Plain Jane (11 page)

Kent couldn’t argue with that statement even if he wanted to. If anything he had become an even more selfish bastard in the two years they had been apart. What had caring about anyone else’s feelings ever gotten him? Stuck in a psych ward, that’s what.

He could blame her for that and so much more, but he never did. There had not been a single second in those padded rooms when he cursed her name. As a matter of fact, the only time he spoke her name was when he cried it out in the middle of a dream.

No, he was not going to think about what once was or what could be. Kent was not going to go there. But damn it, how could he not think about her, when she was so close that he could smell her mouthwash?

He watched Nicole watch Rebecca. She was trying so hard to stay mad at him, but he could tell in the corner of her eye that there was the slightest hint of a crinkle. She knew he was watching her. She not only knew it, but she liked it. They might have patched things up if the cell phone had not rung to the theme of Bonanza, no less.

Nicole answered it before he could snatch it, obviously knowing that the device was not his.

“Ya. Um, Dolores, it looks like I picked up your phone by mistake.”

Ever so carefully, Kent opened his car door while Nicole was distracted. He really didn’t need to hang around for this bitching out.

Nicole’s voice drifted out of the car as he hurried across the parking lot. “I’ll swing by later and drop it off.”

He had almost made his escape, but he heard the passenger door slam shut and the sound of Nicole’s heels as she raced to catch up. Kent pushed through the door of the food court, hoping that the crowd would tone down his lashing.

Almost to the Mexican food restaurant, Nicole caught up with him. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Ordering a chimichanga, but the ‘wet’ burrito, now that sounds interesting.”

Nicole growled, “We’re supposed to be surveilling.”

“Even profilers get hungry.” Kent waited until the vein on her temple throbbed. “You’re going to draw suspicion if you don’t order.”

Nicole was livid, but she followed his gaze and noticed several people looking in their direction. “Fine.” She turned to the guy behind the counter. “Two steak tacos and an order of guacamole with sour cream on the side.”

Kent smiled. “You’re never going to get down to a hundred and four pounds that way.”

CHAPTER 40

Nicole stared as if he was a stranger. “Excuse me?”

He smirked. “Nothing.”

The more Kent ramped up the intelligence scale, the more indecipherable he became. She was about to press him, but their order was ready at the other end of the counter. Nicole grabbed her tray. “Now what?”

Again the smirk. “We eat?”

Not only did the profiler become obtuse when he was on a hyperintelligent kick, but pretty damned pleased with himself as well. But that was the Kent package. If you wanted his awesome intellect, you better be willing to suffer the inflated attitude that went with it.

By the time Nicole looked up to see where Kent wanted to sit, he was gone. She spun around to find him walking in exactly the opposite direction of Rebecca. For the third time, Nicole had to trot to catch up to the profiler.

“You are heading the wrong way.”

“Watch and learn.”

Well, Nicole watched as Kent took them nearly all the way on the other side of the food court from Rebecca.

Nicole couldn’t hold her tongue. “But our mark is way over there.”

Kent not only took them as far away from the woman as possible but intentionally picked a table at an angle facing away from the brunette. He plopped down and began eating, but Nicole stood over him.

Finally he put down his burrito. “What is the average area a person can subconsciously process?” Kent hurried on. “And I mean sights, sounds, smells, the whole ball of wax.”

The detective shrugged. “Three to five feet.”

“No, that’s personal space. I’m talking about interpersonal buffer zones.”

Nicole sat down, both hating and loving these impromptu lessons. “Ten.”

Kent nodded. “For men? Married women in familiar surroundings? Single women in a grouping of three or more? Yeah.” The profiler nodded toward Rebecca, who had sat down with her sushi across the food court. “But a single woman,
alone
? She’s scanning and processing up to twenty feet of information. With an inverse relationship between how far away the stimuli is and the importance or weight her brain gives to that stimuli.”

“That doesn’t make sense. Wouldn’t you care more about something going on closest to you?”

Kent leaned forward. “Imagine you were sitting here alone. What would creep you out more? A guy walking by like that?”

Nicole looked up. She had barely noticed the bald man making his way to a seat only a few feet away.

