Broken Justice
Kate Allenton
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
About the Author
Copyright © 2020 Kate Allenton
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, character, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or use fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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Published by Coastal Escape Publishing
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Chapter One
“We passed five coffee shops on the way to this one. What makes it so special?” Ford asked, sitting across from me. He was my boyfriend. Finally, we were on the same page. It had only taken the death of my last boyfriend to help put things in perspective.
Ford tugged at his cuffs that twinkled in the light. His designer dress shirt was pressed to perfection. His suits were like his armor against the world, and I was slowly prying it off of him.
Like today.
He’d left his jacket at home. Or maybe I’d spilled my tea on it accidentally on purpose. I’ll never tell.
Even though he was dressed like a relaxed CEO on Wall Street, he and I fit like a two-piece puzzle, and one day, not long from now, I’d have my thief comfortable wearing a pair of jeans.
“Be glad you aren’t stuck in the undercover van parked out on the street.” Sam answered for me and took a sip of his coffee.
Sam was the baby brother I never had. He was one of the blood bond connections in my head that caused my debilitating headaches that strike out of nowhere. Only death could sever those connections and I’d have to turn into a serial killing monster, like the kind I hunted, if I ever intentionally wanted the headaches to go away.
“I love that you guys always assume I have some devious plan.”
“You do, don’t you?” Ford asked as his lips twitched at the corners. He and I were the most alike. Both of us considered the laws and rules a gray area which were meant to be broken if doing so was a justified means to an end.
“Well, at least she’s not trying to act like a lone wolf avenger anymore,” Sam said as he stared down at his phone screen like most of the others in the café.
Unlike them, I paid attention to my surroundings. Too many people wanted me dead not to be vigilant.
“Sebastian Elliot is a creature of habit,” I said as if that should answer the reason I’d chosen this spot. I’d watched him for the last three months, and I hadn’t even had to leave the house. I’d just simply closed my eyes and used our blood connection to look in on him. “He doesn’t drink coffee. He prefers tea.”
“Then what are we doing here?” Ford asked.
“The vulture is outside,” Sam said, looking up from his phone.
“Who is the vulture?” Ford asked.
“Sam is watching the street cams,” I answered, slowly rising from my seat with my gaze out the window.
“With just your phone?” Ford asked.
“Well…yeah,” Sam answered.
I turned my attention away from the window and smiled down at Ford, before I leaned in and kissed him, taking my time to linger.
“Is now really the time for all that?” Sam asked.
“Always,” Ford answered. A smile curved on his lips against mine.
I straightened and grabbed the flyers on the table. “It’s showtime. I’ll meet you guys at home. If we’re lucky, he’ll follow me.”
“Lucy, this is a bad idea,” Ford said as if something had flipped in his mind and he was now worried.
I wasn’t worried, and he didn’t need to be either.
“Normally we start with a dead body and have to backtrack to find the killer. Everything about this is different, Ford. We need the body to make a case against him, and he’s the only one that knows where it is. So, until then…I have to poke the bear.” I rested my hand on his cheeks. “Don’t worry. Sam will be watching me, and so will the others in the van.”
“I’ll be watching your every movement.” Sam returned his attention to his phone.
The rest of the team was somewhere nearby. Carson and Grant had drawn the short straws, and were stuck in the stuffy surveillance van. I was toying with a serial killer, and I wasn’t doing it without backup. I’d learned my lesson the first time, and if all went well, the guys in the van would be following a killer, who’d be following me.
I tossed the strap of the shoulder bag over my head, resting it across my body. I pulled out the industrial-sized roll of tape and a handful of flyers from the bag before heading out the door. I jogged across the street to where Sebastian Elliot’s driver had parked the town car. Sebastian was in the back behind the dark tinted windows. I didn’t need to see him to know he was there. I could feel his gaze on me as if he knew I was a potential threat.
He was smart like that.
Neither Sebastian or the driver bothered to get out.
I lifted one of the windshield wipers, and slipped a flyer beneath the rubber pad. The face of the missing woman turned inward for the driver to see. Dorothy’s face was one even the driver wouldn’t be able to ignore. It was part of my well-calculated plan. The man behind the wheel lifted a brow and waved me away.
I moved to the next car and did the same as Elliot and his driver got out behind me. I taped one of the fliers to the light pole.
