The Broken

by Shelley Coriell

  “Until Robert McRay’s pregnant wife.”

  “Yes, by the time the fool got her to me, she was in serious distress. I did my best, but it was too late to life-flight her to Reno. Robert McRay was devastated beyond reason, and he blamed it on me. He tried to rile the Dorado Bay police and state medical board, but they didn’t bite. All bought into the masquerade.”

  “But McRay refused to give up,” Kate said. “He called me to investigate you for one of my ‘Justice for All’ reports. I never got around to following up before Jason attacked me.”

  “Exactly, and we both know how good you are. Lucky for me, I got to him before you two officially touched base.”

  “You killed Robert McRay.”

  “He’s in Mulveney’s Cove.” Dr. Gray/the Butcher/Dustin Root shook his head. “Funny thing, he hasn’t popped up yet.”

  A creak and a shuffle sounded. She’d been so engrossed in this madman’s story that she’d forgotten about hearing something. Hayden? She had to keep the Butcher talking. “So you talked Jason into killing me.”

  “It was pathetically easy. Jason was so easy to manipulate after your mother’s death.”

  Kate sucked in a breath. “My mother died three years ago?”

  “Yes, it appeared to be a heart attack.” He winked at her. “But I’m not a doctor, so I’m not sure. Anyway, when I got to Jason’s house, she was dead. And Jason was pretty far gone, too. From what I learned he kept his mother’s body in the freezer for more than two years. Sick little boy. He wanted to keep her close, but when I started killing the broadcasters and using the exact same attack he’d made on you, he must have gotten scared and moved the body to the hunting cabin. Horrible, huh? He couldn’t let go of the mother he loved.”

  Kate pictured the iced blood in the bottom of Jason’s freezer. “And you used that love to get him to attack me.”

  “After I discovered that Robert McRay had contacted you about the death of his wife and child, I knew I had to get rid of you, but unlike the whores I’d killed before, you were well known. Your death would be front page news. I’m good, but I didn’t want to take any chances of getting caught. So I told Jason you killed Kendra Erickson, that you’d come back to town to punish your mother for hurting you as a child. I even gave him the knife.”

  She had to keep him talking. “And the other broadcasters? Why kill them?”

  “To get to you, of course. When you disappeared off the face of the earth, I harbored the hope that you’d died, but after I saw you in the surveillance video six months ago, I knew you still lived and had to die. Since you’re such a big fan of justice, I knew killing innocent women would flush you out of your hidey-hole. Took me awhile, but eventually it did.” He clapped his hands in front of his chest. “Yay, me.”

  Where was Hayden? He always wanted to go slow, to be absolutely certain. She needed him now.

  She wet her lips. “But why make the Broadcaster Butcher attacks so similar to my brother’s attack on me? Why the broken mirrors? Why the multiple stab wounds?”

  “Initially to cover my tracks. Better to let the authorities chase Jason than hunt for me. But it gave me a little bonus because Agent Reed and his brilliant mind made the connection between the attacks and eventually led me to you, which was the intent from the beginning.” He spun the knife in his hand. “But you’ve stalled long enough, Katrina. It’s time to die.”

  She backed up into the cupboard doors and couldn’t go any farther. She could dive at him, head-butt him as high as possible, and try to keep the knife away from vital organs.

  At the same time he raised his knife, a shadow crossed the doorway and a wet, muddy shape appeared. Her chest almost exploded.

  She wanted to yell, Run! Fast and far! But the old soldier wouldn’t. He was ready for war.

  “Five steps forward. Two to the right. Aim at two o’clock. Swing hard. He has a knife.”

  * * *

  Friday, June 19, 10:40 p.m.

  Dorado Bay, Nevada

  “How the fuck did he get away!” It wasn’t a question. It was a roar torn from the volcano in Hayden’s chest.

  He stood in the grand foyer of the Conlans’ lakeside mansion. An army of searchers, including his teammates, hunted for the Butcher and Kate, and all came up empty.

  Evie rushed from the kitchen. “Just confirmed with the caterer, one of the waiters is missing. No one seemed to know his name or where he came from. He was the one wearing the green dragon mask.”

