The Broken (The Apostles) (2 page)

Hayden noticed the tone. It happened often at the mention of Parker’s Special Criminal Investigative Unit, a small group of FBI specialists known for working outside the box and, according to some, outside the law. Some media pundit nicknamed them the Apostles. Like Parker, Hayden didn’t care about names, only justice. “Yes.”

“Heard you boys play by a different set of rules.”

He clasped his hands behind his back. “We don’t play.”

Her jaw squared in a challenge as she jutted her chin toward the shattered mirror in the hallway. “So tell me, Agent I-Don’t-Play, what’s your take?”

Shayna Thomas had been found dead in her bedroom four hours ago. Multiple stab wounds. No signs of sexual trauma. Shattered mirrors. All the earmarks of another Broadcaster Butcher slaying. Hayden pointed to a spot three feet down the hall. “The unsub stood there. One strike. Used a long-handled, blunt instrument he brought with him. Carefully positioned his body out of the glass trajectory. You’ll find no blood near this or any of the other broken mirrors. You’ll also find no footprints, no fingerprints, no trace, and no witnesses.” The other Butcher crime scenes had been freakishly void of evidence.

The sergeant locked him in a stare down. He studied the wide, steady stance of those high heels, the indignant puff of her chest, and the single corkscrew of hair that stuck out above her right ear.

“And your take, Sergeant King?”

The police sergeant’s nostrils flared. “I think we got us one fucked-up son of a bitch, and I can’t wait to nail his ass to the splintered seat of a cold, dark cell where he’ll never see the light of day.”

Early in his law enforcement career, he’d learned there were two kinds of people behind the shield: those seeking personal gain—a paycheck, ego strokes, power—and those seeking justice. Like him, the woman in the red shoes was one of the latter. Hayden unclasped his hands. “And I can’t wait to hand you a hammer.”

A smile wrinkled the corner of her eyes, and he saw what he needed: respect.

“Damn glad you’re here, Agent Reed.”

“For the record, Sergeant King, I hear you aren’t much of a slouch, either.”

“Ahh, a pretty face
and
a smooth talker. I think I might be able to work with you.” The smile in her eyes dimmed as she motioned him to follow her down the hall.

“Timeline?” Hayden asked.

“A man out walking his dog hears breaking glass as he passes Thomas’s house. He calls the station at 10:32. Beat officer arrives at 10:37. He makes repeated shout-outs, but no one responds. He looks through the front window, sees the broken mirror, and calls for backup. When the second uniform arrives, they enter and discover the victim in the master bedroom.”

“Positive ID?”

“Confirmed. Shayna Thomas. Homeowner.”

“Current status?”

“Crime Scene Division’s still processing.” Sergeant King’s red shoes drew to a halt. “This is one mother of a scene.”

“Blood.” Hayden didn’t frame the single word as a question. They’d found excessive amounts of blood at the other Butcher crime scenes, five since January.

“It’s the fucking Red Sea in there. You better watch those shiny shoes of yours.” Lottie pointed to the door in front of them. “I’m warning you. It ain’t pretty.”

Wrongful death never was.

Inside the bedroom, blood peppered four walls, striped the white down comforter, and clung to the fan centered on the ceiling. The victim lay on the ground in front of a dresser. Blood soaked her T-shirt and jogging shorts and matted her hair. She was a brunette, slim, probably attractive. Hard to tell. Lacerations decussated her face, arms, neck, and abdomen, but as he expected, the V at her legs was blood and injury-free.

He saved the hands for last. He always did. It was hard to think clearly after seeing them, hard to stop being the dispassionate evaluator. Drawing air into his tightening lungs, he turned to Shayna Thomas’s bloody hands. They rested on her breasts, fingers intertwined as if in prayer, a gesture of peace amidst the chaos of murder.

For a moment he lowered his eyelids and calmed the rage that simmered in a place he refused to acknowledge.

Those bloody hands beckoned him, pulled him in, and wouldn’t let go. His boss, Parker Lord, was wrong. Hayden needed to be here.

*  *  *

Tuesday, June 9, 2:23 a.m.
Mancos, Colorado

Run. Fast and far.

