The Broken

by Shelley Coriell

  His right leg twitched.

  The one thing he couldn’t control—his anger—uncurled and clawed its way through his body. He pictured his knife plunging in and out of Katrina’s lifeless body and the blood frothing over lips that would never talk again.

  “And this is Katrina Erickson, reporting for KTTL’s ‘Justice for All.’”

  Never again. No, never, ever again.

  He drew in a deep breath, the oxygen fanning the fire that lived within his belly. The fire spread lower, licking at his groin and heating the blood rushing to his midsection. Yes, he would find Katrina and take pleasure—his greatest—in killing her. His hand stroked the front of his trousers. He imagined a world without Katrina. He stroked harder, faster. A world without fear.

  His hand froze. His anger, the hot pulsing inferno within, was dashed by that wave of glacial fear, the blood-chilling realization that she knew the truth.

  He pried his hand from his now limp dick and reached for his phone. His hand shook as he dialed Jim—Just Jim. Jim didn’t have a last name or a conscience. What he did have was a love for money. People like Jim came in handy because they were so easy to manipulate.

  The phone buzzed eight times before Just Jim picked up. “’Lo,” said a groggy voice.

  “It’s me,” he said. “You failed to call this morning at nine with your status report.”

  “I was on a fucking plane, surrounded by too fucking many people headed for the hellhole of Tucson.”

  Tucson? “Your assignment is to follow Agent Reed, who is in Colorado Springs.”

  A sharp laugh cut through the phone line. “You obviously haven’t checked your e-mail.”

  He despised people laughing at him, almost as much as he despised anything that got him off schedule. He hadn’t checked his e-mail because it wasn’t four yet.

  “Well, you may want to check. I sent you a picture. I think your FBI guy found her.”

  His hand grew slick with sweat. “Are you sure?”

  “I’ve been on his tail for two days and finally got a look at her in the airport. She fit the basic description. Slim, about five-foot-eight. Her hair wasn’t dark brown, but reddish-brown with loopy curls to her shoulders. She wore a long-sleeved shirt, a scarf, and big sunglasses. I’m pretty sure it’s the woman you want.”

  He didn’t need pretty sure. He needed absolute certainty. He flexed his fingers, once, twice, three times before he could convince them to flick on his computer screen three hours before schedule.

  “Now don’t forget you owe me another five grand. I expect it tomorrow in—”

  He stopped listening and stared at the woman captured by Just Jim’s camera.

  It was Katrina.

  The one person who still held power over him.

  * * *

  Thursday, June 11, 3 p.m.

  Reno, Nevada

  “You ready to call it quits, Robyn? It’s so damn hot my shoes are sticking to the concrete.”

  Robyn Banks ignored her cameraman, who had been complaining about something or other for the past three hours. She’d been staked out at the Reno airport, trying to get a glimpse of Katrina Erickson, who she was sure was coming back to town.

  Robyn was the only reporter so far to make the connection. Jason Erickson, the man the FBI wanted for questioning in conjunction with the Broadcaster Butcher slayings, was Katrina’s brother. Katrina had left northern Nevada after the Butcher—possibly her brother—attacked her three years ago. When the FBI nabbed little brother, Katrina would be free to return home. Robyn licked her lips, careful not to smudge her lipstick. Katrina Erickson coming home would be the juiciest story on the nightly news. Robyn wanted this so bad she could taste it. Katrina served in a crystal bowl. Whipped cream and a cherry on top.

  Katrina’s attack was big news three years ago, and so was her disappearance. Rumors ran rampant when Katrina fell off the face of the earth. Some speculated her attacker found her after she was released from rehab and hacked her body into such minuscule pieces that no one could identify her. Others buzzed about Katrina having a nervous breakdown and being locked up in a mental institution. Hell, Robyn even heard someone say Katrina lived in BF, Kentucky, and made beaded jewelry for a living.

  She had no idea where Katrina had been for the past two and a half years, but every instinct that made her a damn good reporter told her Katrina Erickson was coming home, which was a good thing, because Katrina owed her. The bitch stole something right out from under her.

