The Broken (The Apostles) (25 page)

She took an uneven breath. “The night of my junior prom, the night I left Kendra’s home for good, I stopped long enough to take three things with me. Yep, three things to start a new life.” She opened her eyes and pointed to the necklace. “That was one of them. Stupid, wasn’t it? A bottle of pixie dust from a father who didn’t care. And I kept it close for the next twelve years. I always wore it under my shirt or carried it in my pocket, a reminder that I make my own magic. I was wearing it the night Jason attacked me, but when I woke at the hospital, it was gone. I asked the staff if it was with my clothing, but no one remembered seeing it. It wasn’t in my home, either. I figured maybe it got lost in the ambulance or possibly in the ER when they brought me in. At one point I had the crazy memory that my attacker had taken it. But in light of it showing up on the front door, it’s not too crazy, huh?”

He shook his head. “The necklace was a souvenir, proof that Jason ‘killed’ you.”

“He’s here.” A tremor warbled in her throat. “He was at our front door. He followed me along the lake.”

Hayden slipped an arm over her shoulder. “And he’s not going to get you.”

“He got past armed guards at the hospital. He—”

“No, Kate, not this time.” He pulled her to him, her shoulder pressing into his chest where his heartbeat picked up speed. “I know this man, Kate. I’ve been in his head. Right now he wants to frighten you because he wants you to run. But you’re not going to run because I won’t let you.”

Kate’s shoulders squared, and if she weren’t so visibly mad, he’d laugh. Kate wore her emotions on her sleeve. A flash of anger because he told her what to do. Fear that a madman traipsed across their front porch. And…he looked harder, searched longer. At last he saw it. Trust.

With a shake of her head, she unwound herself from his arms and sunk onto the bed. “Fine, Hayden. I’m not going to run.” She grabbed a pillow and punched it before tucking it under her head.

The depth of trust, especially from a woman who didn’t trust easily, shook him. But then again, so much about Kate shook him. Her fighting spirit, her laugh, the fact that her hand so often slid along his leg, his hair. Even now one hand fiddled with the edge of the pillow while the other absently stroked his knee. She stared at the ceiling, her eyes wide, and her mouth in a scowl.

Thanks to the Butcher’s calling card, sleep would be hard to find tonight. He knew her predicament. He’d be up most of night. The Butcher was in his head and making noise. Kate rolled her shoulders and shifted to her side as if trying to get comfortable. He imagined a night without the noise, without the monsters poking around his head.

She punched her pillow again, a little growl escaping her lips.

He kicked off his shoes.

You shouldn’t be in bed with a witness.

This woman clouds your judgment.

But his body paid no heed to the voices in his head as he stretched out alongside Kate.

She stiffened. “Hayden, for Pete’s sake, I’m not going to run.”

“I know.” He pulled her shoulders against his chest and tucked her head under his chin. “You’re going to sleep.”

She grew oddly still then melted into his chest. At least one of them would get some sleep tonight.

*  *  *

Sunday, June 14, 10:55 p.m.
Dorado Bay, Nevada

He took off the sun-faded hat and the vest that smelled of fish. It was one of his better disguises. It looked so…legitimate. The hat with its sixteen hand-tied flies and the vest with the pockets holding vicious little hooks were legitimate in the broader sense because tonight he’d gone fishing.

He hated to give up the necklace Katrina wore so close to her beating heart, the one Jason obediently slipped from her neck and brought to him the night he was supposed to kill her. The necklace was supposed to serve as proof positive Katrina was dead.

Tonight it served as a little calling card.

Agent Reed, however, called it a souvenir. He’d heard Agent Reed talking about “souvenirs” to one of the detectives after the Provo slaying. Reed said the Butcher took some kind of mementos from the victims or their homes. He thought of that precious little container of red in his freezer, compliments of the beautiful, brown-haired broadcaster in Oakland, which when used in the correct amounts would last exactly one month.

What a bloody mess Provo had been. The police, sheriff, and local FBI were like the Keystone Kops. No one knew what the others were doing and who was coming or going, which is why it had been so easy for him to slip into a coroner’s jacket and observe firsthand what Reed was doing to find Katrina. The coroner tech disguise had been another good one.

He was a master of disguise. He could be anyone he wanted to be.

Butcher.

