Breath of Malice

by Karen Fenech

  He put on latex gloves, then picked up a tube of . . . glue.

  “Like all the others, you’re going to experience my instruments, Paige, during our time together,” Thames said. “There will be no more drugs to dull the effects. I want you fully aware.”

  Thames opened the glue, then reached out and dabbed a line gently on Paige’s eyes. Paige moved her head from side to side, thrashing as much as she could. Undeterred, Thames held her head and pressed her eyes closed.

  The adhesive stuck at once. Paige pushed against it, but she could not open her eyes. Her breathing came in choked gasps.

  Something cold and hard brushed her nipple. The vise . . .

  “Ah, yes, so sensitive,” Thames said.

  Despite the pain movement caused, Paige pulled against the nails and pressed back against the table. But there was nowhere to go. No escape.

  She felt Thames clamp the vise. He tightened it. Paige screamed.

  From his vantage point on a ridge overlooking Thames’s cabin in the Adirondack Mountains, Sam peered down at the man through binoculars. The urge to go to Thames and break his bones one by one until he told Sam where Paige was, was like blood pulsing through Sam’s veins. Only the belief that Thames would keep his secrets, take them to the grave, kept Sam where he was.

  And that was why, rather than charging in with a tactical squad and a troop of agents, Sam had opted to come after Thames with just his own small squad and to maintain more low-key surveillance. Taking Thames in and sweating him would not break the man. Thames had already proven that.

  But Thames had made a mistake. Thames had made a mistake when he’d stepped on Paige’s earpiece and left a bit of rock behind.

  At the moment, Thames was cutting logs with an ax. Thames was smiling, clearly enjoying the bright day and the exertion that made his pale flesh glisten with sweat. Sam’s eyes drilled into Thames, his focus absolute.

  For two days, they’d been on this mountain. Sam, Mike, and Riley, watching Thames in shifts. They’d kept their distance. Sam knew if Thames got wind that he was being observed, it would be over for Paige.

  So far, all Thames had done in the last forty-eight hours was cut logs. Sam had the floor plan of the cabin from the agents who’d been here with Paige. There was no sub floor, no basement where he could conceal a woman. The brash Thames didn’t even have any shades or curtains on his windows. He had nothing to hide inside, as the Bureau had discovered when agents had searched the place.

  But Thames was hiding something. A gravesite where he’d buried the three women and maybe more, and the place where he was keeping Paige.

  Beside Sam, Mike said, “Sam, let me take over. You’ve been at it all night.”

  Sam watched Thames split another log. He couldn’t hear it, but he imagined the thwack of the ax as the wood splintered and chips sailed into the air. Like he had all the time in the world.

  Sam lowered his binoculars as Mike raised his own. To keep their presence undetected, they were eating out of cans, foregoing cooking any food that would create aromas, and doing without campfires and flashlights at night.

  “Wake me if anything changes. No matter how slight,” Sam said to Mike, though unnecessarily. Sam knew Mike would do so.

  Mike nodded.

  Sam grabbed a quick bite, then bedded down. Riley had taken an earlier shift and was still asleep. But when Sam closed his eyes, all he could see were images of Paige being hurt by that sadistic son of a bitch. Sam got to his feet.

  “He’s gone back inside,” Mike said when Sam joined him again.

  “He hasn’t left that cabin in two days. He’s got to be itching to get back to wherever he stashed Paige. We have to wait him out. He’ll lead us to her,” Sam murmured.

  Twenty minutes later, Mike said, “Thames is on the move.”

  Sam dropped onto his belly beside Mike and peered through his own binoculars. “He’s wearing a backpack. Headed north. Wake up, Riley.”

  When Riley joined them, Sam looked to the two men. “We can’t lose him. We can’t let him make the tail.” Sam heard desperation and fear in his voice.

  They grabbed their packs and set off after Thames, who took a meandering path as if he was on a hike. Sam worked to curb his impatience, his desperation.

  They hung back. Thames continued to climb. Sam watched Thames make his way over the rocky terrain. Eventually, he stopped in front of a patch of bushes that grew out of the rock on this side of the mountain. Sam blinked, then Thames was gone.

