“I’m here now.”
Yes, Mr. Fix-It had arrived on her doorstep. “Headline or in-depth version.” She didn’t want to go where he was asking her to go, but it was vital to the case. And right now, it was vital to her well-being. The cold was growing, an arctic glacier crushing her chest.
“Your choice,” he said.
“You’re pulling some psychobabble stuff on me, aren’t you? Letting me control where this goes, how it unfolds.”
“And if I am?”
“It’s working, because, yes, I want to tell you about Kendra. I think in knowing her, you’ll better understand Jason.” And me. No, Hayden, didn’t need to understand her. He just needed to catch a killer.
“Technically all my mother wanted was happily ever after,” Kate said. “Kind of strange, isn’t it, starting a story with happily ever after?” She pulled in a long breath.
“My mother lived her entire life in Dorado Bay. She grew up in a fancy house on the lake with two parents who doted on her. She was pretty and popular. After high school, she was supposed to go to some prestigious all-girls college on the East Coast, but her senior year she met my father and things changed. Her parents didn’t like him, called him a transient bum who was beneath her. My father worked as a blackjack dealer, and my grandfather got him banned from all the casinos and run out of town. Deeply in love with him, Kendra took off after my father and soon got pregnant with me. She was ecstatic. My father, who was a self-professed free spirit and dreamer, reluctantly settled down with her in Dorado Bay, but he hated being tied down, hated living in a town that looked down on him. They fought all the time. Kendra would scream and rant, and my dad would take off. As the years went on, she grew more angry and depressed. He grew to hate her, and my mother, shunned by her parents and the whole town, began to hate everyone.”
Hayden’s arm brushed hers, the expensive cloth of his suit coat soft and smooth. “Doesn’t sound like a healthy place for a young girl.”
Hayden didn’t know the half of it. “When I was five, Jason was born, and two years later Kendra, in a fit of rage, attacked my father with a kitchen knife. That night my father came to me and said he was leaving and that he’d come back for me when he found a better place where we wouldn’t have to deal with dragons like her. But he never came back, and she blamed me. Maybe because I looked so much like him or because we were so close. Or maybe because I was a free spirit, wild like him.” Was. Right now she was anything but free.
“As for Jason,” she went on, “Kendra adored him. As sick as it sounds, I think she turned all of her love and attention that should have been for my father onto Jason. She doted on him, but in a twisted way. He had no friends, no interests of his own. They were inseparable. What she liked, he liked. What she didn’t, he didn’t.” Something hard and prickly clawed up her throat.
“Including you.”
Her fingers traced the scar along her earlobe, another one Hayden didn’t know about, the one that a butcher hadn’t carved into her. “Yes, just like my mother, my brother hated me.”
* * *
Friday, June 12, 7 p.m.
Dorado Bay, Nevada
Agent Hatcher took a blue silk handkerchief out of his pocket and unfurled it with a flick of his wrist. The motion stirred the air in the too-hot, too-still break room of the Dorado Bay Police Department.
“You don’t have to entertain me.” Kate watched the blond-haired FBI agent, the latest of Hayden’s dutiful babysitters, tuck the blue silk into a tiny hole atop his fist.
“But it’s my pleasure.” A slow smile slid across Agent Hatcher’s mouth, conjuring two deep dimples. With the blue silk completely hidden, he waved his hand in the air before her in slow, sweeping arcs. Then finger by finger he opened his fist and showed her his empty palm. His blue eyes widened. He slipped his hand into the folds of hair near her left ear and pulled out a white silk scarf with a print of a single red rose. He handed it to her and bowed.
“Nice trick, Agent Hatcher.”
His hand clutched his chest. “Are you calling my amazing feats mere tricks? My dear, skeptical Miz Johnson, don’t you believe in magic?” His drawl was slow and sugary but wasted on her.
She dropped the white silk on the table. “Magic exists only in children’s storybooks.” She offered him a small smile. He was, after all, trying to get her mind off the horrors of the day, trying to ease her soul, much like Hayden, but instead of steel and masterful control, Agent Hatcher was pretty scarves, dimpled smiles, and thick Southern charm. Hayden said Hatch was his team’s crisis negotiator. She could see this man diffusing dangerous situations. Something about Hayden’s teammate invited closeness.
