The Broken (The Apostles) (5 page)

“Is he down?” Smokey asked.

“Down.” And possibly dead. Kate steadied her hands on the hood of Smokey’s car.

She should have run. She should never have involved Smokey in something this dangerous. They’d spent the past twenty-four hours at target practice and “safeguarding” Smokey’s house with security sensors and booby traps. What had she been thinking?

“Okay, time to git.” Smokey fumbled for the door handle of his car, which sat on the mountain road that snaked above the cabin.

Kate didn’t move, her gaze glued to the tongues of flame wicking a corner of the shed below. “The shed’s on fire, it might spread.” And kill the man if he wasn’t already dead.

The rainless spring left the ground cover dry and brittle, prime tinder for the sparks popping off the shed. She couldn’t leave that man down there with the fire. She was already responsible for the deaths of six women. “Stay here, Smokey. I’m going down to make sure he’s okay and put out the fire.”

She scrambled down the side of the mountain, gravity yanking her along pin-sharp needles and rocks. Her feet landed with a knee-jarring thud. A grumble sounded above her along with footsteps. She looked up and cried out, “Stay put, Smokey! You can’t—”

Too late. Smokey was tumbling down the mountain in a cloud of silky dust and twigs. He landed at her feet, stood, and jammed a finger in her face. “Ain’t no one gonna tell me what I can and can’t do.” He shifted the waistband of his baggy trousers. “You git the man, and I’ll git the fire.”

Kate wanted to tackle Smokey Joe and tie him to a pine tree, but she and the pine tree would most likely suffer injury in the process. Plus they didn’t have time. The flames now licked at the shake roof of the shed. “The hose is ten paces forward, five left,” she said. “Shed will be to your right. Aim at two o’clock.”

She rushed to the man on the ground. He was deathly still except for the shallow rise of his chest and the line of crimson trickling from the side of his head. A red spark popped off the shed and landed next to his shiny Italian leather lace-up. She crushed the ember with her palm and jammed her hands beneath his wide shoulders, the jacket weave fine and smooth against her trembling fingers.

“Okay Mr. FBI Agent in the really nice suit, let’s go.” She rolled him over and dragged. His body slid easily along the dry needles, a steady trail of red snaking in his wake. When she got him next to the cabin, she yanked off her overshirt and slid it beneath his head. His breathing was shallow, his skin was chalky, and the blood continued to trickle. Carefully poking through his matted hair, she gasped when she spotted the inch-long gash.

He needed medical help ASAP. Reaching inside his suit coat pocket for a cell phone, she found a wallet. A spasm rocked her hand as it fell open, displaying a shiny badge. Hayden Reed was legit FBI. She continued to root through his jacket pockets and found a pen, a pair of handcuffs, and a small cinnamon candy. The candy was shiny red, the same color as the large circle of scarlet soaking her shirt beneath his head. She dug into his pants pockets. Keys. A tricked out utility knife. Another piece of candy. “Where’s your damn phone?”

“You talking to me, Katy-lady?” Smokey Joe asked. He stood next to the shed, aiming the hose at the now smoldering wooden doors. Good. One crisis averted. One more to go.

“No, I’m talking to our guest, who I’m trying to keep from dying in your backyard.” She reached into his back pants pocket, her fingers finally clamping around a phone. She aimed for the number nine when a hand snaked out and grabbed her wrist.

Before she could scream, Agent Hayden Reed shifted from under her and pinned her to the ground. His hands clamped down on her arms. His legs were leaden weights on her lower body. She was paralyzed. For the first time in two and a half years, she couldn’t run.

A wave of fierce heat shot through her veins. But she could fight. She squared her shoulders, tensed her neck, and slammed her forehead into his stunned mouth.

*  *  *

“Come on, Katy-lady, jist squeeze and squirt.”

Kate looked at the gaping wound on the back of Agent Hayden Reed’s head and at the bottle of Super Glue Smokey Joe handed to her. They sat in the cabin’s kitchen, Smokey perched on the edge of one chair, his eyes bright, Agent Reed in the other, his face expressionless.

Sweat slicked her hands, and she almost dropped the glue. “Smokey, are you sure this stuff is safe for cuts?”

“Do it,” Agent Reed said with a quiet so loud she took a step back. “Now.”