  Sam spoke into the mic on his shoulder. Impatience and fear riding him, he demanded, “Anyone have him?”

  Mike said, “Nada.”

  “Negative,” Riley said.

  Sam stared at the spot he’d last seen Thames. He’d disappeared.

  Paige heard the slip-slide of the rocks that carpeted the ground inside the cave. That sound marked Thames’s return. She knew that sound now. At any moment, Thames would be back with her. Paige trembled.

  She wouldn’t see him approach. Her eyes were still glued shut. She’d worked to keep track of the passage of time. She needed to mark the days to know what Thames planned for her next. Wherever she was, the temperature dropped at regular points throughout the day. At night? She wasn’t sure, and really, it didn’t matter if it was day or night, only that another twenty-four hours had passed.

  She knew what was to come in Thames’s torture chamber. He was following the same pattern he’d established with the three women found by the Bureau. As he had with the other women, Thames had left her face untouched, but before he’d left her, he’d struck her over and over again, everywhere else on her body. Each breath brought with it pain that had her fighting to remain conscious. Her abused foot had taken another excruciating pounding.

  Paige had worked to distance herself from the pain and the fear. She thought of Ivy. Ivy was safe. Sam would make sure Ivy stayed that way. Sam. Thinking of Sam brought a new level of pain. Tears leaked from beneath her lids.

  Thames didn’t announce his return. But even if his footsteps hadn’t telegraphed his arrival, Paige would have smelled him. His aftershave had her retching.

  Thames laughed, clearly delighted with her reaction. She would have spat in his face if she could have, but even if she did have enough saliva in her parched mouth, he’d also glued her mouth closed.

  “So silent, Paige?” He laughed at his own humor. “We can’t have that.”

  No, again she thought about how her screams stoked his sadism. Thames bent over her. His cloying scent filled her every breath. Fear choked her.

  As Thames had tortured her, she had bitten the inside of her mouth to keep from crying out and giving him the satisfaction he craved. Bitten herself so hard, she’d tasted blood. She’d spent the last year terrified of him, but something in her hadn’t let her cower and beg. She knew she’d pay for that defiance, and she had. Her silence served to infuriate him. His smug arrogance gave way to petulance, and he became a little boy striking out because he wasn’t getting his way.

  He hadn’t sealed her mouth until he’d done all he’d intended to her. Now Thames applied acetone to her mouth and pried her lips apart.

  Paige coughed and heaved. Her battered body felt every cough. Thames ran his soft, pudgy fingers over her breast, poking the flesh that he’d tortured with the vise, which felt swollen to twice its normal size. Again, Paige bit the inside of her cheek to hold in her screams.

  “So stoic, Paige,” he said and pinched her. “So determined not to give in. We’ll see about that.”

  Paige worked to clear her mind. Down was up and up was down. She was existing in a haze of pain that had her thoughts flitting in and out of her mind. She couldn’t hold onto them. But she had to. She knew what Thames would do to her next, which was an advantage. She had to use it. She would have one chance—only one chance. She would not get another. Soon, Thames would kill her.

  “I see you haven’t moved at all.” Thames laughed at his own joke.

  She was still n
ailed to the makeshift table. With her sight absent, her other senses had heightened. She needed every one of them. She had to distance herself from the pain. She had to quiet her heart so she could hear.

  She heard Thames rattle his instruments. Despite the pain in the shredded skin, she bit her trembling lip to stifle a whimper. Not like this. She would not go out like this. And she would not go out alone.

  Thames bent over her. The stink of his cologne drew closer. He would be using the dagger he’d shown her earlier. Paige brought the instrument to her mind, focused on it until she could see it clearly.

  He would cut her now, mutilate her. She heard the unmistakable sound of a zipper. He hadn’t raped her yet, but he would. He would rape her now as he cut into her.

  Thames was right-handed. He would use his right hand and make his first slice on her breast. He would relish the first cut. Paige knew he would make it count.

  She felt him get onto the table with her. Felt his body move over hers. It took everything she had to control the panic, but she had to time this perfectly. One chance.

