Notorious

by Carey Baldwin

  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.”

  Chapter Twenty-­Four

  Saturday, October 19

  5:00 P.M.

  Preston Hollow, Texas

  AFTER CLEANING CAITY’S wounds and bandaging her wrists, Spense had driven everyone to Dallas in his Bucar. They’d taken the back roads into the city and parked out of sight in Dutch’s private garage. Now they’d settled into the basement of Dutch’s Preston Hollow home. They didn’t dare stay in the main part of the house for fear the neighbors might spot them.

  “Check out what I brought along in my go bag.” Caity produced a small whiteboard and Dry Erase Markers. Spense had to smile at her forethought. She’d come prepared with everything: medicine, bandages, Kleenex . . . and she’d brought the tools of their trade, ones that in some ways were every bit as important as his Glock.

  “So you were planning on profiling the killer all along,” Dutch said. “I can’t wait to watch the two of you work your magic.”

  “First, you’re not going to sit back and watch us work our magic. You’re going to get down and dirty right alongside us. At the moment, you’re our most important resource. And second, we’re not going to profile Cindy’s killer. Not in any traditional sense, because this case doesn’t really fit the model.” Caity held up one finger. “But I do think some of the same principles apply, which is why I brought the board. In particular, I think we can learn a lot about the killer’s motivation by ‘profiling’ Cindy herself.”

  “Unless Cindy wasn’t the target,” Dutch said.

  “In case you’re the real target, Dutch, we’ll have to consider two entirely different paths. And you know what that means.”

  “I don’t.”

  Caity grinned. “It means we need more colors. We’ll use blue for Cindy and green for you.”

  Spense uncapped a marker, and the scent of a fresh puzzle, itching to be solved, filled the room. Even Dutch seemed to be getting into the spirit of things. The Thresher’s death was a blow, but that didn’t mean they were going to wait for the next hired hit man to come strolling through the door. They had work to do. And they had better get to it. This was their window of opportunity.

  The monster behind the monster might’ve already found his new assassin. But just as they had to start from scratch to find him, his henchman had to start from scratch to find them.

  The playing field was even, and the race was on.

  He and Caity still couldn’t report in to Jim. Spense hated withholding information, but if they told him they’d located Dutch, Jim would either have to turn Dutch over to Sheridan or risk disciplinary action for concealing a fugitive. And judging by all those meetings with the boys from D.C., Jim was being groomed for bigger and better things. Spense would rather not put his mentor in an untenable position with the Bureau. For now, they had to keep Jim in the dark—­but that didn’t mean Spense couldn’t rely on some of his other contacts at the Bureau. He was tight enough with a few agents to ask for help on the down low. Plenty of folks knew he and Caity had been assigned as off-­the-­books advocates for Dutch, and Jim was too discreet to have advertised the fact he’d taken them out of that role.

  SECRETS.

  Caity scrawled the letters with a heavy hand, in all caps giving them a bold, important appearance.

  Spense wasn’t sure where she was going with that. It was a departure from their normal methodology—­but then again, they weren’t looking for a serial killer.

  “I realize this isn’t how we usually do things, but both Cindy and Dutch had more than their fair share of secrets. It seems likely to me, that if we turn over all those secrets, we’re more likely to find the motive for Cindy’s murder, and if we know the motive . . .”

  “The killer will be obvious,” Spense said.

  Dutch arched a skeptical eyebrow.

  “Obvious might be overstating,” Caity rushed in to qualify his statement, and a warm feeling spread through his chest. He was being arrogant; she was trying to tone him down. That meant things were getting back to normal between them, and that was good. Very good.

  Dutch rolled his personal marker between his palms. “Are we all in agreement that the Thresher did not kill Cindy?”

  They’d only discussed this possibility once before, back at the stockyards, but Spense was glad to see Dutch remembered. His brother would not require spoon-­feeding.

