With Every Breath (Slow Burn 4)

Wade’s lips thinned. Some hero. A grown-ass man who damn well should know better than to get involved with a vulnerable sixteen-year-old girl.

“He walked me home and then every night after that. He was at the diner every single day I worked. I thought it was wildly romantic,” Eliza admitted with a flush. “To a sixteen-year-old girl who’d never been loved, who’d never had anyone who cared, Thomas was everything I’d ever dreamed of. He seemed to know all of my secret desires, the things I yearned for and then he made them happen. It wasn’t until it was too late that I understood how he was able to manipulate me so easily,” she whispered.

“What do you mean?” Wade asked in a low voice.

She closed her eyes. “Most people would think I’m crazy, but at least you should have no problem believing me since you know well what Tori, Ramie, Ari and Gracie can do.”

A prickle of foreboding snaked up Wade’s spine.

“He’s psychic,” she said baldly. “He can see into someone’s mind and pull out every secret thought they ever had. Worse, not only does he have the ability to read minds, much like Gracie, he can also manipulate people into doing his bidding. He can plant a suggestion or an impulse and they are helpless to do anything but obey.”

Wade’s eyes narrowed. “Is that what he did to you, Eliza? Did he have you under his control?”

She looked on the verge of tears again. Her eyes were swamped with unmistakable guilt.

“He didn’t have to,” she said, bitterness lacing every word. “I would have done anything for him, did do anything.”

“You didn’t kill those women,” Wade said forcefully.

This time the tears not only welled, they fell in endless streaks down her cheeks.

“But I did, Wade. I did.”

Wade shook his head. “No fucking way. You’ll never convince me you killed anyone, least of all innocent women.”

“Thomas was—is—obsessed with me. I doubt his years in prison have lessened it to any degree. If anything his obsession has only grown. He loved me or rather his sick, twisted version of love and I believed him. God, I believed him. Worse, I wanted to believe it. I didn’t want to believe he was a monster capable of such evil. I just wanted to be . . . loved.”

Her voice cracked with emotion and Wade held her even tighter, shaking with anger and helpless rage.

“He was so gentle and understanding with me. I wanted to make love with him, wanted him to be my first. I was so caught up in the romance of it all. But he told me I was too young, that it would be wrong for him to make love to me until I was older. He told me we had all the time in the world and that he would wait forever. What I didn’t realize at the time was that because of his love—obsession—with me he couldn’t bring himself to act out his sick perversions on me. So instead he chose other women. Me, he held sacred. His precious love. Too precious to be touched by his evil. So other women died horrible, painful deaths in my stead.”

“Baby no,” Wade said, his voice aching with sorrow and regret at the horrible guilt she’d carried for far too long. Guilt that was not hers to bear.

“I didn’t know,” she said painfully. “When the news broke after the first horrific murder, the community was shocked. Thomas was horrified and insisted I never walk to or from work alone. He was with me at all times. Or so I thought. When he wasn’t with me, he was raping and torturing those poor women, because he refused to ever touch me with anything other than gentleness and tenderness. With love.”

She choked on the last word, shuddering violently as though it made her physically ill.

Wade pressed his lips to her temple and left them there as she trembled in his arms.

“It wasn’t until after the third murder that I began to suspect. Even then I couldn’t bring myself to entertain that Thomas could possibly be responsible for committing such reprehensible atrocities on another human being. Not my Thomas. He was so quiet. The epitome of a gentleman. He was liked and well respected in the town. He was a philanthropist. Always willing to lend a hand to someone in need. But then . . .”

She trailed off as a huge, gulping sob overtook her. She buried her face in Wade’s chest and wrapped her arms tightly around him, holding on to him like he was the only solid thing in her world to hang on to.

He waited patiently, not pushing her for more. He let her cry, holding and soothing her until finally she quieted and resumed her story.

“And then one day, I asked off from the diner. Told them I was sick. I told Thomas I was feeling unwell and he acted so concerned. He brought me soup to the boardinghouse, fussed over me and told me to stay in bed and rest. I waited until he left and then I followed him.”

Wade closed his eyes. Even at sixteen Eliza had possessed a strong sense of justice. She could say what she wanted about being blinded by love and that she had been firmly rooted in denial, but if she hadn’t wanted to know the truth, she would have never sought out proof of her suspicions.

“He owned several properties. As I said, he was a wealthy man. A real estate developer and he was well liked by the locals. He’d donated a shelter to the town and quite a bit of money for its operation and upkeep. He told me he’d done so because of me. Because he never wanted a child to know the kind of upbringing I’d been forced to endure. He went to such lengths to perpetuate an elaborate hoax that it’s truly mind-boggling.

“I followed him to an older house he was in the process of having renovated. There was a fully intact concrete reinforced basement with soundproof walls. Oh God,” she choked out, stopping in midsentence to bury her face in his chest once more.

Wade stroked her hair, pressing kisses to the crown of her head as he murmured soothing words of encouragement.

“While he had a construction crew working on the rest of the house, he held women in the basement and tormented them, delighting in the fact that help was only a short distance away and yet no one could hear them scream. When I saw . . .”

“What did you see, baby?” he prompted gently.

“Hell,” she said bleakly. “I saw hell.”

“What happened?”

“I snuck down the stairs leading into the basement and the first thing I remember is the smell. Blood. So much of it. And rot. Decomposing human flesh. It made me sick, but I knew I had to be strong and I couldn’t give away my presence.”