  The air shifted slightly. Thames brought the blade down. Paige reared up, screaming as she tore her arms from the nails. She reached up and grabbed Thames’s hand with one of hers.

  Though she couldn’t see it, she knew she’d left skin pinned to the table. Blood trickled down her arms. She fisted her hand around Thames’s. One chance. One chance.

  She seized the back of Thames’s head with her other hand. He would be expecting her to try to force the blade back, away from herself. Paige would not do as he expected. She pushed his head forward, down, down, onto the dagger. She drove the blade into his throat.

  She felt Thames’s blood spray her. He gurgled. His body bucked, but she held tight to him. The blade went all the way through, coming out at the back of Thames’s neck.

  He stopped moving. He was dead. Paige knew he was dead. But even as Thames fell onto her and his blood mingled with her own, she continued to drive the blade through him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Thames had not vanished. Sam dropped his pack and ran down to the spot where he’d last seen Thames. Loose rocks slid under Sam’s feet and dropped over the edge of the mountain. Thames had been here. In front of the bushes. Sam parted the dense growth. So thick he almost missed it, a narrow entrance to a cave.

  The thought of going into that cave made Sam sweat. Too much of his childhood had been spent in dark, airless closets. But Sam didn’t hesitate. He would go into hell to get Paige back.

  He, Mike, and Riley had split up, frantically searching for Thames. Sam spoke into his mic. “There’s a cave. Behind bushes. North side. I’m going in.”

  Sam drew a pen flashlight from his pocket, then his weapon, and went through the opening in the rock. It was as quiet as a grave—and as tight as one. He had to duck his head. The rock walls brushed his shoulders. Sam fought back the feeling that he was in his own grave. More sweat broke out on his brow. But he did not slow his pace. Gritting his teeth, he moved faster.

  The ceiling was low. Sam remained hunched. He kept the beam of the flashlight down, not knowing where Thames was and whether he would kill Paige if he knew Sam was in here with them.

  The light showed thick, hard-packed ground and walls made smooth and round over the passage of time. Finally, the cave widened and the ceiling rose high over Sam’s head. He straightened and, ignoring everything he knew about not racing blindly into the unknown, ran.

  Bats, maybe disturbed by his presence, flew out from their perch above him. But other than the bats, Sam appeared to be alone. Where the hell was Thames?

  Sam’s light caught on a body. Mary Emerson was posed against a rock wall. Had Thames also killed Paige and set her against one of these walls? Cold sweat broke out over Sam’s body. Blood pounded in his head as he moved the beam along the other walls. But Paige was not here. This was not her dead body. Sam staggered, but that truth kept him on his feet. She was here somewhere, and he would find her. Sam ran on.

  Up ahead, he saw a light. It was coming from behind a partition made up of thick white curtains. Sam dropped his flashlight and, with his weapon up, fisted the drapes and yanked them back.

  Thames was on his back on the ground. Dead. He was coated in blood. A knife went all the way through his neck. Somehow Paige had managed to kill him.

  Paige was on the ground, too, facedown. She was naked. Bloody. Everywhere but her face was marked. Seeing what Thames had done to her, Sam felt as if his chest was tearing open.

  Her arms were outstretched, her fingers curled into the dirt as if she were trying to crawl out of here.

  Sam’s heart kicked into overdrive. He dropped to his knees beside her. “Paige!” She was so still. His hands sweating, shaking, he pressed his fingers to her neck. “Paige!”

  Her pulse was weak, thready, but he felt it. He kept his fingers pressed to her pulse point, needing to feel the proof that she was alive.

  There was a line of glue along each eyelid. Thames had glued her eyes closed. Sam said into his mic, “I have Paige.” Sam’s voice sounded savage. “Mike, she needs medical. I don’t want to risk moving her.” Sam was wearing a tracking device but gave Mike his position anyway. “Get a medevac team in here. Now!”

  “Right away,” Mike said.

