Killing Justice (Fractured Minds Series Book 2)

by Kate Allenton

  Metal crunched on the front of the SUV as it impacted the trunk. The sudden stop jolted me forward, slamming my head into the steering wheel. Pain radiated through my body as my eyes closed.

  I didn’t know how long I’d been out when I opened my eyes. Blood from my forehead dripped down my face and into my eyes. The front window was shattered with a hole big enough that a human-sized body could fit.

  I unbuckled my seat belt and pried open the driver’s side door. I fell to the ground as I got out and struggled to stand. I swiped the blood out of my eyes to find Carl standing in the tree line. One of his arms was broken and dangling, but he still had his gun.

  It wasn’t my lucky day.

  “Nice try, Lucy, but your life ends here,” Carl said.

  I clenched my eyes closed as a tear slid down my face.

  A shot rang out, and I cringed.

  Nothing. No additional pain. I slid my eyes open again to find Mikey Dawson holding a rifle pointed at Carl, who now lay dead on the ground in a pool of blood, his eyes open to the sky.

  I dropped to my knees, unable to hold my own weight, and the darkness sucked me back in again.

  ****

  I woke up on a flower-patterned couch. Every muscle in my body ached. I turned my head to find Noah and Grant staring at me with Mikey and Betty standing behind them.

  “Carl,” I said as I sprang up. My world spun as Grant eased me back down.

  “He’s finally dead, Lucy,” Grant said, his face a gentle reminder that he, too, had been victim to the serial killer’s lunacy.

  My gaze shot to Mikey’s.

  “He was trespassing and going to kill you,” Mikey said as he picked at his teeth with a toothpick and a satisfied grin.

  “Thank you.” I said as I looked around the room recognizing the building as Betty’s she-shed.

  “It was smart wrecking that car where you knew we’d be watching. Otherwise, that guy might have succeeded.”

  “I was lucky.” I let out a long, tired breath. When this was over, I’d sleep soundly for a week straight without Carl rumbling through my thoughts and head.

  “Sam said you’d found a significant connection about the killings,” Grant said.

  “The yearbooks,” I said, slowly sitting up again. “All of the people killed were in the chemistry club, except Carson’s daddy.”

  Mikey and Betty exchanged a look with each other.

  “Emmaline Dawson’s name was listed beneath the group photo. She’s in the chemistry club too, right?”

  “I knew there was something she wasn’t telling me,” Mikey growled.

  Betty placed her hand on Mikey’s arm. “Go get my granddaughter and let me talk to her.”

  “I’ll kill her if she’s involved.” Mikey’s face was turning redder by the second.

  “You’ll do no such thing. Go get her and bring her here.”

  Mikey left while Grant was checking out my wounds. “Ambulance is on its way, Lucy.

  “I’ll be fine. It’s just a scratch,” I argued.

  “You broke your arm, and you need stitches. You’ll get checked out,” Grant ordered.

  “You aren’t the boss of me anymore,” I answered and cringed around the pain as I rose from the chair, hugging my arm to my body.

  “You’ll get checked out if you don’t want anyone to know about the present Sloan gave you,” Noah said.

  “Who told you?” I shook my head. “Never mind, it doesn’t matter.” My eyes crinkled as I grinned. “But I am impressed you’re using blackmail? There might be hope for you yet.”

  “It’s the only thing that works with you.”

  Mikey walked into the she-shed, followed by a teenage girl. She was one of the ones that had been at the bonfire last time we’d tried to sneak onto the property.

  “Grammie, you wanted to see me?”

  “Emmaline, you tell these folks everything they want to know.”

  “Uh, okay,” she said, unable to keep her eyes off my wounds.

  “Two people from your chemistry club went missing two years ago.”

  Her breath hitched; the sound unmistakable.

  “You aren’t in trouble, but I need to know if you know anything,” I said.

  Emmaline slowly shook her head from side to side. Panic engulfed the room. She did know something. I could feel it.

