by Gina Wilkins
She nodded, almost imperceptibly.
Gabe swallowed a wave of guilt. Of stabbing regret.
“We don’t know it’s true,” he said, trying to reassure himself as well as Page.
She shuddered. “I know. He killed him.”
Gabe swore and sank to the bed. “How the hell did he get this number?”
“He said he was calling from Blake’s phone.”
Automatic redial. Gabe groaned and rubbed his forehead. “We have to do something. We’ll go to the police.”
“They can’t stop him.”
“Damn it, Page, he’s only human. He can be stopped.”
“He said you’re next.”
Her whispered warning made him set his jaw. “He wants to frighten you. To make you run again.”
She twisted her hands in the sheet. “Maybe, if we aren’t together—”
“No,” he cut in flatly. “You aren’t going anywhere without me. It’s too late for that now. He knows I’m on to him. He knows I’m not going to give up. One way or another, this has to end now.”
The look she gave him made his throat tighten. “Gabe, please,” she begged, tears spilling down her cheeks.
He reached out and pulled her roughly into his arms. This time the feel of bare flesh pressed to flesh was comforting rather than arousing. “I’m not leaving you, Page. We’ll handle this together.”
She clung to him, shivering. “Promise me you’ll be careful. Promise you won’t take any chances.”
“I’ll take care of myself,” he promised, his tone gruff. “And of you,” he added, holding her more tightly.
He heard her swallow. And then she drew a deep breath and pulled away from him.
“I’ll get dressed,” she said, and he could almost see her pulling her composure together. “We’ll go to the police.”
Nodding in approval, he reached for his own clothes.
They dressed in silence. Gabe mentally rehearsed his speech to the local police, knowing it would be difficult to convince anyone of their bizarre tale. If only he knew what had happened to Blake...
Blake. He pictured the blond man’s lazy smile and quiet competence, and his stomach clenched in remorse. He’d had no idea that hiring Blake to find Gabe’s runaway bride would lead to this. Gabe didn’t even know if Blake had a family, or anyone to grieve for him.
Springfield being the nearest town to the cabin, they agreed to go to the police department there. Gabe told Page to bring the photographs and Detective Pratt’s business card, the only physical evidence she had to back her story. They wouldn’t prove anything, of course, but there was something rather ominous about those grainy, covertly taken snapshots. Gabe only hoped the Springfield police would find them as disturbing as he did.
They were headed for the door when the cellular phone rang.
Page and Gabe both froze for a moment, staring at each other. Slipping an arm around Page’s shoulders, Gabe lifted the phone to his ear, reminding himself it could be his secretary. “Hello?”
“Gabe? Are you and Page okay?”
Gabe thought for a moment that his knees might buckle in relief. “Blake?” he croaked.
Page gasped and sagged against him.
“Yeah,” Blake said. “I’m calling from a pay phone. The bastard got my cell phone.”
“We thought the bastard had gotten you.”
“He did. But not as badly as he thinks.”
“You’re hurt?”
“Yeah. Can you come?”
“Of course.” Gabe was already moving, towing Page with him as he asked for directions.
THE PAY PHONE was attached to the end of a dilapidated strip center that held a coin-operated laundry, a used comic book store, a shoe repair shop and two empty storefronts. Few customers were patronizing the businesses and the parking lot was nearly deserted. Gabe and Page found Blake sitting on the rutted asphalt beneath the phone box, his knees drawn up, his head resting on top of them.
He looked like hell.
“We’ve got to get you to a hospital,” was the first thing Gabe said when he saw the other man’s condition. Blake’s face was gaunt with pain, and the front of his once spotless pale yellow shirt was spotted with the blood that dripped slowly from an angry-looking gash on his forehead.
No one else in the rundown neighborhood had apparently even bothered to ask if he needed help.
Blake shook his head, then groaned when the movement apparently set off a fresh wave of pain. “No hospital,” he said, fending off Page’s hands when she reached out to check his injuries. “Just get me away from here.”