  Sam wanted to take Paige in his arms and hold her but didn’t know where he could touch her without causing her more pain or risking more injury. Her chest rattled with a shallow breath. Sam stared hard down at her, watching the small rise and fall of her chest, frantic that each breath would be her last. Hands shaking, he gripped her face as if doing so would keep her with him. “Hang on, baby.” He pressed his lips to her hair, kissing her, then left his lips there. “Hang on.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Paige sat in a wheelchair by the window in her hospital room at Kirk County General. The window overlooked a small park where hospital staff and patients, along with their visitors, lunched at picnic tables or sprawled on benches. The lunch hour had ended some time ago. Just now, the park was unoccupied except for a flock of birds. Yesterday was the first time Paige had been able to leave the bed and sit upright in a chair. Since then, she had taken to watching the people, birds, and other creatures as they made their way in and out of the trees.

  It was another warm day, Paige had been told by one of the nurses. The sun was high. She turned her face up, feeling the heat on her skin. Since the cave, Paige had yet to feel warm enough again.

  Ten days had passed since Thames had abducted her, driven her to the Adirondacks, and taken her to the cave. She’d spent four of those days entombed within those rock walls. Her memory of that time was all too clear. Paige expected it always would be. Thames had kept to the same pattern with her as he had with the other women. That fourth day in the cave would have been her last.

  Paige didn’t recall Sam taking her out of there. Didn’t recall seeing him at all until her second night in this hospital. Fear made her fight the medication the doctors had given her and brought her out of the drug-induced haze. She’d jerked awake, and Sam had been by her bedside, holding her hand and telling her that she was safe.

  She repeated that to herself now. At times, without warning or cause, fear took hold of her and she was back in that cave with Thames. She stared hard out at the park, not blinking, taking in the sunshine, the trees, the squirrels, and worked to bring herself back to this moment, to overcome the fear once more.

  Behind her, the television was on low as it was every night.

  “And the story on convicted, then released serial killer Todd Thames continues,” a female reporter said. “A mass grave containing the bodies of Thames’s victims was found inside the cave where Thames also attempted to claim the life of a federal agent.”

  Paige turned to the television. The screen filled with a view of the mountain location that had housed Thames’s cave. The footage was live, being captured from a helicopter. Agents moved in and out of the range of the camera.r />
  “An active investigation in Kirk County, South Carolina, led to this discovery.”

  The mountain view was replaced with a shot of Sam pushing through a throng of reporters in front of the Kirk Bureau office. Sam’s features were drawn tight.

  “Agent McKade! How many bodies have been found in the cave?”

  Sam walked on.

  “Have any of the bodies been identified?”

  Sam didn’t respond, but continued to bulldoze his way through the men and women.

  “Before you took over this investigation, law enforcement and the FBI failed to find the cave where Thames had buried the bodies of his victims. How did you find Thames’s burial ground? How did you succeed where everyone else failed and get Thames?”

  Sam had made it to his truck and was about to climb in when he stopped abruptly and faced the man who’d addressed him. Sam’s eyes flashed.

  “I’m not the one responsible for getting Thames,” Sam said. “The person who did that is Agent Carson. She almost lost her life going after Thames. She’s the one who got him when no one else could.”

  Sam had likely given her back her career with those words and erased any black marks from her record. Paige closed her eyes. If she still had a career . . .

  Her eyes had not suffered permanent damage from the glue. Thames had broken her ribs and punctured a lung. She was a mess of contusions and lacerations. The pain medication was still no match for the pain itself, and it left her light-headed and exhausted. But she’d been assured that those injuries would heal. She hadn’t received the same assurance about her foot.

  An orthopedic surgeon had scheduled operations to begin to repair the massive damage. But the surgeon had told Paige the bones Thames had broken might never be as they had been. She might never regain full use of her leg.

  She needed full use of both legs if she was going to continue to work a field post. And she wanted to. She no longer needed to remain behind a desk out of fear, and she didn’t want to. Harry, Dom, Mike, Riley, and Mrs. Hendershot stopped by often to see her. Paige’s surprise and awe at repeatedly seeing them had been met with a simple, “We’re your squad.” Their support and acceptance had felt better than anything in her career ever had.