by Gina Wilkins
There had to be something he’d missed before.
He found nothing new from her purse, nothing of particular note except the rather large amount of cash in the leather pouch. He set that aside, telling himself he really should find a safe place to stash it for her.
He turned to the suitcase, taking each item out and examining it before setting it aside. Her clothing was unremarkable, made of sensible fabrics and styled for comfort. Her undergarments were plain, serviceable—unlike the filmy bits of lace she’d once worn for him.
His fingers tightened spasmodically around a pair of white cotton panties, and then he threw them aside and continued his search.
He emptied the suitcase, finding not even the vaguest of clues. He searched each pocket, unzipped every zipper. Nothing.
He was just about to give up when he felt the odd lump in the bottom.
It took him only moments after that to discover that Page had created a false lining. He studied it closely and found the hidden closure. With a sense of satisfaction and expectation, he revealed a thick manila envelope that had been hidden within the secret recess she’d devised.
Sitting on his knees on the floor beside the suitcase, he stared for a moment at the envelope in his hands. His first impulse was to rip it open and examine the contents, hoping he would find his answers there.
Something made him hesitate. Maybe it was the conscience he’d been deliberately suppressing for the past few days. The strict code of ethics he’d tried to live by until his search for Page had hardened his heart
Whatever was in this envelope was obviously intensely personal.
Page’s secret
Did he really have the right to invade her privacy so arrogantly?
He thought of her tears. Her obvious fear. Her broken admission that she couldn’t take the risk of unburdening her problems to him.
She needed help, though she wouldn‘t—or couldn’t—ask for it And he knew of no way to help her if he didn’t have all the details:
So, whether he had the right to look or not, he had no other choice.
His hand wasn’t quite steady when he opened the clasp on the envelope. “What the—”
The envelope contained photographs. Candid snapshots, grainy and somewhat blurred, taken, apparently, with a long-angle lens, without the knowledge of the subjects.
Most of the shots were of him, Gabe realized to his stunned dismay. And they had been taken over the two and a half years since Page left him.
There was a shot of him on a job site, talking to a foreman. Another of him coming out of a church with his mother and sister—his great-aunt’s funeral last year, he remembered.
Another photograph showed him getting out of his pickup in front of the trailer where he and Page had lived together such a short time, and in which he still lived. Some of his friends had tried to talk him into buying or building a house, getting out of the trailer park, but he’d chosen to spend his money on the private investigators who’d been searching for his runaway bride.
He studied a snapshot of himself at a playground with his toddler nephew. His namesake, little Gabriel. And another shot of him coming out of a restaurant with a lovely brunette.
It had been a dinner date his sister had arranged for him, he remembered. Sometime last year. He couldn’t recall the woman’s name, only that he’d spent the evening regretting his weakness in allowing his sister to talk him into a date he hadn’t wanted.
There was another photo of him at a job site. That one, he realized dazedly, had been taken only weeks ago.
Gabe scanned hastily through the other photographs. There were nine or ten of them in all. He didn’t recognize the subjects, though the same faces appeared in a couple of them. A smiling young man with a woman and two small children. A pretty, chubby blond carrying a baby. The same blond walking down a sidewalk, pushing a carriage and holding the hand of a round-faced little boy. A heavyset woman in jeans and a University of Iowa sweatshirt stood outside what appeared to be the apartment building where Gabe had found Page in Des Moines.
His eyes were drawn back to the shots of himself. Who the hell had taken them? And why?
A cracking sound from the other room brought his attention abruptly back to the present
Page had been in there quite a while, he realized suddenly. And now he had a whole new batch of questions to ask her.
Clutching the photos, he frowned in grim determination and headed for the bedroom. This time, he vowed to himself, he wasn’t letting her get away with her lies.
PAGE FIGURED it was her last chance to escape, though the odds were stacked against her. Keeping one eye on the open bedroom door, she stood by a window that couldn’t be seen from the other room. As quietly as possible, she’d slid the window open and was now working at removing the thin sheet of plywood that covered the opening from the outside.
Unlike Blake, Gabe wasn’t the most adept of kidnappers, she thought wryly. Lack of experience, probably. Though he’d managed to get her here—thanks, in part, to her own stupidity—he’d left her with her jeans, top and shoes. And he hadn’t searched her clothing. She’d been relieved to find the slender, nearly flat penknife still hidden in the lining of her right sneaker. She’d carried it by habit, finding it occasionally useful...now, for instance.
She pried carefully at the thin sheet of wood. It had apparently been hastily tacked into place, more to provide protection for the glass panes than to guard against break-ins. It certainly wouldn’t have kept out a determined intruder—and Page hoped it wouldn’t keep her “in,” either.
She held her breath as she felt the board give a little. A sense of urgency gripped her. She had so little time.
Gabe was getting too close to the truth, and she didn’t want to think what he would do if he learned the whole story. He tended to overreact, she thought, wryly considering her present situation. But taking on her problems could prove more dangerous than he ever imagined.
The board loosened further, but this time with a creaking sound that made her cringe and look nervously at the door.