  Robyn wanted something in return.

  A nice, fat, juicy news story covering the reappearance of Katrina Erickson would do just fine. It had been a long time since one of Robyn’s stories led off the news hour. Hell, it had been a long time since she’d covered the biggies and the breakers.

  She wanted Katrina Erickson’s story. No. She needed it.

  “Are you sure Erickson is going to show today?” her cameraman asked.

  “No.” All she knew was Katrina would have to come home eventually, and Robyn would be here to greet her.

  “Let’s knock off then.”

  Robyn shook her head. “One more hour. There’s another plane landing in thirty minutes from Chicago. We’ll stick around for that, and if Katrina doesn’t show, we’ll leave.”

  Her cameraman grunted. “Tell me again why you’re so anxious for me to shoot this woman?”

  “Because shooting her with my nine millimeter would land me in jail.”

  Chapter Six

  Thursday, June 11, 3:30 p.m.

  Denver, Colorado

  Kate sat in the small conference room on the second floor of the FBI’s Denver Field Office and pretended to ignore the people pretending not to stare at her.

  “Can I get you a cup of coffee?” Agent Sankey asked. He was the young FBI agent Hayden had ordered to babysit her. “Or how about a bottle of water?”

  “No, thank you.” But you can stop staring at me. She pulled the collar of her shirt around her neck and pushed her sunglasses farther up the bridge of her nose. What was taking Hayden so long?

  “We should be getting you out of here soon,” he continued in an overly serious voice.

  She gave him an absent nod. Away from Smokey Joe’s cabin, she felt exposed, a walking target for the Butcher’s knife and the object of stares and whispers. The airports and planes today as she and Hayden traveled to Tucson and then to Denver had been hellish, teeming with thousands of people. The all-seeing Hayden recognized her panic early on, and he staked himself at her side, literally, her body tucked into his most of the day. In a cloud of cinnamon-scented air, she’d felt safe. And she hadn’t felt that way in almost three years. She took comfort in the loaded gun hidden beneath his fancy suit coat, in the sheer size of him, but mostly in his eyes. Nothing would get past that steely stare, including the Butcher.

  And she knew Hayden was right; Smokey was safe. Grumbling, but out of danger. Now there was a brilliant move. On the flight to Denver, Kate realized that Maeve, who had just lost her daughter, needed someone just as much as blind Smokey did. Hayden, a master of reading and fixing people, took care of them both with a single swift, efficient move. Really, he was amazing if you could get over the fact that he was controlling and almost inhumanly focused on his job.

  If she were still in the broadcast business, she’d be digging into the quiet, controlled FBI profiler’s past, because there must be a juicy human interest story behind his granite façade. She’d seen that moment when he begged her for information about the Butcher, when he’d bared his soul, and she’d seen a flicker of desire when she’d stretched out on her bed begging for handcuffs. People so buttoned up were usually hiding something.

  At that moment, the man in her thoughts walked out of an office at the far end of the corridor. As he made his way toward her, she noticed she wasn’t the only one getting stares.

  Hayden was more than easy on the eye. She took off her sunglasses and set them on the table. He could have had a career in front of the camera
. He had hard, chiseled good looks with eyes the color of a storm just before it shook the skies and a tall, muscled body, all wrapped up in a shiny suit of quiet but bone-deep confidence.

  But it was funny—for a man who made his living as an observer, he seemed unaware of the effect he had on women. He was oblivious to the flirty smile of a barista in the airport coffee shop, the casual touch of the flight attendant, and the come-hither look of one of his colleagues down the hall.

  Was Hayden that consumed with his work? With the Butcher? Or was he reeling from the recent death of his ex-wife? She could ask him, but he’d quip out his standard, “It doesn’t concern you.” Unfortunately for her, everything in her life right now concerned Agent Reed, because he was making arrangements for her protective custody.

  When he walked into the conference room, his face was more serious than normal. “Are you ready?”

