The Broken (The Apostles) (40 page)

But was Smokey really dead? His eyes were closed, his chest painfully still. No. He couldn’t be dead. He was a survivor, like her.

Rage built inside, a monstrous, ugly rage. Her hands still bound behind her back, she rushed again at the man called the Butcher and screamed, “You’re not going to beat us!”

*  *  *

Friday, June 19, 10:55 p.m.
Dorado Bay, Nevada

Even before Evie stopped the car, Hayden hopped out and tore up the front steps of Dr. Daniel Gray’s secluded lakeside home.

“Kate!” Hayden cried as he bolted into the dark house.

“Here! In the kitchen.”

With hands and heart leading the way, he stumbled through the dark toward Kate’s voice. “I’m coming.” At last he saw a faint flickering light. He skidded to a stop in a large kitchen lit by candles, and he saw red. Everywhere. On Kate’s hands, on Smokey’s chest, and on the knife sitting on the floor.

Kate, who with bound hands was pressing a dishtowel against Smokey’s chest, said, “He heard you pull up and just left through the kitchen door.”

Hayden headed for her, but she waved him off with a growl. “I’m taking care of Smokey, you go get the Butcher.”

He couldn’t see past her red hands.

“Dammit, Hayden, I have everything under control. Run!”

He took off through the kitchen door into the rain. He still couldn’t see five feet in front of him.

Use your head.
Parker’s voice.

He needed to think this through. This is what he did. Dispassionate evaluation. With Kate safe inside he could stop thinking with his heart and start using his head.

Slick pine needles covered the area. Dr. Daniel Gray walked with a limp, and he could never get far in this terrain on a night like this. The man needed a car, but Hayden’s rental was blocking the garage. Or a boat.

The wind howled and waves pounded the shore as Hayden ran toward the lake. Not only could he not see a thing, he couldn’t hear anything, either.

But he
felt
something. His gut—Parker talked often of leading with the gut, but up until now, Hayden didn’t understand it—told him to keep running toward the lake.

Like a blind and deaf man, Hayden stumbled through the storm, and when he reached the water’s edge, a flash of lightning in the black liquid night revealed a small boat fifty feet off shore. It struggled against the waves and wind.

Hayden kicked off his shoes, threw off his jacket, and dove into the icy water. But unlike the boat that struggled on the top of the water, he stayed under, kicking and surfacing only to grab occasional breaths. Below water he controlled his breathing, his strokes, and his kicks. He was an underwater missile.

When he neared the boat, he silently broke the surface. Gray sat at the stern, fighting to keep the craft heading straight into the rolling, angry waves. Hayden placed his shoulder near the bow of the boat and kicked. The boat swerved, and instead of cutting perpendicular into an oncoming wave, it ran parallel. A wall of water crashed down on Gray.

Hayden’s hands clawed around the boat’s ledge, and he pulled himself halfway out of the water. The boat tipped, and he heaved himself into the hull.

Gray crawled around the bottom of the boat and grabbed an oar. He tried to lift it, but another wave pummeled the small vessel, and he lost his balance. Hayden lunged for him. They crashed into the bottom of the boat. Hayden’s hands circled the man’s throat.

Gray opened his mouth but couldn’t cry out.

The volcano in Hayden bubbled and shot fire. It overflowed and burned. Never before had he wanted to kill, but God help him, he wanted to now. He tightened his fingers around the man’s neck. For little Benny Hankins, for the seven broadcasters, for Robyn Banks, for Kate’s brother, for Hope Academy’s Kyl Watson, and for Smokey Joe. But most of all for Kate.

The pathetic excuse for a man shook and mewed like a newborn kitten. He had no knife, and from the look in his eyes, no hope. Death right now would release him from the reckoning that awaited him, for justice would be swift and brutal.

Hayden pulled in a breath, the oxygen cooling, not fanning the fire.

“Okay, you fucked-up son of a bitch.” And this one was for Lottie. “I’m taking you in because I want you to meet someone who’s going to nail your ass to the splintered seat of a cold dark cell where you’ll never see the light of day.”

Warm liquid washed over Hayden’s foot, and he smelled urine. The Butcher chest heaved in sobs.

Hayden, with the pathetic heap of the man he knew as Dr. Daniel Gray at his feet, got the boat back to the shore, where Hatch, Evie, Finn, and Jon MacGregor waited for him along with Chief Greenfield and a dozen of his men. And Lottie.