Baker.

Candlestick maker.

Even a dragon.

He blinked away the red hiss of steam. It wasn’t time for the dragon, not yet.

He looked at the clock, which had just turned to eleven. It was time. He must do things in the right order, always in the right order. He flicked the monitor switch.

The monitor had to be checked every day at eleven a.m. and eleven p.m. Until six months ago he had checked the monitor only once a day, but that had been a mistake, one that cost him what he wanted most.

Six months ago Katrina came back to Reno at 1:20 a.m. She snuck into her condo under the cover of night and left seven minutes later. He didn’t know what she was doing or why she was there. No, the important thing was that she was still alive, and so were the secrets she knew.

The three black-and-white images on the screen—no, four, as of tonight at 9:57 there were four cameras in place—flicked on, and he settled into the chair and watched. He ignored the images of Katrina’s condo in Reno, Kendra and Jason’s Dorado Bay front porch, and the KTTL building in Reno. Instead he focused on the image from the newest camera he’d set up, the one that showed the little yellow cottage on the lake.

*  *  *

Monday, June 15, 9:30 a.m.
Carson City, Nevada

The next morning Hayden stood before the weed-choked path leading to the Victorian house with the busted porch swing and considered calling Kate. But he’d called an hour ago, and both Evie and Hatch reported that Kate, ensconced in the cottage, was safe. After finding the necklace last night, an agitated Kate fell asleep and barely moved all night. He knew because he’d spent much of the night awake, watching the woman in his arms. He wasn’t worried that she’d run or that the Butcher would attack. He held her in his arms because…He scrubbed his palm along his face. No logical reason came to mind, which is why he needed to get Kate out of his mind.

The walkway ended at a flight of four sagging steps that led to an intricately carved pair of double doors streaked with peeling pale blue paint. Neglect hung in the air, dusty and flat. Hayden pushed the doorbell button.

Robyn Banks’s house was in the historic district of Carson City, which featured a collection of rambling Victorian mansions and cottages in various states of grandeur. He rang the bell five more times before it cracked open, framing a wedge of a short, thin man in a red morning coat with gold-threaded peacocks. He had bare feet and dirty toenails.

“I’m looking for Robyn Banks,” Hayden said.

Hidden by the gloom of the big old house, the man belched out a long, whiskey-drenched breath. “Hmmmm. The more apropos question is, Is Robyn looking for you?”

“Is she here?” Hayden asked with a sharp bluntness. He had no time for drunks.

The man in the ridiculous coat moved to shut the door, but Hayden shot out his hand and shoved the door wide open. “Where is she?”

At the bright wave of brilliant sun, the man blinked, at least the eye not covered in an eye patch. “Indisposed. Predisposed. Take your pick.”

Hayden flashed his creds. “Would you care to rethink your answers to my questions?”

The man pushed away Hayden’s wallet. “I care to—”

“It’s okay.” Robyn Banks stepped out of the shadows.

“Oh, dearest Robyn, we are anything but okay.” The man’s cynical laugh curled the air as disappeared into the bowels of the dark Victorian.

Robyn motioned him inside without a word. Heavy drapes covered the windows, and Hayden had a hard time making out the house’s layout and furnishings as she led him to a room just off the entryway. The room held a card table with a computer and a single folding chair.

“You’re certainly fast, Agent Reed.” She motioned for him to take the chair while she rested her backside on the table. “Efficient, too. I expected to see you, but not so soon.”

“I’m trying to catch a killer, Ms. Banks.” Hayden, who sat in the metal chair, folded his hands in his lap. “So I’ll get straight to the heart of my visit. I ran your fingerprints against those found at all the Butcher crime scenes, and we got a match. At Katrina’s Erickson’s condo.”

“No surprise there.” She waved a red-tipped finger at him as if scolding. “I already told you I was there that night to talk to Katrina about a story.”

“Cut the act, Robyn. We’re both on deadlines, and we don’t have time for drama.”

Her hand fell to her side. “What do you want?”

“The truth. I want to know exactly what happened when you went to Katrina’s house the night she was stabbed, and I don’t want the
Reader’s Digest
condensed version about you walking in, seeing the bloody body, and running to call nine-one-one. I want the other details. Like why your prints were found on a highball glass in Katrina’s dishwasher. And what you really saw that night.”

