The Broken (The Apostles) (7 page)

Fight? The mighty Agent Reed had obviously never run across someone like her. She fought monsters in her childhood, scrapped and scraped her way through college, and battled her way to a coveted anchor spot in broadcast news before age thirty. She may have been on the run the past two years, but that didn’t change who she was at her core.

She faked a yawn and held up her wrist, metal clanking against metal. “I’m too tired to fight tonight. Just take off the cuffs so I can go to my room and go to bed.” But only after she checked the window in the cabin loft. It was probably too small to slip through, but she had to try.

Agent Reed checked his watch then reached into his pocket and took out the key. “Actually, you will go to your room and
pack
. Tonight I’m taking you to the FBI field office in Denver. You need protection.”

“I don’t think so.” Law enforcement had already failed her twice. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m doing much better on my own. I don’t need your buddies in snappy blue suits.”

“But I need you.” He stood and pushed in his chair. “If your brother is behind these murders, you’re important to me and the U.S. government. As a material witness in a capital crime, you’ll need to testify against him. There’s no way I’m letting you run away.”

For a moment she had the urge to laugh. There was no way Hayden Reed or anyone else was going to get her in a courtroom full of people who’d stare at her, point, whisper, and turn their heads when she met their gazes straight on. It happened to her countless times since she’d been stabbed. The grotesque was fascinating.

“I’m not going to Denver,” she said matter-of-factly. Agent Reed so loved facts. “I can’t leave Smokey alone.”

“He can go with you.”

“And disrupt his life even more than I already have?” Smokey Joe had dropped into bed right after dinner, emotionally and physically exhausted. He didn’t even ask for a rain check on their nightly domino game. “If you have any ounce of compassion behind that man-of-steel persona, you will not drag him into this any more than he is.”

He stood motionless for the longest time, and she pictured the gears in his brain whirring and clicking as he weighed the facts and analyzed their options. “You care about him.” There was his non-question thing again. It drove her nuts, and so did the fact he didn’t know what he was talking about.

“This is just a job,” she insisted.

“A
job
?”

“Something to pay the bills.” She straightened the dominoes on the table and made a note to tell Smokey’s caseworker that he liked his nightly game. “So what happens with Smokey?”

“I’ll call social services and get them out here first thing in the morning.”

She shook her head. “They’ll put him in a temporary group home. He doesn’t do well in institutional settings. He flooded the last one he was in, and it wasn’t an accident. He needs one-on-one attention, someone to be with him, but not to micromanage his days.” Someone like her. But her time with Smokey was over. For now she’d resigned to go with Agent Reed to the Denver field office. She pictured that upstairs window. Unless she got a chance to run.

“Don’t worry about Smokey Joe. I’ll find him a safe place.”

“Not a group home?”

“Not a group home.”

“And you’ll make sure he ends up in a place where he’s not surrounded by buildings and cars and noise. He needs room to breathe.” Smokey had spent two years in a hole in the ground in a North Vietnamese prison camp and had an insatiable need for fresh air and wide open spaces.

“I’ll find a place with plenty of space.” She opened her mouth, but he held up a hand. “I’ll take care of everything.”

And she believed him, because Special Agent Hayden Reed was the kind of man who’d take care of Smokey and the rest of the free world.

He finally circled his hand around her wrist and turned it so the lock was faceup. “Give me his caseworker’s number, and I’ll make arrangements for tomorrow.”

“What about tonight?”

He inserted the key and turned, the cuff clicking open. “We’ll stay here.”

“We? You’re
sleeping
here?”

“No, I’m
working
here.” The cuff slipped off, but his fingers remained circled about her wrist. “I have plenty to keep me busy.”

She hopped to her feet. “But—”

“Would you prefer I set up a team of deputies from the sheriff’s department to stand guard?”

She tried to shrug off his hand, but his fingers tightened, a golden manacle that was stronger than tempered steel. Agent Efficient was enough. “Fine. Work here. If you get tired, there are pillows and blankets in the hall closet.” When he finally let go, she took off up the stairs to her loft. Footsteps sounded behind her, and she spun and glared at him. “Is this really necessary?”

He answered with a pair of raised brows. She stood in the doorway with her arms crossed as he searched under her bed, in her closet, and through her drawers. He tugged at the tiny glass window at the V of the loft.

