Plain Jane (3 page)

Kent looked down at his clothes. His pants were soaked through with dirty rainwater, grease, blood, and who knew what else from his failed attempt at resuscitation. His shirt and coat were streaked crimson with Joann’s arterial blood. Even if he did not need to get the hell away from here, he could never show up at the station looking this much the worse for wear.

He looked up into the eyes of the woman who he had once hoped would be the mother of his children. That was years ago, though. Now this woman just sighed, silently agreeing that he was not fit to present to her captain.

“Fine. I’ll explain to Glick,
again,
that you had no way of knowing for certain if Joann was Plain Jane’s next victim.”

Nicole paused, waiting for confirmation. Kent gave a noncommittal shrug even though her statement was patently false. He had
known
Joann was the killer’s next prize. Known it in his gut every time she tucked her hair behind her ears. Known it in his groin each time she flashed that lopsided smile. Kent had known Plain Jane could not resist Joann’s perfect blend of humility and inner beauty.

“Even if Joann
was
the target, you had no way to know if the killer was going to strike
tonight
.”

Again Nicole waited for confirmation.

Kent thought the clarification was more for herself than for Glick. She wanted reassurance that there was nothing they could have done to save Joann.

Again he shrugged.

Again he lied to Nicole. For Kent had known tonight was the night. He knew Plain Jane could not resist Joann any longer. The urge to kill. The urge to slash her throat and get up to his elbows in her belly was near to overwhelming.

Kent had known because his hands had wished to reach out to her. He had almost betrayed his presence on the street. The need to know her had grown that strong. His and Plain Jane’s desire merged into one. Yet Kent still could not keep Joann from that long, sharp knife.

“Anything else?” she asked, searching his face. Kent forced his muscles to go slack.

Nicole did not need to know his sense of distress. If she did, the detective might balk at his next course of action.

As the silence lingered, the air closed in around them. The barometer fell as rapidly as the temperature. It was only a matter of minutes before a deluge. Nicole inhaled as if to speak, then sadly shook her head, dropping the hold on his arm.

Free, Kent continued walking down the alley.

Away from the body. Away from his failure.

Nicole was not done with him yet. “Still…” Her voice lingered on the air as thunder rumbled overhead. “When you lost her, you should have called for backup.”

As a heavy rain began to fall, Kent turned to Nicole, the scent of Joann’s perfume fresh in his nostrils.

For the first time tonight, he did not lie to the woman he once loved. “I know.”

CHAPTER 6

The killer charged down the stairs, two steps at a time.

Panting more from excitement than from exertion. The five-block sprint was not as much of a rush as coming that close to being caught.

Hurrying over to the sink, the killer snapped off bloody gloves, rinsed them over and over again under hot water, then balled them together and set off down another set of stairs to the furnace.

Opening the door, the killer threw the gloves into the blasting heat, then pulled off a long, blood-smeared overcoat and tossed it in as well. The fire flared brighter, burning hotter for a brief second. Just as Joann’s eyes had done before being extinguished forever.

CHAPTER 7

Kent crouched in the bushes outside the morgue’s loading dock. The building seemed squat and quite unattractive even for government work. All dull steel and rough concrete. Artistically as dead as the denizens inside. Meat packing plants had more character than this place.

At some point, someone must have realized that this building was a place where friends and family came to claim the bodies of their loved ones.

That “someone” had planted enough foliage to create an arboretum, not realizing that greenery alone could not shake the building’s despair. No matter the flowering shrubs, no happiness could come of this place.

But Kent was not here to criticize.

He was here to claim his own dead.

Perhaps everyone else could wait until Dr. McGregor rolled his ass out of bed at seven, but the profiler could not wait those four hours. He needed to know
now
.

Unlike metropolitan centers such as LA or New York, with their round-the-clock medical examiners and nearly instantaneous answers, the remainder of the country still had to make do with good-ol’-boy docs.

Doctors who turned off their pagers at midnight. If you planned on dying after the witching hour, you didn’t count on an autopsy until after McGregor had his breakfast.

