Stalked Justice (Fractured Minds Series Book 1)

by Kate Allenton

  “Great,” Noah murmured as the deputy pulled up and stuffed Gentry into the back seat.

  We followed the deputy back to the sheriff’s department, and they put Gentry in an interrogation room while the rest of us decided who was going to do the talking. Obviously, Noah had interrogation skills while Sloan was willing to beat the truth out of him. Ford looked as disinterested to be here as Tines, as they were leaning back in the conference room chairs.

  “I’m the obvious choice,” I said, earning everyone’s stare as they turned toward me. “I’m the one he wants.”

  There was a chorus of no’s around the room. Noah complained I didn’t know how to interrogate. Tines insisted that I not be alone with Gentry. Ford just shook his head, and Sloan, well, he wasn’t ready to give up the reins on his own potential to go in.

  “You said Gentry wasn’t feeling any emotions. How are you going to get to him?”

  “Leave that to me,” I said as the rest of the group followed me down the hall.

  Noah handed me the file that Sam had rushed to put together. It didn’t have much, except a little of his background including his father’s ties to this area. Several properties including a boat slip were registered in his daddy’s name.

  The others went into the observation room, and I took a deep breath before I entered the room, coming face to face with Gentry.

  Chapter 15

  “I’ve got nothing to say. Either charge me with something or I’m leaving.”

  The room was similar in size and shape to the interrogation room that I’d been in recently. A two-way mirror hung on a wall over a scarred table. Gentry sat on a battered metal chair across from another vacant one.

  I still wasn’t feeling anything from Gentry. Nothing. But I was hoping to change that.

  I grasped the file and held it against my thighs. “You aren’t under arrest; those guys just have a few questions.”

  “What, aren’t you one of them?” he asked.

  I chuckled “God, no. I’m like you. Sort of,” I said, lifting my bracelet. “Only they have me tied to this tracker.”

  His gaze shot to the bracelet, and something quickly crossed his face. I could feel Noah’s aggravation from the room next door. It was thick like honey, only less sweet.

  “So what? Are you like on probation?”

  “Hardly. They haven’t released me, but they have asked me to help find a killer.”

  “Why you?” he asked.

  “The girls that are dying look just like me. Do you think I’m pretty?”

  “Is that a trick question?” he asked, and his gaze shot to the mirror as if looking for a response.

  “No, not a trick question.” I sat down as he rose.

  “Let me out of here,” he said straight to the two-way glass.

  “You’re free to go,” I said and gestured to the door. “I tried to tell them that you weren’t smart enough to pull this off. I mean just look at you. You’re not very muscular, and it would have taken some strong muscles to get those dead girls in position.”

  I opened my senses in his direction, hoping that’d I’d hit a nerve. Still nothing.

  He sat back down. “You don’t know me…Mrs….”

  “Dr. Bray, but you can call me Lucy,” I said.

  “Dr. Bray, I don’t know what you’re playing at, but there’s no way I did what you think. I love women. Why would I hurt any of them?”

  I propped my elbows on the table and played with the necklace around my neck. The one that the killer had a sick fascination with. “I know why I’d hurt someone, but that’s just me. I don’t know your reasoning.”

  “That’s because I don’t have one. I didn’t do anything,” he argued.

  I flipped the file open to find the date he’d purchased the hotel room. “You were in town, and you’re driving the same type of vehicle that’s been spotted around the crime scene. It’s not a long shot. You had means and opportunity. They just need motive.”

  His lips twitched, giving me at least something. “Let me get this straight. You think that I transported whoever this dead girl is on the back of my bike and then dumped her. Dead weight wouldn’t let me maneuver turns. How do you suppose I defied the laws of gravity?”

  “Another vehicle?” I offered.

  I took out the picture of one of the women and laid it in front of him. “Have you seen this girl before?”

  “Yes, no, maybe,” he answered. “It’s spring break, and what I tend to notice on these girls isn’t their face.”