She let loose an exasperated sigh. “You’re being ridiculous. The Butcher can’t get through that window.”

“I’m not worried about someone trying to get
in
.” Damn him. And damn those eyes. “I promise, Katrina, if you make any attempt to leave this place, I’ll cuff you to the bed.”

She wanted to swipe off the unbearably confident look on his face, but it was his world, his way. He wasn’t giving up control. He was Mr. Unflappable.

Oh yeah? She’d seen that flash in his eyes when she’d taken off her shirt in the kitchen. He was Super Agent, but he was also a man.

Kate uncrossed her arms and slipped off her overshirt. A half smile slipping onto her lips, she tossed her shirt to the ground and sunk onto the quilt covering her bed. She slid her fingers along her thighs and up her torso. Finally, she raised her hands to the brass headboard. “I’d love for you to cuff me to this bed.” She licked her lips. “Pleeeease.”

Agent Reed’s entire upper body tensed. She saw it in his shoulders, in his jaw, and in his hand as he slid his palm along his tie as if to straighten the brilliant splashes of yellow and orange scattered across the length of silk. His gaze slid from her bare feet and up her legs. An unexpected tingle coursed through her midsection as he lingered on her breasts before sliding to her wrists. A soft breath caught in his throat, and she didn’t need to be a mind reader to know he wasn’t thinking about the Butcher.

With her hands still in the bound position, she waggled her fingers at him.

He blinked and took a step back. Then he spun on his shiny Italian lace-ups and practically raced down the stairs.

Mission accomplished. She’d just shaken the unshakable Hayden Reed, and if she wasn’t so damned furious at him, she’d laugh.

*  *  *

Hayden sat on the couch and waited for exhaustion to roll over him like a bulldozer, because between Tucson and the latest Butcher slaying, he must be suffering the effects of serious sleep deprivation. That’s the only explanation for his reaction to Katrina as she begged him to handcuff her to the bed. If he’d been sharper, he wouldn’t have been struck speechless. Granted, he still would have noticed the swells of her breasts, the tumbled curls of her hair, and curvy hips straining against her low-riding jeans. And appreciated it all. Any man with eyes would have. But he was the lead investigator in the hunt for the Butcher. She was a victim and a witness, and, as his teammate Hatch would say, never the twain shall meet.

He unbuttoned his cuffs and snapped back the fabric. Time to get his head off Katrina and onto the Butcher. He picked up his phone and punched in a number.

“Shouldn’t you be in bed, or do pretty boys like you not need beauty sleep?” Lottie’s throaty voice cackled on the other end. “But I’m glad you called, Reed, ’cause I got something that’s going to knock you on your ass.”

Like sassy Katrina stretched out on a bed and inviting him to join her? He blinked away the vision, and focused on Sergeant King. “Shoot.”

“Got us a witness,” Lottie said with a note of triumph.

“What?” Witnesses had been nonexistent at all the other crime scenes, but then again, Shayna Thomas’s murder wasn’t like the others. He pictured those unbroken mirrors.

“You heard right, a witness. A fourteen-year-old kid who lives across the street saw someone on Thomas’s front porch the night she died, and I don’t think he’s shitting us. The kid snuck out of his house through his second-story bedroom window to go meet his thirteen-year-old girlfriend. He swaps spit for a while and comes home around ten fifteen. He climbs the trellis and shimmies in through the window. After he gets inside, he turns to shut the pane and sees someone on the porch across the street. Light’s on so the kid gets a pretty good look at her.”

Hayden almost dropped the phone. “Her?”

“Thought you’d pick up on that one. Yep. The witness swears that Shayna Thomas opened her door and let a woman into her house. Looked like a granny. Gray shoulder-length hair. Shapeless pink dress with flowers. He never saw a face and could only describe her build as average, not fat, not thin.”

Hayden blinked, trying to process this information. “A woman. Are you sure?”

“The kid was serious, and he was putting his ass on the line, admitting he’d snuck out.”

When Hayden hung up the phone, he slid a finger along the sharp crease of his pants.