  A master of disguise. That’s what Hayden was dealing with, and the dragon had Kate.

  Frustration and anger and fear erupted. “So how the fuck did he get away, and where did he take her?”

  “Calm down, Hayden,” Parker said. “You’re not thinking clearly, and we need you to think. This is your case. You’ve lived it, breathed it. You know this man better than anyone.”

  Hayden closed his eyes, trying to clear away the raging red that blinded him, but he couldn’t. All he saw was Kate and those green eyes that finally shined with hope.

  “I know shit!” Hayden opened his eyes, only to find himself facing the mirror in the Conlan foyer. He balled his fist and slammed it into the image of his face, shattering the mirror.

  He welcomed the slice of pain, the trickle of red. Better his hands than Kate’s.

  “Dammit, Hayden.” Evie yanked a table runner off one of the foyer tables and wrapped it around his bleeding hand. “You’re not going to do Kate any good acting like an idiot.”

  “Evie’s right,” Hatch added. “Focus on what you do, Professor. Look at your facts. Look at those pictures in your head.”

  His other hand fisted and he raised it.

  Finn Brannigan grabbed that fist and got in Hayden’s face. “Tell me she’s dead, Hayden. Look me in the eye and tell me the Butcher got her. Tell me you see Kate’s body still except for the blood pouring out of her.” Finn grabbed him by the front of the shirt. “Tell me, dammit!”

  The picture refused to come into focus. “No. She’s not dead.”

  Parker lifted a single index finger, getting everyone’s immediate attention. “Glad we got that settled. Mrs. Conlan, find someone to stitch up Agent Reed’s hand. Hayden, let’s review what you know.”

  Ava nodded, then stopped. “I’ll find Dr. Gray. He’s supposed to be here tonight.”

  Hayden kept his hand above his heart as he pushed back the emotion and tried to tap into his logical, analytical side. It took six deep breaths to find it. “We found no signs of the Butcher or Kate by the boathouse, but that’s no surprise, given the rain and the Butcher’s propensity for leaving nothing behind. The officers posted on all the roads leading out of the Bayside Estates have seen no cars. The Butcher is physically weak, most likely with some kind of foot problem as evidenced by the orthotic shoes. He couldn’t be far unless—”

  “What?” Hatch asked.

  “The lake. He escaped by boat.”

  “The storm has whipped the lake into a frenzy,” Chief Greenfield said. “No sane person would try to run a boat on that.”

  “We aren’t dealing with a sane person.” As blood dripped from his hand, Hayden flipped through his mental notes on the Butcher. They were dealing with a man who found power in blood, who was a master of disguise. “His ability to disguise himself is his biggest strength. He was able to trick his way into each of his victim’s homes.”

  The Butcher got to me twice after the first attack! Hayden’s knees threatened to give way. The voices had been silent lately. And now he heard Kate’s.

  He stood at my bedside. He came into the recovery room. He. Held. My. Hand.

  The lead detective said there was no way any unauthorized personnel could have gotten in.

  Which meant the Butcher disguised himself as medical or law enforcement personnel.

  He opened his mouth but stopped short when Lottie burst through the front door, wearing a pair of soggy white tennis shoes and a snarl on her lips.

  “Okay Mr. FBI Hotshot,” s
he said, pointing her finger at Hayden. “I need your hotshot take on something.” She told them about the bogus orthotic shoe prescription for Louella Bollinger. “Who the hell faked the prescription?”

  Ava Conlan ushered a paramedic into the room. “Hayden, this young man will look at your hand. I couldn’t find Dr. Gray.”

  Hayden grew still as the paramedic unwrapped the table runner bandage and blood splattered to the floor.

  Dr. Gray. The snapshots flashed through his head. The man who’d been limping after he’d been kicked by two-year-old Pammy. The man who quietly joined in the search for both Smokey and little Benny Hankins. The man who’d been Jason Erickson’s doctor and wielded power over him.

  Parker was right. He had all the information.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Friday, June 19, 10:45 p.m.

  Dorado Bay, Nevada

  Now he’s three feet to your right, crouched low, knife in his left hand.” Kate kept her voice calm as Smokey Joe and the man known as the Butcher circled each other in the kitchen lit only by candles.

