The Broken (The Apostles) (11 page)

Chapter Seven

Friday, June 12, 6:15 a.m.
Fallon, Nevada

H
ayden pulled the rental car out of the EZ-Rest Motel parking lot and aimed it in the direction of the rising sun. Kate noted that not one hair on his head, still damp from his morning shower, moved out of place. How the hell did Agent Reed manage to look so put together when she was falling apart?

She smoothed the hair along the side of her face, but it sprung back in defiance. Probably had something to do with the nervous sweat on her palms. For only the second time since her attack, she was back in her home state of Nevada. Six months ago, she had made a dead-of-night stop at her condo in Reno to pick up a few small pieces of jewelry to sell because her money had run out. Now, in the bright light of day, every inch of her itched to run, to get away from this place where her terror started. But she knew the terror wouldn’t end until Jason was stopped, and Special Agent Hayden Reed, the man leading the charge to stop Jason, needed her.

Yesterday afternoon, Hayden had threatened to send her off to Maine to be babysat by his SCIU teammates, but she convinced him that if time was of the essence, he needed her because she alone knew the one place Jason Erickson would go if he needed to hide, a hunting cabin in north-central Nevada. The problem was, she didn’t remember exactly where the cabin was, so she couldn’t give Hayden directions, or even a town. Since his search team found no trace of Jason or any hint of where he may have gone, Hayden had no choice but to bring her along on his investigation, which suited her fine because six broadcasters had died, and she’d do her part to make sure no more were silenced by the Butcher’s knife.

She took out the road map sandwiched between her seat and Hayden’s. Yesterday she explained to Hayden that in her youth, her family spent a few vacations at a small hunting cabin somewhere east of their home near Lake Tahoe. Thankfully, Hayden hadn’t pressed her to talk about Jason and her childhood, because she sure as hell didn’t want to amble down memory lane. Looking for the cabin was bad enough. The cabin belonged to some distant relative in her father’s family, and Kate remembered it as a quiet, desolate place, more brown than green, swept by small trees and shrubs, a place scrubbed with dust and sun. In her youth, she had hated going to the cabin. It was too remote, and there was nothing to do. Her brother, on the other hand, had loved the solitude and serenity of the place.

She remembered that it took her family about two or three hours to drive to the cabin from their home in Dorado Bay and that there was a small general store with a life-size fiberglass elk out front with only three legs.

“A three-legged elk isn’t much to go on,” Hayden had said last night as they mapped out their plans. “But it’s something.”

Hayden’s optimism, his unwavering belief that her brother would be caught and justice would prevail, continued to surprise her, and some small piece of it must have rubbed off on her, maybe as he pinned her to the ground or maybe as he cradled her cheek, because a tiny part of her was hoping that this road trip to find a three-legged fiberglass elk would be the beginning of the end. Hayden had narrowed the initial search to about twenty small towns. His plan was to drive east, stopping at every town, hoping she’d recognize something, possibly the three-legged elk.

This morning Hayden was impeccably dressed, and one would never guess he’d been awake most of the night putting together a plan of attack. She’d drifted off to sleep in one of the motel’s sagging double beds as he pecked away at his computer and talked softly on the phone, both soothing sounds. When she awoke, he wore another dark, exquisitely cut suit and bright silk tie, which she was sure was custom painted, this one with black and white and red swirls. His jaw was shiny and smooth, his damp hair combed neatly off his forehead. For a moment, she longed to ruffle his hair, not to dust up Mr. Perfect, but simply to assure herself that he was real and at her side.

“Do any of the towns sound familiar?” Hayden asked as he nodded at the notepad sitting between them.

Her finger traveled along Hayden’s neat list. “It’s been so long.” She closed her eyes as she tried to picture riding in the car with her parents, but the canvas remained white, no color, no images, which was no surprise. She’d spent her entire life trying to block out childhood memories. “I’m sorry.”

Agent Reed’s hand settled on her leg, which she hadn’t realized was shaking. “It’s okay.” His fingers pressed down, his calm seeping into her.

“Okay,” she repeated. Again, she looked at the list of towns Hayden compiled. “Carroll Summit. Lester Flats. Danaville. You know, I think the cabin may have been located in a town with a person’s name. I keep coming back to these three.”

