The Blind
Page 32
“But this guy’s sick, scary sick. He does that creepy thing with the mirrors.”
The curtains on Smokey’s window shifted with the night breeze, and the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. “Mirrors?”
“After he kills them Barbies, the screwball goes around breaking every mirror in the house. Shatters every single one. You ever heard of such a crazy thing?”
Sounds ricocheted through her head. The swoosh of a hammer. The crack of glass. The obscenely happy tinkle of falling mirror fragments.
Smokey’s shirt, soaked in sweat and terror, fell from her hand.
* * *
Tuesday, June 9, 2:20 a.m.
Colorado Springs, Colorado
Hayden Reed stared at the shards of mirror that once covered an entire wall in Shayna Thomas’s entryway. The largest piece was no bigger than two inches square.
Insanity was one hell of a wrecking ball.
He squatted to study the destruction, looking for traces—blood, footprints, hairs, fibers, anything that would lead him to the killer he’d been tracking for five months. All he saw in the broken mirror were distorted bits of his face, a macabre reflection of a man who’d been slammed by a wrecking ball of his own.
Parker Lord’s voice echoed through his head. “Hold off on the Colorado slaying,” his boss had said. “Hatch can cover for you and bring you up to speed when you get things wrapped up in Tucson with your family.”
Hayden stood. His family was fine.
Time to hunt for the Butcher. But first he needed to track down Sergeant Lottie King.
A uniform directed Hayden through the living room and down a hallway where he came face-to-face with a short, round African American woman. Her crinkly gray hair hugged her head in a tight knot, and she wore a simple navy suit and a Glock 22 holstered under her left arm. On her feet were the highest, reddest heels he’d ever seen outside a whorehouse.
“Chief warned me some FBI hotshot was coming in, and you got hotshot written all over you.” The sergeant crossed her arms over her chest. “My boys said you’re one of Parker Lord’s men, a fucking Apostle. That true?”
Hayden noticed the tone. It happened often at the mention of Parker’s Special Criminal Investigative Unit, a small group of FBI specialists known for working outside the box and, according to some, outside the law. Some media pundit nicknamed them the Apostles. Like Parker, Hayden didn’t care about names, only justice. “Yes.”
“Heard you boys play by a different set of rules.”
He clasped his hands behind his back. “We don’t play.”
Her jaw squared in a challenge as she jutted her chin toward the shattered mirror in the hallway. “So tell me, Agent I-Don’t-Play, what’s your take?”
Shayna Thomas had been found dead in her bedroom four hours ago. Multiple stab wounds. No signs of sexual trauma. Shattered mirrors. All the earmarks of another Broadcaster Butcher slaying. Hayden pointed to a spot three feet down the hall. “The unsub stood there. One strike. Used a long-handled, blunt instrument he brought with him. Carefully positioned his body out of the glass trajectory. You’ll find no blood near this or any of the other broken mirrors. You’ll also find no footprints, no fingerprints, no trace, and no witnesses.” The other Butcher crime scenes had been freakishly void of evidence.
The sergeant locked him in a stare-down. He studied the wide, steady stance of those high heels, the indignant puff of her chest, and the single corkscrew of hair that stuck out above her right ear.
“And your take, Sergeant King?”
The police sergeant’s nostrils flared. “I think we got us one fucked-up son of a bitch, and I can’t wait to nail his ass to the splintered seat of a cold, dark cell where he’ll never see the light of day.”
Early in his law enforcement career, he’d learned there were two kinds of people behind the shield: those seeking personal gain—a paycheck, ego strokes, power—and those seeking justice. Like him, the woman in the red shoes was one of the latter. Hayden unclasped his hands. “And I can’t wait to hand you a hammer.”
A smile wrinkled the corner of her eyes, and he saw what he needed: respect.
“Damn glad you’re here, Agent Reed.”
“For the record, Sergeant King, I hear you aren’t much of a slouch, either.”
“Ahh, a pretty face and a smooth talker. I think I might be able to work with you.” The smile in her eyes dimmed as she motioned him to follow her down the hall.
“Time line?” Hayden asked.
“A man out walking his dog hears breaking glass as he passes Thomas’s house. He calls the station at 10:32. Beat officer arrives at 10:37. He makes repeated shout-outs, but no one responds. He looks through the front window, sees the broken mirror, and calls for backup. When the second uniform arrives, they enter and discover the victim in the master bedroom.”
“Positive ID?”
“Confirmed. Shayna Thomas. Homeowner.”
“Current status?”
“Crime Scene Division’s still processing.” Sergeant King’s red shoes drew to a halt. “This is one mother of a scene.”
“Blood.” Hayden didn’t frame the single word as a question. They’d found excessive amounts of blood at the other Butcher crime scenes, five since January.