“Call me Kate,” she said.
Agent Hatcher hopped off the back of the chair he’d been perched on. “You, Miz Kate, are a cynic in need of serious conversion.”
“I’m a realist.”
“You’re also a tough lady.” He squatted before her and took her hand in his. “Hayden filled me in. You’ve been through a lot today, and you’re still going strong. Pretty admirable.”
She unwound his fingers from hers, picked up the white silk scarf, and began kneading it. “There are six other women who’ve been through worse. They—”
“The proper response to any compliment, according to my very wise Great Aunt Piper Jane,” Hatch interrupted, “is ‘thank you.’”
She wrapped the white silk about her fingers.
The slashes of his dimples deepened, his sugary grin widened, and his blue eyes sparkled. Label him Agent Charming and Disarming.
“Okay, thank you,” she said with a half smile. “Does anyone ever win an argument with you?”
“Very, very few.” Hatch hopped up and sat on the table, his legs swinging. “Although your man Hayden has been a formidable opponent.”
Hayden Reed wasn’t her man. He belonged to no one, but she did agree he was a force to be reckoned with. “He’s hard-headed, consumed with order, and a control freak,” she said.
Hatch took three silver-dollar-size silver rings from his pocket. “You know him well.” He slid the rings in and out of his fingers, and they appeared to pass through each other, defying their solid shape.
“I don’t know him at all,” she said.
The silver rings continued to clink as he formed a chain. “Hayden’s good at holding things inside. At headquarters we call him the man of steel.”
The image fit, the vision of a superhero. But Hayden Reed was very much honed of flesh and blood. She’d seen the human, hungry look in his eyes the night she invited him to handcuff her to the bed.
“I don’t think he’s as tough as he makes out to be,” she said. “He hasn’t been sleeping lately.”
“Some times are harder than others,” Hatch said.
“It’s Tucson, isn’t it?”
The rings stilled. “Hayden told you about the accident?”
“His mother-in-law did.”
“You met Maeve?” Hayden’s teammate seemed incredulous.
“Briefly.” Because of Smokey Joe. She’d hadn’t talked to him since she left Tucson two days ago. She’d call him tonight.
“Well, Miz Kate, if you’re aware of his sleeping habits, I think you know Hayden better than you’re letting on.” Hatch waggled his eyebrows.
Kate squirmed. “We’ve been together because he doesn’t trust me. He’s afraid I’ll take off. So I’ve seen he’s not sleeping, that he’s obsessed with finding the Butcher, and I wonder if he’s avoiding thinking about the accident in Tucson. People need to grieve. It’s part of moving on.”
She was a master of moving on. She’d grieved over her father when he left and over the monstrosity of her mother when they’d parted ways when Kate was sixteen. Maybe that’s why she hadn’t felt anything over the dead body in the shed. She’d already grieved, not so much for the woman, but for the mother/daughter relationship that never was.
“Something has to give eventually with Hayden,” she continued in an eff
ort to get her mind off Kendra. “He can’t keep going like he does.”
Hatch put the rings in his pocket. “Maybe you can knock some sense into him.”
“Me?”
“Did you or did you not knock him in the mouth with that beautiful little head of yours?” The ocean blue of Hatch’s eyes sported little whitecaps of mirth.
She wasn’t proud of that move, but the picture was funny, she taking on a man with the size and agility of Hayden Reed.
“Guilty,” she said with a laugh.
Hayden appeared in the doorway and drew to an abrupt stop.
Hatch waved him in. “Just talking about boxing matches.” Hatch winked at his teammate. “Keep your gloves on, Professor, and perhaps you, Miz Kate, should start believing in magic.” He pointed to her hands.
The white silk cloth with the red rose that never left her fingers was now a different color. Pink. A soft, blushy, horrible pink.
She dropped the silk as if it were a red-hot coal.
Hatch chuckled and walked out the door while Hayden picked up the scarf.
She inched back from him, not seeing Hayden, not seeing anything but pink. “Get it away.”