“We’re closest to Lester Flats. We’ll start there.”

The day was clear and bright, and heat shimmered on the sagebrush-covered flats. Game birds chucked, and small animals scampered through the brown-tipped grasses. Was Jason out here planning his next hunt? She shivered despite the heat slicing through the car’s front windshield.

“Anything look familiar?” Hayden asked.

She stared past the flats to the rim-rocked mountains. She’d traveled these roads as a child with her father, but now nothing looked familiar. She shook her head. They drove through Lester Flats, and although it had a general store, it wasn’t the one with the three-legged elk.

The elevation rose, and the flats gave way to hills and washes dotted by sparse juniper and pinyons. Again, she tried to dig into the dark pit of her childhood memories. Trees, yes, she could picture trees around her father’s cabin, smell the tangy bite of pine.

“We’re getting closer,” she said.

The highway stretched on, and the road bisected a small canyon with elongated rocks that looked like…

“The people canyon,” she said with an intake of breath. “I remember this.” She had driven along this stretch of road with her family many times, and on each drive, she and her father would point out rock formations that looked like people. “That’s the granny with the bun, and over there is the Indian chief,” she told Hayden despite her pulse slamming the hollows of her neck. “The town, it’s up ahead and over the hill.”

In less than five minutes they reached the small town of Danaville with its two gas stations, three churches, and one general store, complete with a life-size fiberglass elk with three legs.

“Are you sure?” Hayden asked.

She wanted to laugh. Her nerves tried to catapult her into the heavens, but Hayden, obsessively thorough, pulled her back to earth with a single question. “Yes. To get to the cabin, drive through town and look for a road on the right. It should go for a few miles then loop around a small reservoir.”

He motioned to the notepad. “Draw me a map?”

“No, I’m not that clear, but I’ll know the cabin when I see it.”

“Which isn’t going to happen.” Hayden pulled the car into the parking space in front of the three-legged elk. “I’m calling for backup.”

*  *  *

Friday, June 12, 10 a.m.
Danaville, Nevada

“What the hell happened to your lip?”

Hayden ignored Hatch’s question and lowered the binoculars. No signs of life in the hunting cabin, and there hadn’t been for the past hour.

“Time to move in.” Hayden slipped the binoculars over his head and set them on the hood of his rental car, which sat atop a hill overlooking the cabin Kate ID’d as her brother’s reclusive getaway. He turned to Hatch Hatcher, his SCIU teammate who’d arrived an hour ago along with his teammate Evie Jimenez, a SWAT team from the Las Vegas Division, and six deputies from the Churchill County sheriff’s department. “You ready?”

Hatch stroked the stubble along the side of his jaw and pointed to Hayden’s swollen lip. “If I didn’t know you better, I’d say someone nailed you a good one.”

Hayden reached for the two-way radio.

“Not so fast, Professor.” Hatch popped him on the arm. “If I’m storming that place with you, I need to know where your head is.” Hatch, with his shaggy blond head and lazy Southern drawl, appeared easygoing, but the agent was a pit bull, the kind who locked jaws and didn’t let go. “What happened to your lip?”

Hayden wanted to collar Jason Erickson now. He’d been patiently waiting for this moment every minute of every day for the past five months, but Hayden knew Hatch was right. People putting their lives on the line with each other needed to be in sync. “I got into a little scuffle when I first got to Mancos. I’m a hundred percent now.”

A slow smile spread across Hatch’s face. “Kate got to you, didn’t she?”

Hayden stared at the radio in his hand. Kate had gotten to him in more ways than one. She got him mad as hell and worried when she took off on her own, and she got him thinking about handcuffing her to a bed, but that’s not what Hatch was referring to. “Kate butted me in the head after I caught her trying to escape from Joseph Bernard’s cabin.”

Hatch chuckled. “Someone finally messed up that pretty face, and a woman at that. Now that’s a first.”

Hayden didn’t tell his teammate that Kate had struck twice. His side still ached from the elbow she’d planted in his side yesterday during her escape from the Denver field office. Right now she was down the road about a quarter mile with Evie and two sheriff’s deputies, all fully armed.

Hatch took off his own set of binoculars and set them next to Hayden’s. “Let’s sail.”