  Ready to give up her freedom? To hand over control of her future to a system that had failed her? She sunk deeper into the chair. Like she had a choice.

  Hayden handed a folder to Agent Sankey then turned to her. “In ten minutes Agent Sankey will take you downstairs to meet agents Schupp and Gant, who will take you to a safe house. Either Schupp or Gant will be on duty around the clock. Listen to me, because this is key. You won’t be able to go outside on your own, nor will you be allowed to contact anyone by phone or e-mail, including Smokey Joe.”

  Her fingertips bit into the leather chair as he rattled off more directives. He might call it protective custody, but she called it prison. Already, the walls closed in on her, and she snagged in a long breath.

  “I know it will be hard for you to be cooped up in the house,” Hayden went on. “So I’ve arranged for the custody team to take you out for a daily drive along a secure route.”

  Perfect. Agent Efficient had thought of everything. “Care to tell me what time I can change my underwear?”

  Agent Sankey hid a laugh behind a cough.

  Something flashed in Hayden’s cool, gray eyes. Anger? Confusion? Desire? She couldn’t tell because he reached into his pocket, took out his wallet, and slipped out his card. “I like to be thorough.”

  “Agent Obscenely Thorough,” she said with a smile. “Maybe you should have a new badge made up.” His jaw ticked, and she took perverse pleasure that she’d found a way to shake this granite-faced man who’d taken control of her foreseeable future, because right now she was powerless. For more than two years she’d taken care of herself, kept herself safe, but now her life was in someone else’s hands. And her brother, who already killed six other women and who promised to finish the butcher job on her, was on the loose.

  Hayden handed her his card. “If you need anything at any time, no matter where you are, contact me.”

  “And you’ll don your superhero cape and come to my rescue,” she said without a hint of humor.

  His hand settled on her shoulder. The touch should have been steely and cool, but it warmed her to her toes. “I’m going to keep you safe, Kate.”

  Kate. He’d called her Kate in a voice steady and strong but softened by a hitch of breath. Why did he have to call her Kate? And why did she take so much comfort in the sound of her name on his lips and the warmth of his touch? It was easier to dislike him when he called her Katrina, the name assigned to her by the woman who gave birth to her.

  “I know,” she said. As much as she hated his controlling ways, she knew Hayden was not the enemy. He wanted Jason behind bars as much as she did.

  Jason. This all came back to Jason, to catching him so he wouldn’t kill again. Would this special agent from his specialized elite FBI team be able to catch her attacker, to end the nightmare? She wanted to believe it. Damn, did she want to believe it.

  Hayden took a step closer, raising his other hand and sliding his fingers along her cheek. More soothing heat. His palm cradled the side of her face, his thumb sliding to her right temple, to the scar.

  An iceberg slammed into her. She ducked from his touch and smoothed the hair along her temple back in place. What now? Should she thank him for his efforts? Wish him luck? Next to her, Hayden hadn’t moved. He stared at his hand with an odd expression.

  “I’m ready,” she said. Because he needed to get going so eventually she could get going.

  Her words snapped him from whatever thoughts had turned him to stone. With a nod, he slipped his hand in his pocket and took out another business card. “Here, call me—”

  She held up his card. “You already gave one to me.”

  His forehead lined. With a final nod, he spun on his polished Italian lace-ups and headed for the door. With each step he took, the room grew colder. A shudder wracked her body, and she clasped her arms about her chest.

  “You okay?” Agent Sankey asked, putting his hand on her shoulder.

  She jerked at the touch, and he stepped back as if she’d sunk a set of venomous fangs into his flesh. She wanted to throw her hands in front of her face, just as she had countless times over the past three years. Like the time a little boy pointed at her during her first week in rehab and said, “Look, mommy, a real live monster.” And like the time a well-meaning, elderly volunteer at the hospital squeezed her shoulder and said, “Don’t worry, dear, you’re young. All those ugly scars will fade.”

