Not a Word

by Stephanie Black

  Natalie’s gratitude, joy, and straightforward delight at seeing Gideon instantly tangled with sorrow and pain. Her tongue knotted into silence, and her thoughts knotted into nonsense. The best she could do was gesture him into the house.

  Brow wrinkling, he scrutinized her as he stepped over the threshold. With shaky hands, she closed the door behind him.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  She nodded. She ought to welcome him. Shake his hand. Thank him for saving her life. Invite him to dinner. Start a scholarship fund in his name.

  She grabbed him. No warning, both her arms locking around his body in an embrace so fast and tight he had no chance to react. Vaguely, she knew she should release him, step back, apologize, but she was too consumed in damming a threatening flood of tears.

  “I wish I could have seen you sooner,” he said, his arms closing around her. “I tried, but first your doctor wasn’t allowing visitors, then the police were running interference, then Deborah Valdez was guarding you.”

  Natalie could imagine Deborah shooing all visitors away. She and Kirk had picked Natalie up from the hospital, transported her to the guest room in their home, and offered deep compassion, gentle care, and enforced rest.

  “How are you doing?” Gideon asked softly.

  Her defenses broke; sobs seized her in the same sudden, crushing grip she was using on Gideon. His arms steadied her as her body shook and tears splattered his jacket. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “You don’t want to deal with this.”

  “Of course I want to deal with it,” he said. “That’s why I wore a waterproof jacket.”

  She laugh-sobbed. “I’m sorry. I’ve been . . . trying to . . . trying to . . . avoid this.”

  “Bad strategy,” Gideon said. “Stockpiling everything instead of dealing with it. Boom, it all blows at once.”

  “I know . . . I know. I’m . . . I’m excellent at handling other people’s tears. I’m a wreck at handling my own.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ve got this one.” Gideon guided her toward the couch, sat next to her, and held her while tears streamed from her eyes.

  “Did the police tell you . . . what Andrea was up to?” she asked.

  “Yes. The will, the bribery, Hudson’s blackmail. Did they tell you she came to me, wanting me to spirit you away to Hawaii because you were in danger?”

  “Yes.”

  “She did care about you,” Gideon said. “She was upset. Honestly afraid for you.”

  At least Andrea hadn’t hated her, and Natalie was glad Gideon didn’t add the observation that, ultimately, Andrea had chosen her own freedom over Natalie’s life. But her clumsy warning and impractical plan to protect Natalie had lit the fuse of Gideon’s actions. Natalie tried to dwell on that.

  “There are tissues in the drawer of that table to your right; will you grab them?” she asked.

  Gideon tipped toward the lamp table and found the Kleenex. He handed the box to her. She wiped her face while he took off his jacket.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I ambushed you—” Another surge of tears poured from her eyes, emotions hurrying to escape before she wrenched the valves closed.

  “You don’t need to apologize.” He eased her back into his arms. “Let yourself cry.”

  “How are . . . how are you doing? Your father’s death . . . Skyler . . .”

  “I’m angry, but let a judge and jury deal with him. I’ll focus on helping Felicia cope.”

  Natalie laid her head on his shoulder, letting tears drip across her face and rain on his shirt. “Good thing he admitted what he’d done before he doped me. My memories of the part after I started getting woozy are a jumble, and I’m not much of a witness.”

  “Do you remember the lake?” Gideon asked.

  “A little of it. Mainly I remember this compulsion to hang on to Skyler. I have this memory of my face pressed against his jacket—I even remember smelling his aftershave, the way he always smelled at work, and him pulling at my arms and saying ‘Let go,’ but it’s murky. Then I remember being cold. From what Detective Bartholomew said, they think he was attempting to throw me into the water without visibly injuring me. He needed the drowning to look accidental or like suicide, and if I’d plainly been attacked beforehand, that would be a problem for the scenario he’d built. But when he saw your headlights at the top of the hill or heard you on the trail, he must have panicked and started punching.”

  She lifted her head and pulled back so she could look him in the eyes. “You saved my life, and you think you lack class because you didn’t bring flowers?”

  “Uh, well, it wasn’t just me who saved you. The police . . .”

