Your Next Breath

by Iris Johansen

  “It’s going to be all right, Catherine,” he said quietly. “You know that Kelly’s smart, and she sees patterns and kind of feels things. That will help her. And we’re smart, too. We’ll find her.”

  She was unbearably touched. She reached up and covered his hand with her own. “You keep getting it wrong, Luke. I’m supposed to be comforting you.”

  “But things are piling up on you, and it’s hard to see stuff.” His voice was grave. “I know people die. I’ve seen it. I know things go wrong. But this won’t be one of them. We won’t let it.”

  “Of course we won’t. But do me a favor. Don’t get too much ahead of me in those woods when we’re searching for her. You may not think I need to look out for you, but what about sticking close enough to look out for me?”

  He chuckled. “Hey, are you trying to manipulate me, Catherine?”

  “You bet I am.”

  “And doing a good job,” Sam said, amused. “How can you refuse, Luke?”

  “I can’t.” He took his hand away from her shoulder and leaned back in his seat. “The helicopter is beginning to go down.” His dark eyes were shining with excitement. “It’s all starting, isn’t it, Catherine?”

  “Yes.” And Luke was ready to go with it, embrace the adventure, embrace the thrill of the danger. Luke was so much like her. His captivity with Rakovac had torn away any hope she would have that he would be a normal child. And if she hadn’t been so concerned about both Kelly and him, she would have had the same reaction. Luke was still young enough to believe in his own immortality, and that could be fatal. “For us. I only hope it’s not already started for Kelly.”

  CHAPTER

  5

  VIRGINIA

  Was she being followed?

  Kelly stopped on the trail and listened.

  No sound behind her.

  But she had heard … something … a few minutes ago.

  A voice? The sound of breathing? Maybe it was only the wind in the trees.

  Stop being paranoid. It’s not as if she owned these woods. It could be another student, just trying to get away from the pressures of the classroom.

  “Hello,” she called. “Anyone there?”

  No answer.

  A chill went down her spine.

  Because she knew someone was there.

  She started walking down the trail again.

  Quickly.

  She reached for her phone.

  Whoever was behind her could be a practical joker. Some kid who thought it would be funny to scare her. But there were always stories about students being attacked by creeps who hung out around the colleges. She’d call campus security and give them her location. She’d speak clearly and loudly, and it might scare off anyone following her. At least she’d feel less alone in this—

  Her phone was dead.

  She felt a bolt of panic. It couldn’t be dead. Her cell had been fully charged before she’d started on her hike. She wouldn’t have gone into the woods without taking the precaution.

  It was dead.

  And she was definitely hearing the brush moving somewhere behind her.

  Okay. Smother the fear. It wasn’t as if she was helpless. She had a Mace gun in her jacket pocket, and she’d had karate training last year after she’d been rescued by Catherine from those beasts who had killed her father.

  I didn’t expect this, Daddy. I was just so sad and wanted to get away by myself and think about you. I don’t know what’s happening, but I could use a little help if you have any influence where you are.

  There was only one trail on this stretch of the woods. She couldn’t turn and backtrack toward the college. She’d run right into the person who was following her. But after she passed the dam two miles up the trail, it split and circled. It would be a good place to lose herself in the shrubs and trees and take that other trail back to the campus.

  It was getting dark, the trees casting grotesque shadows on the trail. She had meant to camp for the night when she reached the dam.

  Her pace instinctively increased at the thought of how vulnerable doing that would make her.

  No way.

  * * *

  Blood gleaming in the moonlight, seeping into the dirt of the trail.

  A dark-clad body crumpled in the bushes.

  Catherine’s pulse stopped, then jumped with panic. In the half darkness, she couldn’t tell if the body was that of a man or woman.

  Kelly?

  “Sam, stay with Luke. Cover me.” She drew her gun as she ran toward the body several yards up the trail.

  Not Kelly, she realized with relief as she drew closer. Dark hair, not fair.

