detective has gone into labor.”

  Ruben went to turn around and charge back up the street and around the corner to the van, but Kent held him firmly in place. “Can’t you feel it? The guy is stalking us.”

  Ruben didn’t feel any such thing. Nicole needed them. Actually Nicole needed Kent, but the profiler didn’t seem like he cared.

  “Kent,” Nicole panted. She sounded in pain. “I’m fine. Catch this bastard.”

  The profiler just smiled that smile he got every time Nicole proved that she was equally as warped as her husband.

  “But Nicole,” Ruben whispered.

  “No buts,” Nicole retorted. “No matter what happens. Stay on it.”

  The Captain cut in on the line. “I will take her to the hospital. You’ve got plenty of back-up. Just use the safe word if you make contact.”

  Then Ruben felt a crack at the back of his skull and the pavement suddenly rushed up at him.

  * * *

  Ruben was down in the first two seconds of the blitz attack. And he called himself a boxer.

  Kent didn’t have much time to relish the irony. The killer would be coming after him next so Kent took advantage of the fact the blitz-man had to raise the pipe up again. Apparently the last attack was a little too close for comfort for the killer.

  For the first time, the serial killer was using a weapon.

  Lucky, Kent.

  Even though he couldn’t see the killer yet, Kent went with a sharp elbow back and up. From the previous attacks, they knew the killer was a tall and beefy guy. Unfortunately, Kent hit a rib. The guy wasn’t quite as tall as they thought. That blow probably hurt Kent more than it did the killer.

  That was okay. Kent threw a punch to the groin and hit a hard cup. So much for this killer getting off on the pure hand-to-hand combat. Cheater.

  Spinning around, Kent found the man with a grin that showed his two front teeth knocked out. The guy was not that tall, but he was thick. Think WWF thick. And he looked about as intelligent.

  That didn’t mean the guy wasn’t swinging a big pipe.

  This was one of those times Kent should probably carry a gun but where would the fun in that be?

  Kent ducked the first swing, then landed a good jab to the guy’s gut as he prepared for the second swing.

  Apparently the killer tired of that game and grabbed Kent around the waist and plowed him into the wall.

  Fortunately Kent was ready. He took in a huge gulp of breath and kept his neck bent and forward, therefore the wind wasn’t knocked out of him and his head hadn’t been cracked.

  However the guy’s hands had been crushed into the brick. Kent ground his back into the man’s flesh.

  With a gasp, he released Kent, who dropped and rolled out of the way.

  The killer shook his hands, trying to get the sting out of them.

  No time like the present as Kent dove for the pipe.

  The killer tried to bring it around, however he wasn’t quite fast enough. Kent was able to grab the pipe right above the killer’s grip. Apparently the guy wasn’t a Rhodes scholar nor even up on his fulcrum knowledge.

  Kent was able to twist and give one good heave to relieve the killer of his weapon.

  Swinging the pipe over his head, Kent brought it down, tucked under his arm.

  The killer backed away a step.

  Yes, sucker, I’m not some gym rat with completely useless Yoga and spinning training. I went to the “You are probably going to get killed” university.

  The man’s eyes widened as Kent threw the pipe away. Those pesky rules. He only killed serial killers as they had killed. Since the perp hadn’t killed with a pipe yet, neither could Kent.

  And people said he had no code of ethics.

  Tossing the pipe aside, he aimed it toward Ruben. For the detective if he ever bothered to wake up.

  Kent turned to the killer as he got into a compact boxing stance.

  The man looked like he thought it might be a trick, but Kent didn’t play any games, not at this stage.

  Kent got up on his toes, dancing around the killer, taunting him with one open side, then the other.

  Come on, just try to hit me.

  Finally the man seemed to warm to the idea, raising his fists, his large nostrils flaring.

  Oh this was going to be good.

  * * *

  Ruben’s eyelids fluttered open.

  What the hell happened? The back of his head screamed in pain. He felt heavy, too heavy to get up.

  From his vantage point on the ground, all he could see were two sets of feet dancing around the bloodied pavement.

  Serial Killer. Right. The Blitz attacker.

  How long had Ruben been out? Apparently Kent had survived the initial attack and was fighting the man off.

  Ruben had to shake off this heaviness and get in there and help.

  Relying pretty much on will power alone, Ruben pushed himself up into a sitting position. Then he could take in the full damage.

  The killer had a deep cut above his eye that was bleeding profusely. Kent had a black eye and was protecting his left side. A cut on his hand bled.

  The two men seemed evenly matched. Kent had the skill and the speed but the big guy had the size.

  Ruben tried to rise to a standing position but listed and he barely caught himself on a parking meter.

  The brawl had gone on long enough that Ruben guessed that Kent hadn’t given the safe word. Why would he? The profiler lived to go up against serial killers.

  “Apricot! Apricot!” Ruben yelled. He was not above getting some help.

  Kent looked over, glaring at Ruben. “You couldn’t have just picked up the pipe? Seriously?”

  The profiler then leapt onto the killer’s back and put the man into a choke hold. No matter what the killer did, Kent kept his hold. The man’s face turned a blotchy red as he ripped at Kent’s arms.

