Hunting Justice (Fractured Minds Series Book 3)

by Kate Allenton

  The hours it took for me to convince them had been excruciating. Sweat beaded on my brow as I swallowed around my apprehension. I thought I’d overcome my aversion to authorities and police stations.

  I’d thought wrong.

  The only thing that kept me grounded while being stuck in this room like a caged animal was a pen sitting in the middle of the table. They probably thought to watch to see if I’d steal it, when, in reality, I could do much worse.

  The confined space made me feel caged as I walked around the room. Pressing my finger to the mirror, I figured it was two-way and left it alone.

  I took a seat and picked up the pen, tapping it against the table while I tried to think about anything but the last time I’d been in this room. The day I’d given up my freedom. Never again.

  I spun to the sound of the door opening up behind me. Noah and another man walked in. The detective’s mocha hair complemented his dark eyes and tanned skin. He had a look in his eyes. A knowing look. There was something familiar about him. Something I couldn’t place.

  “Do I know you?” I asked, unable to stop myself.

  “No, Ms. Bray, if you’ll please have a seat,” he said.

  “Technically, it’s Steinbuckle, but that’s a story for another day,” I said.

  “Come again?” Noah asked, tilting his head. I’d yet to fill him in on that story.

  “I tried to renew my driver’s license, but never mind that,” I said, meeting the detective’s gaze. “You don’t have any pull with the DMV, do you?”

  His lips twitched. “No, ma’am. I don’t.”

  “Lucy, this is Detective Asher Rowen.”

  “Asher…I’m sure we’ve met somewhere before.”

  “Detective Rowen,” he said, trying to correct me. Poor man. “Mrs. Steinbuckle…”

  “Lucy,” I said with bated breath, waiting for the aggravation on Detective Rowen’s face to intensify. I grinned. “Detective, I’ll answer all of your questions if you answer one of mine.”

  “It doesn’t work that way, Mrs. Steinbuckle, so why don’t you tell me what transpired?”

  “Where is Sloan?”

  Detective Rowen didn’t answer, and I began tapping the pen against the table again. “Is he in one of these rooms, or have you booked him already?”

  Noah slid his chair back, scratching it against the floor as he rounded the table and slipped the pen from my hand.

  Rowen might not have understood what just transpired, but both Noah and I knew. He’d taken my weapon.

  “Sloan is fine, Lucy. His lawyers sprang him in a matter of hours.”

  For the first time, I took my gaze off Detective Rowen and turned it to Noah. My mouth parted. Had Sloan really been gone from here for hours? Why hadn’t he called? Why hadn’t he come by?

  “I see that surprised you,” Rowen said, re-earning my gaze. “What’s your relationship with Mr. Sloan?”

  “I caught the man who killed his niece,” I answered honestly.

  “So, you’re what? A detective? Or do you work for the FBI also?”

  “I’m a hunt—”

  “Lucy is a consultant for the FBI, and I’m afraid the details are classified.”

  “So then, Georgina isn’t the first woman in Sloan’s life to die.”

  I clasped my hands on the table and glanced at the pen in Noah’s hand. This may not end well for one of us, and my money was on me. “A Florida serial killer claimed lives of several young women, including Sloan’s niece. She was in the wrong place at the wrong time. The killer was a lunatic, who was stalking me as his ultimate victim. Detective Rowen, would you like my statement, or am I wasting my time?”

  “Please,” he said, finally leaning back in his chair as if ready to listen.

  “Sloan was recruiting me, and I was playing his save-the-hostage game.”

  “His what?” Asher asked.

  “It’s a team building exercise. It’s supposed to keep his employees sharp and on their toes. Three employees go hide, and someone has to find them. Well, I figured out which floor they were on, and I had a master key.”

  “Wait, how did you find that out?”

  I sighed, annoyed with the interruptions. “It’s what I do. It’s like my superpower. So, like I said, I figured out the floor, and I had the key. It was just a matter of figuring out the room.”

  “You had a key to all the rooms.”