  But that dark hair was matted with blood. She darted into the brush beside the body and did a quick scan of the area before she came back to the trail.

  “It’s safe,” she called to Sam. She knelt beside the blood-soaked body. “Male. Throat cut.” Her hands moved inside his jacket and dark trousers. She drew out a brown leather wallet and ID and flipped it open. “Lawrence Weber. CIA. He must be the agent Venable sent after Kelly.”

  “Shit,” Sam said as he came close. “Ambush. Poor guy.”

  “Yes.” She put Weber’s ID and wallet back in his jacket. “And whoever killed him didn’t want him to find Kelly.”

  “Or interfere with what he wanted to do to Kelly.” Sam shook his head. “How long ago?”

  “Enough time for Weber to bleed out.” She looked at Luke, who had come up the trail and was staring down at Weber. She had to get him away from here. It wasn’t that he hadn’t seen wounded and dead before while he was with Rakovac. She was the one who felt a passionate desire to protect him, keep him from ever going through that horror again. Right, she thought in self-disgust, so she had allowed herself to be railroaded into taking him here where he had every chance of doing it. She got to her feet. “Come on Luke. We’ve got to get moving. Sam, call Venable and tell him what happened and see if he can get the State Police out here to search the forest and find that killer.”

  “We can find him,” Luke said quietly. He was looking down at the ground. “He’ll be easy.” He pointed to the pooled blood on the trail. “He walked right through that blood.” He went a few paces farther. “See, he was wearing boots, and he’ll leave traces of it wherever he walks.”

  “Yes, I see.” Now she was worrying about Luke’s being too callous.

  Luke looked back at Weber. “He was CIA. One of the good guys. I think he’d kind of like the idea of pointing the way toward the man who did that to him, don’t you?”

  Not callous at all. “You may be right.” She moved down the trail, the light from her flashlight picking out the bloody footprints. “And he’d also be glad that he could show us the way to find Kelly.”

  ATLANTA, GEORGIA

  Home.

  She was going home.

  Jane MacGuire looked down at the clock on the dashboard of the Toyota rental car.

  Fifteen minutes more, and she should be at the lake cottage, which had been home to her since Joe and Eve had adopted her when she was ten years old. As an artist, she had traveled the world, but she always came back because family was everything. But she didn’t look forward to what was waiting for her at the cottage today. She had won the first battle with Eve, but that didn’t mean that Eve would give up. She had always been superprotective and would try to find a way to keep Jane away from any possible danger.

  But danger happened.

  Death happened.

  Death had happened to Trevor.

  He had taught her to love and trust, then death had taken him.

  Don’t think of that right now. She had thought she’d worked her way through the first agonizing stages of grief in the past months. But all of a sudden it was back again, and her hands clenched on the steering wheel as she tried to push it away.

  For God’s sake, no more self-pity. She had come to help Eve and Catherine, and she didn’t matter right now.

  She took a ragged breath, and the pain wa
s gradually fading. It would be back but maybe a little less in intensity.

  “I’m trying, Trevor,” she whispered. “I know you want me to go on. It’s just hard sometimes. I can’t find anything here for me any longer. It’s all empty. I want to be with you. God, I want to be with you.”

  But she couldn’t be with him, she had to stay alive and care for the other people she loved. “Okay, I’m over it for now.” She turned on the radio and ratcheted up the volume. “How about some classic Beatles?”

  It was starting to rain, and she turned on the windshield wipers.

  Ten more minutes, and she’d be home with Eve and Joe.

  Screeching brakes!

  Startled, she glanced in the rearview mirror.

  A black-and-white police car was careening over the six lanes of the freeway, the front left tire completely blown. It finally collided with a gray Lexus sedan.

  Should she stop and go back and try to help?

  There were several cars behind her already stopping and a pileup was just waiting to happen. The best thing to do was to probably call 911 and report the accident.

