Your Next Breath (12 page)

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.”

Luke made a rude noise. “No way. You should have—”

She interrupted. “And I just met your friend, Cameron, and he almost broke my ribs. Shows you what a good judge of character you are.” She added, “Catherine says you should tell me what all this means. So stop being rude and tell me.”

“Hu Chang would say you have no gratitude or appreciation.” He was silent a moment before he said gruffly, “I’m glad nobody cut your throat, Kelly.”

“Me, too.” She smiled. “Now talk to me.”

*   *   *

It would be all right, Catherine thought with relief as her gaze shifted away from Kelly and Luke. Luke would not treat Kelly as a victim and that would keep her from thinking of herself as one. It was the best thing for Kelly right now.

“I don’t appreciate your pointing that gun at me,” Cameron said softly. “It hurt my feelings.”

“Bullshit.” She shot him a glance as she fell to her knees beside the man Cameron had garroted. Dressed in jeans and black leather jacket, Cameron was every bit as powerful and sexual as she remembered. And his expression was just as mocking and challenging. “I didn’t know it was you when I came down that trail. And, if I had known, I would still have pointed it at you when I saw that you were holding Kelly helpless. How did I know what you were doing?” She was searching through the pockets of the dead man. “What are you doing here anyway? For all I knew, you were still in Tibet.”

“I was finished with what I had to do there. I flew out almost immediately. I was already only minutes from landing in Louisville when Hu Chang contacted me and told me you were on your way here. So I just picked up a helicopter and extended my flight plan a little.”

“And you didn’t think to let me know what had happened or if you’d found out anything from Nagoles that I—”

“I was planning on telling you eventually.” He knelt beside her as she flipped open the wallet she’d taken out of the man’s jacket. “Who is he? He was definitely not Grade-A material.”

“He didn’t have to be,” she said harshly. “He only had to kill a sixteen-year-old girl.” She glanced at the driver’s license. “Raymond Shaw. Issued in Richmond, Virginia. Local boy. Probably not one of Santos’s regular goons. That might have some significance.”

“And that is?”

“I don’t know.” She looked through the rest of Shaw’s pockets and pulled out only a Shell gas receipt and a phone. “We’ll check the phone records, but it’s a disposable pay phone. It probably won’t help us.” She held up a small device. “And this is a signal blocker that he probably used to take out Kelly’s phone. Nothing else.”

“He had a gun. He tried to draw it when I was disposing of him. He would have been smarter to shoot Kelly than to try to use that knife. He could have picked her off from behind those trees.” He shook his head. “But some killers just like the thrill of the cut. Santos would have been displeased at his self-indulgence.”

“Maybe he ordered it. It would have made her death all the more ghastly for me.” She sat back on her heels and said jerkily, “And that’s what he wants. Pain. Shock. Terror.”

“He didn’t get it this time.” He put his hand on her shoulder. “Your Kelly is alive and well.” He smiled. “And amazingly ferocious for such a fragile-looking young girl. I didn’t want to hurt her, but I might have had to put her out if you hadn’t come along.”

Cameron’s hand on her shoulder was warm and comforting. Strange. “Comforting” was the last word she would have applied to Cameron. When he touched her, it was always sheer erotic combustion.

“Evidently there’s a time and a place. I find it strange too.”

“Get out of my head, Cameron. You promised me.”

“It was only a temporary fall from grace. I was concerned, and it caught me off balance. I had to make sure that you were safe when I reached the woods.”

“Get out of my head,” she repeated. She stood up. “I have to get Kelly out of here. She’s been through too much.”

“Are you taking her back to the campus?”

“Hell, no. I’m taking her home with me, where I can keep an eye on her. Just because we were able to save her this time is no guarantee that Santos won’t send someone else.”

“I have a helicopter parked at the heliport north of the dam. It will be closer than for you to go back to the university.”

She nodded. “And I won’t run into the State Police. I’ll call Venable and tell him Kelly’s safe, and I’m going home with you.”

He smiled. “Oh, that will please him. I’ve been sensing a certain antagonism in his actions toward me lately.”

“You can hardly blame him.”