“What did he do to you?” Gabe asked, eyeing the ominous hollows beneath Blake’s shock-glazed blue eyes in concern.
“He shot me. In the back, damn the coward.”
Gabe hissed a curse and went down on one knee to examine Blake’s back. The bullet had torn across Blake’s left shoulder, leaving a ragged wound and a great deal of blood. Blood that was still oozing from the injury.
“Damn it, Blake, you are going to the hospital,” Gabe said, sharing a quick, worried look with Page.
“No. The bullet just grazed me. It hit a metal phone box I was standing by when I was shot. The cut on my head came from a piece of metal that broke loose when the bullet hit.”
Gabe looked instinctively at the phone box above Blake, but Blake shook his head. “Another phone. I’ll tell you about it on the way back to the cabin.”
“Are you sure we should go back there?” Page asked.
“I don’t know how he could have found out about the cabin,” Blake answered, his head drooping wearily. “If he’d known we were there, he wouldn’t have been hanging around the garage, waiting for one of us to show up for your car.”
“And if he’s watching us now? Waiting to follow us?” Page asked, darting nervous looks around the nearly deserted parking lot.
“He won’t follow us,” Gabe said grimly. He only wished he could get his hands on the son of a bitch. But first he would make sure Blake and Page were safe.
“I still think we should take him to a hospital,” Page fretted, nodding toward Blake, who looked as though he could keel over at any moment.
“No hospital.” Blake sounded prepared to fight with his last breath on that count. “I hate hospitals. I’ll be okay.”
He sounded, Gabe thought, as though he’d been through similar situations before. Gabe was becoming more curious all the time about Blake’s background.
Blake looked up at Gabe. “I could use a hand,” he said.
Gabe positioned himself at Blake’s injured left side, Page on Blake’s right Swaying between them, he somehow made his feet cooperate as they moved slowly toward Gabe’s truck.
A couple of bored-looking teenagers, cigarettes dangling from their slack lips, watched idly from outside the used comic book store. Another stringy-haired young man shuffled haltingly toward the pair, his attention focused on the cigarettes rather than the injured man being half carried across the parking lot.
Wondering what kind of neighborhood they were in where bullet wounds roused so little interest, Gabe opened the passenger door of his truck and managed to stuff Blake carefully inside.
“I’ll bleed on your upholstery,” Blake warned with a sorry attempt at a smile. “Don’t you have a towel or something to put behind me?”
“Screw the upholstery,” Gabe said succinctly. “Page, help him with the seat belt”
She nodded and cooperated, positioning herself in the center of the seat between the men as Gabe climbed behind the wheel.
“Did you get a look at the guy who shot you?” Gabe asked as he started the engine. “Was it Wingate?”
“I didn’t see him,” Blake admitted reluctantly. “The guys at the garage said the photograph I showed them didn’t look much like the man who’d been asking questions about Page’s car, but that doesn’t mean much. It’s an old photo of a clean-cut kid. The guy who hung around the garage this morning had long hair, a scraggly b
eard and dark glasses.”
“What happened, Blake?” Page asked.
Blake exhaled deeply. “I was stupid. I fell neatly into a trap he’d set for me.”
“How?”
“Joe—the mechanic at the garage—said the guy had slipped him a twenty and asked him to call if anyone else showed up asking about the car. I pulled a few strings and managed to trace the number Joe had been given to a pay phone in the neighborhood we just left.”
Gabe didn’t even ask what “strings” Blake had pulled in a town he’d supposedly never even visited before. Page was right, he decided. Blake was spooky. And damned lucky.
“The phone,” Blake continued, “was sitting outside a dump of a restaurant that’s closed Mondays, so the place was deserted. I drove around a few times, then pulled into the lot when I didn’t see anyone. Something was taped to the phone. I got out to see what it was. I thought I was being careful, but...” His voice trailed into a snort of self-disgust.
“What was taped to the phone?” Page wanted to know.