  “Emmaline, you know something. I can feel you’re lying,” I prodded.

  “Hey now, you can’t just come in here accusing her like that,” Mikey growled.

  Betty lifted her hand to stop him. “Emmaline Grace, if you know anything about those missing kids, you need to tell these people.”

  “But, Grammie.” Tears filled Emmaline’s face. “If I talk, she said I can kiss my scholarship money goodbye. I’ll lose college. I’ll lose her recommendation. I’ll lose everything. I’m lucky she even let me out of the club. She swore to destroy the rest of my life if I talked.”

  “Who?” I asked.

  “Principal Farley,” she whispered.

  “I won’t let that happen,” I answered.

  Emmaline visibly swallowed. “It’s been going on for years. I just didn’t know who was behind it until I joined the chemistry club and they let me in. Principal Farley and the others in the group are manufacturing and selling drugs. There’s a whole system in place. She keeps control on everyone and everything. The old members take the drugs out of town to other drug dealers in different schools, and they still have enough to sell in our town.”

  “Principal Farley and the captain of the chemistry club, Henry, manufacture it and there are handful of club members who know the secret, sell it. Some of the older members still deliver it out of town.”

  “Tell me, you didn’t sell the stuff,” Mikey growled.

  “I didn’t, Daddy, I promise I didn’t,” Emmaline said. “When I overheard one of their conversations, she caught me. All I wanted was out of the club. That’s when Principal Farley threatened my scholarship and my grades.”

  “That’s blackmail,” Grant whispered.

  “She threatened Grammie too.”

  “She what?” Betty growled.

  “She said she could get you fired and run us all out of town.”

  I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Do you know where she’s making the drugs?”

  “Her barn,” Betty answered. “She goes in there all the time with a couple of those chemistry kids. I bet she’s doing it in the barn.”

  “I’ll get a search warrant,” Noah said just as an ambulance pulled up.

  “Get the yearbooks, Noah. You’ll see the connection.” He nodded.

  “Grant, you go with Lucy while I take care of this. Emmaline, I’m going to need you to tell me everything you know.”

  “But she’ll kill me.” Emmaline gawked.

  “Amber won’t lay a hand on you. We’ll put you in witness protection before we let that happen.”

  “She’s got all the protection she needs right here, Agent Roth,” Betty said.

  I patted Noah’s arm as I passed. “Good luck winning that battle.”

  Chapter 26

  I was taken to the hospital and poked and prodded until I was ready to pass out. My arm was broken. I had a concussion, and it took seven stitches to patch me up. The hospital decided to keep me overnight for observation.

  I’d just settled in when Carson stepped into the room.

  “You look like crap, Doc,” he said as he neared.

  “I’m sorry your BFF is a drug dealer killer.”

  “Me too,” he said as he pulled up a chair next to the bed. “I never would have guessed her in a million years.”

  “I couldn’t justify a connection between her and your daddy though. The only one I could find was you. There was no reason for her to want to kill him other than her liking you.”

  “He convinced me to stay in town, and I’d changed my mind about joining the military. I was going to help him sober up, and we were going to be a family again and figure out who kil
led Mom together. I told Amber about it the day before he disappeared. I just never connected the two.”

  “I’m sorry, Carson.”

  He sighed and took my hand. “If it weren’t for you, Doc, I might never have known the truth.”

  “Have they picked her up yet?” I asked, hopeful that this would soon be over and the healing could begin. Those kids she used to help her; their lives would never be the same.

  “Yeah, they got her trying to leave town. When they served the search warrant, they found the barn where she cooked the drugs. All of the kids have been picked up for questioning, and so has the other Stephenson twin. Noah is going to have his hands full sorting through everything.”

  “I’m just glad we caught her.”

  “Me too,” Carson said, rising from his seat.

  “You know I asked Carl why he claimed it wasn’t me who put him in the coma. He told me to ask my friends.”

