CHAPTER THREE
Paige locked the door to her apartment in Denver for the last time, then left the keys with the building manager before going out to the parking lot where she’d left her van. Packing hadn’t taken long. She didn’t have much to take with her. She hadn’t had much in the way of furniture, and she’d sold or donated what she did have. She’d buy what she needed when she reached her destination. The most important thing was that she was leaving.
The April day was bright and cool. Paige huddled into her thick sweater. A couple of teenaged boys sped down the road in an old sports car. Despite the windows being closed, the music blaring from the car’s speakers had a pounding backbeat that obliterated all other sound until they passed.
Two weeks had passed since her court appearance in New York. Even though she knew Thames was still in prison, pending the ruling in his case, Paige kept her eyes trained on her surroundings as she crossed the parking lot and made her way toward her vehicle. In the oversize purse she’d slung over her shoulder was the reason for her hasty departure from Denver. A blank postcard of the Adirondack Mountains, where Paige had encountered Thames, had been sent to her home here in Denver. The postcard had arrived the previous week, on the first anniversary of that day.
This was the second such postcard she’d received. The first card had arrived at her house in New York City one year ago. At that time, she’d considered that the sender might have been someone she worked with in the Bureau office. Her actions in the Adirondack Mountains had alerted Thames to the FBI’s presence. If her squad members hadn’t arrived when they did, Thames would have escaped. She had jeopardized the investigation, provided Thames with an opportunity to flee, and put her entire squad at risk. Many had shown her their anger in subtle and not so subtle ways.
But at Thames’s murder trial, as she’d walked by him on her way to the witness stand, he’d started singing under his breath. The words he sang so softly that no one else appeared to hear were the numbers and street name of her New York home address.
And Paige knew. No one from the Bureau had sent that postcard. It had come from Thames.
Why her? They had a profile of Thames’s victims. Like Paige, they were twentysomething, slender brunettes. Other than physical appearance, the Bureau had not been able to find anything in common in the victimology of the three murdered women. There was nothing that tied the women together.
Paige’s throat tightened. Again, she wondered, why was he targeting her? How many of the women who had found themselves caught by Thames had asked themselves the same question? Was it because their paths had crossed that day on the mountain?
In New York, Paige had added the first postcard to other items being sent out for forensic testing, hoping for something that would link the card to Thames. It had come back clean. Again, as with the bodies of his victims, Paige believed that Thames was allowing only what he wanted to be discovered to be found.
Paige had gone to her superior at the New York office, Special Agent in Charge Lewis, with the postcard. He’d asked if she’d sent the card to herself in another bid to gain attention. With nothing to prove that Thames was contacting her—and doing so from death row—she was on her own.
Now, Paige had received a second postcard.
Thames knew she was no longer in New York, knew exactly where she was in Denver, and soon, she believed, he would be released. Paige didn’t think his conviction would stand. Despite all he’d done, the law would set him free.
He hadn’t forgotten about Paige over the last year. Instead, he’d tracked her. How Thames had found her in Denver was a mystery and one that was keeping her awake at night. A drop of perspiration trickled down her neck. She increased her pace.
Paige’s van was parked in a handicap spot. Her fifteen-year-old sister, Ivy, sat in the back in her wheelchair and turned to face her as Paige got behind the steering wheel. Ivy’s blond hair fell to her shoulders, straight and glossy. Behind her glasses, Ivy narrowed her almond-shaped eyes, and her delicate features tightened into an expression sour enough to curdle milk.
“This is unfair,” Ivy said.
Paige had been hearing the same refrain ever since she’d told Ivy they would be moving. After Paige received the postcard in New York City, she uprooted Ivy from the house they’d grown up in and brought her to Denver, forcing Ivy to leave behind her friends and all that was familiar. And now, just one year later, they were moving again.
Guilt weighed on Paige’s chest. “I’m sorry Denver didn’t work out for us.”
“Why didn’t it work out? Where are we going? You still haven’t told me.”
To ensure that Ivy didn’t reveal their destination, Paige had kept that to herself. Ivy had protested the secrecy, but Paige had been adamant. She didn’t think Thames had an in with the one bookish girl Ivy had eventually befriended in Denver and could track her through that girl, but what wasn’t known couldn’t be told.
Paige hadn’t told anyone where they were moving. Not that many had asked. She was distant with her colleagues at work and with her neighbors at the apartment that had been their temporary home. The big city and the busy Bureau office had been the perfect place to become lost. Or so she’d thought. Her hands tightened on the steering wheel. But Thames did not know she was leaving Denver. She thought about their new home, the safety of a fresh start, and slowly, deliberately, Paige eased her grip.
She pulled out of the parking lot and glanced at Ivy before returning her gaze to the road. “We’re going to Kirk County to the town of Caledon. There are two other towns in Kirk County, Haldonville and Linkdale. Kirk County is in South Carolina. I hear that South Carolina is really nice.”
“New York was really nice. Why can’t we go back there? Why can’t we go home? I want to go back home.”