  Most had. A few, like the one on the right side of her neck, the one near her right eye, and the one across the bottom of her belly, still served as visual reminders of the ugliness of her attack.

  She stared out the window, which overlooked a courtyard below. She longed to throw it open and gulp in fresh air.

  Agent Sankey nodded toward the chair. “Why don’t you have a seat, Ms. Johnson? It’s probably not a good idea to stand by the window.”

  Because Jason, the Broadcaster Butcher, her brother, may see her. He’d already had a hand in taking away her career and her peace of mind. Now he was taking away her simple, basic need to stand at a window and breathe fresh air.

  Ten minutes later, her escorts arrived, and Agent Sankey led her through the communal office area. A man talking to a uniformed officer stopped in midsentence when she passed them. Two women near a printer craned their necks, their gazes glued to her as she walked the length of the hall. A huddle of blue suits dropped their voices as she walked by but not low enough for her to miss certain words: butcher, knife, scars. She wanted to run, to flee from the stares and whispers. Instead, she focused on slowing her breathing and her heart, which hammered against her constricted chest.

  In the parking lot at the back of the building, shimmering waves of heat rose from the asphalt, and a swell of baked air slammed into her. She shielded her eyes from the bright glare and stopped. “I left my sunglasses in the conference room.”

  “I’ll go back,” Agent Sankey offered.

  She raised her head and turned her face so the agent could see the gash near her right eye. “I’m scarred, not helpless.”

  The force behind her words stopped the agent, and she cringed. She knew it was wrong, lashing out at him for her panic. She was so much better off when it was just her and Smokey Joe.

  “I’m sorry,” she said in a softer tone. “It’s been a rough twenty-four hours.”

  The young FBI agent’s face grew old and weary. “I know, but Agent Reed will get him. He’s one of our best.”

  He was Agent Efficient, Agent Know-It-All, Agent Obscenely Thorough, and Agent with the Really Nice Suit and Italian Shoes. Kate breathed in calm and strength. “I know.”

  With the baby-faced G-man on her heels, she went back into the office. Again, she tried to ignore the stares and whispers. Her glasses were right where she’d left them on the table in the conference room. She jammed them in her bag with a shaky hand. Sweat slid along the sides of her face. It was crazy, getting so worked up about people staring at her. After all, she used to make her living from people watching her.

  She smoothed her hair along her neck. “You know, I think I’d like a water bottle before we go.”
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br />   She must have looked like hell, because the agent nodded and took off. The minute he was out of sight, she shut the door on the stares and whispers. There was probably something else going on here, something to do with her re-entry into the world, and Agent Know-It-All would probably be able to explain it. Unfortunately, or fortunately, Hayden was gone, off to find her knife-wielding brother.

  Pacing the room, she stopped at the second-story window overlooking the crisped grass of the courtyard below, which was thankfully empty. No Jason. She unlatched the lock and pushed open the window. The breeze, although far from cool, felt good sliding through her hair and into her tightened lungs. She envisioned herself roaming mountain roads on her motorcycle, just her and Smokey, and the wind. A different picture, one of her trapped in a safe house and surrounded by guards, flashed behind her eyes, bright and sharp, like a knife slashing into her skull.

  Her fingers gripped the windowsill.

  She thought about the other guards in the hospital and near her home who didn’t protect her. She thought about her brother’s threat to finish the job. And she thought about Hayden. About his palm on her cheek, his promise to keep her safe, and the sound of his shoes as he disappeared from her life.

  That’s when she stopped thinking.

  She hitched her saddlebags on her shoulder and pushed off the screen. Throwing herself over the ledge, she hung by the tip of her fingers, sucked in a breath, and dropped. When her boots hit the ground, she ran.

  She took off with no plan, no destination. She simply had to put distance between herself and the FBI agents who would soon be hunting her down and putting her in a cage. She ducked out of the courtyard and sprinted through the parking lot.

  Her legs pumped faster. She reached a nearby office complex and ran along the back row of cars, keeping low. She rounded a dumpster. Footsteps pounded behind her.