  Carson grinned. “Sloan might have threatened him.”

  “Oh did he, now?”

  “And Noah might have left a schedule and blueprints around for where the evidence was being stored.”

  “Really?”

  “And Ford might have seen them at one point. There was a break-in after all.”

  “And Sam?”

  “He might have taken down their cameras and destroyed all of the media proof that they had. You weren’t very smart hiding from the street cameras you know.”

  I hadn’t even considered street cams. “And what did you and Grant do while everyone else was busy?”

  His lips twitched. “I might have flirted with the evidence room cop while Grant stood lookout. Oh, Sloan’s secretary might have helped. She’s a computer whiz and that was the day all of the bank alarms malfunctioned at the same time.”

  Tears filled my eyes. “You guys did all of that for me?”

  “Well, yeah. We can’t pick our family, but we can pick our friends. Besides, we knew Carl would come for you, and he did.”

  “You should have told me. I could have helped.”

  “That would have made you an accomplice. We couldn’t have that. I’m going to go get some coffee, and I’ll sit with you awhile. Do you want anything from the cafeteria?”

  “A bottle of wine would be nice. I can even use the big water thermos they left me.” I grinned.

  “Not sure I can sneak that into your room.”

  “Fine, then I’ll take a coffee, heavy on the creamer. Like hardly any coffee at all.”

  He chuckled. “I’ll get right on that.”

  He stepped out, and for the first time, I breathed a sigh of relief. Carson was off the hot seat. Carl was dead and could never harm me or my sister again, and everything was going to be all right in my world.

  I’d closed my eyes for mere seconds when I heard the door creak open. “Tell me you sweet-talked one of the nurses into giving me the liquor kind of pain killer.”

  “Alcohol almost ruined that boy’s life,” Master Sergeant Arthur Farley said from just inside the doorway.

  My eyes widened, and the machines started beeping as I tried to sit up. “Master Sergeant, what are you doing here?”

  This man could snap my neck before I could even get out of bed. He was built hard and dangerous, even if he was pushing seventy. Even death might be too afraid to come for this guy.

  “When you first showed up in town with your little group, I knew there was going to be trouble.”

  “I think you should leave,” I said, trying harder to sit up and press further into the pillow away from his advance. I pressed the call button like a maniac.

  “The nurses aren’t at their station.” His lips slid into a sinister smile. “I heard about your fender bender.”

  “Are you here to finish the job?” I asked and swallowed hard. This guy might snap my neck, but I’d never let him get away with killing me. I’d dig my nails so hard into his skin and tear out a chunk to embed beneath my nails.

  He pulled out a syringe as I scrambled off the bed, backing into the machines. “You’re smart. You almost figured it all out.”

  I tried ruthlessly to pull the tape and needles out of my arm.

  “What do you mean almost? I did figure it out, and your princess is going down hard,” I growled and moved behind the machines, trying to block his path.

  “You were right about everything but one death. Drake Tines. Amber didn’t kill him. That was me.”

  “You taught her to throw the knives.”

  “I raised her how to fight. How to win. How to remain strong.”

  “You raised a psychopath,” I said as he lunged. He grabbed me and yanked me away from the machines, digging his big beefy hand into my broken arm.

  I screamed in pain as he leaned in, holding the syringe next to my arm. “They’ll never connect your death to me. Do you know what happens when air enters the bloodstream?”

  “Do you know what happens when a bullet pierces the skull?” Carson asked as he held the gun aimed at Farley’s head.

  “Thank God you came back.” I breathed in relief.

  “I forgot to ask if you wanted a donut too,” he said and raised his brow. “Let her go. You know I won’t miss,” Carson growled, cocking the trigger.

  Chapter 27

  Two months later, with my arm freshly out of a cast, I walked into the Starlight Diner and moved to sit at the counter where Betty was standing.

  “You sure you’re welcome in this town?” she asked as she turned over a clean coffee cup and poured coffee into it. Stopping halfway, she slid the bowl of creamer in my direction.

