Fractured Minds Box Set Read online

  FRACTURED MINDS

  SERIES

  Box Set

  (Books 1-3)

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  STALKED JUSTICE

  KILLING JUSTICE

  HUNTING JUSTICE

  Stalked

  Justice

  FRACTURED MINDS SERIES

  BOOK 1

  Kate Allenton

  Copyright © 2019 Kate Allenton

  All rights reserved.

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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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  TABLE OF 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 1

  Today, I’d experienced death for the hundredth time. Like a sick anniversary that I’d never celebrate. The cool leather against my back and the sound of the heart monitor beeping in the room were the only two things that kept me grounded in this twisted game of hide and seek. I closed my eyes and inhaled. Anger and rage skirted my spine, crawling through my body like a killer virus in the veins.

  I exhaled and found my target.

  The killer's rage thrummed erratically. He was already in a kill zone. I seized hold of the feeling and closed my eyes, embracing the killer’s energy as if it were a repeat of the first crime scene. My heart rate raced, syncing with his energy and subconsciously merging and melding with my own feelings.

  He’d started without me.

  I grabbed on to the tendril trails of his energy and the anger surrounding it and reeled myself to his location, like a fisherman trying to bring in his catch. This killer was unlike the other’s I’d stalked; he evaded me the last two times I tried to ID him during the crimes. Death cloaked his identity like dirty windows, keeping me from getting enough of a description to fully inform the others. His rage during the kill was the only way I could track him. And tonight, was the night. I’d felt it stirring in my belly since my morning cup of coffee. It gathered like a perfect storm ready to break free every Friday without fail for the last three weeks. He’d killed, and I’d born witness just like the one he had tied to the bed now.

  The acrid taste of metal covered my mouth as I inhaled the coppery scent of blood. The knife left a crimson line from the blade as he slowly dragged it across the victim’s pale chest. Blood oozed from the deep gash and only worsened as she struggled against the ropes binding her wrists and ankles. The bed creaked beneath the killer’s knees as he cleaned the blade by running it over the woman’s pale cheek, marking her with her own blood.

  This creep was a sick bastard, but then most serial killers were. Like an audio version of a horror flick, I repeated every horrific minute detail down to the terror in the woman’s eyes.

  “Blonde hair, green eyes.” I squeezed my eyes tighter when all I wanted to do was open them and break the vision and make it go away. “Petite. It looks like she’s in her own home. She’s lying on a pink flowered comforter. He’s already stripped her, and she has shallow cuts all over her body.”

  “You’ve got to give me more, Red. A time, a location, anything.” Grant Mathew’s urgent tone filled my ears. A voice I knew all too well as he repeated the same tired words he said the last hundred times we stalked killers using nothing more than my ability to tap into energy from the first crime scene.

  There were a dozen people in this secret division just like me. Some people called us watchers, but I preferred the term hunters. Grant Mathews was an enforcer, my handler, and my brother-in-law. He was the guy who set the traps and took these psychopaths out of play. The worst were killed like feral animals, making the world a better place.

  “Let me see if I can link into her point of view. Maybe I’ll see something else.” I hated this part. Seeing the victim and crimes through the killer’s eyes were one thing, but seeing the cold dead eyes of the killer always rattled me to the core.

  “You’re safe, Lucy.” Grant's words were meant to be soothing and put me at ease. There was nothing about my job that could accomplish that task. “Lock on the target and give me a damn face.” The tension in Grant’s gruff voice vibrated through the room, making my job harder.

  “Shut up and let me concentrate.” I took several deep breaths and moved my energy into the woman’s, settling in as if it were my second skin. The bold move was the only way I’d be able to stop this crime from actually taking place. I inhaled a sharp breath as pain radiated across my chest. My lungs struggled to expand as I tried to break away from the woman’s tangled web of emotions. The fear clogging her entire body was a gift and a curse. I needed her terror to connect, but it kept me rooted as if stuck in a spider web trying to break free. Remembering I wasn’t the poor soul in danger calmed me, but only a little.

  “He’s wearing a creepy black ski mask,” I whispered, trying to catch my breath.

  “What color are his eyes?”

  “Unnaturally bright blue, almost neon looking.”

  “Contacts. Any visible identifying markings?”

  I slowly let my gaze run over him and braced myself as he lifted the knife to his shoulder. I spotted a telling sign and smiled. “He has a tat on his wrist. A box with lines. It looks like a barcode.”

  “Is it day or night? Can you see the window or a clock?”

  “I can’t tell. She’s not looking. I’ll have to break the connection with her and just view.”

  “Stay with her,” Grant ordered. “Give me more about him before you view the room.”

