by Snow, Nicole
I bite my lip, looking up at him.
I don’t want to let him down. Not ever.
As much as I’m able to let people in, I’ve let Landon get close enough to be someone I’d consider a friend. Someone I’d trust. Someone I’d be there for if he was in this kind of situation, and that’s when it hits me.
I’m not letting him down.
He’s just trying to be here for me, too, when my life is a fucking mess and I’m terrified for my niece.
He studies me in my frozen silence, then smiles again. “Okay. Look. You don’t have to tell me what’s going on, but just...take care of yourself, yeah?”
“Yeah,” I manage, my throat thick, before I do something I’d never imagined myself doing in my life.
I hug him.
Quick, fierce, hugging him like the brother I’ve never had, the only way I know to get my feelings out when words aren’t working anymore.
He lets out a startled oof before he wraps his arms around me, giving me a tight squeeze that feels so much like family and safety, it makes me wonder why I’ve been so furiously insistent on shutting out everyone who might ever want to be my friend, or might ever want to care.
But then I’m pulling away, offering him a quick smile, my eyes stinging and my heart tight, before I turn and walk away without saying a word.
I keep it to a walk until I’m out of the main hall, so I don’t start a panic if people see me running. But the second I’m out of sight, I sprint through the corridors, bolting outside.
I have to stop for a minute then, just catching my breath, or else I’m going to do something crazy and irrational. I stop on the sidewalk, panting, bracing my hands against my knees, not even realizing there’s someone next to me until Riker’s slow, rumbling voice murmurs at my shoulder.
“You look a little tense, Pixie.”
I let out a burst of almost manic laughter. “Not you too. I hate it when Landon calls me that. Don’t make me hate you, too.”
He lets out a quiet chuckle. There’s this bubble of calm around him, as if time moves a little slower in Riker's mysterious world, and he’s languid and casual in his sharp-pressed suit as he lifts a cigarette to his lips and takes a deep, slow drag, coils of smoke winding around him, the same pale silvery-gray as the streaks in his dark hair and beard. “Sorry.”
“No problem, I...I’m just...yeah. Tense is a good word for it, I guess. Landon told me to go. So I am.” I squint one eye at him. “Puffing away, huh? Thought you were trying to quit?”
“‘Trying’ being the operative word. I still need one now and then to ease the cravings, but if I smoke in front of my daughter, don’t think I’ll ever be conceiving another one any time soon.” He smiles wryly and flicks the ash from his cigarette, then glances at me, his calm green eyes thoughtful. “I get it, you know.”
Straightening, rubbing at my aching chest, I frown. “Get what?”
“Why you’ve been such a mess. Why you’re so obsessed.” He takes another pull off the cigarette. “If someone took my daughter away, I wouldn’t stop till I had her back – and I had their head on a pike.”
It’s so close to how I feel, even though Joannie’s not my daughter. She's just the closest thing I know I'll ever have.
She’s my blood, my love, my sweet little cherub, and I let her down. And when I did, I let down Monika and Grandma. I let down myself worst of all.
I just stare at Riker for several tense seconds, my heart pounding. Yet another person offering me kindness, understanding, support that I don’t know how to deal with.
But I’m grateful.
“Thanks,” I say breathlessly.
He arches thick brows mildly. “For what?”
“For letting me know I’m not alone. That...that it’s normal for me to be this wrecked.” I offer a faint smile. “I gotta go.”
He inclines his head. “Do what you have to do, and do it right,” he tells me.
I actually grin before sprinting away, heading to my car.
There’s a fire under my skin, a spark in my blood, hot and wild with fear and adrenaline. Part of me is totally convinced something’s happened to Gabe.
Which means it’s on me to catch Harmon, before he gets away.
For Monika. For Joannie.
For Gabe, if that warped psycho laid a single hand on my giant.
That's exactly what he is: my dilemma, my nuisance, my lion. Mine to figure out where he fits and why, some glorious day when I can actually let my brain work at a normal pace again.
I slide into my Buick and peel out of the parking lot.
I hardly remember the drive home. I’m not thinking about the road. I’m thinking about the info in my files and what I need to track Harmon down as quickly as possible.
I nearly skid onto the sand as I pull to park on my lane and dash up the front steps into my house. I strew papers everywhere as I paw through my files, grab up the essentials, and dash for the door.
