Plain Jane (25 page)

You could almost hear his mind whirling at faster-than-light speeds toward an obscure conclusion. Like looking through an exotic spice importer’s sales records to find a cannibal. Or after taking a look at the type of makeup and how it was applied postmortem to a corpse, sending the cops out to pick up a Ferris wheel operator. It was a freakish talent, but a brilliant one.

“Unless…” Instead of finishing the sentence, he kicked at the base of the scaffolding. “Damn it! I can taste his pain. The confusion. The
desire
, but not the
man
.”

While she should have been crushed that Kent hadn’t solved it, Nicole instead brightened. Something the profiler had said.

Not the man.

“What if it isn’t a man?” Nicole asked before she thought, going purely on gut instinct.

“What do you mean?”

Nicole didn’t really know. She let her intuition guide her. “A boy. A transvestite. A transgender. Wouldn’t that contaminate the profile?”

Pacing, Kent pondered out loud. “It could… But then we should pick up intense emasculation. Suppressed rage at his gender…” finally the profiler shook his head.

“There’s none.” Kent pointed to the huge uterus.

“There’s just this.”

CHAPTER 100

Kent stared up at the grotesque perversion of motherhood. It was demented. It was sick. It was pathological. But…

But in an extremely perverted way, it was beautiful.

Somehow he had to bridge the psyche of a person who could kill dozens upon dozens of women, then spend hours upon hours stitching together an organ of life.

The two extremes didn’t seem like they could coexist in a single person.

Even before finding this mountain of flesh, Kent had considered the possibility of an extreme schizophrenic, a true split personality, though he had abandoned such thoughts. Maybe he had best reconsider.

This guy refused to be categorized. This psycho seemed conflicted, but the crimes were too consistent. Too thorough. The right hand definitely knew what in the hell the left hand was doing.

He’d also considered and thrown out the theory that Plain Jane was actually a two-man team with one member in the shadows. A true submissive, his personality so folded into the dominant partner’s that he was nearly invisible. But not quite. There was always some clue. Some ripple in the water as he glided through the killing. Kent had found none. He had been convinced he was dealing with a single, cohesive personality.

But standing before this terrible, ultimate womb, Kent wasn’t so sure anymore.

“What if it’s not a
man
?” Nicole asked, again.

Earlier Nicole had impressed him. She had shown insight, pushing him further, demanding him to think outside the box. Now? Why was she double-dipping? “Um… Refer back to my previous comments.”

But Nicole shook her head. “No. I mean
not
male.” Kent’s frown seemed to speed her words. “Look at the victims. All feminine. Look at this…”

She pointed to the enormous uterus. “A monument to femininity.” Kent’s eyebrow shot up as Nicole smiled. “A monument in
her
mind.”

She looked at him as if for praise, but Kent was too busy to offer positive reinforcement. It was as if his mind had been given an electroshock. Everything he thought he had known about the killer. A blur. He could trust none of his previous conclusions.

“Wouldn’t this all fit if it’s a woman?” Nicole asked.

Kent knew she wanted him to speak. To acknowledge or shoot down her theory, but his brain only had so much RAM, and it was devoted to resifting through each and every piece of evidence in light of this new theory.

CHAPTER 101

Nicole shifted nervously as Kent stared straight ahead. She felt awkward continuing without input from the profiler, but she didn’t know what else to do. “I know female serial killers only represent twelve percent of—”

“More like seventeen, because they are far more secretive about their actions,” Kent announced bluntly.

“And I know stabbing is the least likely MO—”

The profiler overrode her. “Actually drowning only accounts for six percent—”

Frustrated, Nicole cut
him
off. “Look, I may not know the stats cold, but think of it. Think—”

“No,” Kent stated flatly.

Like a child who had finally figured out two plus two equaled four only to get slapped in the face for suggesting such an answer, Nicole snapped, “Damn it, Kent, you need—”

The profiler put a hand on her arm. His tone was suddenly much warmer. “No, I’m not arguing that we’re after a woman, I’m trying to get you to shut up long enough so I can figure out which one did this.”

Feeling incredibly foolish, Nicole answered, “Oh…”

Kent was back in action, pacing, chewing his lip, having an entire conversation unto himself.