Time ticked swiftly away from her, making her next actions critical. Should she continue to move slowly, trying to be silent, or simply shove the board away from the window and make a dash for freedom?
She heard Gabe moving around in the other room and knew her time was almost out. Taking a deep breath, she slammed both hands against the wood and pushed against it with all her strength.
The board fell away with a loud crack, revealing a thick stand of woods and a cloudy gray sky outside. Page dove through the open window. She hit the rocky ground and rolled instantly to her feet.
She heard Gabe call her name, but she was already running. If she could lose herself in the woods, hide somewhere until she had another chance to run again...
Some deep, logical part of her mind knew her actions were irrational. She knew Gabe would never let her get away this easily. But she had to try. The emotions that had overwhelmed her when she’d cried in Gabe’s arms were driving her now, urging her on, haunting her with the high price of failure.
Hearing Gabe close behind her, she sprinted and dodged among the budding hardwoods and scraggly evergreens, her heart pounding, her vision clouded, with tears and fear. She stumbled over the uneven ground, but kept her footing. If only—
Gabe’s hands fell on her shoulders, jerking her abruptly to a stop. She strained against him, but he turned her roughly around.
His face was flushed with anger, and his amber eyes snapped fire. He was breathing harshly, and the lines around his eyes and mouth had deepened, emphasizing his fierce scowl.
“Why do you keep doing this?” he bellowed, giving her a shake that spoke as much of frustration as anger. “What the hell are you trying to do to me?”
“I’m trying to keep you alive!” Page shouted, her control finally gone. “I will not have another man die because of me. Don’t you understand that I would ,rather die myself than have anything happen to you?”
>
6
STANDING IN THE WOODS outside the little cabin, Gabe stared into Page’s distraught face, trying to comprehend her words. “What are you talking about?”
She’d gone so pale he thought she might faint. He tightened his grip on her shoulders.
Her eyes were huge. Wild. Glittering with barely suppressed emotions and unshed tears.
And they were blue. Bright, summer-sky blue. Apparently she’d removed her appearance-altering brown contacts while washing up from her bout of tears.
She tried to avert her face. He caught her chin in his hand and turned her to look at him again. He was shaken by the sudden reappearance of the woman he’d married. “Page—”
Still half hysterical, she shoved against him. “Let me go! You have to get away from me, don’t you understand? As long as you’re close to me, your life is in danger. I won’t be responsible for another family’s grief.”
He held on to her, easily overcoming her efforts to break away. “Who died because of you?”
“Detective Jim Pratt,” she whispered, her expression haunted. “He was only thirty-two. He had a wife and two children. And now they’re alone—because of me. All because of me,” she finished, sobbing.
Gabe thought of what Blake had told him about Detective Pratt.
Detective James K. Pratt is dead... He died in a rather mysterious car accident sixteen months ago, leaving a young widow and twin toddlers... He was working a case on his own time, but no one seems to know exactly what it was.
“What did you have to do with Pratt’s death?”
“He died because of me,” she repeated, and grief dulled her voice. “Because he was trying to help me.”
“You’re saying he was murdered?” Gabe couldn’t quite keep the skepticism out of his own voice.
She gripped his shirt in her hands. “Yes! He was murdered. Just as anyone else who gets close to me will be. Including you.”
Gabe shook his head, slowly, wanting to understand, half afraid to believe. “Why?”
Her breath caught. “I don’t know,” she whispered as her hands went slack. “I don’t know why. I only know that it’s true. And I won’t take the risk of losing anyone else I care about. If I have to live alone in a cave, or if I have to take my own life to save yours, I’ll do it.” She finished with a renewed determination that unnerved him.
He took one hand from her shoulder to shove it through his hair. “This is insane.”
“Yes.” She seemed to have no argument with that assessment, at least.
His head was beginning to hurt Another dull ache began somewhere in the middle of his chest.
“You’re trying to tell me you walked out on me to protect me?” he asked incredulously.’
She swallowed hard and nodded. “I was afraid to stay.” The words were barely audible. “I couldn’t take the chance...”
“And you thought that was best for me? To come home and find my wife missing? To suffer the hell I’ve been through ever since? I went to the police when you disappeared. I begged them to help me find you. They took one look at the note you left and wrote you off as a runaway wife. I think half of them were convinced I’d killed you and concocted the story to cover up my crime. I’ve put my life on hold for two and a half years looking for you, spending every penny I had on private investigators. No one found any reason to believe you’ve been in danger.”
He wasn’t sure which came through stronger—hurt, anger or disbelief. None of this made sense to him. Nothing she’d told him sounded remotely credible.
And yet, Detective James Pratt was dead. And there were those photographs...
“I did it for you,” Page murmured. “I would have done anything to keep you safe.”
“You never considered letting me make the decisions about my own safety?” he asked bitterly. “You could have told me whatever was going on, given me a chance to work it out with you.”
“I couldn’t take the risk.” She seemed to have withdrawn from him emotionally, retreating deep inside herself. Away from his anger, his pain—perhaps away from her own.