Her fingers tightened around the glue. At age sixteen, she left home for good and swore no one would ever talk to her in that tone of voice again. She opened her mouth but snapped it shut. She didn’t need to be slapped with another count of assault and battery on a federal agent. She just needed to get Special Agent Hayden Reed patched up. Then she could run and get her Broadcaster Butcher business taken care of.

She tugged a curl of hair over the right side of her face and bent over Agent Reed’s head. He didn’t flinch as she squirted a stream of glue along the gash and pressed together the two pieces of flesh. Nor did he wince when she dabbed a warm washcloth at the small cut on his lip, compliments of her forehead. He’d taken off his suit coat and wore a soft, creamy shirt of Egyptian cotton. He smelled of laundry starch and cinnamon.

And blood. She smelled his blood.

She grabbed the crimson-soaked cloths on the table and tossed them in the sink. Then she picked up the glue and ground on the lid. Through it all, Agent Reed sat stone still. How could someone so silent say so much?

At last she turned toward him, her throat dry and tight. She didn’t believe in coincidences. An armed FBI agent had landed on her doorstep twenty-four hours after another Butcher slaying, this one less than three hundred miles from her home. “What do you want?”

“Katrina Erickson.”

Her legs gave way, and she backed into the counter in an effort to keep herself upright.

He didn’t say anything but continued to look at her with that rock-hard expression. No, there was something beyond the cold stone, something hot and molten burning in the steel gray of his eyes.

Her fingers tightened on the counter’s edge. Was this a man she could trust? Hell, would he even believe her? That had been the problem before. “And when you find her, this Katrina Erickson, what will you do?”

“Talk to her.” His lips barely moved.

“About what?”

“About the man who attacked her three years ago.”

The kitchen was cool, but sweat coated her palms. “What if she says she saw nothing, that the attacker was wearing a mask and dark bulky clothes?”

“I’ll ask her to try to remember anything.” For the first time since he took a seat in Smokey’s kitchen chair, Agent Hayden Reed shifted his body. He leaned toward her, resting his elbows on his knees and holding out his hands as if to catch something. “I’ll take anything, the color of his eyes behind the mask, the brand of his shoes, the sound of his voice, the way he smelled.” His voice softened, a low but steady rumble. “Anything, Katrina, I’ll take anything.” The rawness shocked her. This man wanted the Butcher desperately, enough to bare his soul.

She dug her teeth into her bottom lip. “And when you get this information, what will you do?”

His outstretched hands curled into fists. “Hunt him down.”

Kate could see this imposing, commanding man tracking down the evil that attacked her and killed six others. And she realized then that this FBI man in the fancy suit, great shoes, and crazy cinnamon scent would serve her purpose. She pried her fingers off the edge of the counter and picked up a pad of paper and a pen from the
LOST
MY
ASS
IN
LAS
VEGAS
candy dish.

“Let’s save us both a lot of time and energy,” she said. She scribbled two lines, tore out the page, and tossed it on the table. “Here you go. The name and address of the man who attacked me. Now get the hell out of my life.”

Chapter Four

Wednesday, June 10, 11:31 a.m.
Mancos, Colorado

W
ho in the Sam Hill is Katrina Erickson?”

Hayden didn’t answer Smokey Joe, nor did the woman standing in front of him, her face bone-white except for the tiny slash of raised skin near her right eye.

A tremor rocked his hand as his fingertips traced the spiky series of letters and numbers on the paper Katrina Erickson had thrown on the table. He recognized the name and the address. He’d met the man, had interviewed him, could call a colleague and have this guy collared in the next fifteen minutes. He pictured six sets of bloodied, folded hands. Was this the beginning of an end? Or was a woman who would do anything to get back on the run manipulating him?

Hayden placed the paper on the table and flattened it with his palm. “You’re telling me the man who stabbed you is Jason Erickson, your brother?”

“Yes.” The word trembled on her lips.

“You’re sure?”

“Yes,” she said with more force.

His leg muscles tensed. He had to go slow, be thorough, follow the steps. He’d acted rashly only once in his life, although, in the end, that had served him well. “How do you know for certain your brother attacked you? You told police your attacker wore a mask and dark, bulky clothing.”

Katrina picked up a dishtowel and scrubbed at the spotless counter. “I recognized his scar,” she told the counter. “Three inches long with a jag at the right wrist. It showed above his glove as he stabbed me.”