  Dear God, Kent was going to kill the man right in front of him.

  Ruben struggled to his feet as he heard other policemen on their way. “Let him go,” Ruben croaked.

  Kent just smiled, tightening his hold on the killer. The guy fell to his knees, his attempts to free himself long past.

  The profiler leaned back, really leveraging his angle on the trachea. The killer didn’t have long.

  “Kent you are probably going to bring your son into this world. Can you really kill a man on the same day?”

  “Hell, yeah,” Kent replied as the man slumped under his hold. Still Kent didn’t let go.

  Finally the other cops got there, pulling Kent off the body.

  The profiler shook off the men and strode past Ruben. “You have any problem with that, then go look at the young mother he killed, victim one, then tell me I wasn’t justified.”

  Then the profiler was gone, just like that.

  Jimmi ran up to Ruben. “You okay?”

  “I think so,” Ruben said, needing Jimmi’s help to stand upright.

  “What happened?” Jimmi asked.

  “Kent killed another one.”

  Jimmi frowned. “You mean Kent killed another serial killer in self defense?”

  “Right, that,” Ruben stated.

  It would do no good to argue. Ruben had stood right there and watched Kent choke the life out of a man, but would Kent be punished for that? Would he ever be called killer rather than hero?

  Ruben doubted it. A serial killer was dead. No one was going to mourn him.

  The profiler was going to get away with it yet a
gain.

  * * *

  Kent ran into the emergency room. The nurses looked like he was the one that needed treatment. He hated to tell them this was nothing. All of his body parts were still attached.

  He rushed down the hall toward the elevator but was stopped dead in his tracks by Glick pushing Nicole in a wheelchair straight for him.

  There was no way Nicole had given birth, could there be?

  His wife waved her hands. “False alarm, just significant, and I mean significant Braxton Hicks contractions. My uterus was warming up.”

  “Oh thank God,” Kent exclaimed. He’d promised his wife that he’d be there for the birth no matter what. That was one vow he didn’t want to break.

  He dropped to his knee next to her wheelchair.

  Nicole gently brushed her fingers over his bruises. “I take it your night went better than mine.”

  “You should see the other guy,” Kent smiled.

  “Dead, I presume?” Glick asked.

  “What can I say? The guy refused to go down,” Kent explained. “Thanks so much Captain, but I’ve got it from here.”

  The older man’s face went through several expressions before he finally let go of the wheelchair handles and backed away. “You will need to report to IA tomorrow morning for your statement.”

  “Bright and shiny,” Kent confirmed.

  Once the Captain walked away, Kent leaned into Nicole. “Do you want full disclosure?”

  “About this case or another?” Nicole asked.

  Kent snorted. “I killed this guy, I meant about another case I’m working on.”

  Her eyebrow shot up. “Another case? I don’t know about another case.”

  “I know, I’ve kept it close to the vest. Sex workers are showing up dead from heroin overdoses.”

  “Which happens all the time…”

  Kent shook his head. “Not like this. The stuff in the syringe is nearly pure so the girls shoot up with their normal amount, but due to the purity, it kills them.”

  “That seems awfully tame for a serial killer.”

  “Or a smart one. One with a forensic background. One with a badge.”

  Nicole turned in the chair despite the obvious discomfort. “You think a cop is doing this?”

  “Or CSI, ME’s office worker. Someone who knows forensic countermeasures.”

  “Which is why you haven’t officially opened a case yet?” Nicole asked.

  Kent nodded. “Now you and Joshua are the only two to know what I’m working on. Happy?”

  Nicole frowned. “No,” she said settling back into her wheelchair. “And yes. Just be careful.”

  “When aren’t I?”

  Nicole motioned to his black eye.

  Okay, fine. She did have a point. But with a baby on the way, he might actually exercise some caution. Might.

  KILL JOY – The 1st full length novel of the 2nd cycle of the Harbinger Mysteries series

  CHAPTER 1

  “Kent is dead,” Ruben stated matter-of-factly.

  But it couldn’t be. “No!” was all Nicole could think. Her hand flew to her belly. Their son was doing jumping jacks as if the fetus couldn’t believe the news of his father’s death either.

  She didn’t realize that she was falling until Ruben’s strong arms caught her. His phone clattered to the ground as he steadied her. “I’m so sorry, Nikki.”

  Nicole couldn’t respond, she was too busy denying the news in her own head.

  “It’s not true,” she finally uttered.

  “I’m afraid…I’m afraid it is, Nicole. Kent is dead.”

  She shook her head violently. “He can’t be. He is Kent.”

  “Not even Kent could get out of this one.”

  “They need to try longer. Why aren’t the doctors trying to save him?” Nicole asked, knowing that her tone was shrieking.

  Ruben tried to hold her tighter. “They found him DOA last night. He was a John Doe. There’s already been an autopsy.”

  An autopsy? Nicole felt ready to hurl. Not only was her husband dead but hacked up as well?

  “No one at the morgue recognized him?”

  Ruben shrugged. “Joshua was on day shift.”

  Fury rose in Nicole. “And McGregor didn’t recognize him? His fingerprints should have told them exactly who he was.”

