50

Angel's worst fears were coming true, and she needed to get away from her brother before she did something stupid.

She almost ran upstairs, locking herself in her bedroom and falling on the bed. She knew Michael had killed people during his time as a Marine, but he was under orders to protect the Embassy. Sometimes people NEEDED killing, and it wasn't his fault, any more than the kill on her FBI record was her fault. You followed your training, and you moved on.

What Michael had just confessed to, without a hint of regret or remorse, was the cold-blooded execution of an Afghan official. Recovering the bribe money didn't bother her as much as she thought it would. Sure, it was a criminal act, but why should his family profit from his activities? He hadn't been stupid about it, spending wildly and attracting attention. Over a decade or so, he'd use his low cost of living and security work to buildup a fortune that would let him retire and live in comfort. She lived with him and had no clue he had a stash of cash hidden away. Michael was smart and logical, able to take the long view, and had enough patience to get away with it.

Still...

Michael snuck into his home and slaughtered the man like a pig. Yes, the guy was a scumbag who abused children. His death didn't bother her.

It was the way Michael described killing him that shocked her.

He LIKED it.

She thought back to what the FBI's criminal profilers had developed. Everything they said matched up well with what they said as she checked them off in her head. White male, between twenty-five and fifty-five now that they were considering abuse victims. A victim of a child abuser or parent of one. Frustrated with the system because the abuser got away with it or got a weak punishment. Background in law enforcement, military, maybe even a lawyer. Upper-middle-class, intelligent, and motivated. He may have support in research or transportation, but he does the murders alone. The killer enjoys not just killing but making his victims suffer for their sins. He sees himself as God's dispenser of justice, regretting nothing, with the zealous drive of a true believer.

The cold realization set in that he might have done this before, and that was why he showed no hesitation in killing the chief. He spent years in his overseas postings. It would have been far easier to evade detection in those war-torn countries.

She took her phone from the bedside table and went to her contacts, pulling up Mark's number. She knew deep down the right thing was to turn her brother in before more people died; her finger hit the button to call him. "Angel?"

"Hey, partner. How are things at the office?"

"Still messed up, and your desk is still too empty. We miss you around here."

"I'm sorry. I wouldn't be in the office now even if I got reinstated, though. I need to be here with Michael until he can take care of himself." She updated him on his injuries and recovery; with Michael hurt and not knowing his SecuriTech friends, she'd talked with Mark about it while she'd waited for more news.

The more she talked, the more she realized she couldn't do it. Michael was her only family, and he'd done so much for her. She'd sworn to him that she wouldn't reveal anything about the money, but that was before she found out he'd killed to get it. Angel ended the call, tossing the phone onto the bed as she realized their bond outweighs her professional duty.

And she'd just implicated herself in his crimes. She failed to report the suspicious money. She arranged for Amber's affidavit for the time around the Charleston killing. She hadn't disclosed her connection to one, then two, of the Monster Hunter's victims. And now, Angel had listened to her brother confess to murder and didn't have the guts to turn him in. If Michael got caught, she'd spend decades in prison as an accessory to multiple murders and a dozen other crimes.

With that realization, Angel Johnson, FBI Special Agent Angel Johnson's life changed forever. The Monster Hunter's fate was now her own, and she mentally switched sides. She had to make sure the Monster Hunter never got caught.

He'd done so well so far, but if he kept going? Nobody got away with it forever.

Her head hurt, and she went to her medicine cabinet for a couple of Tylenol before falling into a restless sleep.

She woke up hungry a few hours later. Heading downstairs, she saw Michael on his bed, the news on in the background while he typed on his tablet. His phone, a travel mug of water, and some cookies were all within reach. He looked up at her, clearly nervous about what would happen next. He went with the safe call. "The barbecue leftovers are in the fridge," he told her. "Amber had to go to work, and she'll be back late tonight."

"Do you need anything?"