Hayden had seen that scar on the day he visited Jason Erickson at his workplace in Dorado Bay, Nevada. Time to establish Katrina’s physical reaction to truth. Or lack of it. “How did he get the scar?”

“I gave it to him.” No hesitation.

A truth teller. Good. Next step. “Why?”

The heel of her hand ground into the wadded dishtowel. “I hate him.”

Another truth. In his careful study of Katrina Erickson, Hayden learned she was estranged from her family. Was she now unjustly fingering her brother because of the family rift? Go slow. Dig deeper. “How do I know you’re not lying?”

“Kate Johnson don’t tell no lies.” The old man with the cloudy eyes had been still during the exchange, but now he jumped up, knocking over the kitchen chair. Smokey Joe lunged toward him but tangled his feet in the overturned chair rung.

Kate dropped the dishtowel and ran to Smokey Joe’s side, grabbing him before he hit the floor. Then she righted the chair and helped him to sit.

Smokey Joe stabbed a finger at him. “You hear me, G-man?” A tremor grabbed his hand and shook it, the bones rattling in the quiet kitchen. “She. Don’t. Lie!”

Katrina’s gaze fell to the ground, but not before Hayden read her face. It was a face he’d studied for hundreds of hours, one he saw when he lay in bed and didn’t sleep. But her eyes were greener today and warmer, like the leaf color of a palo verde tree, and there was an odd sheen to them. That dampness looked as out of place as water puddles in the desert. She cared for Smokey Joe, which would work to his advantage.

“But she has lied, Smokey Joe. To you.” Hayden paused just long enough to watch Katrina swallow. “Ask the woman who’s been living with you for six months what her real name is.”

Katrina’s fingers wrapped around the back of Smokey’s chair, her knuckles whitening.

“What’s this pup yapping about, Kate? Why would G-man here call you a liar?”

“She’d lie to get away from here,” Hayden went on. There was a time to go slow and a time to push. A brutal killer was on the loose, one who wasn’t going to wait a full month between murders because he needed to complete the job. He needed to break all the mirrors. “She wants me gone, so she can run. Come on,
Katrina
, tell him. Tell your friend why you’re on the run and who you really are.” He paused again, another chance to let the power of his unspoken words thunder through her head. “Or I will.”

Her gaze snapped to him, and despite the distance, he felt her burning anger. Taking a breath, she straightened her spine and squared her shoulders. He’d seen the move often, just before she began her “Justice for All” reports.

“My name is Katrina Erickson. Three years ago a man named Jason Erickson, my brother, attacked me in my home in Reno, Nevada. He stabbed me twenty-four times and left me to die. And I would have, except someone called nine-one-one. I got to the hospital and underwent surgery.” She kept her voice smooth and modulated, as if reading from a teleprompter. This was the reporter, not the victim. “Two hours after the surgery, Jason came to me in the hospital. My head was covered in bandages so I couldn’t see him, but I
felt
his dark, angry presence. And I heard him. He whispered in my ear that there’d been a terrible mistake, that I was supposed to die and that next time he’d do it right. I was intubated and half loopy with pain meds, but I remember him holding my hand, his hot breath against my ear.”

The lines on Smokey Joe’s face doubled as he leaned toward her voice.

“A few days later, when the doctor removed the tube from my throat, I told the lead detective that my brother, Jason, was my attacker, and that he’d been in my room. The detective said no one had entered my room other than medical personnel and that he had had an officer at the door the whole time. The doctor and nurses agreed, adding that the narcotics I was given for pain had most likely caused hallucinations. So the detective, who followed up with Jason just enough to discover we weren’t on the best of terms, didn’t even mention my brother in his formal report.”

Something warm and prickly traveled up the back of Hayden’s neck. The evidence and facts of the case
could
support Katrina’s version of the attack. She and her brother had a violent history. But more than that, Hayden believed her. This story, told with details and clarity and a detachment that spoke volumes about pain and terror, wasn’t told to entertain or obfuscate. She was telling the truth, the truth as seen through her eyes. He rubbed the skin along the back of his neck. The problem was, he’d heard a different truth from her brother, a truth that had been equally compelling. When Hayden interviewed Jason Erickson five months ago, he looked Katrina’s brother in the eye as the younger man professed absolutely no insider knowledge of the Broadcaster Butcher slayings or of his sister’s current whereabouts. Jason had been an open book, the reading easy. Nothing about Katrina’s brother had set his internal radar blipping. And he was rarely wrong.