  The killer froze with the knife in the air and slowly lowered it, making my blood curdle. “I knew you’d come, Lucy,” he whispered to the blonde. The panic racing through the woman’s body escalated, a feeling echoed in my own body, connected as we were. Confusion clouded her. “That’s why I’m taking my time with this one. She’s special, just like you and your sister.”

  “Oh shit.” The heart monitor machine beeped frantically in the silent room. “He knows I’m watching, and he knows my name and about Gigi.”

  I gripped the side of the bed I was lying on as blood rushed through my ears.

  “Give me more, Lucy,” Grant whispered, resting a warm hand over mi
ne.

  The killer lifted the knife again and narrowed his eyes. “This kill is on your head. She’s going to die because of you.” He grinned. “Your sister will too. Have you missed her today?”

  He ran the knife over the victim’s neck, and I stretched mine in response and turned my head. I knew what was coming next. Every painful second. The poor woman was going to die, and it wasn’t going to be quick.

  “Allison Tanner first and then Gigi next. She’s waiting at home, so anxious for you to save her,” the killer whispered seconds before the sharp blade slowly cut the victim’s throat.

  I gurgled, as did the victim, too startled by the murderer’s words to shield myself from the slicing pain. Grant squeezed my hand as if trying to absorb what I was going through.

  “Allison Turner, and he claims Gigi is next,” I said, finding my voice, struggling to stay in the moment. I moved my energy out of the woman’s and viewed the scene as a bystander. My gaze went to the window. “It’s daytime,” I said and moved toward the window in search of her location. Blue doors lined the building across the street. The familiar sound of my neighbors' kids playing baseball on the street below. My eyes shot open as fear raged through my body, making it difficult to breathe. “It’s my building. Third floor.”

  That hadn’t been all I’d reported seeing. I’d seen much more after the group ran out the door hunting the killer. I, on the other hand, wasn’t quick to move. I continued lying on the bed and closed my eyes again, connecting like I had before, only this time with sheer determination and will as my guide.

  I stayed connected with him and watched as he drove through the suburban neighborhood, parked his sedan in the drive, and entered his suburban home at 2134 Wyoming Road. I watched him as he showered away the death he’d inflicted before changing into his mailman delivery uniform and peeked down into the cellar. Every nerve in my body tightened as he confirmed my worst nightmare. My sister was tied up in a chair, her head lolled to the side, and her shirt ripped and dirty. Anger, either his or mine, stirred in my gut. When I was connected, it was hard to tell whose emotions I was channeling. I slowly opened my eyes.

  “Time’s up, asshole.”

  Gone was the despair that I’d felt prior. The killer had escaped capture, but he’d never escape me. I slowly sat up and tossed my feet over the edge of the bed. Grabbing my backpack by the door, I slid it up my arm. I’d made a silent promise that today would be the killer’s last deadly deed, and I had every intention of keeping it.

  Breaking into his house had been a simple tumble of the locks. I cleared the house and yanked the phone from the wall before easing down into the basement.

  “I’m here,” I whispered to Gigi. “I’m getting you out of here.”

  I used one of the bloodstained knives sitting on a nearby table and cut Gigi’s bindings. She slumped forward into my arms.

  “He’s going to come back.” Gigi said as her head lolled to the side.

  Wrapping my arm around her waist, I eased her up from her spot and helped her out to my car. It wasn’t until the next day, when she was safe and in the hospital that I went back to follow through on my promise.

  I took my time to venture around his house. I was almost certain that he’d skip town knowing Gigi was free. Whether it was arrogance or stupidity, I’d been wrong.

  I’d found his stash of mementos and his weapon of choice. I studied each of them and laid them out on the breakfast table. There were three more victims the government didn’t even know existed. An hour later I sat in his darkened house with nothing more than my breath and racing heartbeat to keep me company. My tools lay in the bag at my feet, and I held the cool grip of the gun in my hand. The sound of an engine and the flash of headlights through the window were my only indications that my fun was about to begin. The door opened and closed before he flicked on the lights. He turned and froze in place as he peered down the barrel of my silencer.

  “Hello, Carl.” I pulled the trigger, taking his ability to flee.

  Chapter 2

  Doctor Marsh held the file to his chest as the live feed from the psych ward surveillance played on the screen. “They found her blood at the crime scene.”

  “If she’s a killer, why is she here instead of sitting on death row?”

  “You’d have to ask those questions to someone with higher clearance than mine, although I’d guess the jury took into account the extenuating circumstances. The man she stalked had kidnapped her sister.”

  “She doesn’t look dangerous. She looks like one strong gust would blow her over.”