Clearly the good doctor did not understand that the killer’s timetable depended on his success or defeat this night. If Plain Jane had his trophy, Kent and the police might have another four or five days, maybe a week, to stop the lunatic before he struck again. If the killer left the crime scene empty-handed, Plain Jane would be out again, maybe even tonight.

If that were the case, Kent needed to know. He needed to be on the prowl again. Trolling the city for short, quiet, and unassuming brunettes.

No one else, not even Nicole, seemed ready to act upon his urgency. Glick had made it perfectly clear when Kent came on the case that his role was solely that of an advisor. He had a better chance of bossing the janitors around than he did of ordering anyone in the department to do his bidding.

Glick had tied his hands. If he hadn’t, Kent would have awakened the medical examiner himself. This idiotic following of bureaucratic protocol could get another woman killed.

A growing fury reduced his vision to a pinpoint.

They
were to blame. Glick, Torres, Nicole.

Well…

Kent gulped, remembering his own tragic decision. Nicole had been right. When he lost track of Joann in the Rocky Horror crowd, he should have called for backup. However, Kent knew if all those cops descended on Joann to protect her, the killer would have evaporated.

Worse, had Kent shown his hand that boldly, Plain Jane might have been able to make him. How safe would the women of this city be if the killer knew the face of the man who hunted him?

And they were running out of time. If Kent were correct in his calculations, Plain Jane would only make one more kill in this city before pulling up roots, replanting months from now, miles from here.

Plain Jane had already changed MOs three times in three different cities. He was getting bolder, no longer hiding his true aim. The killings would never lessen, only grow.

Sighing, Kent knew those were all the logical reasons he had not called for backup. However, crouched behind a bush in the pouring rain, Kent could admit the real reason he had not called for help. The sole reason, which he could never share with anyone, not even Nicole, was his delusional belief that he, and only he, could keep Joann safe. He had slipped so deeply into the killer’s mind-set that his reality had warped. Tunnel vision could not even describe it.

There were he and Joann. No others. The rest of the world was but a blur, meaning nothing and contributing nothing. Joann was his and his alone. The backup police force felt so insignificant that they did not even register on Kent’s radar. Joann was his only concern.

And now he sat here in the mud, waiting for her body. Maybe breathing in her Obsession one last time might give him a sense of peace.

Refocusing, Kent stared at the morgue. It was the one and only building he needed to get into tonight, yet it was the single building he could not enter.

A two-year-old restraining order barred him from entering the morgue or even approaching within one hundred feet. Even if that were somehow lifted, the DA would never officially sanction what Kent needed to do, for fear of contaminating the chain of evidence. That, and the minor fact that Kent had no medical training.

For the span of a breath, anger welled again at Nicole. If only she had not stopped him at the crime scene. Just a few more moments in that wretched alley, and he would have known if Plain Jane had claimed his trophy.

As quickly as the anger rose, the hot burn faded. Not that Nicole wasn’t to blame, but Kent could not dwell again on the detective. He needed laser-sharp focus if he had any hope of catching the killer.

Kent could still feel the firm grip of her fingers on his arm. Damn, she had been pissed. He might even have a few bruises. But the touch that lingered most was the gentle laying of her hand upon his shoulder. Why the hell had she done that? Why had she reached out to him like she used to? He’d been perfectly content glowering at her and her partner-boy toy. Perfectly happy to secretly pine for her unattainable affection.

For months they had worked at arm’s length. Alternating between apathy and begrudging acceptance. Their relationship was right where he liked it.

Now she had to go and cover for him again. Just like the old days. Just like the old nights when he would hold her until she fell asleep, then watch her breathe in and out. He would lie motionless beside her, gaining a sense of quiet and peace, before he left their bed to go stalk another killer.

Damn, but she’d felt good in his arms. The smell of her hair. The taste of the sweat on her skin after she had worked out. His body remembered the sensation even better than his mind. And this was not the echo of some pervert’s lust when he stalked victims. This was his own desire. His own need. And that is what made it so painful. Nearly unbearable.