  Tears kept welling, but her loss of composure no longer bothered her. “I’m grateful for their help as well, but they told me what went down. You tried to contact me and got worried when I didn’t respond. You drove over to my house to investigate. You went inside to search for me, and you called the police. You noticed my mother’s soap carvings in the tub and found my incoherent scratchings.”

  “Yeah, I . . . You’d told me about the soap, how you never kept it near water, so it caught my attention. But your delaying Hudson, hanging on to him at the dock, everything you did—it saved your life. Gave me time to get there.” Gideon tried to smile, but his face had gone bloodless; he must be reliving his arrival at the lake. “How are you doing physically?”

  “I’m doing well. The concussion was minor. My stomach is still sore where he punched me, but it’s much better than it was. Plus, after two days of Deborah not allowing me to do anything, I’ve had a lot of rest.” Natalie had thought she was rested, but now she felt depleted—depleted but light, as though she could truly rest, not sleep to hide from memories.

  She sat up straighter and wiped her face. Gideon lifted his arm from around her shoulders and straightened his posture as well.

  A gap of a couple of inches now separated them. Natalie wanted to scoot so their shoulders were touching or ask him to put his arm back around her, but she didn’t want him vaulting out the window in terror. “How is Felicia doing?”

  “I talked to her on the phone,” Gideon said. “She’s improving. She’s still in the hospital but not on a hold. She wanted to stay. She admitted herself voluntarily, and the police are fine with it. They’ve got enough to sort out, and they’re happy to let her work on getting stabilized before they nail down charges and so on. Robert Chapman sent her flowers, by the way.”

  “He did?”

  “Yeah, Felicia said it was like three dozen roses in about a dozen different colors, with a card saying he bore no grudges and she should put the past behind her. They won’t let her keep them in her room, but the nurses station has never looked so elegant. Did the police tell you she admitted to planting Camille’s purse in your coat?”

  “No, I didn’t know that.”

  “She found it in her house but insists she didn’t steal it from Camille. She thought you had put it in her house to mock her. That’s why she thought turnabout was fair play and sneaked into your house to stick it in your coat. Did you know she taught herself to jimmy locks? The Internet for the win, I guess.”

  “Skyler must have put the purse in her house,” Natalie said. “I know he overheard her conversation with Camille. At that point, he must have figured framing her was a good idea, or at least a back-up plan.”

  “She handled it pretty calmly when we talked about how Dad actually died. The idea that he was murdered was . . . anything but new to her, as you know.”

  “I’m sorry she has to deal with this. Is she starting to realize I’m not out to destroy you?”

  “She’s getting there. We didn’t have much time to talk, and I figured telling her about Skyler Hudson was stress enough, so I didn’t ask directly. But it’s starting to dawn on her how screwed up her thinking had become. She knows she needs help. She’ll get it.”

  “Thank you,” Natalie whispered. “Thank you.”

  Gideon rested his hand on hers in
a comforting touch; he must know she was thinking about her own mother. For a few seconds, he was silent, probably waiting to hear if she wanted to pursue the topic. She didn’t. At the moment, she was simply grateful to know Felicia was dealing with her challenges.

  Gideon released her hand. “Is Skyler talking?”

  “I don’t know. I doubt it. But Bartholomew did tell me Andrea has admitted to bribing Dante over the will and paying blackmail to Skyler. She’s adamant she had no idea he’d murdered Dante and Camille. Apparently, that’s why she got so upset when I went to talk to her—she was starting to wonder if Skyler might be guilty of worse than blackmail, and she panicked.”

  “So she’s admitted she knew Skyler was going to kill you.”

  “I don’t know. I’d guess the most she’s admitted is that she was worried—she can’t completely deny that after the way she came to you. She’ll probably be out on bail soon. Long-term, I don’t know what the consequences will be, but she’ll do prison time, no matter how brilliant her lawyer is. I feel sorry for her husband and daughter.”

  “Yeah, me too.”

  “And I’m frustrated that I never caught on to what kind of guy Skyler was. I feel terrible for his fiancée.”

  “It’s gotta rip you up, finding out the guy you planned to marry is a blackmailer and a murderer.” Gideon offered a resigned, uneven smile. “Makes me feel like I got off easy with, uh, my experience. Are you . . . feeling better, knowing your mother didn’t cut you out of her will after all?”