“You got our man, Pretty Boy,” Lottie said as Chief Greenfield shut the door on the police cruiser holding the man known as the Broadcaster Butcher.

“
We
got our man,” he corrected her. It had been a team effort, and no small part of that had been Kate. “Where is she?”

“Kate’s fine,” Lottie said. “Not even a scratch. She went to the hospital with Smokey, who’s headed for surgery. The Butcher gave him a nasty chest wound, but it missed all the major organs.”

Kate was safe. Smokey, too. That’s all he needed to know.

The rain and wind continued to wreak havoc on the night as they got into his rental car and drove to the Dorado Bay police station. Maeve, who was on her way to the hospital in Reno, stopped by with a dry suit and a hug. He took a shower in the station’s locker room and put on his clean suit but no shoes, which he must have lost somewhere near the lake.

With bare feet, he took care of all the paperwork that was needed to put evil like the Butcher in jail. Chief Greenfield confirmed they’d found a surveillance system trained on locations connected with Katrina Erickson, and in a small freezer in the basement of Gray’s lakeside home, they’d found two small containers of blood, already typed and confirmed matches to that of Shayna Thomas and the broadcaster in Oakland.

Dorado Bay police found Kyl Watson’s body in the loft of the Hope Academy barn, his head nearly severed from his neck. Dr. Trowbridge, with counsel present, admitted that Eddie Williams did die at the academy during one of their extreme physical conditioning exercises, and he and director Kyl Watson mutually decided to hide the body, as they knew their work would be shut down if the death became known.

After six hours, Lottie thwacked Hayden on the shoulder. “Ain’t no more
i
’s to be dotted or
t
’s to be crossed. Time to call it quits, Pretty Boy. We both need a bit of beauty sleep.”

“Yeah.” Sleep, with Kate in his arms. He closed his laptop.

“I’m gonna find me a motel for the night, but I’ll check in with you before I go. You make sure you tell Kate and Maeve goodbye for me.”

“I will.” They’d reached the door to the station. Sometime during their paperwork marathon, the storm had passed. The early morning air, still dark, was cool and damp, fresh and clean. He helped her into the car and shut the driver’s side door, but he didn’t walk away when she started the engine. “Oatmeal raisin cookies,” he said.

“Huh?”

“You, Lottie, are like oatmeal raisin cookies, soft and sweet, but with a spicy kick.”

Lottie’s deep laugh rumbled as she pulled away.

Hayden got into his rental car and picked up his phone. Chief Greenfield had told him earlier Smokey came through the surgery and was feeling good enough to pick a groggy fight with the chief nurse. Kate had been there with the old man the whole time.

It was
his
time now. He picked up his phone.

Maeve answered, but her voice sounded worried.

“What’s wrong?” Hayden asked. “Is it Smokey? Are there post-op complications?”

“It’s Kate. She left.”

“Left?”

“A few hours ago, right after the doctors upgraded Smokey’s condition to good.”

“Where did she go?”

“I…I don’t know. I didn’t get a chance to ask her. She just disappeared. She didn’t even say goodbye to Smokey.”

She had run away. Again.

His head slumped forward and rested on the steering wheel. Kate was the first to admit there was something more between them. He knew that now. He needed to tell her that he loved her and that he wanted her in his life. He wasn’t good at letting people in, but he’d find a way.

The tires squealed as he backed out of the parking lot and cut across the median. He had no plan, no logical thought processes, just the fiery need to find Kate. At the yellow cottage, he tore through every room. She was gone. Packed up.

She left you.
The voice was a small snicker.

No, she wouldn’t leave you. She loves you.

He chose to listen to the second voice. Back in his car, he started to hunt once again for Kate Johnson.

*  *  *

Saturday, June 20, 5 a.m.
Dorado Bay, Nevada

The cry was low and tortured. It came from the porch that wrapped around Kate’s childhood home.

“Where are you?” Kate knelt in the mud, a flashlight in her hand as she squinted into the darkness under the porch. Night still hadn’t given way to dawn, but a soft glow hovered on the horizon.

Another cry sounded, and she aimed her flashlight to the right, and there, staring at her with wide eyes and a battered right ear, was her cat.

“Ellie,” she said with equal parts irritation and affection, “I’ve been looking for you for hours.”

The cat blinked.