Kate’s hands shook worse than Smokey Joe’s as she yanked the saddlebags out of the closet and slammed them on her bed. From the bureau, she hauled out the few things she called her own: underwear, scarves, T-shirts, chambray overshirts, jeans, and her leathers. She jammed all but the leathers into the bags and threw in her brown contacts and hair dye. Meager belongings compared to her on-air days, a time when she wore a different face. A face not yet hacked by a madman. A madman who hadn’t stopped after the butcher job on her.

The wooden floor creaked behind her. She dropped her leathers and spun. Something shifted in the shadow of the doorway. She reached for the ceramic lamp on the nightstand then set it down when Smokey stepped out of the darkness.

He cleared his throat with a rough cough. “You taking off?”

Her hand dropped to her side, and she tried not to look into his sightless eyes, eyes filled with confusion and something else.
Oh God, please don’t let him look at me like that.
“Yes.” What more could she say?
I’m sorry for disappointing you. I’m sorry for leaving because there’s a madman roaming the country who vowed to kill me and who has since murdered six other women.

She yanked the saddlebag zippers closed. How stupid to think she could stop running, stupid to stay in one place so long, and stupid to put an old, blind man like Smokey Joe in danger. She picked up the leather pants and jammed her legs into them. The Shayna Thomas attack had occurred in Colorado Springs, only three hundred miles from Smokey Joe’s cabin in southwestern Colorado.

Smokey scratched the stubble on his chin. “That big order? You got it done?”

“Order?” She grabbed her helmet from the top shelf of the closet.

“That gal out of San Diego who wants all them angels. You get ’em done?”

Kate couldn’t think about their online jewelry store or tourmaline angels. She thought only about getting away. “Order’s done. It’s boxed and on the table.”

“I’ll ship it.” One of Smokey’s slippers, the color and texture of beef jerky, whisked across the floor. “Where should I send your cut?”

“You keep it.” She needed no connections to Smokey Joe, no trail that could put him in the sights of a knife-wielding madman.

Smokey nodded and shuffled away. The sound of his ratty slippers on the floor she polished weekly pounded in her head and tugged at her heart.

The past six months with Smokey Joe had been peaceful, and after being on the run for more than two years, she’d needed the rest and recharge. During her time here in the scrub canyons and pine forests of southwestern Colorado, she hadn’t thought about the past or the future. She’d been simply living, living simply.

She flung her saddlebags over her shoulder—amazing how little a person needed to live—and rushed down the steps to the bottom floor. She bolted through the kitchen but ground to a halt at the backdoor.

Turning quickly, she set the timer for Smokey’s morning coffee, flicked on the bread machine, and left an urgent voice message with his case manager. Only then did she slip out of the house, deadbolt the lock, and escape into the safe cover of darkness.

Chapter Two

Tuesday, June 9, 5:07 a.m.
Colorado Springs, Colorado

W
hat’s wrong, Pretty Boy?” Sergeant Lottie King sat on the foot of the bed next to him.

Hayden pointed to the beveled mirror on the wall in Shayna Thomas’s spare bedroom. “It’s not broken.” Its wholeness slammed him in the gut, momentarily throwing him off balance.

“Maybe our killer thought eighty-four years of bad luck was enough,” Lottie added. “The SOB shattered the hell out of twelve others.”

Hayden shook his head. “It’s not consistent with his MO. He breaks every mirror in the house. In the Santa Fe slaying he even broke two mirrors in a model dollhouse. This mirror should be broken.”

“
If
it’s your guy.” Lottie kicked off her right shoe and rubbed her instep. “You think this might be a copycat?”

“It’s him.” For the past five months, Hayden walked in the Butcher’s shoes, invited the evil into his head. He knew how this offender worked. “Too many similarities. Victims’ professions and general looks, manner of death, complete lack of traceable evidence, and”—Hayden blinked hard, refusing to see the red—“the folded position of the hands is a holdback.”

Air rushed over Lottie’s lips. “Damn. We got us a monster right here in Colorado Springs.”

Monsters.
That had been Marissa’s term for the violent criminals he spent most of his career chasing.

I’m always sharing you with monsters!
Marissa had screamed at him.
You never let go. Those killers you hunt are in our home, at our dinner table, in our bed.

He winced at the flash of memory and blamed it on Tucson.

Lottie poked her foot into her shoe. “Okay, Mr. FBI Profiler, get out that crystal ball of yours. Where the hell do we go now?”