  No emotion, no anger, no nothing, not even his annoyance for being detained. It was like he knew I’d be looking for it. Wanting it, needing it to tell me if I was on the right track.

  I twirled the bracelet on my arm. “So, you’re not looking for a forever kind of connection, huh?”

  “No.” His gaze twinkled.

  “Where were you three nights ago?”

  He sat back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest, letting out a sigh. “God, I don’t even know. I’ve stayed drunk most of my vacation.”

  “You like to drink, and party?”

  “Doesn’t everyone?” he asked.

  “Oh, to be young and stupid,” I said whimsically.

  “Dr. Bray, don’t hate yourself because this town is currently full of women that have more to offer than you do. It’s a college thing, and you must have finished college what…a decade ago?”

  I held his gaze, not answering his question, when a knock sounded on the door. Noah walked in, accompanied by another man in a suit carrying a briefcase. “Dr. Bray, Gentry’s father’s attorney is here.”

  “That was fast. We’ve had him for all of half an hour. You must have traveled at warp speed all the way from…North Carolina?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he answered, “and this meeting is over unless you have something to charge him with or proof he committed the crimes you’re suggesting. Either arrest him or let him go.”

  Gentry rose from his seat. “They don’t have any proof.” He winked at me in passing, “Because I didn’t do it.”

  He’d made it to the door before I called out, “Gentry.”

  He turned.

  “I’ll be seeing you,” I said with a smile.

  “Harassing my client won’t be tolerated,” the attorney said.

  “Killing innocent women won’t be either, Counselor. You might want to reconsider the type of criminal you’re protecting.” I smiled even wider.

  “I thought you said you could get him to talk,” Sloan said, storming into the interrogation room after Gentry and his attorney left.

  “I never said I could get him to talk, but we know more now than we did before.”

  “Did you feel any of his emotions?” Noah asked.

  “He blocked his emotions from me. That right there is telling enough. He had something to hide,” I said while silently pondering how exactly he knew that he needed to block me. Did this weasel know about the secret government program?

  “You didn’t get him to admit to anything,” Sloan said.

  “I didn’t have to, not yet. He knows that we’re on to him. I firmly believe 100 percent, with all my heart, that this man is the killer, regardless of whether we can prove it yet. He knows I’m on to him.” I waved my wrist with the bracelet on it. “He knows I’m here and that I believe he isn’t as smart as others believe. He’s cocky enough to try and get to me, and he knows I had a GPS tracker. That cocky son of bitch will try to outsmart you guys. I can guarantee it. We won’t have to chase him around anymore; he’ll come to us.”

  The sheriff stuck his head in the door. “Uh, I’m not so sure he’s the one. We just got a call about another body, similar wounds, died within the time that you had Gentry here.”

  I shook my head. It wasn’t possible. Gentry was the killer. I knew it, no matter what the sheriff had found. “Where’d they find the body, on the rocks, like the other girls?”

  “She was found unconscious on your floor at the hotel. She did
n’t survive the trip to the hospital,” the sheriff answered.

  I met Noah’s gaze. I wasn’t wrong; I knew I wasn’t. “Take me back to the hotel. This one is fresh and I’ll connect easier.”

  “Your associate, Sam, called it in. He’s the one who found her outside the door.”

  “How convenient do you think it is that we were Gentry’s alibi when this girl showed up and dropped dead in front of our hotel door?”

  “Just because she died while he was here, doesn’t mean he didn’t commit the wounds that took her life.” He could have easily taken the one girl back to the hotel, waited until she passed out before leaving in the middle of the night to inflict these wounds. He would have an alibi. This guy was smarter than any of us were giving him credit.

  We stepped out of the sheriff’s department building. There was a limo in the parking lot. I didn’t need to see who was inside to know the identity of the person behind the tinted windows. I’d read Gentry’s file. The deceased mother came from old-school money, and when she’d died, she left Gentry’s father a very rich man. It was that money that paid for the attorney and property in this town. There were a lot of places we were going to have to check out to find out which one was Gentry’s little hidey-hole where he was experimenting on these women. And I had every intention of doing just that.