“I never blame anyone who plays fair. It just makes the game more interesting. When Venable begins to show his fangs, I’ll rethink and adjust.”

“And go after him?”

He didn’t answer. “It shouldn’t take us long to get to the helicopter.” He turned and moved toward Kelly, Luke, and Sam. “Coming?”

ATLANTA, GEORGIA

It was raining harder.

Jane could barely see more than a few yards ahead of her.

The windshield wipers on the Toyota were having to work overtime as she got off the freeway and turned onto the gravel road leading to the lake cottage.

Just go slow and don’t slide off into that ditch already overflowing with water, she told herself.

And it would have been easier if that car behind her wasn’t hugging her bumper and didn’t have his bright lights on. That brilliant beam reflected in her rearview mirror was blinding.

Just concentrate on the road.

Only a few miles more.

But, dammit, turn off those high beams.

VIRGINIA

Catherine turned around as soon as they were airborne to look at Kelly in the back with Luke and Sam. “Okay? We’ll be home soon, Kelly.”

Kelly nodded. “It all seems like a bad dream or one of those screamer movies. It doesn’t seem real.”

“It was real enough,” Luke said. “Why did you go tearing off like that? You said something about a note. What did it say?”

“Just a couple words. With deepest regret. And a photo from a newspaper with the story about how Daddy was killed.”

“No signature? Postmark?” Catherine asked.

“No signature. Local postmark. I thought it was maybe a student in one of my classes.”

“Do you still have it?”

“Sure, it’s in my backpack. I dropped the backpack on the trail. But I picked it up on our way to the copter. Will it help if I show it to you?”

“It could. I’ll check it out when we get home.”

“Look, I should go back to school. I’ll be missing classes. I’m working on a project that—”

“No,” Catherine said firmly. “I’ll make sure you’re excused, and your project can wait.”

Kelly nodded wearily. “I guess that’s okay. It will have to be.” Suddenly, her lips tilted with sly amusement. “After all, I have to take care of Luke. He’s just a kid.”

“Who wasn’t the one who caused us all this bother,” Luke said. “Running around the woods. Talk about being—”

“Break it up,” Sam said. “It’s amazing that the two of you can be so mature alone and like this when you’re together.”

Truly amazing. And very healthy, Catherine thought as she turned back around in her seat. She looked at Cameron. “So tell me about Nagoles. Santos said he’d disappeared, but he didn’t know at the time if he’d crashed in the helicopter.”

“He did not. You wanted me to question him.”

“But you wouldn’t promise me to do it.”

“You should have known that I would.”

“Why? You were angry with me.”

“I still am, but that doesn’t alter the fact that I’m involved.”

“Did Nagoles talk?”

“Eventually. Not that he knew a great deal. He’d worked for Santos a number of times before, but he generally dealt through Dorgal.” He paused. “He was the one who killed Olena Petrov, but Santos hired someone else to take down Jantzen and Slantkey. Santos wanted Nagoles available to do the Erin kill.”

“All very efficient and well planned,” Catherine said bitterly.

“Why not? He’s had a long time to think about it.” He shook his head. “And Nagoles didn’t know where Santos is now. He was to pick up his money in Hong Kong. That was all I could get out of him about anything connected to you. Though I did ask him specifically about any jobs he did for Santos while he was in prison that struck him as unusual.”

“And were there?”

“Only one. He was contracted to kill some doctor in Guatemala. A Dr. Jorge Montez. An example killing. Very bloody.”

“And not that unusual for Santos. He’s been known to dangle the heads of his enemies off the bridges of their home cities.”

“But it seems Jorge Montez had a brother who was also a doctor. Eduardo Montez. Nagoles was given orders that on no account was he to harm Eduardo.”

“No reason?”

“Nagoles just obeyed orders and asked no questions. It was safer for him.”

“I can see that. Nothing else?”

He shook his head. “Nothing.”

“I wish I’d been there to question him.”

“Do you really think you’d have gotten more out of him than I did?” His eyes were glacier cold. “I’m not an amateur. You’ll have to be satisfied. I was not about to let him live one more minute than I had to after what he did to Erin.”