  “I just said that. Keep up, Detective,” I growled.

  Rowen held up his hand. “Wait…did you happen to disarm the security cameras?”

  I tried to stifle the blush from crossing my face and refused to look Noah in the eyes. “I can promise that I didn’t lay a hand on the security cameras. Now if you’d let me continue…”

  Noah shook his head, his ability to read between the lines still in place.

  I finished telling him the rest of the story, including being shot at. The only part I left out was what transpired when blood got on my skin.

  “You have the killer’s blood, and you know what he looks like?” Rowen asked.

  “Yes, Asher, and a member of the FBI collected the DNA from my arm.” I turned my head to Noah. “Grant has it.”

  “Grant is my second-in-command. If he collected it, then the chain of custody for the evidence was preserved. He does everything by the book.”

  “Great.” Asher clapped his hands together. “So, with both you and Ms. Morgan, getting a look at this guy, then you can both sit with our sketch artist.”

  I agreed but only because I really wanted the right guy caught and Trinity out of danger. Within the next thirty minutes, they had a composite drawing of the killer’s face. Within the next hour, after taking a picture with my phone, I texted it to Sam with instructions to leave the sheriff’s department parking lot and go back to the house to do his thing. Within two hours, while waiting on Trinity to write up her statement, I had the killer’s name. Heath Tenure.

  Trinity and I had finished signing our statements. I paused and took two of Asher’s cards. On one, I wrote Heath’s name, along with two words, psychotic hitman, on the other side. I slipped the card between the computer monitor and the frame. No sense hiding it. The other card, I put in my pocket for a rainy day. One day I’d collect on that nugget of information. One day I’d need it.

  Noah gave us a ride back to my house, and he took Trinity inside while I sat on the porch with cell phone in hand. I opened a message to Sloan, and my fingers hovered over the keyboard. What would I say? Where the hell are you? Why did you leave me hanging? I’d been worried. No, I’d never admit it even if I had.

  Trinity stepped out onto the porch; my text was forgotten. She held up the bag we’d picked up from the hotel.

  “My mom never finished collecting all of the DNA. I still need Sloan’s, and even then, I don’t know how to get it tested.”

  “I’ll get the DNA. I have to see Sloan anyway,” I said, heading inside to call a cab. There were a million people inside that could have driven me, but I didn’t want anyone waiting around for the little talk Sloan and I were going to have. I had a ton to say, and the makeup sex might take hours.

  Chapter 10

  I strolled into the hotel, passing the ballroom, which now set up with long tables and chairs, like a conference was about to begin. A podium and large screen dominated the front of the room. I stepped on the elevator and headed straight up to Sloan’s suite.

  He opened five seconds after my first knock. His shirt hung askew and untucked. “Lucy?”

  “You forgot to call,” I said, strolling into the room right past him and pausing in the living room.

  “Hi, Lucy.” Sloan’s assistant, Susan Montgomery, said from across the room where she was standing by the window with her arms wrapped around her waist. The door was open to the bedroom, and her purple suitcase was perched on the sheets and left open.

  Now I understood. “Hi, Susan. Don’t mind me. I’m just here to borrow something.”

  I strolled past them strai
ght into the bathroom to find only a single toothbrush on the shelf with a plastic travel cap over the end. I swiped it from the counter and stepped out.

  “Lucy, it’s not what it looks like,” Sloan said, blocking my path.

  “I’m just here for your DNA so Trinity can rule you out as her daddy,” I said, holding up his toothbrush.

  Sloan took it from my grasp. “I can’t let you do that.”

  “Why the hell not?” I asked.

  Sloan slid out of his shirt and turned his arm toward me. Red claw marks marred his perfectly tan muscles. The red angry welts had broken the skin. “I was just showing Susan. It’s possible that Georgina has my DNA under her nails considering she scratched me. Right now, the police don’t have my DNA. I’ve never given it up.”

  “But I know you’re not the killer,” I said as I took the toothbrush back out of his hands.