“This is crazy,” he snapped. “Nothing has happened to me. I have no reason at all to believe you.”
“No? What about that accident on the bakery job?” she challenged.
He frowned, the words stirring memories of an incident he hadn’t thought of in years—since Page had left him, to be precise. “You mean the beam that fell at the job site a couple of years ago?”
She nodded. “It missed you by inches. Your crew said you’d been within a hair of being killed.”
Gabe remembered now. The mishap had taken place a few days before Page left. Shaken, but unharmed, he’d told her about it, figuring that someone else would if he didn’t.
She’d been very upset, he recalled. She’d cried at the thought of how closely she’d come to losing him—and then she’d made passionate love to him for hours to reassure herself that he was safe.
They hadn’t spoken of the accident again after that night. Gabe had assumed she’d put it out of her mind. He’d never imagined the incident had anything to do with her leaving.
“I remember,” he said slowly. “But—”
“It wasn’t an accident. It was a warning. To me.”
“From whom?”
She sighed, as though exasperated by his obtuseness. “I...don’t...know,” she said, speaking as though to a slow child.
Gabe thought suddenly of Blake’s half-serious speculation that Page was mentally ill. Gabe hadn’t wanted to believe it—and neither had Blake—but now he was beginning to wonder. Was she suffering from delusions? Paranoia? Did her bizarre behavior indicate that she had totally lost touch with reality?
Page was watching his face, her eyes sad. “You don’t believe me.”
He thought of Detective Pratt’s suspicious death. The photographs in Page’s suitcase. She hadn’t taken the most recent one of him—he had proof that she’d been in Des Moines when it was snapped. So who had taken it? And why did Page have it hidden in her bag?
Frustration welled inside him. He was tired, hungry and confused. He hadn’t eaten anything since the omelet he’d prepared some nine hours earlier, and now evening was creeping through the woods, scattering ominous shadows among the dense trees. Page jumped and looked around nervously when a night bird suddenly called from close by. She acted as though she fully expected an attack at any moment.
“I think we’d better go back inside,” he said wearily. “I want you to start from the beginning.”
Looking as though she’d rather commit hara-kiri, Page nodded, her eyes downcast.
“And by the way...” Gabe added conversationally, keeping one hand firmly on her arm. “If you try to run again, I’m tying you to that chair. Is that clear?”
She gave him a resentful look in answer.
Satisfied that he’d made his point, Gabe led her to the cabin.
GABE directed Page to sit on the couch, and then he reached for the photographs he’d dropped haphazardly when he’d realized what she was doing in the bedroom earlier. He tossed them onto the coffee table in front of her. “I assume these have something to do with this wild tale you’ve been telling me?”
She glanced at the photos, and then quickly away, as though she couldn’t bear to look at them for long. “Yes.”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “All right. From the beginning.”
She frowned. “Must you loom over me? Sit down.”
Though tempted to remind her that she was in no position to be snapping orders, he pulled one of the armchairs closer to the couch and settled onto it “I’m sitting. Now talk.”
She combed her fingers through her tousled auburn hair and drew a deep breath. It still rattled him to see the blue eyes he’d remembered so clearly looking back at him. As long as she’d worn the dark contacts, he could almost convince himself that she wasn’t his Page, but a near stranger. A woman who couldn’t hurt him the way his wife had.
&nbs
p; Now, except for her hair color, she looked very much as she had when he’d first fallen in love with her. And it was eating him alive.
“Two days before that beam almost hit you,” Page said quietly, “I received a phone call. I’d just gotten home from school, and you weren’t due home for another hour or so. I didn’t recognize the man’s voice, and he wouldn’t give me his name. But he called me by mine.”
“What did he say?”
He saw her swallow. “He said I shouldn’t have married you,” she answered unsteadily. “He said I’d made a very big mistake. He said I didn’t deserve a family and that he was going to make sure I would be as alone as he was.”
“You never told me about it” It still hurt him to realize she’d kept so much from him.
She shook her head. “I assumed it was just a crank call. I hung up on him, and he didn’t call back, so I thought it was over. I was going to tell you, but—well, you came home in such a good mood. It was our two-week anniversary and you brought me candy. You were still feeling guilty because there wasn’t time or money for a real honeymoon—not that I cared about that. We were so happy. I didn’t want to ruin our evening.”
Her words were like slivers of glass in his heart. He remembered that night. Remembered how young and besotted he’d been, how foolishly smug about his marriage to the woman he adored.
“It was our three-week anniversary the day you left me,” he murmured, hardly aware that he spoke aloud. “I brought you flowers then.”
She flinched. “I’m—”
She stopped and cleared her throat, then took another deep, unsteady breath. “When I got home from work the day I...I left, I got the mail as usual. There was an envelope addressed to Page Shelby Conroy. No return address. When I opened the envelope, I found two photographs. Nothing more.”
She leaned forward and plucked two photos from the stack, pushing them toward Gabe. One of them was of the woman holding a baby. The other was of Gabe on a job site. “Those are the ones,” she said.