“Okay, women kill for very different reasons. She’s not taking these uteri to punish the women, she’s helping them. Taking on their guilt.” Speeding up, the profiler was an analytical machine. “She has a job that covers the city, access to public records.”

Nicole just watched him, remembering why she’d fallen in love with him in the first place. His face shown with a light not of this world. It was almost as if he was channeling an energy that normal humans couldn’t stand to touch without getting burned.

“Given her choice of victims, she must be physically close to their height, weight, and hair color.”

The profiler stopped pacing and turned to Nicole.

A slight smile spreading across his face.

“Oh my… We’ve met her, it’s—”

CHAPTER 102

Kent watched in horrible slow motion as a metal garrote slipped over Nicole’s neck and jerked her backward. The detective’s gun flew from her hand and clattered on the stone floor as she flailed. Finally she calmed as the garrote loosened ever so slightly.

“It’s Rebecca,” Kent finished.

The brunette meter maid poked her head around Nicole. “Surprised?”

Kent was not. “You’ve been logging license numbers from around abortion clinics for years. Then you faked your own pregnancy test to throw us off.”

Rebecca smiled. “Okay, maybe you’re
not
that surprised. But imagine
my
surprise when a cop came over and sat next to me in the food court.”

Nicole choked as the brunette tightened the garrote.

“Let her go,” Kent demanded.

“Oh, I thought you wanted me to take Nicole as my next hostage?”

It physically hurt Kent’s own neck as the detective struggled to breathe. “Only so that I got to be the one to shoot you, bitch.”

“Now, now,” Rebecca said as she slowly backed Nicole to the staircase that led to the top of the scaffolding.

Kent had to find a way to stop her and stop her fast. She was ready to kill. He had seen it in dozens of suspects. There was no fear. No hesitation.

“It’s over,” he said, but it didn’t even sound true to him.

Step by step Rebecca dragged the detective up the stairs. Up the steps to certain death. Kent bent down and picked up Nicole’s fallen gun. There was no way to cap the psycho bitch without endangering Nicole.

Rebecca leaned into the detective’s ear, speaking loud enough for Kent to hear. “I thought it was over when you started talking to me about regret after abortion.” The meter maid chuckled. “I nearly choked on my rice. Then I realized you did not have a clue who I was.” She tightened the garrote. “Then you told me you’d had one, too.”

Still looking for his shot, Kent responded, “She didn’t have an abortion, you idiot.”

The brunette acted as if she hadn’t even heard him. “It was in that moment that I knew.”

Kent aimed and reaimed, but no shot. “She was just drawing you out.”

Rebecca spoke almost lovingly to Nicole, “I knew it was you that I needed for my grand finale. It would be you to help transport me from this world into the next.”

Kent sneered. “You’ve made your first and last mistake, Rebecca. Nicole’s never had an abortion.”

She tightened the garrote, forcing Nicole to choke and gasp. “Tell him. Tell him the truth, or I swear I’ll kill you here and now.”

Rebecca loosened her grip, but Nicole didn’t answer. She wouldn’t even look the profiler in the eye.

“Nicole?” Kent asked. Why wasn’t she arguing with the crazed meter maid?

“Tell him what he forced you to do,” Rebecca’s anger grew. “Tell him!”

Nicole took several gulps before answering. “I found out after you committed yourself to the hospital.”

Kent took a step back. It wasn’t true. It just wasn’t. “She’s just saying what you want to hear.”

Rebecca pinched off Nicole’s windpipe. “Convince him you are telling the truth, or die.”

He didn’t even let Nicole start. “We used protection.” His tone became less certain as he looked into her eyes. “There’s no way.”

Nicole’s tone was soft, as if it were only the two of them in the room. “Except for the time on the beach. We didn’t have a condom with us, remember?”

“But you said…” Kent’s breath was coming too fast. It was too hard to concentrate. Too hard to remember. “You said you were on the pill.”

CHAPTER 103

Nicole tried to turn away. She couldn’t stand to see Kent’s reaction, but Rebecca forced her face forward.

“I forgot…” Her voice gave out.

The meter maid hissed in her ear. “Tell him.”