“Yellow paper, black ink. Two words—‘big mistake.’ I started to turn to run for my van, and that’s when he shot me. The shrapnel to the head dazed me enough that I went down. I lay there, playing dead, waiting for him to finish me off or get close enough to give me a chance to take him on, but the bastard just got into my van and drove away. My own van, damn it.”
“We’ll call the police when we get to the cabin,” Gabe said, his foot pressed heavily to the accelerator, one eye on the rearview mirror. “We’ll report your van as stolen, give them the license number and description, tell them the thief tried to kill you. At least they’ll be looking for him. We might have had trouble getting help with a stalker, but carjackers get attention these days.”
Slumped against the back of the seat, his eyes closed, Blake murmured, “Good idea.”
“Why didn’t you call us from the phone where you were hit?” Page asked, sounding puzzled.
“He’d disconnected it. I had to walk half a mile to the one where you found me.”
“Bleeding? And no one tried to help you?” Page sounded disgusted, but not entirely surprised. After hearing what she’d been through in the past couple of years, Gabe could understand her reaction.
“I didn’t ask for help,” Blake murmured.
Page set a hand on his arm. “I’m so sorry this happened to you, Blake. You were trying to help me. You didn’t deserve to be hurt.”
Blake shook his head. “Don’t apologize. You aren’t to blame. Wingate—or whoever pulled the trigger—is the only one at fault here, discounting my own stupidity for getting out of my van in the first place.”
Gabe thought it would be a while before Blake stopped berating himself for that mistake. He was pleased, though, that Blake had unconsciously echoed Gabe’s own assurances that Page could not hold herself accountable for anything this madman did.
Gabe made sure that no one followed them to the cabin.
They got Blake inside and deposited him facedown on the bed. More experienced than Gabe with first aid, Page sent him to report the stolen van and then prepare a meal while she cleaned and bandaged Blake’s wounds.
She was fussing at Blake before Gabe left the room.
“The cut on your head probably needs stitches,” she said. “You’ll have a scar.”
“Scars are devastatingly attractive to women,” Blake quipped. “Macho and mysterious.”
“Give me a break,” Page muttered. “And be still,” she added crossly, making Blake chuckle weakly even as he inhaled in protest at the sting of the antibiotic she applied to his shoulder.
Despite the circumstances, Gabe found himself reluctant to leave Page alone with Blake in the bedroom, good-naturedly squabbling like old friends.
Stupid, he told himself, shaking his head. This was definitely not the time to start acting like a jealous idiot. He was grateful beyond words that Blake wasn’t badly injured...or worse. He really did like the guy.
And besides, Gabe and Page needed all the help they could get right now.
The police officer Gabe talked to seemed skeptical of the story, particularly when Gabe said that Blake—the victim—was presently unavailable to give a statement.
“He’s injured,” Gabe explained. “The carjacker tried to kill him.”
“Then I’ll send someone to the hospital where he’s being treated,” the officer offered.
“He doesn’t like hospitals. My wife is taking care of him. After he’s had a chance to eat and rest, we’ll bring him in and tell you the rest of the story. In the meantime, you have the description and license number of the stolen van. Can’t you put out a warrant on that basis?”
After some further hemming and hawing, the officer agreed to file the report. Gabe gave his number for the officer to call if the van were found.
He was grumbling beneath his breath when he disconnected the call and went into the kitchen to open a couple of cans of soup for dinner.
He was understanding better all the time why Page had been so reluctant to relate her bizarre tale to anyone. Were Gabe not squarely in the middle of it, he might have difficulty believing it himself.
“THERE. That should keep it clean.”
“I’d say so,” Blake responded to Page’s comment, peering over his shoulder with a comical expression. “You’ve got enough tape on me to wrap a Buick.”
“Well, excuse me. I don’t have a great deal of experience bandaging gunshot wounds,” she retorted, setting the nearly empty roll of adhesive tape back into the first-aid kit Gabe had unearthed from the bathroom. She’d been hesitant, at first, about working on Blake, but he’d teased her out of her self-consciousness and her fear of hurting him. She thought a bit wistfully that she and Blake were rapidly becoming friends. And, after the past two and a half years of being alone, she knew the value of friendship.