The vibrant woman on the flyer was no longer alive. Her future ripped away and discarded like these flyers would be by morning. I wasn’t hanging them in hopes I’d find her alive. I was using them as my own brand of bait. Bait the killer wouldn’t be able to resist.
The footsteps were getting closer.
State’s Attorney Sebastian Elliot might just be the smartest bad person I’d ever come across, and that said a lot considering the scum I’d dealt with.
A month ago, I’d been near death, in dire need of a blood transfusion, which explained how some of Sebastian Elliot’s blood was flowing through my veins. Due to the military experiment I was in, it was those blood con
nections that let me tap into the donor’s lives giving me an uncensored glimpse at their daily routines. It was one of those looks that explained how I knew Sebastian Elliot was capable of murder.
I’d witnessed Sebastian’s hand in the death of the woman whose face was on my flyer. I’d seen her hanging from handcuffs in first a cage and then a shed. I’d watched as he released her and told her to run while he shoved bullets into the shotgun.
He’d hunted her for sport, and it was time I turned the tables and he got a taste of what that felt like.
I held the missing person flyer to the pole as I taped it in place. When I was done, I didn’t bother to glance back over my shoulder. I knew he’d be following. Conscience, or more likely curiosity, would take over.
“I’m on the move,” I whispered into the microphone hidden in the strap of my dress. I strolled up the street to the next car and shoved a flyer under the windshield wiper.
“He’s following. He has the flyer,” Sam whispered.
Dorothy was listed on the flyer as a missing woman, but I knew better, and so did the man following me.
“Excuse me, miss.” The familiar voice from my frightening visions, called out to me.
I ignored him and put another flyer on a windshield.
“Miss.” The man called out again, only now he was beside me, holding the flyer.
“Yes?” I asked, turning to face him.
His gaze slid over my face and down my body. I was wearing a white dress and scarf, identical to what Dorothy had been wearing the night he killed her.
And it appeared she would continue to wear them in the afterlife. Her ghostly apparition was standing behind him. Her gaze narrowed, and she looked ready to kill. She caught me looking, and her eyes widened, no longer narrowed at Sebastian. “You can see me.”
I ignored her and swallowed around the lump in my throat.
Sebastian’s square jaw ticked as if he’d been surprised by my choice of clothing.
“You’re dressed like me,” Dorothy said as if just realizing it. “Does that mean you’ve found my body?”
I wanted to answer. I wanted to tell her that finding her was my top priority, but I couldn’t, not yet. Not with him standing in front of me.
I didn’t need to slip into his headspace to know what this guy was feeling. His blood was coursing through my veins. I could feel his energy. He wanted to kill me, too.
“How do you know this woman?” His question was shrill enough to hurt my ears. He clutched the flyer, crinkling it as he shook his hand.
I tilted my head, clasping the flyers to my chest. “The question you should be asking yourself is ‘Did I hide her body well enough?’”
His brows dipped, and he took a step back as if I’d physically slapped him. “Be careful with your accusations, miss.”
“You do know I’m dead,” the woman said with vindication. “Do you know he’s going to do it again? He already has the woman picked out.”
“I’m going to find her. I can promise you that,” I whispered.
He grabbed my arm. His big beefy fingertips dug deep into my skin.
“Who the hell are you?” he growled.
“I suggest you release me,” I said, glancing around. “These nice folks might mistake me for a woman in distress and you wouldn’t want the police to show up, would you?”
He shoved my arm from his grip and ran trembling fingers through his hair. “You’re delusional, lady.”
I finally let the smile hit my lips. “I’ll be seeing you, Mr. Elliot. You can count on that.”
Sebastian pulled the hem of his suit jacket and scowled.
“Enjoy your freedom, Counselor.” I spun on my heels and headed down the street, placing more flyers as I went and refusing to look back to see if he was still watching. I knew he was.
“Did he take the bait?” I directed my questions into the hidden wire.
“We’ll know soon enough,” Ford answered.
I taped up the last flyer, tucked the tape dispenser into my bag, and headed toward my car. If there was ever a time for Sebastian Elliot to need to follow me, that time was now. I knew too much, even though it wasn’t nearly enough. I was probably the one person still alive on the planet who didn’t underestimate that man.
The forming headache pricked my brain like a thousand needles in a pincushion. I rubbed at my temples, trying to ease the intensity. It was getting stronger. I swayed, reaching for my door handle, and had to lean against the door to stop myself from falling over.