“I forgot to take the pill. Then…forgot to bring the case with me…”

Tears welled. She had been so stupid. So enthralled that she and Kent were actually going away together that all else seemed unimportant.

“We were supposed to come home Saturday night…” Nicole made the mistake of glancing down.

The look of horror on Kent’s face was a thousand times worse than when he studied the uterus made up of dead women’s internal organs.

She had to look away. “We… We didn’t come home until Monday…”

How happy she had been. Kent had actually suggested they stay the entire weekend at the bed and breakfast. Screw his deadline for a journal article in the
The American Journal of Psychiatry
, she was more important.
They
were more important.

At the time, Nicole had thought that life couldn’t get much better. Then, of course, reality hit. Kent was arrested for theft and then for a real dose of reality, cannibalism. In a whirlwind of events, Nicole lost her man, her job, and her sense of hope. Somehow the profiler had avoided jail time, then voluntarily admitted himself into a psych hospital. That was right about the time morning sickness hit.

“Well?” Rebecca asked Kent, drawing Nicole’s thoughts back to the even-worse situation they were in now.

Kent looked up, but didn’t speak. He didn’t have to. From his tortured look, he believed her. That much was clear. She had convinced him of the truth.

A truth she had hidden from all. No one knew. Not her co-workers. Not her mother. Most of the time, not even Nicole herself. She had almost successfully erased the abortion from her mind. Her own version of “purposefully forgetting” that she’d ever lain on that awful table with those awful metal stirrups.

Rebecca seemed gleeful. “See? Women know, they always know.”

Kent’s eyes brimmed with tears. A sight Nicole never thought she would see. “Why?” It was nearly a whisper. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

It was no longer the garrote that closed off Nicole’s throat, just her welling emotions. Her own desire to never speak these words.

“You
left
me.”

CHAPTER 104

How could things have gotten this fucked-up?

Kent hurt as he had never hurt before. To think. A child. A family. How could he have been so close to that ideal and not even known it?

“You
abandoned
her,” Rebecca corrected Nicole.

Kent’s head snapped up. He and Nicole might have some issues to work out, but this bitch? He was pretty much done with her.

“No, I didn’t,” he stated flatly.

“Yes, you did. Look at her. Look at her face. Look what hell you put her through,” Rebecca demanded, then tightened the garrote. Nicole didn’t even struggle this time.

“Tell her how sorry you are.”

“No.”

The meter maid began truly choking Nicole. “Tell her how you inflicted wounds that will never heal!”

“I can’t,” Kent said as Rebecca nearly pulled Nicole off her feet. “I can’t because I didn’t
abandon
her.”

“Kent…” Nicole could barely get the words out. “Please, be honest for once.”

Unflinching, he looked into his lover’s eyes. All else fell away. He had nothing else to offer but the truth. Not his version of the truth or a spin on the truth, but the truth. “I made a deal.”

Confused, Rebecca’s grip slipped, letting Nicole breathe. “A deal?”

Kent spoke only to Nicole. “With Glick.” How long had he wanted to tell her? How long had he wanted to scream it at her? How long had he wanted to tell her of the sacrifice he had made for her?

“I’d willingly commit myself, and they’d…”

The meter maid became agitated at the notion a man might actually rise above his selfish nature. “Liar!”

“If I went into the hospital without protest he would remove all reprimands from your jacket related to your assisting me…”

Tears burned hot in his eyes as he watched Nicole’s own tears streak her face. He could see she still couldn’t quite believe what she was hearing. “If I went, Glick promised to give you back your badge and your gun.”

It had seemed like the right thing to do by Nicole. He’d fucked her career up beyond repair. He’d taken her livelihood away from her. And for hell’s sake he’d eaten a serial killer’s brain. Institutionalization seemed like a pretty damn good idea at the time, but…

“Had I known,” Kent found it hard to speak, “I would have made a different decision.”

For the first time ever, he spoke the words he needed to say out loud. “I’m sorry, Nic. I really am.”

Did he see forgiveness in Nicole’s eyes? He wouldn’t know, because Rebecca snapped out of her shock and dragged the detective up to the catwalk.

“How very touching. Too bad it doesn’t change the outcome. She and I are the same.”