  “They don’t,” he answered, taking it back. “Hotel staff saw us arguing. She wasn’t here for my DNA like Trinity thinks; she was here because she wanted money to keep her silence.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest. “Silence about what?”

  “Sloan…” Susan said from across the room.

  Sloan glanced back at Susan and then at me. “I’m sorry, Lucy, that’s all I can tell you. I’ve already told you too much.”

  “Are you suggesting that Georgina lied to her daughter about what she was doing in the hotel?”

  “I’m saying there’s more at play here then even you understand.”

  My gaze narrowed, and my hands dropped to my sides. “Let me tell you what’s at play. The hitman’s blood touched me. I’m connected to him now, and the only way to get him out of my head is if one of us dies. He’s seen me and Trinity. We could both be in danger, and you’re worried about your DNA under her mother’s nails from a fight when I know you didn’t kill her? I know how she died. Their case is circumstantial. Why are you so damn worried?”

  “Georgina wasn’t a random death,” Susan said from across the room.

  “I know. She was killed by a hitman.”

  “Whoever hired this hitman is out for blood. It wasn’t just Georgina that got targeted,” Sloan said. “He targeted my ex-wife.”

  My gaze shot to the suitcase and back to Susan, standing patiently by the window. She gave me a timid smile and lifted her hand. “That would be me.”

  Of course, it would. I gave a slow nod and gestured to the door. “Sloan, can I have a word?”

  Sloan followed me out of the room and left the door cracked behind him. He followed me to the elevator down the hall. “Were you ever going to tell me you were married?”

  “Were you ever going to tell me?” he countered.

  I wiggled my finger at him. “Two very different circumstances.” I glanced back down the hallway to the opened door. “My soon-to-be-ex isn’t camped out in my bedroom, and even if he had been, I wouldn’t have forgotten to call you.”

  “You’re jealous?” he asked, pulling me into his arms.

  “I’m a lot of things, but jealous isn’t one of them,” I said, pressing against his chest. “I’m connected to a killer, and my boyfriend is playing house with his ex.”

  “You have to trust me.”

  “No. I don’t.” My tone sharpened. “I didn’t even deserve a phone call to tell me you were okay and were released, and to make things worse, you didn’t even check on the kid, the one you could very well be related to.”

  “Lucy, it’s complicated,” Sloan said just as the elevator doors dinged open.

  I stepped onto the elevator. “You know what happens when you juggle too many balls? You end up dropping one. So, you worry about Susan, and I’ll worry about the kid.”

  I let the door slide closed between us. Anger stirred in my gut and slithered down my spine until I couldn’t see straight. I stepped off of the elevator and out of the hotel. I sat down on a bench as the world tunneled in around me.

  Sloan’s loyalties had been chosen, and apparently Trinity and I didn’t make the cut. I clenched my eyes closed.

  “Returning to the scene of the crime?” a familiar voice asked.

  I opened my eyes. “Detective Rowen.”

  “What happened to calling me Asher?” he asked as he took a seat next to me.

  “What are you doing here, Detective? Are you following me?”

  “Following up on a shooting.”

  “Well, at least that’s a little variety from the strangulation.”

  His lips twitched. “How did you know she was strangled?”

  “I saw her, remember? I am a doctor, after all. You might have known that had you read my file.”

  “Right,” he said, standing at the same moment I did. “Thanks for the suspect’s name by the way.”

  “Detective, I’m not an angel. I’m a girl who was in the wrong place at the wrong time who once did time in a psych ward.”

  “I did read your file, Dr. Bray,” he said, leaning in to whisper. “We’re all a little crazy, Lucy Loo.”

  My mouth parted, and I spun to watch him walk away. Only one person called me Lucy Loo, and he’d left my ass in Vegas. It had been no one resembling Mr. Tall, Dark, and Badge-carrying.

  I followed him into the hotel and met him at the elevator. “How did you know my nickname?”

  “You have your secrets, Lucy, and I have mine.” His eyes glinted as he stepped onto the elevator.