  “I am, but it doesn’t feel as good as I thought it would. How much of it was love for me, and how much of it was a new game? Then again, maybe it was the only way she could bring herself to reach out to me . . . too stubborn to do it directly, too proud, maybe too embarrassed. I don’t know. I guess I won’t ever know her motives, and I’ll have to live with that.”

  “That’s tough.”

  “Honestly, loving, face-to-face conversations would have meant more to me than whatever ends up in my bank account once the courts get the will sorted out. But if her will was the only way she could reach out to me, I’m grateful she did. To be practical about it, money is useful.”

  “Sing it,” Gideon said.

  Natalie smiled but didn’t speak, wanting a chance to let roiling emotions settle. Gideon didn’t speak either, and for a lengthy moment, they sat in silence. The quiet soothed her, and she felt she could sit with him for hours, comfortable and wordless.

  “That’s new.” He pointed to a small, square mosaic on an easel that Natalie had set on the lamp table.

  “Yes.” Natalie looked at the blue, white, and gold image of a starry sky. “A get-well gift.”

  “From Lacey Egan? The one who made the purse? I read about her in the paper.”

  “Yes.” In the drawer of the lamp table, Natalie had placed Lacey’s note, a greater treasure than the lovely mosaic. Thank you, Dr. Marsh. I’m doing okay. We’re working with the police, and Jonas got us a good lawyer. I called Tori. I’m going to see her on my own, and Jonas said he’ll come with me for couples counseling. We’re trying to work things out. Neither of us really knows how to be different with each other, but I know he’s really trying, and I am too. I think we’ll make it.

  “Hey . . . uh . . . listen,” Gideon said. “This is horrific timing, but . . . sometime this week . . . or the next couple of weeks . . . okay, you probably aren’t interested in . . . I mean, would you like to do dinner? Here, or at my place, if you don’t want to go out?” His neck flushed crimson. “Heck, this sounds tackier than tacky. You need to rest—”

  “Can we go to your place?” she asked. “Tonight? I’d love to spend a quiet evening eating takeout.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Definitely. I saw you have a bunch of Lego models. Got anything I could help with? That would be sehr entspannend, as Bob Chapman would say.”

  “Sehr what?”

  “Very relaxing.”

  His lips curved, then straightened as though he wanted to conceal his enthusiasm. “Are you sure you want to? No pressure.”

  Natalie laughed. “I flattened you with a hug, cried all over your shirt, and have been glued to your side ever since you made the mistake of ringing my doorbell. Does none of that give you a hint of how I feel about your company?”

  “I . . . know you’re grateful for . . . I didn’t want to assume anything.”

  “You can assume I like you. I felt that way before you scooped me out of Lake Ohneka. I want to get to know you better. I just want to make sure you don’t feel obligated because you’re worried about me. Or because you’re afraid I won’t let go of you long enough for you to escape.”

  He grinned and shifted closer to her, settling his arm around her shoulders. “You can assume I like you too,” he said.

  About The Author

  Stephanie Black has loved books since she was old enough to grab the pages and has enjoyed creating make-believe adventures since she and her sisters were inventing long Barbie games filled with intrigue and danger or running around pretending to be detectives. She is a four-time Whitney Award winner for Best Mystery/Suspense Novel.

  Stephanie was born in Utah and has lived in various places, including Arkansas, Arizona, Massachusetts, and Limerick, Ireland. She currently lives in northern California, plays the violin in a community symphony but never practices enough, and enjoys spending time with her husband, Brian, and their family. She is a fan of dark chocolate, milk chocolate, homemade chocolate chip cookies, thick chocolate brownies, and of putting chocolate chips in pancakes.

  Stephanie enjoys hearing from her readers. You can contact her via e-mail at info@covenant-lds.com or by mail care of Covenant Communications, P.O. Box 416, American Fork, UT 84003-0416. Visit her website at www.stephanieblack.net and her author Facebook page at www.facebook.com/stephanieblackauthor.

  Other Books And Audio Books by Stephanie Black

  The Believer

  The Witnesses

  Rearview Mirror

  Cold As Ice

  Methods of Madness

  Shadowed

  Twisted Fate

  Fool Me Twice

  Played for a Fool