“Or…”

The detective knew the answer before Kent had a chance to say it. Another man, about fifteen feet behind her, was crossing just out of the periphery of her vision. She had to stop herself from looking over her shoulder just to make sure he was really gone.

“Or the guy you think you saw, but aren’t quite sure?”

How Nicole hated it when he was right. Trying to salvage some dignity, she commented, “But we can barely see Rebecca from here.”

“That’s the idea,” Kent said as he leaned back in his chair. The profiler must have sensed her frustration and continued. “To be proficient at this? You have to know how the brain works.”

Nicole sighed and rolled her eyes a little. The profiler could be a bit preachy when he wanted to be.

Kent did not miss anything and leaned back. “Okay, Miss Too-Good-to-Learn-at-the-Feet-of-the-Master. What are the priority pathways the brain uses to differentiate friend from foe?” While Nicole blushed, he cocked his head from side to side as if eagerly awaiting her explanation. “Well?”

The detective tried to shrug if off. “Fine. Go ahead.”

“Excuse me? Go ahead, what?”

Okay, this was why just about everyone else on the planet hated Kent. He couldn’t just accept victory, he had to lord it over you. “Please…Great Master. Impart your wisdom.”

With a smirk, Kent began. “The brain identifies three main factors when determining a threat. Distance. Movement. Familiarity. Let’s take the tattooed gentleman from earlier. He was at the border of your zone, which should have made him less a threat, but he was moving and you had no familiarity with him, giving him a bullet up the charts. In addition, and this is what kicks you in the ass when you first start stalking chicks, the brain knows you got an incomplete look, which sets off an alarm in your head to fill in the picture.”

Nicole nodded. She had taken several surveillance courses, and they had explained this phenomenon. But, of course, Kent helped her actually understand it.

She reflected on the class. “The unconscious part of our brain wants to chalk up everybody as friend or foe. When it can’t make that call, it turns our conscious mind to the task.”

“Exactly. That primordial portion of our brain is really no more advanced than it was back in Neanderthal land. The more foreign and fast moving a person is, the more dangerous.”

Nicole could tell where he was going with this. “So you use that knowledge to your advantage. Stay out on the periphery. Stay put.”

“Then ever so slowly move inside the perimeter,” Kent leaned in.

Nicole leaned forward as well. “Slowly enough that as you move in, you become more and more familiar.”

Leaning so closely that his nose almost touched hers, Kent whispered, “By the time you are right next to them, they don’t even notice you.”

Oh, Nicole noticed him, but that was not the point.

CHAPTER 41

Kent’s pulse was pounding in his ear as her scent filled his nostrils. Perhaps this wasn’t the best example to give her, as her pupils dilated and her breath came quicker.

Acting as if he didn’t notice the effect they had on one another, he said, “It’s called acclimation. If you do it slowly enough, they accept you. No red flags. No weird stalker-vibe.”

Nicole cleared her throat. “So how long do you think it’s going to take for us to get close to her?”

“About ten seconds.”

“What?” Nicole demanded.

Ah, how he loved to fluster her. It was almost as good as sex. Her cheeks flushed and even her lips darkened in color.

“What… What about the slow, creeping plan?”

“Oh, we don’t have time for that.” Kent savored having the detective in the palm of his hand. Savored her hanging on his every word. It was about time for another shock. “You’re going to walk over there and ask her if she’s had an abortion.”

Ah, there it was again. Nicole was so agitated that she couldn’t even form words. Yep, pretty much like sex.

“You’ll engage in small talk, then steer the conversation to abortion.”

Nicole found her voice again. “You expect me just to walk up and somehow segue into abortion?”

“You’re a chick. Chicks talk about stuff like that.”

“Kent!”

Clearly Nicole was past flustered. Time to reel her back in. Using his best scholarly voice, “Women react completely differently to a feminine presence. Especially if you can find some way to build rapport. Common ground.”

“Why are we risking scaring her off? Why not wait for a background check?”

Kent settled back into his chair. This was his wheelhouse. “Because before you’re done with that taco, Ruben is going to call to confirm that the other victims have had abortions, but he can’t find proof that Rebecca has.”