In his line of work there was a proper order of things, a clear course of observation, analysis, and application. The process fortified him and drew him further away from that Tucson grave. Hayden motioned with his hand to the door. “The beginning.”

In the foyer they found Detective Scott Traynor. If Sergeant King was the head of the operation, Traynor was her hands and feet. The lead investigator was tall and lanky with straw-colored hair and freckles across his nose. Hayden pictured him sitting on a tractor in the eastern Colorado hayfields, but he wasn’t fooled by the easygoing farm-boy appearance. Lottie’s right-hand man carried a cell phone in his shirt pocket, a walkie-talkie clipped to his belt, and a small tablet in his hand. He wore a ring of sweat around his collar and dusty loafers. Scott Traynor was plugged in and running hard.

“Offender’s point of entry?” Hayden asked.

“No signs of force,” the detective said. “At this point we’re speculating he came in through the front door.”

Speculation did not solve murder investigations bathed in blood. That’s why he was here. Time to do his job. Time to become the monster.

Hayden walked to the front porch, where cool air crowded the charcoal night. “I’m Thomas’s attacker.” Hayden positioned himself in front of the door. “It’s after ten and dark, but the porch lights illuminate me. Thomas has a peephole. What do I do?”

“Is the door locked?” Detective Traynor asked.

Criminal investigative analysis started with studying the victims and their behaviors, and in the past five months, he’d spent hundreds of hours learning about the five murdered broadcasters. “Smart, successful women like Shayna Thomas don’t take safety risks. The door is locked. How do I get in?”

“You have a key,” the detective said.

Hayden reached into his pocket and took out his own set of keys, which jingled in the pre-dawn stillness. “How do I get the key?”

“You steal it.”

Lottie caught the detective’s attention. “Find out if Thomas had a recent issue with lost or stolen keys, and find out who had access to her purse both at work and home.”

“Good.” Hayden stuffed the keys in his pocket. Now from another angle, always a second angle, sometimes a third, sometimes a fourth or fifth or sixth. “I have no key. How do I get in?”

The detective frowned. “You knock on the door, and she lets you in?”

“Why would she do a dumb-ass thing like that?” Lottie asked.

Hayden asked himself that same question at the other five crime scenes, and now, like then, he faced the same chilling answer. “She knows me or has reason to trust me.”

Sergeant King opened her mouth, but before she could speak, the radio at her waist squawked. “Hey, Sarge, we need you out back. You aren’t going to believe what we found at Thomas’s bedroom window.”

*  *  *

Tuesday, June 9, 5:34 a.m.
Mancos, Colorado

A pair of ratty, old slippers padded into the kitchen.

“Coffee’s on,” Kate said, her voice as soft as the early morning light slipping through the muslin curtains on the window over the sink.

Smokey Joe shuffled to the table and sniffed. “Tuesday.”

Yes, it was Tuesday, her baking day, and she was in Smokey’s kitchen, where swirling scents of cinnamon and yeasty bread warmed the air. A golden loaf, speckled with raisins, sat on the counter.

She poured a mug of coffee from the steaming pot and set it on Smokey’s placemat in the number three spot, right where he liked it. She pulled a serrated knifed out of the drawer, her hand tightening on the hilt as the sun glinted off the jagged metal blade. The flash of silver blinded her, but she blinked and cut two thick slices of bread, which she dropped in the toaster. “You have a doctor’s appointment this morning at nine, so we’ll need to leave here by eight.”

If Smokey was surprised she was still in the cabin, he didn’t show it. He sat and grunted. “Doctor Collins?”

“Yes.”

He took a long draw from his coffee. “Don’t like him. Pain in the ass.”

She smiled in spite of herself. “You’re going anyway.”

“Hell of a day,” Smokey said into the rim of his mug. “You riding my ass and Doctor Collins poking up it.”

A laugh joined her smile.

Smokey Joe took another swig. “You gonna tell me about it?”

The toast popped. So he wasn’t going to pretend last night never happened. She placed the toast on two plates. Nor could she.

When she had tried to leave, her bike wouldn’t start. Grounded until the parts store opened this morning, she’d tried to get some rest for the road trip ahead, but the anger coursing through her veins left her wide-eyed and wired. She ended up using Smokey’s computer to go online and learn about the Broadcaster Butcher murders. She’d discovered each attack mirrored hers except for one thing: she survived.