A look of regret on his face, Blake held his tattered, bloodstained yellow shirt on one finger. “The shirt’s a goner,” he muttered. “Damn. It was one of my favorites.”
“I’m sure Gabe will lend you one.”
“But I really liked this one. Cost me a fortune, too.”
“Look at it this way, Blake. You’ve still got a pulse,” she reminded him more matter-of-factly than she felt, playing along with his light tone.
He nodded. “There is that.”
And then he smiled. “Thanks for patching me up, Page. You did a good job.”
“You should have gone to the hospital.”
“Don’t start that again. Hospitals are terrible places. People die there.”
“They’re also saved there.”
He grunted. “Not in my experience.”
For a moment, a flash of bitterness in his eyes startled her. Blake had seemed the footloose, live-for-the-moment type to her, not a man to harbor deep emotions. Apparently she’d been wrong.
Before she could ask why he had such distrust of hospitals, he shoved himself to his feet. “Let’s go find out if Gabe—”
He swayed. Page steadied him before he fell.
“You stood too fast,” she scolded, eyeing his sudden pallor in concern. “You’ve lost more blood than you realize, Blake. You’re going to have to take it easy for a while.”
He allowed himself to lean against her for a moment. “Sorry,” he murmured. “Guess I got a little cocky.”
“Something tells me that’s nothing new for you,” she teased gently, supporting him with her shoulder.
Gabe found them that way, Blake’s good arm around Page’s shoulders, hers wrapped around his bare waist, their heads close together. Gabe’s ferocious scowl made Page sigh. Just how far did his distrust of her extend?
“Dizzy spell,” Blake explained quickly to Gabe, obviously seeing the same signs of masculine possessiveness Page had noticed. “Stood too fast.”
Gabe stepped forward quickly to relieve Page of Blake’s weight. “I’ll help you into the kitchen,” he said a bit brusquely. “You could p
robably use some food to build your strength. I warmed some soup.”
Page stepped out of the way. “He could use a couple of painkillers, but he refused to take any,” she said.
“They’d make me groggy. I need to stay alert,” Blake explained, as he had the first time she’d offered the potent pills she carried in her purse for emergencies.
His precautions worried her as much this time as they had before. “You said he couldn’t find us here.”
She saw the look Gabe and Blake exchanged before Blake murmured, “I like to be prepared.”
Shaking off Gabe’s assistance, Blake lifted his chin and braced his feet, demonstrating that he could stand without support. Gabe gave him a clean blue chambray shirt to wear over the bandages. The shirt was a bit large on Blake, who had a slighter build than Gabe’s muscular frame, but he buttoned it without comment. And without help. And then he managed to get to the kitchen on his own strength.
Vaguely annoyed at the entire male gender, Page followed.
“Let’s assume that it is Phillip Wingate,” Blake proposed a few minutes later, seated behind a steaming bowl of canned vegetable beef soup. “We know he’s young and intelligent. And obviously insane.”
“Where’s he been living the past couple of years?” Gabe asked. “How’s he been supporting himself?”
Blake shrugged. “I’d bet he’s basically homeless. A drifter, trailing Page from place to place, begging or stealing to get by. Maybe even following her lead and taking odd jobs from time to time. That would fit the profile of an obsessed stalker. As for the photographs, he’s either made a few side trips to snap them, or hired someone to take them for him. My money would be on him taking them himself. He’s too much of a loner to work with a partner, even on a limited basis.”
“He’s consumed with thoughts of Page,” Gabe muttered, staring into his bowl as though hoping to find a solution there. “Making her miserable has been his only goal these past thirty-odd months.”
Blake nodded. “Which is why he didn’t hurt her. Without her to torment, he basically has nothing to live for.”
“Which means,” Page interrupted, refusing to be left out of the discussion, “that I’m relatively safe. If I go away and make sure he believes that neither of you know where I am, he’ll leave you both alone.”