Kent shook his head, trying to clear Nicole from his thoughts, but simply ended up scattering rainwater from his hair. That’s why he could not allow his mind to touch upon the detective. It always led him down a path he couldn’t follow.

Gritting his teeth, Kent forced himself to stare at the morgue’s loading dock. The body should have been here by now. Did Nicole suspect his plan and have the corpse shipped to the FBI’s body shop in Kansas City instead?

His concern had been premature, as the medical examiner’s van hydroplaned into the parking lot. A spray of dirty water washed over him as the transport skidded to a stop. Kent did not even bother to wipe the grunge off. His renewed pinpoint focus would not let him. Nothing else mattered.

Joann, or what was left of Joann, had arrived.

A young morgue attendant, one who Kent did not recognize from two years ago, rushed out the thick double doors. Protecting a “Slipknot” leather choker, the slim attendant pulled his white coat over his head.

The storm’s fury had withered to a sprinkle as the driver, wearing a beat-up and stained, yet officially licensed, NASCAR jacket, got out of the van and opened the door.

“Got another one for you.”

“Man, would people stop dying or what? It’s going to be a week before we process all these stiffs.”

The driver seemed unimpressed by the younger man’s bluster. “They want a preliminary report this morning.”

“Yeah, right.”

“By 9:00 a.m.”

The wiry attendant did a double take before he answered, “Are they huffing formaldehyde?” When the driver did not respond, he continued, “I’ve got three homicides for McGregor to cut before this one.”

“They want to know if she got sliced by Plain Jane.”

“Oh man, you’re kidding!”

“Nope,” the driver said flatly. “They need to know first thing if he took his usual trophy or not.”

Kent recognized the look on the attendant’s face. His expression held a respect that almost bordered on fascination. He had felt it earlier this evening, huddled in that storefront, waiting for Joann to pass.

“Wow, this is my most favorite corpse to date.” He opened the bag and passed his finger along her slit throat.

As perverse as it sounded, Kent felt a dagger of jealousy. No one should touch Joann like that. No one.

“Don’t worry, babe. You are first on the hit parade.”

“You are one sick bastard.” With that, the driver got back into the van, leaving the attendant to wheel the body back toward the morgue.

Kent’s muscles tensed.

The long wait was forgotten.

Soon he would be with Joann.

CHAPTER 8

With the wagon gone and the kid heading inside, Kent made his move. Keeping between the stucco wall of the morgue and the thick foliage, he made sure the security cameras could only register his shoulder.

Then Kent’s luck changed for the good. The heavy-metal- loving attendant pushed two Shure noise-canceling earbuds into his ears. Kent knew because he owned three pairs of the same brand. They were the only things that kept his neighbor’s late-night amorous adventures to a reasonable level. Now Kent just needed to keep out of view of the cameras.

As the attendant keyed in the door’s security code, he began air-guitaring. With this guy’s ADD, breaking into the morgue was like stealing candy from a preemie. Timing it perfectly, Kent crept in alongside the gurney as the attendant half pulled the body behind him and half stomped to some unheard beat.

As the rich air of the rainstorm met the acrid odor of death, Kent’s nostrils clamped down. The stench of formaldehyde vied for supremacy over bitter antiseptics.

His masterful break-in almost complete, Harbinger felt his trench coat catch in the closing doors. He jerked the garment, but it was stuck. If he delayed any longer, even the head-banger was going to notice his very unauthorized presence. Trusting the kid’s iPod to mask the sound, Kent ripped the edge of his coat off.

Kent slunk forward. He had to keep the gurney between him and the camera positioned above the intake desk. Another few feet and he could take the first sharp right and be free of the attendant.

“Boy, what are you dragging in here?”

Freezing, the profiler knew that voice. O’Fallon. The world’s oldest security guard. Kent and the gaunt gentleman had locked horns before.

O’Fallon jerked the plugs from the kid’s ears. Kent had to scramble to stay out of the old man’s line of sight, which brought him dangerously close to the camera’s view.