Breath of Malice

by Karen Fenech

  Once she was sure she’d be able to stand, she went to Ivy’s bed. Gently, she shook her sister awake.

  Ivy blinked and narrowed her eyes to bring Paige into focus without her glasses. Ivy removed her earbuds. “Paige?”

  Paige smoothed Ivy’s hair back from her face and chose her words carefully, so as not to frighten Ivy. “We’ve had a break-in. Everything is okay. I’ve notified the police. Stay in here until they arrive, okay?”

  Ivy nodded. She was clearly still fuzzy and processing Paige’s words. Paige didn’t know how long the man would be out. She got to her feet. Her attacker’s punches made each step Paige took painful, but she wasted no time getting back to the man.

  He was still unconscious. While she wanted him incapacitated, she was frustrated that she couldn’t question him. Who was he? What was he doing here? Paige shifted the man’s bulk, grunting at the solid weight of him, then fished his wallet from his back pocket and read the name on his driver’s license aloud. “Daryl Johnson.” Had Thames sent him?

  A knock on her door was followed by a shout from Harry. “Paige!”

  Paige opened the door to her fellow agent. “Did Kirk PD call you?”

  Before Harry could respond, Kirk PD officers arrived at her door.

  Paige stepped back to let Harry and the officers into the apartment.

  When the plane landed at Columbia’s airport, Sam saw that he had messages. As he made his way through security, he skipped the messages pertaining to other investigations, then came to one from Marian: Todd Thames’s name didn’t appear on plane or train passenger manifests or with rental car agencies. No one using the name Todd Thames had left New York State via transportation they could trace.

  Next Sam came to a message from Harry. Harry’s words made Sam’s blood pulse, and he raced for his vehicle across the airport parking lot. Paige had been attacked in her home before Harry had reached her. Thames?

  Sam’s grip on the phone tightened while he listened to the rest of Harry’s message. Harry said Paige was all right, then gave a brief summary of what had gone down. Paige had subdued her attacker. Harry said the man had been identified as a local resident.

  Not Thames.

  Sam felt relief that Paige’s attacker wasn’t Thames, but who was it, then? Harry had said that Paige was all right, but Sam wouldn’t be satisfied until he saw her for himself.

  Harry said they were at Paige’s apartment. At the door to the apartment building, Sam flashed his ID to the uniformed cop, then took the stairwell to her front door. Another cop stood guard there. A small crowd of cops and neighbors in bathrobes was gathered in the corridor. Sam made his way through the people and, his ID still in hand, walked through the open front door.

  Paige’s TV was on the floor, the screen broken. Shards of glass littered the floor. A couple of Ivy’s sketches had fallen off the walls. The frames were now shattered. Paige had been in a fight for her life. Sam’s gut clenched. Where were Paige and Ivy?

  Sam strode down the small hall to the bedrooms. He came to Ivy’s room first. A bleary-eyed and pale Ivy was speaking softly to a female detective. Sam showed the detective his ID.

  “We’re done here, Agent McKade,” the woman said.

  Sam crouched beside Ivy. He looked her over for injuries, profoundly grateful to find her rumpled, in a purple bathrobe over what looked like pajamas, but unharmed. He touched her cheek softly. “You okay, sweetie?”

  Ivy blinked. “Yeah. I didn’t hear anything. I didn’t know anything happened until Paige woke me.”

  Sam was about to ask how it was possible to sleep through an attack that had caused the damage he’d seen when he noticed earbuds circling Ivy’s neck. In the short time he’d known her, Ivy had dug a small hole in his heart. “Good that you slept through it.” He looked around the room. Nothing in there had been disturbed, but the apartment would be declared a crime scene. He faced the detective. “Will you be processing this room?”

  The detective shook her head. “The attack was limited to the living room.”

  Sam faced Ivy again and said gently, “Pack some of your things. You won’t be able to sleep here tonight. You and Paige can stay at my place. I’m going to check on your sister, then we’ll all leave together. Will you be all right by yourself for a few minutes?” When Ivy nodded, Sam said, “Okay. I won’t be long.”