Hayden jammed it in his pocket. Good. It was gone. The pink was gone. She wiped sweaty hands on her denim-clad thighs.
“Are you okay?” Hayden asked.
“I hate pink.” Try to make sense out of that, Mr. Head Guy.
If he did, he said nothing. Instead, he reached for her saddlebags. “Time to go. I have a place for us to stay.”
* * *
Friday, June 12, 8 p.m.
Reno, Nevada
“That lying, butchering son of a bitch!”
Robyn Banks stormed into the hallway that snaked through KTTL’s crowded newsroom. No one said a word to her as she made her way to Wayne’s office, but nothing unusual in that. Ring the bell. Out of the way. Here comes the town leper. No one wanted to catch what she had.
She threw open the door of the news director’s office, not bothering to knock. Eighteen years at this place had earned her some privileges. “Fifteen seconds,” she said, spit shooting through her lips. “You slashed the hell out of my woolly mammoth tooth story, gave it a measly fifteen seconds, and put it at the bottom of the running order.”
Wayne didn’t look up from the monitor where video rolled of a raging forest fire.
She slammed a palm on his desk. “You promised me four times that.”
The news director stopped the streaming image and made a note on the pad in his lap. “Your story was shit.”
She knew it was shit when she turned it in, lacking an interview from a scientific source and relying on the overly cute five-year-old kid hugging the giant fossilized tooth his dad found while dove hunting, but she deserved more than fifteen seconds. Interns with skiing squirrel stories got more than fifteen seconds. “You promised me sixty seconds on that piece.”
Wayne put his notebook on the desk. “You give me sixty seconds worth of solid news or gut-wrenching human interest, and I’ll run every second of it.”
She slumped into the chair across from his desk. “I gave you what I could in the time I had.” Her renewed hunt for Katrina Erickson consumed her.
“Exactly.” The news director leaned back in his swivel chair. “And it wasn’t enough. Again.”
The nuclear blast of that last word slammed Robyn. “If you’re referring to the wrinkle paint story—”
“The wrinkle paint story, the bald cocktail waitress story, and the kitchen fungus story. Take your pick, Robyn. You’re kicking out shit, and you have been for the past year. I have younger, hungrier reporters out there kicking your ass.”
Like Katrina Erickson. Robyn had been news anchor at KTTL for eight years when Katrina arrived. Eight years of rock-solid reporting, writing, and producing. She was the entire package, gaily wrapped in pretty paper.
“You know what I’m capable of, Wayne.” Robyn tried to keep the whine out of her voice.
“What you were capable of.”
“If this is about my age—”
“Don’t throw that sacred cow at me. This isn’t about a forty-something woman getting a few wrinkles—”
“Thirty-five.”
“Whatever. It’s about a news reporter failing to report news of interest and import.”
She pressed at the sides of her head. This was not the way she envisioned this conversation. Hell, her life was not what she envisioned, what she carefully planned, but there were still parts of her life she could control, like this pissant job. She stood. “Fine, I’ll dig deeper. Meet with old sources. I can—”
“Sit.” Wayne ran a hand over his bald head. He looked old, like she felt, old and used up. “I was going to save this for later, at a time when you’re less emotional, but I don’t think I’ll be seeing that anytime soon. Bottom line, Robyn, is your contract is up next month. KTTL isn’t renewing.”
“No.” She couldn’t leave KTTL. Not now. “Anything. Tell me what you need me to do. You want me to take the weekend field assignments? The one-man-band jobs? The—”
“Robyn, please, groveling doesn’t look good on anyone. You’re done here. GM wants it”—he paused—“and I agree.”
Wayne flicked the switch so the forest fire images exploded again on the screen. That’s how she felt inside, like old, dry tinder, sparked by a carelessly tossed match. This was an injustice. She hated injustice, and she despised those who caused it.
“What would you say if I said I could deliver Katrina Erickson?”
Wayne’s head snapped up.
“An in-depth feature, where she’s been, why she left, and what she knows about the Butcher murders.”