  She stood next to the cupboard, her damn hands still tied behind her. “Watch it, Smokey, he just stepped to the left. Knife at four o’clock.”

  “Sorry team we make, huh, Katy-lady?” Smokey Joe said with a smile that cracked the mud on his face.

  Yeah, they were a team, and they could beat this guy. The key was getting the knife out of the Butcher’s hand. If only Smokey could keep his attention while she slammed him from behind. Smokey Joe seemed to sense her plan. He jabbed a three-foot stick at the Butcher. “Come on, Butcher Boy, try and take me now, you who can only take on sleeping old men, little boys, and women.”

  The Butcher stilled, his face growing red. Kate could see the fire swirling behind his eyes. Like a dragon. The dragon was completely focused on Smokey’s taunting words, on the little jabs of Smokey’s stick.

  Kate sprung from the cupboard and lunged for the Butcher. He stepped aside, and she flew across the room, hitting the floor with a thud. Her teeth sunk into her tongue, and blood spurted out her mouth.

  “Kate!” Smokey cried out.

  She spat out the blood and turned, expecting to see the Butcher’s knife hovering above her. But to her horror, it wasn’t. The sickle of silver was aimed at the blind man.

  “Duck right. Roll!” Too late.

  The Butcher’s knife slashed into Smokey Joe’s chest.

  “Noooo!” she screamed as blood soaked through Smokey’s muddy shirt. She struggled to her feet. “Smokey!”

  He didn’t answer.

  Everything had stopped. The storm outside. The humming refrigerator. Her heart. Even the Butcher stood eerily still, fixated on the bloody knife. Again she realized how mesmerizing he found blood.

  Run! She could make it down the hall. She could flee into the night. They were on the lake. The part where the houses were few and far between. She could get to the road. Find a car. At the very least she could hide in the darkness.

  But was Smokey really dead? His eyes were closed, his chest painfully still. No. He couldn’t be dead. He was a survivor, like her.

  Rage built inside, a monstrous, ugly rage. Her hands still bound behind her back, she rushed again at the man called the Butcher and screamed, “You’re not going to beat us!”

  * * *

  Friday, June 19, 10:55 p.m.

  Dorado Bay, Nevada

  Even before Evie stopped the car, Hayden hopped out and tore up the front steps of Dr. Daniel Gray’s secluded lakeside home.

  “Kate!” Hayden cried as he bolted into the dark house.

  “Here! In the kitchen.”

  With hands and heart leading the way, he stumbled through the dark toward Kate’s voice. “I’m coming.” At last he saw a faint flickering light. He skidded to a stop in a large kitchen lit by candles, and he saw red. Everywhere. On Kate’s hands, on Smokey’s chest, and on the knife sitting on the floor.

  Kate, who with bound hands was pressing a dishtowel against Smokey’s chest, said, “He heard you pull up and just left through the kitchen door.”

  Hayden headed for her, but she waved him off with a growl. “I’m taking care of Smokey. You go get the Butcher.”

  He couldn’t see past her red hands.

  “Dammit, Hayden, I have everything under control. Run!”

  He took off through the kitchen door into the rain. He still couldn’t see five feet in front of him.

  Use your head. Parker’s voice.

  He needed to think this through. This is what he did. Dispassionate evaluation. With Kate safe inside he could stop thinking with his heart and start using his head.

  Slick pine needles covered the area. Dr. Daniel Gray walked with a limp, and he could never get far in this terrain on a night like this. The man needed a car, but Hayden’s rental was blocking the garage. Or a boat.

  The wind howled and waves pounded the shore as Hayden ran toward the lake. Not only could he not see a thing, he couldn’t hear anything, either.

  But he felt something. His gut—Parker talked often of leading with the gut, but up until now, Hayden didn’t understand it—told him to keep running toward the lake.

  Like a blind and deaf man, Hayden stumbled through the storm, and when he reached the water’s edge, a flash of lightning in the black liquid night revealed a small boat fifty feet off shore. It struggled against the waves and wind.