  She hoped everyone was okay. What had that police car hit that would have blown his tire like that? Joe would probably call and find out what happened and the condition of the drivers in those cars when she told him about it. She picked up her phone and began to dial 911.

  Definitely not a good sign for a homecoming.

  VIRGINIA

  He was still following her, Kelly thought.

  She hadn’t lost him when she had made the circle turn at the dam and started heading back to the campus. She could still hear his footsteps in the brush behind her. She glanced over her shoulder, but he was still too far behind her for her to catch a glimpse.

  If she could have seen him anyway. It was fully dark now, and she would only have been able to detect shadows.

  Shadows. The whole world seemed to be full of shadows.

  And why was he just keeping pace with her? Had she been right about the possibility that he was just trying to freak her out? Well, he was doing it. The darkness, the sound of him, the sheer fear of the unknown. She unconsciously moved faster.

  Don’t run.

  That might trigger him to escalate his pace. Don’t provoke any change in the pursuit. The closer she got to the university, the safer she would be.

  Her hand tightened on the Mace spray.

  Listen.

  He either wasn’t woods savvy, or he wanted her to hear him. She hoped it was the former. She had a certain amount of control as long as she could hear and judge his movements.

  It was when she could no longer hear him …

  Don’t worry about that now.

  Move. Walk.

  Listen.

  * * *

  “He’s losing the blood from his shoes the farther he walks,” Sam said. “I’ve only managed to pick up a trace in the last several yards.” He shined his flashlight on the trail ahead. “Soon we won’t be able to pick it up at all. We’ll have to make a decision whether to—”

  “We’re almost at the dam,” Catherine said curtly. “We’ll have to go with the assumption that he’s following Kelly and just follow the trail. It was what we thought anyway.” But she had hoped that they would be able to zero in on Weber’s killer long before this. It wasn’t going to happen. She broke into a trot. “Forget about the blood. Just watch out for ambush and hurry like hell.”

  * * *

  Kelly suddenly couldn’t breathe.

  Her heart was beating so hard it was painful.

  She could still hear him, but something had changed. He was no longer directly behind her on the trail. He was somewhere to the left, in the thick brush and trees.

  And he was moving faster.

  She broke into a run.

  For God’s sake, don’t fall.

  The beam of her flashlight lit the trail in front of her.

  Ruts. Twisted tree roots. Branches.

  She dodged and darted.

  Faster.

  He was coming faster.

  She tore off her backpack and let it drop to the trail as she ran.

  He must be only yards away.

  No, she could hear him breathe.

  Only feet away.

  A crash of rotted limbs and brush.

  Keep control. Don’t let him take her down.

  She whirled and raised the Mace.

  A blur of a long face, short brown hair, blue jacket.

  And a long, curved knife in his hand!

  She pressed down on the nozzle and shot him directly in the face with the Mace.

  He screamed.

  “Whore. I’ll kill—”

  Then he was blundering blindly forward, almost on top of her.

  She dodged the knife he was swinging wildly.

  She sprayed him again.

  But the tip of his knife sliced the flesh of her upper arm.

  Pain.

  His weight was heavy as he brought her down, straddling her.

  Spray him again.

  Spray him again.

  She struggled to get her hand with the Mace from beneath his body.

  So heavy …

  She lifted her knee and caught him in the groin.

  He grunted, cursing, but he was half off her, and she could at least move her arm.

  But his knife was coming down—

  “Roll to the side. Now!”

  What?

  It wasn’t the same voice as the one that had been cursing her.

  But she realized the weight was almost completely off her now. She instinctively moved, rolled, as she had been ordered.

  And saw the leather garrote that was wound around the throat of the man who had attacked her. His hand was struggling, tearing desperately at the garrote. His other hand trying to pull a gun out of his jacket pocket.

  And she saw another man in a black leather jacket who was standing behind him and twisting the garrote.

  As she watched, the next instant, the garrote did its work.

  Her attacker’s neck snapped.