Two days ago the FBI had landed in Dorado Bay in search of Jason Erickson, who was a person of interest in the Broadcaster Butcher slayings. The search was now statewide, and authorities had submitted Erickson’s photo to media outlets like KTTL.
“You’ve been in touch with Katrina?”
“We’ve always been like sisters.” Like sisters who fought. Sharp nails. Hair-pulling. Or at least the adult, civilized version of it. “What do you say?”
“I say you deliver Katrina Erickson, and I’ll get the GM to extend your contract. You get me a scoop on the Butcher, and hell, I’ll get you the weekend anchor position.”
Chapter Nine
Friday, June 12, 10 p.m.
Dorado Bay, Nevada
Hayden stood on the deck of the lakeside cottage, looking not at the bay stretched out before them but at Kate’s face as she leaned over the railing. Her features, like the water, were dusted with golden moonlight, but unlike the bay, Kate’s face was anything but placid. He searched for words, something casual or even light-hearted, because after seeing her mother’s decaying body, Kate needed light. Unfortunately, he’d never excelled at light.
You’re always so serious, Hayden, his first-grade teacher had told him. It’s okay to smile once in a while. She hadn’t known then that he’d just buried his mother.
Hayden, you’d be so much easier to live with if you’d just let loose, Marissa had said right after they were married. You need to walk naked in the rain, dance in the cereal aisle at the grocery store, and get rid of all those stodgy blue striped ties.
His fingers slid along his tie, a deep purple silk with hand-painted yellow, black, and teal waves. He settled his elbows on the railing next to Kate and gazed at the moon-speckled water. “Isn’t dorado Spanish for gold?”
Over the night chatter of bullfrogs and crickets, she released a soft “Mmm-hmm.”
“I see.”
Her mouth quirked in a half smile. “What do you see?”
He splayed his fingers, gesturing to the dappled bits of golden moonlight bobbing on the water. “When I first saw the bay, it was bright blue and clear. I couldn’t figure out why it was named Golden Bay, but here in the moonlight, it looks like millions of gold coins sprinkled across the water.”
The smile reached the other sid
e of her mouth. “As a kid, I’d sneak out of the house at night and come down to the bay just to look at the water. I’d pretend all the little golden ripples were coins I could scoop up to buy a fancy car to take me away from here.” Kate’s fingers curled around the railing. “Even as a kid, I had running on my mind.” She kicked a twig from the deck into the smooth pool, and tiny droplets of gold tinkled on the night. “I hated this place.”
Hayden rested his palm on her white knuckles. As much as she hated her hometown, she cared enough about stopping a serial killer to come back. Lottie had called her Miss America, but there was so much more to her than a pretty face and beautiful body. Kate had exquisite strength, and she was a woman not afraid to fight, and he was thankful to have her at his side. He could have rented them a hotel room in town. It would have been practical, closer to Erickson’s home, to the people Hayden needed to meet with, but he knew Kate needed the solitude of the cottage on the bay’s isolated eastern shore.
He told the FBI field agent in Denver that he knew Kate because he studied her for the past five months, but he was finding she was also an easy read. She was more than a feisty, cynical fighter. Today he’d seen her laughing with Hatch. A spike of irritation stabbed at his chest. Everyone loved Hatch with his silly magic tricks and lazy Southern drawl. Hatch knew how to do light. He knew how to make her laugh. The sweet, chiming sound of Kate’s laughter had shocked him into stillness. All Hayden received from Kate were glares, angry shouts, a head-butt to his mouth, and an elbow to his ribs.
“Are you thinking about the Butcher?” Kate asked, breaking the silence. She was no longer gazing at the bay, but at him, her eyes clear and curious. She wasn’t tugging her hair across her neck. She wasn’t ducking into the shadows. She wasn’t searching the deck for a quick escape. She trusted him to do his job.
He stood, his spine straightening one vertebra at a time. No, he hadn’t been thinking about Erickson, but he should have been. It didn’t matter that Hatch could make Kate laugh or that Hayden couldn’t get that sound out of his head. The case mattered. For the first time in five months, all the bits of information he’d been gathering and analyzing were finally starting to come together.
The Broken Page 10