"Not now. Amber helped me use the bathroom and clean up before she left." Angel went into the kitchen and fixed a plate, coming out a few minutes later and sitting on a chair in his view. While she ate, she asked him to tell her the story of what happened in Kazakhstan. Grateful to have something else to talk about for a while, Michael told her about everything that happened since leaving the airport. "If the guy with the RPG hadn't missed the armored car, we'd all be dead right now."

"How do you miss from a window across the square?"

"RPG's aren't precision tools. They have manual sights, and you have to adjust for range. When you shoot downhill, you don't aim as high because gravity is helping you. The rocket went over the car and hit the steps maybe five yards behind me. Most of the force went into the steps, but I was the last one in line and didn't make it to safety."

"It was that close?"

"Yeah. Curtis showed me a picture of my vest; it stopped three pieces of shrapnel that would have killed me."

Angel got quiet, slowly finishing her food as she prepared for the very uncomfortable conversation she was about to have. The ribs, brisket, cornbread, and Coke felt more like a Last Supper than a tasty meal. She finished her plate, getting up to return it to the kitchen and clean up.

Michael knew she had questions, and he'd already made his decision to come clean. They'd never lied to each other before, and he wasn't going to start now. If that meant she arrested him, fine. He would get away with it in court just like he did in the field. He would never plead guilty, and the FBI would never be able to pin all the murders on him; there wasn't the evidence to do so.

The people of America understood him and what he was doing, and no jury would convict him. Confessing to Angel was a risk, but he knew deep down she could never betray him.

"I want to know it all." Angel sat back in her chair and waited. She looked at the television, and he turned it off.

"It all started with Coach Nate Stedman," Michael began. "Seeing one of my abusers on the soccer field, living his idyllic suburban life, filled me with rage. Telling the police solved nothing; there was no evidence, and I was only a child when the abuse occurred. When they forced me to apologize, I buried my rage and vowed I would get my justice." He described how he started researching his family, then hanging out in his neighborhood and dating his daughter to get closer. "I got lucky. Finding the stash of child porn in his office was enough to bring him down, and I couldn't wait to confront him in court. The police arrested him, and then he made bail and committed suicide the next morning. All of that work went for nothing. He got to end his life on his terms, and the case ended with it. He never had to answer for what he did to me."

"He got exposed and took the coward's way out," Angel replied.

"I felt cheated, Sis. All I wanted was to watch just ONE person who hurt me look in my eyes and know they would suffer for it. It didn't work, and high school was ending. When I left for college, I kept up my search. I figured if they hurt me and got away with it, they might have hurt someone else. I started monitoring the law enforcement websites, looking at thousands of mug shots of sex offenders. I was right; there were more out there."

"Burroughs in 2011 was the first victim the task force knows about."

"They are missing four from my time in college." He told her about the men and how he'd tracked them down and killed them. The first he shot in the chest, but he died too quickly. The second he held underwater in his bathtub until he drowned, but that was over too fast. The third and fourth he abducted, stuffed into barrels, and waited for them to asphyxiate. "I didn't see them die, but I heard everything. I heard them saying how sorry they were. I heard them begging for mercy that I would never give them. I heard them praying to God for salvation, and I heard them draw their last breaths. I took them to the local landfills with other trash, and I watched them get the burial they deserved."

Angel was trying to take it all in. "Did it help?"

Michael shook his head, no. "How do you make them suffer for ten minutes and have it make up for a lifetime of your suffering? And not just mine, all of the OTHER lives they had ruined? No, the balance of their life was not righted by this. Then I went into the Marine Corps and the DSS. I saw firsthand what it meant to terrorize a population. Let the Americans give you candy? We'll send a suicide bomber to kill the kids surrounding the infidels. Give information to the Americans? We'll kill your family as you watch, then you, and tell your village that this is the fate of all who help. It was during this time that I realized I'd been going about things all wrong."

"What do you mean?"