  Hayden kicked off his shoes, threw off his jacket, and dove into the icy water. But unlike the boat that struggled on the top of the water, he stayed under, kicking and surfacing only to grab occasional breaths. Below water he controlled his breathing, his strokes, and his kicks. He was an underwater missile.

  When he neared the boat, he silently broke the surface. Gray sat at the stern, fighting to keep the craft heading straight into the rolling, angry waves. Hayden placed his shoulder near the bow of the boat and kicked. The boat swerved, and instead of cutting perpendicular into an oncoming wave, it ran parallel. A wall of water crashed down on Gray.

  Hayden’s hands clawed around the boat’s ledge, and he pulled himself halfway out of the water. The boat tipped, and he heaved himself into the hull.

  Gray crawled around the bottom of the boat and grabbed an oar. He tried to lift it, but another wave pummeled the small vessel, and he lost his balance. Hayden lunged for him. They crashed into the bottom of the boat. Hayden’s hands circled the man’s throat.

  Gray opened his mouth but couldn’t cry out.

  The volcano in Hayden bubbled and shot fire. It overflowed and burned. Never before had he wanted to kill, but God help him, he wanted to now. He tightened his fingers around the man’s neck. For little Benny Hankins, for the seven broadcasters, for Robyn Banks, for Kate’s brother, for Hope Academy’s Kyl Watson, and for Smokey Joe. But most of all for Kate.

  The pathetic excuse for a man shook and mewed like a newborn kitten. He had no knife, and from the look in his eyes, no hope. Death right now would release him from the reckoning that awaited him, for justice would be swift and brutal.

  Hayden pulled in a breath, the oxygen cooling, not fanning the fire.

  “Okay, you fucked-up son of a bitch.” And this one was for Lottie. “I’m taking you in because I want you to meet someone who’s going to nail your ass to the splintered seat of a cold dark cell where you’ll never see the light of day.”

  Warm liquid washed over Hayden’s foot, and he smelled urine. The Butcher’s chest heaved in sobs.

  Hayden, with the pathetic heap of the man he knew as Dr. Daniel Gray at his feet, got the boat back to the shore, where Hatch, Evie, Finn, and Jon MacGregor waited for him along with Chief Greenfield and a dozen of his men. And Lottie.

  “You got our man, Pretty Boy,” Lottie said as Chief Greenfield shut the door on the police cruiser holding the man known as the Broadcaster Butcher.

  “We got our man,” he corrected her. It had been a team effort, and no small part of that had been Kate. “Where is she?”

 
“Kate’s fine,” Lottie said. “Not even a scratch. She went to the hospital with Smokey, who’s headed for surgery. The Butcher gave him a nasty chest wound, but it missed all the major organs. Robyn Banks is also alive and in surgery.”

  Kate was safe. Smokey, too. That’s all he needed to know.

  The rain and wind continued to wreak havoc on the night as they got into his rental car and drove to the Dorado Bay police station. Maeve, who was on her way to the hospital in Reno, stopped by with a dry suit and a hug. He took a shower in the station’s locker room and put on his clean suit but no shoes, which he must have lost somewhere near the lake.

  With bare feet, he took care of all the paperwork that was needed to put evil like the Butcher in jail. Chief Greenfield confirmed they’d found a surveillance system trained on locations connected with Katrina Erickson, and in a small freezer in the basement of Gray’s lakeside home, they’d found two small containers of blood, already typed and confirmed matches to that of Shayna Thomas and the broadcaster in Oakland.

  Dorado Bay police found Kyl Watson’s body in the loft of the Hope Academy barn, his head nearly severed from his neck. Dr. Trowbridge, with counsel present, admitted that Eddie Williams did die at the academy during one of their extreme physical conditioning exercises, and he and director Kyl Watson mutually decided to hide the body, as they knew their work would be shut down if the death became known.

  After six hours, Lottie thwacked Hayden on the shoulder. “Ain’t no more i’s to be dotted or t’s to be crossed. Time to call it quits, Pretty Boy. We both need a bit of beauty sleep.”

  “Yeah.” Sleep, with Kate in his arms. He closed his laptop.

  “I’m gonna find me a motel for the night, but I’ll check in with you before I go. You make sure you tell Kate and Maeve goodbye for me.”