Saturday, October 19
3:10 P.M.
Fort Worth, Texas
CAITLIN WAS NOT going to sit back quietly, waiting to be sliced and diced. She hadn’t heard a single set of footsteps pass by, so wherever the Thresher had taken her, it must be well off the main path. With the windows boarded over, screaming would be a waste of time and energy—though she vowed to let loose at the top of her lungs if she heard someone approaching. For now, she wasn’t going to simply hope for someone else to come along and rescue her.
The old expression, do or die, had never been more true.
It didn’t matter that her every breath was constricted by her bonds, or that dread floated like sewage in her blood, contaminating every part of her with fear. Nor did it matter that her handcuffs had already chafed the skin right off her wrists, or that the barbed wire she’d been manipulating had punctured the delicate pads of her fingertips.
None of that was important.
It didn’t seem so terrible to die. Everyone did—circle of life and all. It wasn’t even the anticipation of the slow agony of being lacerated into pieces that drove her to work the wire between her fingers until she nearly fainted from the pain. No, it wasn’t the fear of a horrible death that drove her.
It was the fear of an unfinished life.
All those moments that would never be. If she succumbed to death, here in this darkened room before she’d really lived, really loved—that would be a tragedy. She didn’t want to miss out on the days of studying Spense’s profile, watching his sudden smile when he hit upon the solution to a puzzle; or the Thanksgiving she’d promised her mother. The one where they would not sit stiffly at the table, making strained conversation, like they had every year since her father’s execution. This year was to be their new beginning. She ground her teeth and twisted the wire another turn. The Thresher wasn’t going to take those things away from her.
With the next turn of the wire, she felt it snap, piercing her finger to the bone. Pain rose in her body, but she tamped it down, not allowing it to distract her—not now. Not when she’d finally managed to free a strand of wire. If she could just get her hands close enough . . . The cuffs scraped and stung the raw flesh on her wrists.
Good.
They were slipping lower. She strained harder.
Then her breath stopped in her chest. She heard several clicks. The whirring sound, coming from behind her, changed to a loud buzz. Looking down, she saw coils of cable snaking toward the machine. Something had activated the autowind feature. A timer?
She had no idea if she had seconds or minutes left, but her brain split each moment into a million parts. Then she filled each one of those parts with work.
With hope.
The very wire her captor would use to decapitate her, was the same instrument that could save her . . . if she could only pick the lock on her handcuffs with it. Her tears stung her eyes like acid, blinding her. The cable uncoiled at her feet, relentlessly disappearing into the autoreel. She kept working, kept hoping. She bit down on her cheek when she found a notch in the handcuffs, and then shoved the wire in with all her might.
Click!
She jerked her wrists apart. The handcuffs jangled as they hit the floor.
She’d done it!
She’d picked the lock on her handcuffs with wire from her “belt.” But she was still bound to the chair. Then she smiled, realizing she didn’t need to get free of the chair. All she had to do was get free of the barbed necklace and belt. Three loops of cable remained on the floor. Once they uncoiled, the slack would be gone, and it would be mere seconds until the wires cut her in two.
Her father’s voice sounded in her head.
Hold on tight, Caity. I won’t let you fall.
If her father had had even a sliver of a chance, he’d never have wasted it. He’d had no chance at all. But she did. She had seconds, and right now those seconds amounted to a lifetime.
Yes!
She’d unhooked the belt. It dangled across her lap in one straight piece, scraping her thighs, but no longer dangerous.
At her feet, one coiled loop of cable remained.
And that meant she had more seconds. Another lifetime.
She tore at the necklace, trying to release it. Dear God. She’d been twisting it the wrong way.
I want you, Caity.
She imagined Spense whispering words of love, low in her ear, his warm breath on her cheek. She opened her eyes, blinking away the moisture.
She couldn’t give up. The thought of never hearing his voice again was far worse than the pain and far more potent than her fear.
There!
The necklace opened, jerking across her throat, grazing her skin as it was sucked into the beast behind her. But she was alive. Now, all she had to do was get these damn ropes off, and get the hell out of here before the Thresher returned. She looked at the thick lines that bound her to the chair . . . took a deep breath . . . and then cried out as a long, booted leg kicked open the door to her torture chamber.
THAT RUSH OF sheer joy when he first spied Caity was enough to keep Spense on his feet—despite the full-body trembling that overtook him. She was bound to a chair, her hair wrung with sweat. She had the feral look of a trapped animal preparing to chew off its paw. His heart stopped in his chest, but then her smile brought its beat back with a vengeance.