  “Probably. The events at the ranch, and the attempts on our lives, were well planned out—­and those were committed by the Thresher. But in Cindy’s case, although the killer escaped detection, the murder appears to have been either unplanned or poorly planned. There were hundreds of guests at that fund-­raiser, making the scene extremely high-­risk. And the shredded evening gown suggests the crime was highly personal.” Caity wrote the word LIPSTICK in blue on the board. “And the killer made a rookie mistake—­using lipstick that wasn’t Cindy’s on her forehead.”

  “It’s also the only indication we have that the killer might be a female,” Dutch said. “All other signs point to a man: the use of a firearm, the posing of the body—­of course, men leave lipstick notes, too. For me, the killer’s gender is still in question.”

  “But if we’re correct that Cindy’s murder was impulsive, then we could all but rule out the idea that someone killed her in order to get to you, Dutch.” Spense wanted to get that out early, because it was true, and because he knew it would alleviate some of Dutch’s guilt.

  “Not entirely,” Caity said, almost apologetically. “Someone with a grudge against Dutch could’ve taken advantage of an unforeseen circumstance.”

  “A crime of opportunity.” Dutch nodded. “I’ve been thinking along those lines.”

  “I say we travel both paths to see if there’s any point where they intersect.” Caity had an artificial lilt in her voice, and Spense figured she was trying to stay upbeat for Dutch’s sake.

  This was the first time they’d ever boarded a murder with the victim’s husband in the room. It was tricky, but Caity was right. Dutch was their best resource. They needed him here, no matter how painful it was for him. “We should start with Cindy’s secrets.”

  Dutch’s complexion went gray, like he was about to be sick.

  “Do you need a minute?” Caity asked.

  “No.” He sighed. “I need my wife back. But that’s not going to happen, so the least I can do for her is have the guts to face the truth. I can’t help thinking that if I’d been more involved in our marriage, she’d still be alive. Now I can’t even tell you much about her affairs—­that’s what you meant when you said secrets, I’m sure. Because of my indifference, I’m practically no use to you.”

  “You were not indifferent. You loved her,” Caity said. “If you practiced denial, it was a survival mechanism. But I bet you know more than you think you do. Remember what you told Cindy about the diary—­that she’d better hide it well since she was married to an FBI agent? Think about it, Dutch, a man with your background and observational skills had to have picked up on clues.”

  He rubbed his foreh
ead. “I can tell you more from the early years . . . before I checked out of our marriage. The first time I heard rumors, they were about the tennis pro at the club. At first, I didn’t believe they were true. I waited for Cindy to come to me and explain things, but she never did. Then at some point, I started to think where there was smoke, there was fire, so I buried myself in my cases. And I left her to her own devices. Either the affair ended, or maybe it never happened to begin with. I was never really certain.

  “Then a few years later, I traveled to the coast of Somalia to negotiate the release of hostages. When I returned, it was like déjà vu. Whenever I entered a room, ­people would suddenly stop talking, and when I left, they would start to whisper again.”

  “So you thought she’d taken another lover?” Caity asked in a soft, but businesslike tone.

  “Yeah. I guess I knew she was cheating. No one ever told me who the man in question was, but I had a pretty fair idea. Before I left for Somalia, Cindy had become very friendly with Sue Ellen James. A woman she had met at Junior League. They worked a number of charity events together. But when I returned, Sue Ellen and Cindy had had some sort of falling-­out. Then, a few months later, Sue Ellen and her husband, Peter, divorced. The reason, according to the Dallas grapevine: Peter was sleeping with one of Sue Ellen’s best friends.”

  “Sue Ellen and Peter James.” Caity wrote their names in blue—­to indicate this was Cindy’s secret. “Had motive to kill Cindy.”

  “You know where the tennis pro is now?” Spense asked.

  Dutch shook his head. “It wasn’t him.”

  “You sure about that?”

  “He got behind the wheel, drunk. The creep took a family of three with him to the grave.”

  “That’s one off the list of suspects then. Who else?”

  “Kip Keiser. I think his wife’s name is Georgia.”

  While Spense asked the questions, Caity scribbled the information on the board.

  “They’re still married?”

  “Yes. Georgia was pregnant at the time, this one I know for sure, because Georgia brought it to my attention. She called me and begged me to intervene with Cindy.”