Most serial killers were men, yet the young boy across the street swore he saw a woman. It’s possible the unsub could have entered the house in drag. Women like Shayna Thomas would be much more inclined to open the door to a woman than to a man. Or it’s possible the killer could have a female accomplice. Most serial killers worked alone. They were social deviants and craved singular power. However, he’d studied a few cases of partner serial killings, and in those cases, there was clearly a dominant/subservient dynamic. It’s possible the woman in the pink dress could gain them entry, and the Butcher would perpetuate the criminal act.

Was he looking for two people? Like Jason Erickson and his missing mother? It would explain the contradictory signals, the raging number of stab wounds but the folded, peaceful hands, the broken mirrors but the spotless crime scenes.

Had he been wrong? Searching all this time for a single offender when he should have been hunting for two?

Chapter Five

Thursday, June 11, 9 a.m.
Tucson, Arizona

Y
ou’ve done gone and brung me to hell.”

“The locals call it Tucson,” Hayden said as he took the duffel from Smokey Joe’s hand and put it in the trunk of his SUV, which was parked in long-term parking at the Tucson airport.

“How hot is it?” Smokey wiped at the sweat beaded on his forehead.

“About 110 degrees. But it’s a dry heat.” Hayden shut the trunk and walked to the passenger side, where Kate reached for the rear door. He grabbed her wrist. She jumped, her pulse spiking beneath his fingertips. Quickly, he dropped her hand, refusing to contemplate at length the spike in his own pulse. “The handle,” he said. “It’s hot.” He took a handkerchief out of his pocket, lined his hand, and opened her door. “Give it a minute. I’ll get the AC going.”

She hugged her bag to her chest and looked the other way.

She’d given him the silent treatment all morning. He figured part of the reason was that she was still mad at him for putting her in protective custody. The other part: she hated being out in the open. The moment they turned onto the highway, she popped on her sunglasses and ducked lower in the seat, a clear reminder that she was a victim and that her sexual come-on last night was designed only to get a rise out of him because, right now in her mind, he was one of the bad guys.

“You’ve spent some time in hell?” Smokey asked as Hayden cranked the engine and air conditioner.

“Some.”

Smokey turned to Kate, who was climbing into the backseat. “Did you know about this, Kate? You know G-man here was going to leave me in a furnace?”

“He told me he was going to bring you someplace safe.”

Early this morning he’d talked with Smokey Joe’s caseworker and an advocate at the veterans hospital, and both agreed with Katrina that Smokey did not do well in group situations. After exhausting a number of alternatives, Hayden made arrangements with Maeve, his mother-in-law, to house Smokey Joe as a guest for the next few days. Smokey would be safe and out of the way, and, frankly, after the accident, Maeve could use the company. Hardly a conventional move, but Parker’s team was known for its unconventional approaches.

He’d explained to Kate that Maeve was a close family friend who lived in the desert outside of Tucson and had cared years for her husband, who suffered from Alzheimer’s. “She knows how to handle people with special needs,” he’d assured Kate. “And there’s plenty of open space and not many people. He’ll be safe.” Kate reluctantly agreed only when the caseworker told her that the only other option right now was a group home.

With Smokey Joe sulking in the front seat and Kate stone-faced and staring out the window in the backseat, he guided the SUV away from the airport and into the foothills of the Catalina Mountains. They followed the road through scrappy desert and heat waves to a sun-baked adobe house with a hummingbird garden out front.

When his mother-in-law opened the door, she hugged Hayden and smiled at Kate and Smokey Joe. “I’m glad you’re here, Mr. Bernard,” Maeve said. “Please come in.”

Smokey didn’t budge, and Katrina grabbed his elbow and dragged him into the entryway.

Maeve led them to a sunroom. “Can I get you some coffee, Mr. Bernard? Or how about a lemon muffin or fresh strawberries?”

Smokey crossed his arms over his chest and scowled like a two-year-old. Kate, who took a seat in a wicker chair near a large potted palm, looked like she wanted to give him a swat.

Maeve poured a cup of coffee and handed it to Hayden. “How was your flight, Kate? I’d ask Hayden, but I’m sure he spent the whole time working.”

“Uh…fine,” she said, sinking further into the shade of the palm. Hayden knew being out in public today would be difficult for loner Kate, but Maeve was good with difficult situations and people. Hayden studied his mother-in-law, noting she looked tired this morning, her face thin and waxen behind her carefully applied makeup. Unlike Kate, his mother-in-law wasn’t good at being alone.