  “I happen to know a few families that will watch my back.” I grinned.

  “You’re right,” she said, leaning on the counter with both elbows. “What brings you back?”

  “I wanted to hand-deliver something,” I said, pulling out the paperwork and pushing it across the counter. “Emmaline Dawson is the first recipient of the Bray Scholarship Fund. It’s a full ride, and it’s not even printed on magician’s flash paper,” I said, standing up and winking.

  “How did you figure it out?” Betty asked.

  “The way you were shuffling those cards on the porch when we were watching and then fanning them out. Oh, and I might have seen some semi-burned flash paper in your she-shed fireplace. Not to mention one of the women at the bonfire, making a coin disappear.”

  “I shouldn’t be surprised. I knew you were smart.”

  “There was only one thing I couldn’t figure out.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Why wait all of this time to report it?”

  “I’m not getting any younger and I wasn’t taking it to the grave with me. Every day I woke up thinking that the Sherriff would figure things out and every day he didn’t.”

  “You did the right thing.”

  “I know. If I hadn’t been concerned about my young’un’s I would have done it sooner.”

  “Speaking about young’uns.” I smiled. “Take the scholarship.”

  “We don’t take handouts from strangers.”

  “Good thing I’m not a stranger, and this is no handout. The Bray family is filled with survivors, and we help people. It’s what we do. Emmaline has the qualities we look for in our applicants.”

  “I thought you said she was the first.”

  I grinned and started dumping creamer into my cup. “We’ll fine tune it as it grows. You and I both know she shouldn’t be penalized because the Principal was a crazy lunatic who enjoyed killing people.” I stirred my creamer in the cup. “Besides, Mikey saved my life. It’s the least my family can do to return the favor. It’s time some good came out of all of this bad, don’t you think?”

  “You’re always welcome here, Lucy Bray,” Betty said and extended her hand.

  I took it and shook. The olive branch was finally accepted and reciprocated.

  One down and one to go.

  I left and drove to the outskirts of town and pulled in behind Carson’s car. The moving van pulled
in behind me and another group in a van behind them. Two women, Mikey, and even more men.

  I didn’t even need to knock on the door before Carson answered. His brows dipped in confusion. “What are you doing?”

  “Bringing you into the twenty-first century and helping you banish your ghosts.” I said and leaned in to whisper. “They have left, haven’t they?”

  “Yeah,” he chuckled. “They’re gone.”

  “Great.” I rested my hand on his chest, pushing him back out of the way.

  The others followed me in, and I walked the decorating team around explaining what I wanted. When we got to the closet holding the information about Carson’s mother’s death, I stopped them. “This is not to be touched. I want manly, I want comfy, and I want a livable sanctuary, the kind you’d do for your husband. That room”—I pointed to the spare bedroom— “I want that to be the think tank. I want smart boards, computers, and enough counter space for any and all kinds of electronics.”

  “Is that all?” one of the women asked.

  “No,” I said, walking through the living room. I pointed to the large open space out back. “I want a huge workshop in the back filled with tools of all kinds so Carson can tinker and build me some fun toys.”

  They both grinned. “Absolutely.”

  “Uh, Lucy, can I talk to you?” Carson said, taking me by the arm and steering me out the front door.

  “Yeah,” I said, glancing over my shoulder to the women as I was being pulled. “You have your details. Now get started.”

  Carson pulled me out of the house and away from the cars and the men starting to carry furniture out. “When you said redecorate, I was thinking more like hanging curtains or painting the walls.”

  “The walls, of course,” I said and spun around to tell the decorators that I’d forgotten, but Carson grabbed my arm.

  “I can’t afford all of this.”

  “This is my gift to you, Carson. I wouldn’t have brought these people and expected you to pay for it. Think of it this way. We’ll need the space, and I need comfort for when we’re here working together to solve your mom’s case.”