“Come on, girl,” she said in a softer tone. Poor thing. She’d been left on her own at the lake cottage, and when no one showed, the cat must have run to the one place where she felt safe. “Come here, Ellie, I’ll take you home. Get us both cleaned up.” The cat just sat there.

Home? Was that her condo? Smokey Joe’s cabin? She didn’t know where that was anymore, but she knew she needed to get off her bike and rest for a while. Somewhere. But not alone.

She had…a cat.

She laughed out loud. She had a cat.

She had Smokey Joe, who was on the mend in a Reno hospital. She had her freedom, because Hayden had hauled the Butcher off to a cage.

And Hayden. She had Hayden.

But the poor man didn’t realize it yet. The man wasn’t good at feelings, but she was. She loved Hayden Reed, and she’d fight to get him.

“Come on, Ellie, I’m cold and hungry and tired, and we need to find Hayden before he takes off.”

Ellie let loose another strangled cry, inched out of her muddy crawl space, and gave Kate a hiss. Kate laughed and scooped her into her arms. “Okay, you’re tired, too. Let’s get out of here.”

They got as far as the driveway when a car pulled up.

Hayden got out, and a surge of warmth flowed through her entire body. He looked perfect, in command, as if he hadn’t battled a madman last night. Hayden wore one of his exquisite suits. Every hair on his head was in place. Today’s tie was red with black swirls. But no shoes. She laughed.

His steps weren’t sure or purposeful. And his eyes, so many questions seemed to swim in those gray depths. “I thought you ran away.”

She shook her head and tried to smile. “I can’t run anymore. I have a cat.”
But do I have you?
It was on the tip of her tongue. But for once, she held back her words.

Go slow. Be patient.
She’d learned much from the man she loved.

He didn’t say it. Instead he held out his arms to her, and she didn’t hesitate. She threw herself at his chest. His arms clamped around her, their bodies pressing together in a moment that she wanted to last forever.

Ellie, trapped between them, screeched.

Hayden drew back his chest but lowered his mouth to hers. The kiss heated her chest and fogged her brain. He pulled her closer, tighter. It stirred up frothy desire low in her belly and sent a throaty sigh over her lips. So thorough. That kiss was so obscenely thorough. And right. Never before had anything felt so right.

When he finally pulled himself from her, Hayden cupped her cheeks with his hands, forcing his gaze on her. “I’m pretty screwed up. You realize that, right?”

“Me, too,” she said.

“I’m obsessive about my work.”

“Me, too. It’s what started this whole thing.”

“And the touchy-feely stuff,” he slid a hand along his tie and shook his head, “it’s tough for me.”

“I can help.”

Any steel left in his gray eyes fled, and he lowered his head.

Ellie hissed.

A soft laugh fell from his lips. “And just so you know, I’m not a cat person. Or a dog person. I’m too busy with work.”

“I’m sure Ellie’s willing to work with you on that one.” Kate held out the cat to him. Ellie hissed and jumped to the ground, her crooked tail high in the air.

“She might need some convincing,” Hayden said.

“I’m all over that, too.” Hand in hand, they walked to the car. When Hayden opened her door, Ellie jumped into the backseat. “Where are we going?” she asked.

Hayden slid into the driver’s seat, and a frown settled on his lips, quickly replaced by a half smile. “I’m not sure.”

Epilogue

Tuesday, June 30, 7:48 a.m.
Mancos, Colorado

K
ate set a steaming mug of coffee on Smokey’s placemat in the number three spot, right where he liked it. She placed a plate of cinnamon toast with a fat pat of butter in the center. “Come back to Reno with us.”

“Why the he-ell would I do that?” Smokey grabbed his steamy coffee and took a long swig. It had been almost two weeks since the surgery to repair the stab wound that had nicked his left lung, and he was getting back to his cantankerous old self. Two days ago, the aide he’d hired gave his notice after Smokey Joe “accidentally” wiped the man’s personal computer. Of course this was after the aide refused to learn how to use the bread machine.

“We want you to live with us,” Kate continued, “because we love your genteel manner and sweet nature.”

Smokey snorted a laugh and set down his cup. He seemed to stare at the steam as if reading a message from a smoke signal. At last he turned his sightless eyes to her. “You and G-man got a good thing going, and good things, Katy-lady, with a little work turn into great things. You don’t need me to complicate things.”