“It’s the fucking Red Sea in there. You better watch those shiny shoes of yours.” Lottie pointed to the door in front of them. “I’m warning you. It ain’t pretty.”
Wrongful death never was.
Inside the bedroom, blood peppered four walls, striped the white down comforter, and clung to the fan centered on the ceiling. The victim lay on the ground in front of a dresser. Blood soaked her T-shirt and jogging shorts and matted her hair. She was a brunette, slim, probably attractive. Hard to tell. Lacerations decussated her face, arms, neck, and abdomen, but as he expected, the V at her legs was blood- and injury-free.
He saved the hands for last. He always did. It was hard to think clearly after seeing them, hard to stop being the dispassionate evaluator. Drawing air into his tightening lungs, he turned to Shayna Thomas’s bloody hands. They rested on her breasts, fingers intertwined as if in prayer, a gesture of peace amidst the chaos of murder.
For a moment he lowered his eyelids and calmed the rage that simmered in a place he refused to acknowledge.
Those bloody hands beckoned him, pulled him in, and wouldn’t let go. His boss, Parker Lord, was wrong. Hayden needed to be here.
* * *
Tuesday, June 9, 2:23 a.m.
Mancos, Colorado
Run. Fast and far.
Kate’s hands shook worse than Smokey Joe’s as she yanked the saddlebags out of the closet and slammed them on her bed. From the bureau, she hauled out the few things she called her own: underwear, scarves, T-shirts, chambray overshirts, jeans, and her leathers. She jammed all but the leathers into the bags and threw in her brown contacts and hair dye. Meager belongings compared to her on-air days, a time when she wore a different face. A face not yet hacked by a madman. A madman who hadn’t stopped after the butcher job on her.
The wooden floor creaked behind her. She dropped her leathers and spun. Something shifted in the shadow of the doorway. She reached for the ceramic lamp on the nightstand, then set it down when Smokey stepped out of the darkness.
He cleared his throat with a rough cough. “You taking off?”
Her hand dropped to her side, and she tried not to look into his sightless eyes, eyes filled with confusion and something else. Oh God, please don’t let him look at me like that. “Yes.” What more could she say? I’m sorry for disappointing you. I’m sorry for leaving because there’s a madman roaming the country who vowed to kill me and who has since murdered six other women.
She yanked the saddlebag zippers closed. How stupid to think she could stop running, stupid to stay in one place so long, and stupid to put an old, blind man like Smokey Joe in danger. She picked up the leather pants and jammed her legs into them. The Shayna Thomas attack had occurred in C
olorado Springs, only three hundred miles from Smokey Joe’s cabin in southwestern Colorado.
Smokey scratched the stubble on his chin. “That big order? You got it done?”
“Order?” She grabbed her helmet from the top shelf of the closet.
“That gal out of San Diego who wants all them angels. You get ’em done?”
Kate couldn’t think about their online jewelry store or tourmaline angels. She thought only about getting away. “Order’s done. It’s boxed and on the table.”
“I’ll ship it.” One of Smokey’s slippers, the color and texture of beef jerky, whisked across the floor. “Where should I send your cut?”
“You keep it.” She needed no connections to Smokey Joe, no trail that could put him in the sights of a knife-wielding madman.
Smokey nodded and shuffled away. The sound of his ratty slippers on the floor she polished weekly pounded in her head and tugged at her heart.
The past six months with Smokey Joe had been peaceful, and after being on the run for more than two years, she’d needed the rest and recharging. During her time here in the scrub canyons and pine forests of southwestern Colorado, she hadn’t thought about the past or the future. She’d been simply living, living simply.
She flung her saddlebags over her shoulder—amazing how little a person needed to live—and rushed down the steps to the bottom floor. She bolted through the kitchen but ground to a halt at the back door.
Turning quickly, she set the timer for Smokey’s morning coffee, flicked on the bread machine, and left an urgent voice message with his case manager. Only then did she slip out of the house, dead bolt the lock, and escape into the safe cover of darkness.
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—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“4½ stars! Top pick! Coriell’s latest grips the reader from the first page. An engaging, intriguing plot…a definite must-read.”
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Contents
Cover
Title Page
Welcome
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Epilogue
About the Author
An Excerpt from THE BROKEN
Also by Shelley Coriell
Acclaim for THE BROKEN
Fall in Love with Forever Romance
Newsletters
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2015 by Shelley Coriell
Excerpt from The Broken copyright © 2014 by Shelley Coriell
Cover design by Elizabeth Turner
Cover photograph of girl © Matthew Leete/Digital Vision/GettyImages
Cover copyright © 2015 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
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ISBN: 978-1-4555-2848-6
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