He took a sip of his drink, then continued, “You two will wring your hands about how you’re going to get information from her family and friends without them asking awkward questions that you don’t want to answer.”

Pretending to be put upon, Kent continued, “At this point I would get up and refill my soda to give you time to realize the path of least resistance is to find a way to extract the information from Rebecca herself without tipping our hand.”

Dramatically he put a hand up. “But wait, Ruben would then insist that we warn this poor girl of her possible fate. At which time I get embroiled in the argument that if she knows that she is in danger, her altered behavior could tip the killer off and make him go outside his pattern.”

Kent ramped up to real storytelling speed. “After much wrangling, we all agree to find out about the abortion, then promise Ruben that we will tell Rebecca of the danger.” His tone dropped to a conspiratorial tone. “But secretly you and I agree to keep the information from her until I can see if I can’t pick out the killer first…”

CHAPTER 42

Nicole watched as Kent took an exaggerated breath, like he had just run a marathon. The man could put on a show. But a show was all it was.

“You are good, but not that good,” Usher accused.

“Oh, but I am.”

She raised an eyebrow.

Kent transformed cockiness into an Olympic event. “Remember, I’m the one who knew Rebecca would be here.”

How glad Nicole was that the profiler had chosen that fact to prove his point. She pulled out Dolores’s phone and flamboyantly hit the “last dialed” button. Two could play at this showmanship game.

A tiny voice answered on the other end. “Parking Regulations Main Office. How can I assist you?”

Nicole disconnected the call. “So much for your psychic abilities. You just called Rebecca’s office and asked where she was eating lunch.”

Despite having his legs completely taken out from under him, Kent smiled. “That Jasmine. She was quite helpful. Turns out that Wednesday is Rebecca’s sushi day.”

Knowing she had the upper hand, Nicole relished the rare victory. “Exactly my point. You can pull this swami crap with everyone else, but I know your limitations and—”

Nicole’s cell phone rang. She looked at the caller ID

Crap.

CHAPTER 43

From the way Nicole’s smug grin fell into a deep frown, Kent knew that it was Ruben, yet she let it ring again.

“Sure you shouldn’t get that?” he asked.

Nicole’s frown spread to the creases of her eyes as she answered the phone. “Yeah. Hi, Ruben.”

Kent didn’t need to eavesdrop, he already knew what Torres was saying. As did Nicole.

“All seventeen victims and at least another ten of the missing women from Montreal and Toronto had abortions?” She tried to look away from Kent, but their eyes locked. He wasn’t about to blink until the conversation ended.

“You can’t find any proof whether or not Rebecca has had an abortion, huh?”

Kent couldn’t keep his smirk from spreading and spreading as Nicole listened and shook her head, not believing what she was hearing.

Finally, she cut her partner off. “Ruben, I get it. We’ll find out on our end.” Kent could hear the hollow sound of Torres trying to argue, but again, Nicole stepped over him. “Ruben! I’ll figure out a way to get the information from Rebecca, quickly and quietly.”

Now was the moment of truth. Nicole looked up and held Kent’s gaze as she finished the conversation. “Of course I’ll tell her the danger she’s in if she’s had an abortion.”

As Nicole ended the call, Kent brought the straw to his lips and sucked until it made that annoying sound that meant it was empty. “I admit it. I was wrong. I didn’t even get a chance to get a refill.”

“Funny, Svengali.”

Kent smiled, but they’d had their fun. Now it was time to get to work. “You better get over there before she finishes her California roll.”

Nicole rose. “So what am I going to say to her?”

“Hell if I know.”

Even from across the table, he could hear Nicole grind her molars. “Kent, you’ve proven your mental superiority a thousand times over, so now is not the time to lord over us how much better you are than we lowly cops.”

“Hey, do you want to hone your deductive powers to the point where they seem clairvoyant, or not?” Kent asked.

CHAPTER 44

Of course Nicole did want that. She did want very, very, very much to glimpse the mind of a killer. And worse, Kent knew it, so there was no point in lying.

Nicole simply nodded.

Instead of explaining himself, Harbinger handed her a food tray with chips on it. “You’re going to need these.”