  The man who had killed him turned toward her.

  She instinctively, frantically, lifted her Mace.

  “No!” he said. He held out his hands, palms up. “I’m not going to hurt you, Kelly.”

  “I don’t know that.” She scrambled backward. “I don’t know who you are. I don’t know anything. Stay away from me.”

  “Just put down that Mace and we’ll be fine,” he said quietly. “I have no intention of letting you spray that stuff in my face. But I don’t want to do anything that would alarm you. Catherine wouldn’t like it.” He grimaced. “And we’re already at odds at the moment.”

  She went still. “Catherine?”

  “Catherine Ling. She’s on her way to you right now. I just came in by the road north of the dam and got here first.”

  “You could be lying. How do I know who you—”

  “Of course you don’t know who I am.” He inclined his head. “I’m Richard Cameron. Perhaps your friend Luke might have mentioned me?”

  “Cameron?” She repeated. “Luke did tell me about you after he and Catherine came back from Tibet. He thinks you’re cool.” She moistened her lips. “But he’s a lot like Catherine. He believes that if you have good reason, it’s okay to—” She looked at the body slumped over on the trail, and finished—“do that.”

  “I had a very good reason tonight.”

  “Yeah, I guess so.” Her grip tightened on the Mace. “But I don’t know that for sure. What Luke believes might not be what I believe.”

  “True. But the fact that I saved your life should have some weight. Give me that Mace, Kelly. Don’t make me take it.”

  “I think I’ll just hold on to it for a while until I—”

  He moved.

  Lightning fast.

  She had never seen anyone move that fast.

  Two paces forward.

  His foot struck the Mace and sent it spinning toward the side of
the trail.

  She lunged toward it.

  But he was behind her, his arm holding her still. Strong. Dear God, he was strong. She couldn’t move, and her helplessness was filling her with panic.

  She struggled wildly. “Let me go.”

  “Just be quiet and listen. You don’t need—”

  Her elbow went back and struck him in the stomach. “Let me go, dammit.”

  “Yes, let her go, Cameron.”

  Catherine!

  Kelly stopped struggling as she saw Catherine coming down the trail with a gun pointed at Cameron. Relief surged through her. “He said you were coming. I didn’t know if I could trust him.”

  “I often have the same problem,” Catherine said dryly. “What are you doing here, Cameron?”

  “Dodging that spray of Mace at the moment.” He released Kelly and stepped back. “Before that, I was trying to keep her from getting a knife in her heart. Stop being protective and put down that gun. Ask her.”

  Kelly ran into Catherine’s arms. “I was so scared,” she whispered. “I didn’t know what was happening.” She looked down at the man on the ground. “Why would he want to hurt me? Is he one of those serial killers or something?”

  “No.” Catherine’s arms tightened around her. “You’re safe. No one can hurt you now.” She gave her a hug, then released her. “But we should get out of these woods. We didn’t see anyone else tracking you, but there will be State Police combing this area, and I don’t want to have to answer a lot of questions.”

  “Are they looking for me?”

  “Yes.” She glanced at the man on the ground. “And for him. He killed a CIA agent with that knife.”

  “What?”

  “Luke will tell you.” She glanced down the trail. “Here he comes now, with Sam. I ran ahead when I saw you—” She waved. “She’s okay, Luke.”

  “I told you she would be,” Luke said. He frowned. “But it was really dumb of you to turn off your phone, Kelly. Everything would have been simple if you hadn’t done that.”

  “I didn’t turn off my phone. It just went dead. And who are you to call me dumb?” She came toward him. Dear heaven, she was glad to see him. Catherine had always been the savior in her eyes, but Luke was her friend and had cared enough to come looking for her. Even those insults were welcome because they were part of their relationship and far away from the horror she had just experienced. “You’re pretty stupid yourself to go trekking through these woods after me. If you’d caught up with that man who was chasing after me, I would probably have had to rescue you.”