“I’m here,” he heard a calm voice say, and realized he was speaking. Somehow, he’d crossed the room, and his hands had set to work loosening knots. Other hands were busy, too. Together, he and Dutch freed Caity from the bindings.
He picked up her hand, and the sight of her delicate fingers with broken, bloody nails, her wrists ringed with red, the flesh torn from them, made his heart stutter yet again. He bent his head near hers. “I’m here.”
“We have to hurry,” Caity tried to stand.
Her legs gave way, and Spense lifted her in his arms. Holding her close, he came back to himself, and only then did he remember Caity didn’t know that the Thresher was dead.
“It’s okay. He’s not coming back.” He sat down in a chair near the table, with Caity still in his arms. “He’s dead.”
The quick flash of relief on her face was soon followed by a frown. “So he didn’t take the decoy.”
“We tried to stick with the plan.” Dutch came closer, resting his hand on Caity’s shoulder. “But I’m afraid a longhorn bull had other ideas.”
Spense let Dutch do the talking. He didn’t want Caity to hear his voice shake. He was usually cool in the face of trouble, no matter how terrible. But the sight of Caity, bound to that chair, had been almost more than he could bear.
Dutch relayed what had happened in the bullpen. Caity listened and asked a few questions. Keeping remarkably calm, even through the description of the goring.
When the story was over, she climbed off Spense’s lap, steadying herself with one hand on the table. “What are we going to do now?”
Hoping he was composed enough to speak in a normal tone of voice, he took a deep breath, and said, “We’re going to get you to a hospital.”
She shook her head. “Absolutely not. If I go to an ER, that might alert Sheridan to Dutch’s whereabouts. Injuries like mine are bound to trigger a police report, and we’re supposed to be in Tahiti, remember? If I suddenly show up at Harris Hospital Emergency, even someone as thick as Sheridan might make the connection to Dutch. And Sheridan would absolutely run to Jim.”
“It’s not worth risking your health, Caitlin,” Dutch said.
“You need a doctor,” Spense added, holding up her raw, abraded wrists.
“I am a doctor. I can keep an eye on these wounds myself. I’ve got antiseptics and bandages in my go bag, and if they show signs of infection—I’ve got antibiotics, too.”
“I’m going to turn myself in. I won’t endanger the two of you any longer.” Dutch paced the small room.
“It’s no use, Dutch. I’m sure the Thresher reported in to his boss on a regular basis. The monster behind the monster probably assumes that if we’re with you, we know too much. Turning yourself in won’t keep any of us safe.”
Caity was right. Crazy to think they could lose their lives over information they didn’t even have. Not a single one of them really knew what was in that diary, and the hit man’s insistence that they produce it eliminated all doubt that the diary was the key to everything. “Now that the Thresher is dead,” Spense said, “the plan of following the decoy diary to this mastermind is no longer an option. That’s the bad news.”
“What’s the good news?” Dutch sighed heavily.
“When the Thresher’s body is discovered, it’s going to look like a freak accident. No one will know we were even there.”
“It was a freak accident,” Dutch said.
“And the press will be swarming the stockyards to cover the story. We need to get out of here fast,” Caity said. “Once the ‘puppet master’ finds out his hired help is dead, it won’t take long to find a replacement assassin. And this time, we’ll have no idea when or where he’ll strike.”
Spense could hardly believe the way she was able to shift gears and focus on the problem at hand after what she’d just been through. “Is there anywhere safe to go?”
There was a moment of thoughtful silence.
“Back to my place in Preston Hollow,” Dutch said. “We can regroup and figure out our next step. We’ll have everything we need there. Caity can rest, and frankly, it’s the last place anyone will look for us.”
“Seems risky.” Caity frowned. “If I were Sheridan, I’d have surveillance on your place.”
“But you’re not Sheridan, and since unlike you, he assumes I’m guilty, he probably believes that given my personal resources, I’m out of the country by now.”
Spense knew from experience that it took more than twenty men to keep twenty-four hour surveillance on just one terrorist. “He’s right, Caity. Absent a specific reason to believe Dutch is about to return, it’s not likely the Dallas PD has surveillance on the house. They can’t afford to tie up that kind of manpower indefinitely.” He turned to his brother. The plan sounded reasonable enough, only . . . “Without the decoy diary, we’re up a proverbial creek, unless you have some sudden insight into who might’ve killed your wife.”
“That’s funny, because I was hoping the two of you would tell me.”
“How’s that?” Spense turned his palms up.
Dutch grinned. “Last time I checked, the two of you were profilers. And sitting on top of quite a winning streak. Short of finding the real diary, you and Caitlin are the best chance I’ve got.”