*  *  *

Robyn could lie, a task she did quite well. She’d done it in the past when it suited her or Mike. But Hayden Reed saw everything. Those sharp eyes would shred her to pieces if she lied to him. And that would hurt like hell. She’d taken hits lately, hard blows that bruised her to the bone.

She gathered her thoughts as she walked to the brocade-covered window. “Katrina and I both worked the news desk that night. She went home right after we signed off, and I came by about an hour later to talk about a story she’d worked on. When she didn’t answer the door, I walked in.”

“Front door?”

“Yes, it was unlocked. I was about to call out her name when I heard a scream from upstairs.” The words clung to her throat with sharp barbs. “The scream chilled my blood, and I froze.” Even now cold terror gripped her.

“Did you recognize any voices, hear any words, names?”

“Mostly grunts and screams. Although one time I heard Katrina yell, ‘You’re not going to kill me you son of a bitch!’ Hard to forget something like that.”

“And when you could move, what did you do?”

“I ran to the coat closet in the hall and shut the door.” She watched as Agent Reed’s impassive mask fell off. “Yes, not your usual reaction, but you mustn’t forget, I’m a reporter. A story was breaking, and I planned to cover it. About that time the first mirror shattered. Then came the rest, thirteen, fourteen crashes. I lost count. Eventually everything quieted until I heard someone walk past the closet and out the front door.”

“How many sets of footsteps did you hear?”

“One.”

“And after you heard the door close, what did you do?”

“I waited. Eventually I went to Katrina’s bedroom.” Dust fluttered in the air as her fingers dug into the curtains. “She wasn’t moving; blood was everywhere, red foam bubbled on her lips, so I could tell she was breathing.”

“And…”

“I went to the bathroom and threw up. Then I stopped in the kitchen and poured myself a scotch. Straight. In case that makes a difference.” She let go of the drapes and shook her head. “No, not the smartest thing to do, given Katrina’s physical state and her immediate need for medical attention, but I’ll blame it on the shock of hearing a madman bludgeoning a colleague.”

“A man? What makes you think it was a man?”

“I don’t know. I just assumed an attack that grisly would be made by a man.”

“And you saw nothing? No one?”

“No. With a shot of liquid courage under my belt, I drove to the convenience store and called nine-one-one. That’s it.”

“So you went home and remained silent.”

“Because nothing I saw would help the investigation.”

“And…”

“And because it scared the hell out of me.”

To her relief, Agent Reed stood and straightened the cuffs of his shirt. “One more question,” he said. “Who’s your roommate?”

Robyn was prepared to talk about Katrina Erickson but not about Mike Muldoon.

“Ms. Banks, who is the man who answered the door?”

She thought about lying, but there was that little issue of public records. “My husband.”

*  *  *

Monday, June 15, 4 p.m.
Dorado Bay, Nevada

Hayden had just come back from Carson City, where he had met with Robyn Banks, and Kate figured he must have won the sparring match. His gray eyes flashed triumphantly as he flipped open his laptop.

She, on the other hand, was going stir crazy. She’d been cooped up in the cottage all day, Hatch and Evie taking alternate watch over her. Hayden’s colleagues buried themselves in work, either on the phone, on their computers, or rushing out to meet with people. She spent the entire day pacing the airless living room.

“Can we go out?” she asked Hayden who pecked on the keyboard. “Take a drive?”

“No.”

She appreciated Hayden’s doggedness, as she knew that kind of passion would get the Butcher, but right now, she needed a break. “Why not?”

“Mike Muldoon.”

A breath caught in her throat. “Muldoon?”

He looked up from his laptop. “You know him?”

“Not personally, but I covered his story in a ‘Justice for All’ report for KTTL.”

Recognition dawned on Hayden’s face. “That’s it. I’ve been wracking my brain all the way here trying to remember where I’d heard that name before. Muldoon was the pension administrator convicted of fraud and embezzlement and the subject of one of your last ‘Justice for All’ stories.”

“Why are you interested in him? He was in jail at the time of my attack.”

“Which is why I didn’t investigate him when I first ran across him. Given the fact that Jason was most likely operating on someone else’s orders, Muldoon now is a viable suspect. I need to find out if Muldoon and Jason were connected in any way.”