  The limo continued to sit there while the rest of us got into the SUV. The ride back to the hotel was spent in quiet contemplation. Sloan’s anger and frustration were choking. Even Tines, the most laid-back of all, seemed a bit on edge with the way he rested his hand over his weapon. We parked at the hotel and spotted Sam standing on the balcony looking down on us.

  Unease settled in my stomach, something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. As I stepped out of the SUV, my gaze traveled over everything. Looking, searching for something in the parking lot that could explain the range of emotions racing through me and how a dead woman landed in front of our door.

  Nothing seemed amiss, nothing to indicate how she’d died or where in the heck she might have come from.

  “I don’t care who she is or what she can do. Your little science experiment just let my niece’s killer walk,” Sloan growled and pointed at me.

  “Science experiment?” I said, “if it wasn’t for this little science experiment, you’d still be scratching your ass trying to figure out who he is. If it wasn’t for this science experiment, you’d have no connection to the killer at all.” My voice grew louder with each word until my own anger rivaled that of Sloan’s.

  Noah stepped between us and held up his hand. “I don’t want to shoot either of you, so cool it.” Noah nodded toward the hotel. “Walk away, Sloan.” Noah turned to me, and I refused to meet his gaze, mine still locked on the recipient of my mood. “Lucy, you’re up to bat. Let’s go see if we can make your emotional connection stronger to the victim’s and try to retrace her steps.”

  I stomped inside the elevator with Ford and Tines as my escorts. Noah had stayed in the lobby with Sloan.

  “Just who in the hell does he think he is?” I crossed my arms over my chest and continued to glare at my own reflection in the elevator door, getting more irritated that we hadn’t reached the floor.

  “You don’t want to piss him off, Lass,” Tines said.

  Tines never said much, like ever. He was strong and protective and knew his way around weapons, but he was like the silent brooding type.

  “And why is that?” I asked.

  “Because he’s loaded, and when I say loaded, I don’t mean in the puissant-billionaire-type loaded. I’m talking he’s already bought his condo on the moon and loaded his two rocket ships in his garage ready to go on a moment’s notice.”

  “You think I care about his money?” A laugh exploded from my lips. Only it wasn’t funny haha; it was more of a “bite my ass” kind of thing. I liked to think I wasn’t a person who could be bought. My parents had raised me to fight for everything I own and to appreciate it more because I earned it. Nothing would be handed to me on a silver platter, and I didn’t expect it to.

  “Obviously not,” Ford answered. “Still, he’s not a man to trifle with, Lucy. He’s good at getting his way, and if he wants you off this task force, it’s as good as done.”

  “He doesn’t scare me. Let him send me back.” I tossed my hands up in the air. “Maybe Sloan is smart enough to figure this out on his own.”

  “You don’t get it, Lass” Tines said. “You piss off Sloan, he’ll see that you aren’t sent back to the psych ward. He’ll makes sure the judge knows you’re sane enough to be doing jail time. Don’t piss him off.”

  I wasn’t making promises. The man called me a science project. Asshat.

  Sloan

  Chapter 16

  Lucy didn’t have any stake in this game. Had it been her sister that was killed, she wouldn’t be screwing around with this guy. She would have already slit his throat. That Lucy was the one Sloan needed. Not this chick that wanted to play games.

  Sloan slid up to the hotel bar, laid a twenty on the counter, and ordered a shot of Jack Daniels. Noah and Hunt had promised Sloan results. Was it that damn bracelet that had her acting like an angel?

  Sloan tossed the shot back. It burned on the way to his gut as he watched the group of sorority girls at the other end of the bar. Each had on a see-through T-shirt covering their barely-there bathing suits.

  “They may be fine, but they’ve got nothing on that hot redhead you stole from me,” a college-aged guy said as he slid up onto the stool next to Sloan.

  Sloan turned to look at the guy. It was the same young wet-behind-the-ears college kid that Lucy had been dancing with at the club. “What can I say? I see something I want, I go after it.”