  Harry was standing by the door to Paige’s room. He looked as if he’d made his way here in a hurry. The usually dapper agent had blond locks standing up in all directions, and he’d missed several buttons in his haste to don his shirt.

  Sam jerked his thumb in the direction of the bedroom. “She in there?”

  “Yeah.” Harry must have seen the worry on Sam’s face because he added, “She’s okay, Sam.” Harry released a breath, then rubbed the back of his neck. “I know it isn’t my place to say, but I can see you care a lot about her. I’m happy for you, man.”

  Sam didn’t respond. He entered Paige’s room with Harry trailing. Paige was standing by a wall. She wore a long white bathrobe that was slightly damp. Her hair was loosely piled on her head. On another occasion, Sam would have found the combination of the damp, clingy robe and the hairstyle as sexy as hell and taken her to bed for the next several hours while he explored the killer body he knew was under there. But this wasn’t such an occasion. Blood dotted the robe. Sam had a hard moment until he realized the blood was on the surface of the material and wasn’t Paige’s. Sam was relieved to see that Paige possessed the skill to take the man down.

  A man in a suit, a detective with the Kirk PD, stood across from them jotting notes on a small pad in his hand. As Sam approached, he heard Paige’s voice, calm and clear.

  “And then I texted 911, Detective.”

  She must have heard Sam approach. She looked away from the detective and up at Sam. Her hard, strong expression slipped, and her eyes filled with a need that made him close the distance to her faster.

  “I’m McKade,” Sam said to the detective, barely giving him a chance to read Sam’s ID as he walked by him. Sam’s focus was Paige.

  “Millhouse,” the detective said as Sam reached Paige.

  The detective flipped his notepad closed, then said, “I’ll let you know if there’s anything else we need, Agent Carson.”

  Sam registered Millhouse stepping toward the door, but he didn’t wait until the man had cleared the room. Not caring that they had an audience, Sam took Paige in his arms, needing her there as much as he needed his next breath. Despite the fact that he wanted to pound the guy who’d put his hands on Paige, Sam’s touch was gentle as he wrapped her in his arms. She melted against him as if the last of her strength was giving out, and he increased his hold.

  She winced and he lightened his touch again. Tipping her chin back, he studied the bruise forming on her cheek. He fingered it lightly, his jaw clenching. But it wasn’t the bruise that was causing her the most discomfort. She was favoring her left side. “How badly are you hurt?”

  “Not bad.”

  Sam was not going to let her play this down. “Where Paige?” She touched her rib cage. “Have you been treated?”

  “Soon.”

  Sam had no intention of further delaying medical attention for her. He released her briefly and went to the door. He shouted for the medic, who was hovering nearby, then returned to her side.

  Paige seized his arm and took a measured step away from him. “Not yet. Ivy.”

  “I just saw her. She’s fine. I told her we’d be with her in a few minutes.”

  Paige stopped walking. Sam wanted to hear from her what had taken place here tonight. He wanted to know about the man she’d subdued, specifically if he’d been sent by Thames. Sam would have all of those answers, but only after she’d received medical attention.

  The medic entered the room. “Agent Carson?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you sit on the bed please so I can take a look at you?”

  Paige moved gingerly away from Sam and s
at on the end of the bed.

  Sam turned to Harry. “I’ll want to hear from you once Paige has been examined.”

  Harry nodded. “I’ll be in the hall.”

  Harry closed the bedroom door behind himself. Sam stepped back from Paige so the medic could attend to her.

  When Paige opened her bathrobe slightly and revealed the bruises already forming on her ribs, Sam’s body primed with the urge to grind the man who’d hurt her into dust. It would be a testament to his self-control if he didn’t end up killing that bastard when he interrogated him.

  “We’re going to need an X-ray,” the medic said. “We won’t know if anything is broken without one.”

  Paige drew a short, shallow breath. “Give me a few minutes to get dressed.”

  The medic nodded, then left them.

  Paige braced her palms on the mattress and attempted to push herself up. She hissed out a breath.