“Lucy, are you all right?” Ford asked in my ear.
“Headache,” I answered, knowing he’d understand. At one time I could control them and met them head-on, but now with so many people in my mind, they brought unimaginable pain.
“Your meds are in your bag. Get in the car and lock the door,” he said.
My vision blurred as I hit the key fob. My breath was labored, and sweat beaded my brow just as I slid inside. I reached for the door handle to close it and almost fell out. Anyone looking at me would think I was drunk.
The stabbing pain had my muscles tightening when the world started to blur. I used every bit of energy I could to shut the door behind me and hit the lock button.
Sebastian’s face appeared in my window.
“It hurts,” I whispered, reaching for my meds. It was the only thing that was working of late to stop the headaches in their tracks by knocking me out.
We were so close and now this. I leaned back in my seat and closed my eyes before I spoke. “Follow him to see where he goes.”
Chapter 2
Sebastian Elliot
Who the hell was she? Anger stirred in his veins, clogging them with painful realization. Sebastian was following her when her step faltered. Would he be lucky enough for her to fall and hit her head and forget everything she thought she might know?
He reached the car and pulled at the handle seconds after she hit the lock button. He wasn’t done with her. Not yet. Not until he figured out exactly how much she knew and where she’d gotten the information. That was the question eating at his mind. He’d been so careful, and yet this woman was wearing the exact clothes Dorothy had been wearing that night. He would know; he’d bought the damn outfit.
The woman in the car leaned her seat back. Her eyes were glazed. Her thumb was on the plunger of the needle buried in her arm.
“Perfect. A druggie,” he growled. “She probably wants to blackmail me.”
Sebastian pulled out his phone and took a picture of the redhead and walked to the back of the car. He took a photo of her license plate before turning on his heels.
His gaze traveled up and down the street, trying to determine if anyone had seen their exchange. Folding the flyer he still clutched, he then stuffed it into his pocket before getting back in the Town Car.
“Where to, sir?” James asked from the driver’s seat.
“Home, James. I have some personal matters to attend to.”
James nodded. His dark sunglasses met Sebastian’s gaze in the mirror as he started the car. “Did you take notice of her clothes, sir?”
Sebastian’s eye twitched. “I did, James. I noticed everything.”
“Certainly, sir.”
The ride across town to his house on the hill was made in silence. James pulled up to the gate, punched the buttons, and waited for the gate to open. He drove forward, then braked, waiting for the wrought iron fence to close. It clanked shut and James accelerated up the drive.
Sebastian had worked his ass off to get to where he was today. It was a long way from the town where he’d made his first kill. The distance was supposed to fix his urges; instead, they only intensified. People knew him now. They knew his name. He was a man to be trusted. He huffed at the thought.
He wasn’t a cop. He didn’t have a badge. He knew the type of scumbags that roamed free. Not all of them were behind bars, and Sebastian dealt with them every day in his line of work.
Sebastian stared down at the picture on hi
s phone. The redhead was beautiful. It would be a shame to kill her, but her fate was inevitable. Just thinking about torturing her for answers made his body harden in anticipation. A smile played on his lips. The idea that someone finally knew what he was capable of had a throbbing ache tightening his pants. Oh yeah. She needed to die.
He needed a name to go with her beautiful face. A name to go with the next victim on his list.
“Sir,” James said, pulling Sebastian out of his thoughts. “Ms. Kenzie is at the gate.”
“Let her in.” Sebastian clicked the picture shut on his phone.
“Sir, do you think that’s wise?” James asked.
Sebastian narrowed his eyes. “No, but it is unavoidable.”
“Of course.” James pressed some buttons on his phone and held it to his ear. “Allow Ms. Kenzie entrance.”
Sebastian stepped out of the car just as Kenzie pulled in behind them and parked. Her worried gaze held his as she crossed the driveway.
“Kenzie. What are you doing here?” Sebastian asked.
“I had to see you.” Her voice was strained and worried. “We need to talk.”
“Of course,” Sebastian said and walked up the steps to the door, gesturing her inside. He led her into his office and shut the door behind them.
Kenzie turned and threw herself into his arms, holding on to his body like she was a drowning woman. “Oh, Sebastian.” Kenzie’s always theatrical voice rose on a whine. “The police still have no idea what happened to my sister.”
Broken Justice (Fractured Minds Series Book 6) Page 1