"I was the one living in fear of them, and I needed to make them live in fear of me. I needed the child molesters and traffickers to understand I was out there looking for them. When I found out their names, then justice would come and right quickly. They would be looking over their shoulder until one day I was there, and they would suffer terribly at my hand. It was more than just getting vengeance; it was a warning to the others. I studied historical torture techniques, knowing that I needed to make each death more horrible than the last. The media would eat those details up, and that would help scare the others."

"You're the Monster Hunter. My brother is the serial killer I've been looking for, and you did all this under my nose."

Michael at least had the decency to look sorry about that. "I thought about asking you for help when you started working in law enforcement, but I couldn't do it. I knew my life would never be the same, and I didn't want you to end up on death row or spending your life in prison. My path in life was to do it on my own and never tell you a thing."

Angel shook her head, but it wasn't in disgust. "I had my suspicions, and when two of the victims were my abusers, they only got stronger." A thought came to her. "How many of the men who abused us have you put in the ground?"

"Nine," Michael said. "Not everyone suffered in such a public way. I couldn't do that because it would make the connection to us too obvious. Your team figured out Burroughs, and that led to your breakdown and so much else. I'm so sorry his death was able to hurt you so long after he was gone."

"And how many total?"

"Twenty-three and counting."

"Jesus." Angel's mind was reeling; the Task Force didn't know half of his victims.

"I am sorry about what I did to you, Angel. I took advantage of your trust in me because I needed what you had access to, and I couldn't ask for it." Angel's face dropped. "I put a camera in your office so I could capture your FBI password. I would copy files off your laptop to help with my searches because your database was far more complete than the public one.

Angel recoiled at the invasion of privacy and breach of trust at the hands of her loving brother and started to cry. "How could you?"

Michael couldn't lie to her. "I justified it because I needed the information, and I had to protect you from the truth."

Angel stood up, trying to decide what to do next. "The whole time I was on the Monster Hunter task force, you saw everything we were doing. The laptop isn't mine, Michael! It belongs to the Bureau! What if they traced the data breaches to me? Did you even consider the danger you put me in?"

Michael wished he could get up, but he couldn't. "I'm sorry, Angel. I regret abusing your trust more than anything else I've done in my life."

Angel stood there, not knowing how to respond to any of this. Finally, her face changed to one of resigned determination covered with tears. "You may stay until you've healed sufficiently, Mr. Johnson. After that, I want you out of my home and my life." She ran back upstairs before he could say anything else.

Ch. 42

Angel fled to her room and locked the door behind her. She was uncontrollably sobbing as she fell onto her bed, struggling to grasp what just happened. Her life, her family, her job? Everything was spinning out of control.

The worst thing was that she had been cruel in her treatment of her brother, the ONE person in her life who always had her back. She'd lashed out at him in her anger, and the look of utter devastation in his eyes as she called him "Mister Johnson" and ordered him out of her life? It broke her heart to see that, and she ran away before she did even more. She lay curled up in the fetal position, hugging her knees to her chest as she rocked slightly back and forth.

It was the same position she'd been in many times back in that place, feeling alone and scared and helpless. Their owner would beat them if they talked to each other or made noise, a lesson she learned painfully that first week of captivity. "You see this light?" He pointed to a red light over the door. "If you make too much noise, the light comes on. If you don't shut your worthless mouth and stop crying, I'll come down here and give you something to cry about." Angel soon learned the penalty of trying to talk or sing or cry. She was alone until she heard Michael's whispered voice. At first, she didn't know where it was coming from, but she found the cold air return grate on the wall behind the bed. The two could whisper to each other, and Michael helped her adapt and survive.

Now? She'd cut him out of her home and her life, and for what? Yes, he'd invaded her privacy by putting the camera in his ceiling and accessing her laptop. What was he supposed to do? She was a law enforcement officer on the Monster Hunter Task Force; it wasn't like he could ask for permission.