Hayden held the walkie to his mouth. “Carranza,” he said, addressing the SWAT team commander, “get your men on the service road. Martinez, you and Arnold take the perimeter. Reisenauer, go ahead and set up for the long shot. It’s time.”

Hayden and Hatch unholstered their sidearms. “It’d be a hell of a lot easier if this place had a phone,” Hatch said. As the SCIU’s crisis negotiator, Hatch had a proven track record of talking down everyone from hijackers to suicide jumpers.

Hayden agreed. Making contact by phone would enable them to determine first if Erickson was indeed in the cabin. Plus it would give Hatch the flexibility of negotiating in private, which would be less threatening to Erickson.

One of the deputies who just walked up to the car offered a bullhorn.

Hayden shook his head. “Too dictatorial. Erickson is the type who needs to control, not be controlled. Anyone shouting at him through a horn would just get him worked up.”

“You think he’s really in there?” the deputy asked.

Hayden patted the paper in his suit coat’s inner pocket. “Search warrant says we can find out.”

The hunting cabin was a small, slump block structure with a high-sloped metal roof surrounded in back and along one side by scrubby pinyon pines. To the other side sat a ramshackle shop with splintered paint and a sagging roof.

He and Hatch left the top of the rise and hurried down the hill toward the pines. Upon reaching the trees, Hayden bent low, scrambled across the driveway, and flattened himself against the front of the cabin while Hatch looped around to the back. He inched toward the door and looked in the window. Single room with a small bathroom. No visible occupants.

A long whistle then a short sounded in the air. Hatch’s signal. Clear. Hayden answered with a long and short whistle.

“FBI!” Hayden hammered the door. No answer. He lowered his shoulder and pushed, leading with his Sig. The back door burst open, and Hatch rushed in.

They searched under the bed, in the tiny closet, behind the shower curtain.

“The shop,” Hayden said.

Outside they ran toward the small, windowless building with the sagging roof. Locked door.
On three
, he mouthed to Hatch. They lowered their shoulders and pushed open the door and dropped to the ground, shouting in unison, “FBI!”

A cheesy, sweet odor rolled out on a wave of moist heat. Sharp lances of light sliced the shadowy interior. In the center of the shed, on a long table was a mound, completely black but vibrating and making soft clicks, like hundreds of miniature metal scissors snapping.

Up close he could see the shiny dark lump wasn’t a single item but a mass of hundreds of small beetles. He waved them away, and like a blanket of black, they lifted, revealing a pile of flowers. Roses. In every shade of pink, from the palest blush to a deep magenta.

Below the sea of pink lay a grossly decomposed body.

Chapter Eight

Friday, June 12, 11 a.m.
Danaville, Nevada

T
he cheesy odor of decayed flesh rolled in thick, hot waves through the shed. One of the deputies stood twenty yards away, puking up his breakfast, while another stood at the door wearing a sickly shade of green. The smell didn’t bother Hayden, nor did the click of flesh-eating beetles or the sweltering heat. Right now all that mattered was the gathering and analysis of information. He straightened one cuff, then the other.

“What can you give me at this point?” Hayden asked the tech from the coroner’s office, who stepped in after the crime scene team had photographed, measured, and bagged physical evidence, including the shriveled remains of seventy-two long-stemmed pink roses.

“Female, between forty and sixty years of age. Caucasian.”

“How long has she been here?”

“She’s in the final stages of butyric fermentation, so I’d guess around fifty days. But there are burn marks on the torso, indicative of freezing, so given the cold winter and cool, dry spring, decomposition could have been delayed by as much as three or four months. At this point, I’d say death occurred between late January and April of this year. We’ll have a better idea after we run labs. Do you think it’s one of his broadcasters?”

Hayden shook his head. While CSU processed the scene, he had stood quietly in the corner and slipped on the Butcher’s shoes. In those shoes, he walked through the dark, airless shed, stood over the body, even placed fresh pink roses on rotting flesh. “The broadcaster murders are all about the show, a public statement of power and control. This body wasn’t meant to be found or viewed by anyone but the killer. Given the elevated body and flowers, the presentation of the victim is ceremonial in nature. This has a very different signature than the broadcaster killings.”