  It was hard enough to accept that Kent was dead, but that he had been cut open as a John Doe was horrifying. Adding salt to an already stinging wound.

  “I’m sorry, but the computers were down this morning…There was a junior coroner on…”

  This made no sense. None at all. There had to be some horrible, awful mistake.

  “When? How?” Nicole asked as if those factors could untie the knot in her stomach. She had to make sense of this somehow or she was going to faint.

  Ruben gripped both her shoulders.

  “I don’t know all the details but it looks like a gangbanger got the jump on him.”

  Again, that was just crazy talk. Kent lived to catch serial killers. And then a gangbanger getting the jump on him? Ludicrous. But she didn’t say anything. Ruben would just argue as Ruben did.

  “I want to see him,” Nicole stated flatly. None of this was real until she stroked Kent’s dead cheek.

  “Nikki… In your condition?”

  “In my condition, I wouldn’t argue with me,” Nicole shot back and headed to Ruben’s car. He had been picking her up to go into the office. She was due in just two weeks. Everyone was afraid with her so far along, that she might break her water in the car, so she got driven anywhere she wanted to go.

  And right now she wanted to go to the morgue.

  “Don’t make me call a cab,” she threatened.

  * * *

  Ruben had to trot to catch up to Nicole. For such an advanced pregnant woman, she could still haul ass if she wanted to. His partner was already in the car, stretching out the car seat to accommodate her huge belly.

  She clenched her teeth, apparently to hold back the tears that threatened to spill from her eyelids,but were securely restrained.

  It was odd, after all these years of hating Kent and wishing he would just fall off the face of the earth, that Ruben didn’t feel a single pang of relief. Instead he was furious at the profiler.

  How could Kent do this to Nicole? Why was he out on the prowl when she was so close to giving birth? How could the profiler be so incredibly callous? Heartless. Now Kent left behind a pregnant widow and would soon have a fatherless son.

  Kent, for all his arrogance, usually lived up to his hype. Why had he failed now of all times?

  If there was any time for Kent to pull his butt out of the fire, it would have been now. What was he doing stalking in the night when Nicole was ready to pop? Ruben had never understood their relationship. Now less than ever.

  His partner was still in shock. Ruben was slightly afraid of what would happen when she got to the anger stage of grief. While he didn’t want to be around for the anger only Nicole could bring, Ruben would make sure that he was there. She was going to need someone who wasn’t afraid, or at least not that afraid, of her to be there.

  Had someone called her father yet? Her brothers? Even Ruben was going to need back up once Kent’s death really sank in.

  Ruben got into the car and revved the engine, turning on the lights and sirens as he hurried his partner to the morgue…to identify her husband.

  In a thousand, million years, Ruben never would have guessed this would be how Kent and his tangled relationship would end.

  * * *

  Nicole had to take a few gulping breaths before she entered the morgue. She never liked the place and now she despised it.

  She knew that it was a fantasy, but she was still holding out hope that they had the wrong man. That it wasn’t Kent on that slab.

  Despite how she had harangued Ruben into speeding her over here, Nicole’s feet grew weary, slow and heavy. She didn’t want to take another step.

  “Do you want me to d
o it?” Ruben asked, hovering near her, clearly ready to catch her if she fell again.

  Nicole couldn’t speak. Her throat was too swollen from pent up grief. She simply shook her head and forced her feet to move forward. She couldn’t see them, of course. It had been months since her belly had first obscured her feet.

  She just had to trust they were down there, doing their job.

  The automatic doors whooshed open. She used to like that sound. It seemed a little sci-fi to her. Now it sounded like her world was falling apart. They walked down the main corridor. She wasn’t wearing any heels, another fatality of her pregnancy, so her loafers shuffled their way down the tile passage.

  Then they were at the door to Autopsy 1. For her, they wouldn’t move the body to the viewing area. She needed to see Kent now. Right now. So the autopsy room it was.

  Ruben opened the door. Joshua jumped off his stool. “Nicole, I mean Detective Usher. Sorry, I mean Detective Harbinger….”

  Nicole put up a hand to stop the morgue attendant’s jabbering. It didn’t matter what he called her at this point.

  Behind Joshua there was a body draped in a white cloth.

  There lay Kent. Or was it her husband?

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to do this?” Ruben asked again. Because that was Ruben. Always there, even if you didn’t necessarily want him there.

  “No, I have to do this,” Nicole said, cradling her hands under her belly to support it. She felt like she needed to hold her son as Joshua drew back the sheet.

  Nicole gasped and reeled backwards. Ruben, of course, was there as the shock of the identification hit her. She felt pummeled, even worse than the time she’d gone through the knife fight gauntlet.

  It was Kent on that cold stainless steel table. His dark hair. The high forehead. His nose that hooked slightly to the left. Those lips she’d kissed a thousand times.

  Not even Ruben could keep her on her feet. She sank to the floor, sobbing hysterically. She didn’t care who saw her.

  Joshua covered Kent’s body back up, but not before she noticed the sutures in his chest. He truly had been autopsied.

  Which meant…which meant.