  The video on the screen showed a woman wearing the standard-issue psych ward uniform. Her blonde hair was tucked neatly behind her ears as she stood in line to get her meds. Her gaze wasn’t on the floor like most of the patients. It was across the room on another woman standing near the window. Her eyes narrowed to slits. They moved at the same time as if in sync.

  “Who’s that?” Special Agent Noah Roth asked.

  “Margo.” The doctor sighed.

  Margo was tall and didn’t look like she missed any meals. If there were a woman’s football team, she could easily play a linebacker. The scowl on her face and clenched fists might mean trouble. Margo crossed the room to an old lady sitting at a table eating a pudding cup. She snatched the pudding cup from the old lady’s hands and began to eat the chocolate with her fingers.

  She got in one fingerful before Lucy reached her and shoved Margo away. Margo tossed the dessert onto the ground and was the first to swing.

  She missed. Lucy’s didn’t.

  It wasn’t until the guards broke things up that Noah realized Lucy Bray wasn’t a victim. She was the threat.

  Lucy was given her meds and a paper cup of water and downed them. Grabbing the supplied pudding cup, she gave it to the old lady who was now missing hers. Margo was across the room having a nurse attend to her busted lip.

  “Does Lucy always fight over pudding?” Agent Roth asked.

  “Lucy doesn’t like bullies, and Margo thinks she runs the place. She tries to take Francine’s pudding every day. We’ve had multiple issues with Margo and Lucy stopping her. Don’t be fooled by Lucy’s stature, Agent Roth. She singlehandedly accomplished what law enforcement couldn’t.”

  “She figured out who the perp was that kidnapped her sister.”

  The doc handed Noah her file. “She tracked him, tortured him, and then left him in a coma just like her sister. She saved her twin sister’s life but by time Lucy got her to the hospital, Gigi had already slipped into a coma too. I think that’s why Lucy left him the way she did. She blamed herself for not getting there sooner.”

  “Are you sure she didn’t have help?” he asked. “She doesn’t look like the killer type. Fighter sure, but not a killer.”

  The doctor smiled like he’d been impressed by her deeds. “She dragged his unconscious body into the police station, dropped the souvenir pictures she’d found of the killer’s other victims over his body, dropped to her knees, and laced her fingers behind her head. There was no question she did the deed.”

  Roth flipped open Lucy’s file and skimmed her report before turning to the picture of the shirtless unconscious man in the lobby of the police department. The perp had several wounds, but none were as prominent as his lacerated throat and each slice over his chest.

  “I’m surprised he didn’t die. Lucky for him, it looks like she missed every major artery.”

  “She didn’t miss. It was strategic. She gave him the same injuries he gave his victims. She is medically trained. She was a straight A med student moonlighting as a participant in some super-secret governmental program until this happened. Hell, she has a doctorate in psychology,” Doctor Marsh explained. “They never found Carl Chisolm’s missing finger.”

  Marsh turned his gaze to the screen again. Lucy Bray was now talking with two other women, who looked ready to fight again.

  Roth gave a slow nod. “Has she had any other incidents since arriving besides the bull
y?”

  “Lucy sticks up for the weaker patients in the group. She’s a loner, but she’s lethal when provoked. She may be brave when awake, but Lucy has nightmares she hasn’t been able to shake.”

  “Does she talk about them? Ever tell you what they are about?”

  “She claims the man she put in a coma torments her dreams. Crazy, right?”

  Agent Roth remained silent.

  “Forgive me for saying, but you don’t appear to know much about Lucy. Why do you need to see her?”

  “That’s classified.” Roth snapped the file closed. “Bring her to me.”

  Lucy was handcuffed before being led out of the common room. It was standard practice when dealing with the mental ward inmates, especially the ones with attempted murder attached to their names. The doctor escorted her to the conference room and opened the door.

  “Lucy, this is Special Agent Roth.”

  ****

  Her gaze traveled slowly around the room before finally settling on him as he sipped water from his cup.

  “Release her restraints.” Roth gestured to the handcuffs around her wrist.

  “No, it’s better this way,” Lucy said and moved to a chair, pulling it out. She sat, placing her hands in her lap beneath the table.

  “Why did you keep the restraints?” Roth asked, leaning back in the chair.

  “For your protection. I might not like what you’re here to say,” she answered.

  Chapter 3

  “I’m FBI Special Agent Noah Roth.”

  She glanced at the file sitting between them. “Why are you here?”

  “Straight to the point, I like that.” Roth flipped open the file. “Why did you torture Carl Chisolm?”

  “He’s a sick sadistic serial killer, and someone had to do the job. It’s in my file if you would have taken the time to read it.” Lucy’s face remained unchanged, not even the slightest hint of remorse in her voice.