  “I bet she was a tight little jam, wasn’t she?” the guy asked, sliding his empty beer bottle toward the bartender.

  “You obviously didn’t get to know her very well. What makes you think anything about the redhead was easy?”

  “I could have persuaded her.” The college kid slid off the bar stool, almost falling on his butt. “I still might, if I ever see her again.”

  “Good luck with that,” Sloan said, ordering another drink as the college kid staggered away.

  One of the women at the end of the bar was staring seductively at Sloan. If he wanted, he could get her into bed, without even buying her dinner. But it wasn’t the easy young naïve women that he wanted. No, he wanted someone much more headstrong, much more willing to push back and not give in. He could only imagine their fights being like Fourth of July fireworks and their make-up sex being hotter than anything he could even imagine. His body hardened at the thought. Lucy was like a wet dream, and Sloan was having a hard time staying focused on finding his niece’s killer. He needed to keep his head in the game if he was going to help Lucy find the killer and avenge his niece. He’d let anger get the best of him when he’d made the science experiment comment. It wasn’t anger at her but at Gentry.

  Lucy was a combustible force that intrigued Sloan, and he wasn’t the only one. Ford had the same hungry look in his eye, and he never managed to piss her off. There was something about Lucy that demanded a man to take notice. Maybe it was those lips that begged to be kissed or the thought of exploring her body…every last inch.

  “Eyes on the prize,” he muttered, sliding off the stool. He downed the second shot and winked at the college girl across the bar. No reason to destroy her fantasy.

  Sloan had made it back up to Lucy’s hotel floor where the others were staying. Lucy was sitting in the hallway outside the suite door with her legs crossed, as if she were meditating. Sloan leaned against the wall. Tines was on one end of the hallway, redirecting the hotel guests to take the stairs.

  Noah shrugged as if answering his unasked question.

  Sloan squatted next to her. “Sorry, princess.”

  Lucy just tilted her head as if she didn’t hear him. Heck, she probably didn’t.

  Lucy’s eyes shot open, and she jumped
up from the floor and started at a jog toward where Tines was redirecting. She passed him at a fast clip and headed for the hotel stairs.

  Tines took off after her while Noah and Sloan followed behind. They’d just reached the stairs to find she was already two levels down.

  “Wait up, Lucy,” Noah called out.

  “I can’t. If I stop, I might lose the connection,” she yelled back. Her voice echoed off the concrete steps.

  They caught up with her as she was arguing with an employee, trying to gain entrance into a restricted area. Noah flashed his badge, and the employee stepped aside.

  She took off at a run again, only this time she slowed as she stepped into the laundry area. Floor-to-ceiling machines lined the space. The heat from the dryers made sweat bead on Sloan’s brow, and yet Lucy seemed determined and unyielding to anyone who gave her questionable looks.

  Tines was right behind her. She slowed in front of a door that was labeled, Danger: Stay Out.

  She touched the handle and closed her eyes. “She came from here.”

  Lucy yanked the door open when Tines grabbed her arm to stop her from going inside. He pulled her behind him as Noah and Sloan pulled out their guns.

  “What’s down there?” he asked one of the employees.

  “The abandoned laundry and boiler room. No one uses it anymore,” the worker answered.

  Noah snapped on a light and entered first, and Sloan followed, easing down into the florescent-lit flickering space. A green glow from the bulbs danced in the shadows. The smell was musty, the floors dirty. It wasn’t just creepy; it was damn near arrogant if the killer had been keeping her in this room. So close to employees who could help her and yet so far away. Taunting her. How did he stifle her screams? All those questions rolled in Sloan’s mind as they checked behind every nook and cranny and moved farther into the belly of the beast.

  His breath caught as anger built in his gut. Pictures of Lucy hung on the wall. Pictures of her from the club. Pictures of her from the hotel, from the parking lot, and pictures of her and him kissing. That one had a knife sticking through his head.