Paige’s throat closed at the loss and grief she heard in Ivy’s voice, knowing she was the cause. Ivy deserved to live like a normal teenager, so Paige hadn’t told her the reason for the move from New York or why they were moving again. She hadn’t told Ivy about Thames.
Maybe if Paige had only had herself to think about, she wouldn’t have run; she would have stayed in New York, baited Thames, taken him down. Or maybe she was fooling herself, and she would have done exactly as she had.
Paige rubbed her arms against a sudden chill. She would do anything and everything to keep Ivy safe from Thames, but Paige’s one consolation was that Paige herself was Thames’s target. Ivy wasn’t Thames’s type. She was too young and she was blond.
Ivy was still looking at Paige, waiting for a response. Paige was fresh out of reasons—excuses—for leaving Denver. Feeling drained, she couldn’t come up with one more lie. Ivy turned away to gaze out the window, and there was no further conversation after that. With only brief stops to eat and sleep in motels that didn’t take them off their path, Paige drove largely straight through. Thames was still behind bars, but he had a reach Paige had never expected, and she found herself continuously checking her rearview mirror, looking for someone who might be following them. She pushed herself hard, wanting to get as far from Denver as she could, as quickly as she could. As long as she and Ivy were out in the open, Paige felt vulnerable.
They arrived in South Carolina ahead of schedule. Paige consulted the vehicle’s GPS and her own notes to find Kirk County. She drove by gas stations, miles of open land, and not much else before reaching what would be their new home. Kirk County was a distance from major highways and cities. Remote as the county was, it was not easy to find, and Paige released what felt like the first deep breath she’d taken since she’d received Thames’s latest postcard.
The sun was coming up, the light a pink blush on the horizon. Ivy was dozing in the back, stretched out on the bench seat. Paige pulled into the motel parking lot and scanned the area. Hers was the only vehicle.
She turned in the seat. Her neck and back ached. She winced, then reached out and gently shook Ivy awake. “We’re here,” she said softly.
Ivy blinked, then opened her eyes fully and turned her dull focus on Paige. In that instant, Paige glimpsed Ivy the way she had been in New York, before Paige had brought Thames into their lives. Gone was the anger and sadness that had surrounded Ivy since they moved to Denver, giving Paige’s heart a hard tug.
She swallowed back emotion, then said, “Wake up, sleepyhead. I need to register us at this motel, and then I’ll be back to get you. In a few minutes, you’ll be sleeping in a comfortable bed.”
Paige was so tired, and not just from the drive. Since Thames’s postcard had arrived in Denver, she hadn’t been able to turn off for more than three hours at a stretch without being jerked awake by a nightmare.
She tucked her purse under her arm, then opened the door. After the air-conditioning of the van, the heat struck her. Spring in the South. Already, the day was promising to be a warm one.
A bell jingled over the door to the motel. When no one came out from the room behind the counter, Paige tapped another bell that sat beside a guest register. It took a few rings, but finally a desk clerk shuffled out, squinting and blinking. The man with bedhead, scratching at an overnight growth of beard, wasn’t one for conversation. He accepted Paige’s payment, pushed the register book at her, and then it was done. By the time Paige finished adding her name, he’d gone back to his room, which was fine with her. All she wanted was a bed.
Back in the van, Ivy had already gotten into her wheelchair. Paige lowered the platform, slung her purse over her shoulder, cross-body, then grabbed a couple of bags with the easy-to-access overnight provisions that they’d used at other rest stops. The motor on Ivy’s wheelchair whirred as she moved forward. The motel still used keys rather than key cards. Leading the way, Paige took them to the number on the key she’d been given. Room #11 was not fancy, but the mild trace of disinfectant that lingered in the air reassured Paige, and the linens and curtains were crisp and clean.
She set the bags on an armchair that faced a small television on a stand. There was one queen-size bed. Paige barely had time to turn back the bedspread before Ivy left her wheelchair and flopped onto the sheets.
Paige closed the curtains, then parted them with a fingertip to peer out at the parking lot. The sun had risen a bit higher and gained some strength, now glinting off the hood of Paige’s van. Her vehicle was still the only one on the lot.
No one had followed them. She and Ivy were safe. Paige released the curtain, letting it fall back into place, then rubbed her fingers across her brow, smoothing a worry line.
She locked the door, then made her way to the bed. Ivy was on her stomach in a deep sleep, one arm stretched out as far as it would go. Paige eased Ivy’s glasses off and set them on the nightstand, then smoothed back her sister’s hair from her face. Paige’s fingers lingered. Lately, she and Ivy had been at odds, and Ivy didn’t welcome Paige’s touch. It hurt to know that, to see Ivy pull away from her. Paige wanted to fix what was wrong between them. They were going to make a fresh start here.
“I’m going to make it right for you,” Paige whispered softly.
When Ivy didn’t stir, Paige pressed a soft kiss to Ivy’s hair.
Paige got up from the bed and found an old black-and-white movie on the television, which she turned on low. As exhausted as she was, lately the only way she could turn off her thoughts and get any sleep at all was by listening to the drone of the television.
Paige’s purse was still slung across her body. She removed it and then took her Glock from inside. As she lowered herself to the bed, she slid her weapon under the mattress.