  Sam placed his hand on her shoulder. “Why don’t you stay put while I get you what you need?”

  She nodded slowly. “Top drawer on the right.”

  The adrenaline that had surely kicked in had to be ebbing. Her eyes darkened with pain, and Sam’s anger at the man who hurt her climbed another level.

  Sam rummaged through her drawers, taking out clothing. At her direction, he chose shorts and a T-shirt. She added panties but tossed aside a bra when the band squeezed her rib cage too much.

  When Paige was dressed, Sam put his arm around her and gently brought her to her feet. “After the hospital, I want you and Ivy to come back to my place.”

  He planned to do his best to talk her and Ivy into staying longer than just tonight. The fact that her home had been breached and Thames knew where Paige was were the most immediate reasons, but they weren’t the only ones. Sam didn’t know where this was going with Paige, but his heart was more than a little wrapped up in her. He wanted Paige and Ivy with him. Was he thinking long-term? Now wasn’t the time to examine that, or to raise the subject of how long Paige and Ivy would stay with him. Paige was tired and she was hurting.

  Paige looked up at him. “I’d rather not go to a motel tonight, but I don’t want to bring this to your door. We don’t know if tonight’s attack was random or . . . something else.”

  Sam took her chin in his hand. No, now wasn’t the time to discuss their relationship, but there was something that couldn’t wait to be said. “You have to know I’d do a hell of a lot more for you than offer you a place to sleep for the night.”

  She leaned into him. He kissed her softly, mindful of her bruises, then under her direction packed the suitcase he found in her closet.

  Sam went with Paige and Ivy to Kirk County General Hospital, and Harry remained at the apartment with the crime scene team. While they were waiting for Paige to be treated, Sam asked her about the attack.

  As Paige filled him in, Sam’s anger sparked again. When she was finished, he asked the question that was burning a hole in his stomach. “Do you know the man who attacked you?”

  Paige shook her head. “While I was waiting for Kirk PD to arrive, I looked in his wallet. His DL gave his name as Daryl Johnson.”

  “Doesn’t ring a bell?”

  “Not at all. It’s not like there’s a long list of people looking to hurt me. I haven’t worked enough cases or put enough people away yet. Johnson is a local. I know Harry and the Kirk PD will put him through the paces, but I want to be there to observe the questioning.”

  “Let them talk to him tonight. He’ll be waiting for us tomorrow.”

  The man was in one of the Kirk PD holding cells. Sam had to curb the urge to haul ass down to the cell and have at the man. But he would wait. Paige’s attacker wasn’t going anywhere, and Sam wasn’t going to leave Paige.

  Paige was barely able to remain vertical. A doctor diagnosed Paige’s ribs as bruised but not broken. She would be moving without any discomfort in a day or two.

  When the three of them were back at his house, Sam showed Paige and Ivy to the spare bedroom on the main floor next to his workout room, with its adjoining bathroom. He would have liked to have Paige in his bed, where he could hold her and reassure himself that she was safe in his arms, but he knew Paige would want to be close to Ivy. Sam’s home office was one room away. He had a couch in that room and would spend the rest of the night there.

  Ivy looked a little overwhelmed by the night’s events. Sam’s heart lurched. He crouched beside the girl, and despite the fact that it was a warm spring night, he asked softly, “How about a glass of warm milk?”

  Ivy hesitated. Sam tapped her chin and smiled. “You’re not worried about imposing on me, are you? We know each other a lot better than that by now.”

  Ivy lowered her eyes, then raised them and met his gaze. Slowly, she returned his smile. “Warm milk would be really nice.”

  Sam warmed milk for Ivy, and while she drank it, he changed the sheets in the spare room. Paige settled Ivy in the queen-size bed.

  Instead of getting into the bed with her sister as Sam expected, Paige followed Sam out to the living room. He watched her check her Glock at her hip, her fingers lingering, and felt an anger he’d never known before at the hell she’d endured.

  On their way home, he’d picked up pain pills prescribed for her, and had intended to bring them to her when she was in bed. Now, standing at the couch, he offered them to her with water. Paige took them but held them in her hand and did not swallow them.