  The door started to close, and my hand snaked out, stopping it.

  “Detective, who the hell are you?”

  “The man who’s going to stop the hitman before he kills you too, Lucy Steinbuckle.”

  Chapter 11

  I was starting to hate the name Steinbuckle. It held too many memories I wanted to forget. I called Sam while I sat on the hood of the detective’s car and waited for him to return. I could have called a cab. I could have called anyone staying at my house, but I wasn’t ready to explain what happened with Sloan, and I still needed answers about the detective.

  The hair at the base of my neck prickled as I scanned the parking lot. There were several cars and no one outside. An unease settled in my gut. I felt exposed. I’d started to close my eyes to try to connect with the killer when Sam answered the phone. “Speak to me, Dr. Red.”

  I chuckled. “What did you find out about my husband?”

  “I’m sorry to say that you’re a widow, Mrs. Steinbuckle. The paperwork is forthcoming.”

  That news made my heart clench. I didn’t know Martin any more than I knew the hotel manager whose key I’d snagged, but I did know one thing. Martin was my age. He was too young to be dead.

  Martin Steinbuckle represented many things in my life. Stupidity and carefree just to name a few. I missed those days. I needed more of those days, especially chasing killers. Hell, I deserved more of those days.

  “When and how?”

  “You’re never going to believe this, but he kicked it a month ago, and the cops believe foul play was involved.”

  “Sad.” I frowned.

  “The attorney has been looking for you. Apparently, your husband had a will and left you things. The attorney wouldn’t give me specifics.”

  “The attorney wouldn’t happen to be related, would he?”

  “Actually yes. He’s the uncle that didn’t file the paperwork.”

  “Great. I’ll kill two birds with one stone.” I sighed. “So, do the cops have any leads on who committed the crime?”

  “I haven’t hacked that far yet, but I will. Based on what the attorney told me, you have a solid alibi.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You were a resident of the loony bin.”

  At least my stay had been beneficial. I chuckled and leaned back against the windshield, crossing my ankles as I stared up at the cloud-covered sky. “Listen, Sloan isn’t going to play in this case of catch-a-killer.”

  “What do you mean? He’s not going to help?” Sam asked.

  “He’s got more important things to handle
,” I said.

  “What the hell is more important than his girlfriend and possible daughter?”

  “His ex-wife,” I answered. “Listen, can you send Trinity’s DNA to the lab with the other samples that her mother collected of potential baby daddies. I’m still working on getting Sloan’s.”

  “You didn’t just take it?”

  “I did. He just took it back,” I answered.

  “Let me guess. It’s complicated.” Sam used his annoyed voice. He was right. It was complicated to an extent and whatever relationship we’d been building ended when I stepped on the elevator.

  I spotted Asher about fifteen minutes later as he was leaving the building. Anger radiated from his face as he stomped in my direction. Seemed I wasn’t the only one having an off day.

  “Listen, I’ll call you back,” I whispered to Sam and shut my phone.

  “Of all the nerve….” Asher growled.

  “What? I didn’t dent your hood, and personally, I think I make a pretty good hood ornament.”

  “Not you,” Asher said, glancing over his shoulder toward the penthouse suite where Sloan was staring down at us. “Your boyfriend.”

  “Oh well, you must not be as good a detective as you think you are. If you were you’d have noticed the purple luggage. It belonged to another woman who wasn’t me.”

  Chapter 12

  I slid off the hood. “Why don’t you tell me what he did while you give me a ride home?”

  “I’m not a taxi service, Lucy.”

  “I know. I’m a scared witness who’s probably been targeted by a hitman. I thought that would be enough to hitch a ride.”

  He chuckled and clicked the fob. “Well, when you put it like that, get in.”

  I did and buckled up. I gave Officer Do-Good my address.

  He smirked. “I know where you live.”

  “So how did Sloan piss you off?”

  “You first,” Asher prodded.

  “It was nothing. I turned all girly and cared, and that’s never a good thing,” I answered.

  “Caring isn’t a good thing?” he asked.