Angel rolled onto her back and compared their "careers." Both of them dedicated their lives to stopping the same people. In six years in law enforcement, Angel had arrested five human traffickers, three serial child abusers, and one murderer, plus the one trafficker she killed while making the raid. Of her arrests, only two got more than ten years in prison; two men had charges dropped, one was found not guilty at trial, and the rest accepted plea deals for reduced sentences. Of the five currently in prison, two had been released and reoffended. The time on the Task Force hadn't helped her arrest record. Her team farmed off leads to local FBI or law enforcement as they focused on finding the killer. Angel was proud of her arrest record, but the problems were only getting worse. Organized crime, both domestic and foreign, were making too much money peddling flesh to be stopped.

She thought about Michael's approach. In secret, her brother had been tracking down and dealing with child molesters and human traffickers for half his life. Michael confessed to personally removing twenty-three of these predators from the face of the earth.

Nine of those were men who had abused her without remorse. How many nights did she spend with her mind reliving the experiences?

How many times did she wish for them to be dead?

The thought made her stomach roll, and she ran for the bathroom and didn't quite reach the toilet in time. Some escaped from the hand she held over her mouth before she got the seat up. She emptied her stomach, then wiped up the mess, and headed into the shower.

Angel leaned against the wall as the hot water ran down over her face and body. "Think logically," she whispered to herself. "You can't change what he has done. The past is the past; you only get to change your future." It was a lesson her therapist had taught her as she recovered from her abuse. Face the past, accept it, then look forward and pick the path you want to follow.

One path was simple. Angel was on administrative leave, but she was still a sworn FBI Agent. A suspect had just confessed to multiple murders in her presence. Her FBI oath included the words "that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office I am about to enter." She should arrest him herself, call in the Task Force, and let the criminal justice system handle the rest. Michael would spend the rest of his life in prison; she would be charged as an accessory after the fact, losing her job, her freedom, and her family forever.

Michael would never forgive her, and Angel didn't dare to do it.

The next option was to cut off all ties to her brother and hide the evidence of her involvement. It was possible that if he didn't give her up that she could emerge from this. She hadn't given Michael permission to go into her computer; he used hidden cameras to get what he needed. She'd thrown away evidence; although the blood-spatter evidence at one scene said size 11 shoes, the footprint at another was Size 10 Red Wings. She'd taken Michael's Red Wing boots and tossed them when she first realized they might be suspects. Then there was the money; she'd failed to report it and used some of it to buy clothes and do home repairs. Nothing but the computer held any evidence against her as long as Michael didn't say anything.

Angel let the spray rinse the tears from her face. It wouldn't work; the only way she stayed out of prison was if Michael kept those things private. What incentive did he have to protect her after being written out of her life?

He didn't. The hard truth was that Angel loved him, and Michael loved her. She wouldn't be alive right now without him. He was her brother in all but blood, and she couldn't cut him out of her life no matter what he did.

Angel turned off the shower and started drying her hair as she thought about the next step. If she didn't arrest him and didn't cut him out of her life, she had to reduce the risk of him getting caught and involving her. Michael had plenty of money and a serious girlfriend now; he didn't need to stay with his kid sister anymore. If he moved out, the separation would mean her condo wouldn't be part of any search warrant.

Of course, none of this would matter if Michael got caught. She'd told him directly that it was just a matter of time before the Monster Hunter screwed up and the Task Force got him.

Angel brushed her teeth as she continued thinking through the situation. Michael wasn't saying he would stop; in fact, Michael told her that he'd killed "twenty-three and counting," and he liked it. There was no remorse for what he'd done except where it affected her.

Well, anything he did from this point on could affect her. She knew how little information the Task Force had; if he stopped now, chances are he'd never get caught, and she'd never get dragged down with him.

Angel rinsed her mouth and looked in the mirror as her path became clear. She had to distance herself from Michael and convince him to stop the killings. It was the only way they could both have a happy life.

Angel steeled herself, then went out to get dressed. She had to find a way to heal the rift in her family before it was too late.

There wasn't much time. Amber would return in a few hours, and her chance to talk openly would be gone.