  “You need to take those,” he said gently. “You have to be hurting, baby.”

  Her hand closed around the pills. “Not yet. I want to talk about what you found out about Thames.”

  “Harry didn’t tell you?”

  “I haven’t had a chance to speak with Harry alone since he arrived at my apartment.”

  She looked ready to drop, but Sam could see she needed to know about Thames as much as she needed sleep. He dragged a hand back through his hair. “I need to make a couple of phone calls first. I want more security tonight, and then we’ll talk.”

  Sam called Mike, Riley, and Dom. Though the man who’d attacked Paige was in custody, Sam didn’t know if the man had acted alone. Sam wanted eyes on his place tonight. In the morning, he would make other arrangements. Shortly after, the men arrived. Sam filled them in on Paige’s attack. The agents were fiercely protective of each other, and like Harry had done earlier tonight, they rallied to protect Paige.

  “No one will get by us,” Dom said.

  Sam had no doubt of that. The men took up positions around the house.

  When they were alone again, Sam faced Paige. “I didn’t speak with Mary Emerson.”

  “Why not?”

  Sam told her about his visit to her house and his discovery that Mary Emerson had not been heard from in a week.

  “Thames got to her.” Paige’s voice was thread thin.

  Sam had had that same thought when he learned of Emerson’s disappearance. He cupped Paige’s shoulders and rubbed them with his thumbs. “We now know how Thames found you in New York and Denver.” Paige’s head darted up. Her gaze on him sharpened. He could see the pulse in her throat beating rabbit-fast. He added what he’d learned about how Thames had tracked her and that Thames had also sought out Janet Lambert.

  “When did Emerson’s sister say he’d last checked on me?” Paige asked.

  “One week ago.”

  Paige went another shade of white. Alarm shot through him. Fearing she was going to pass out, he tightened his hold on her.

  She stepped back from him. “I’ve been afraid of him finding me via the media or the activists, but he’s known where I am all along.” She was breathing so fast, she choked on the words. “And Janet Lambert. Why her? How does she fit into all of this?”

  Sam reached for her, and ignoring the stiffness of her posture, he drew her against him. Her first instinct, he’d come to know, was to distance herself and protect herself, a behavior she would have learned since New York, but what about before then?


  She hadn’t told him what her life had been like growing up, but by the way she drew into herself, Sam believed she’d been distancing herself for a very long time. Had she always been made to feel separate? No one in the New York office had fought for her and made her feel like she belonged. What about her family?

  No way in hell would Sam make her feel as if she didn’t belong. She belonged, all right. More and more, he was starting to feel she belonged with him.

  He drew back slightly and looked into her eyes, willing her to see the conviction in his. “No, don’t back away from me. I won’t let you back away, and I sure as hell am not going to back away from you.”

  She clutched his arm, her fingernails scraping his skin. “You don’t need this in your life, Sam. You don’t need me.”

  He held her face in his hands. “I’m thinking you’re exactly what I need. All I need.”

  He lowered his head and kissed her. She circled his wrists with her fingers, gripping him tight, and kissed him back. He deepened the kiss, and her response, as desperate as his, fired all of his protective instincts. Everything in him shouted that she was his.

  He wanted to show her with his body everything he was feeling, but she was injured, and he wouldn’t risk hurting her more. A kiss was as far as they were going to get tonight. But he could hold her. It would be enough. More than enough. Tonight, it was everything.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Despite Paige’s suggestion that Ivy stay home from school and rest at Sam’s, Ivy insisted on going to class the next day. Glad that Ivy wasn’t traumatized by having her home invaded, Paige conceded, although she decided that she would drive Ivy to school from now on. That morning, she and Sam drove Ivy to the school where Riley would take over and keep an eye on her.

  After they dropped Ivy off, Sam headed to the Kirk PD station. Sam had gotten reports on her attacker, Daryl Johnson, from both the Kirk PD detective, Millhouse, and from Harry. Kirk PD had already interrogated him and had enough to charge him, but Sam wanted to question Johnson as well.