But just to be safe, I stop on my way out and dig out the hunting knife I keep in the drawer of one of the end tables near the door. It used to be my Dad’s, its wrapped leather hilt worn with smooth whitened spots where fingers have worn in a natural grip. It slides under my shirt and into the back of my jeans, cold against my spine and keeping it stiff.
I can handle myself in a fight, but I’m not going in unprepared.
I tumble outside – only to go stiff at the roar of an engine. My brain is off on all kinds of paranoid kicks, and in my head it’s a van full of marauding ninjas sent by Harmon.
Until I catch the distinctive glint of red, buried underneath caked-on layers of mud and dust.
Gabe.
I don’t even question how my heart leaps and my stomach tightens, as I watch that truck come down my lane. I’m off like a shot, pelting toward him.
I come to a breathless halt as the Dodge eases to a stop. The driver's side window rolls down, and Gabe leans out, resting one brawny arm on the door. Hazel eyes flick over me thoughtfully, before pinning me with a grave look.
“Get in,” he says, then leans back in and rolls the window up.
For a moment I can’t move. I’m frozen, wondering at what that quiet means, at what he’s not saying, at the million possibilities in his cryptic, terse command. But I won't find out what’s going on just standing here.
Without wasting another word, I rip the passenger door open and climb inside.
* * *
There are a million questions inside me, an acrid drip of questions, and I can’t get them out.
Because I’m afraid to know the answers, honestly. But if I don’t say something, I’m going to burst into a million pieces.
What kills me is the deafening silence.
Gabe is grim in a way I’ve never seen him, his jaw set tight and his face cold. It’s like he’s walled away, only this time not behind a mask of pleasant friendliness.
This is a different Gabe, and I think if he weren’t on my side, he’d frighten me.
Less out of fear of what he could do to me. More like the fear of what could make him like this.
My heart is in my throat, pounding away, as Gabe drives us through the deepening afternoon sunlight. It’s nearly twilight before he pulls off the highway and takes a service road down to a deserted area of the harbor.
There's something down there that looks like an abandoned loading dock some company just forgot about, rusting cranes and old shipping containers everywhere. It’s one of those shipping containers that Gabe drives toward, and then I just know we're close.
My pulse jerks and jumps in fits and starts as he eases the Dodge to a halt a few feet away.
Whatever he wants me to see, it’s here.
With another heavy look, he steps out of the Dodge. I clamber out after him, nearly hugging his side as he approaches the shipping container.
It’s been locked from the outside with a padlock. The only sounds are the faint call of the waves, a few lingering, chirpy gulls hovering over the darke
ning sky, the rattle of the lock, and the squeal of rusty hinges as he draws the double doors of the shipping container open. The meager remaining light spills inside.
It falls right over Harmon Ketchum, slouched half-conscious in a chair.
His eye is swollen into a massive black puff-knot and his wrists are cuffed behind his back.
Everything in me goes black with hate. I’m almost blind with it, my vision clouding over, but I can fucking promise you it doesn’t do a thing to hurt my aim as I throw myself into the shipping container and right at him.
There’s one wild, satisfying moment when I plow my fist into his face.
I’m small, but I’m strong, and my entire body weight is behind my clenched knuckles as I crash them into that smug fucking mouth and feel the satisfying snap of his head popping to the side, his lips mashing under my blow, his teeth cutting into me.
It hurts, vibrating up my arm, but I don’t care. Nothing could make me care.
I've gone electric, and I’m going to kill him.
“You asshole,” I scream. “You fuck!”
I’m already trying to hit him again, but I’m losing it, clawing at him, grabbing up a handful of his hair and jerking his head back. He’s dull-eyed, glazed, blood dribbling from his mouth, barely responding to me, and I want him to respond.
I want him to see me.
I want him to share the pain, the fury, the hopelessness he's left me with for months.
More than anything, I want him to see the face of the woman he should fear, and I glare at him, yanking hard on his greasy hair. “Where is she? What did you do with her, you prick? Where's Joannie? Where, you miserable, cowardly, impotent excuse for a –”
I’m cut off as Gabe catches my arms from behind and draws me back in a huff.
I jump like a startled cat, but I can't move.
Gently, he holds me. He’s still a rock, and even kicking and twisting and fighting I can’t get free as he pulls me off Harmon.
“Hey,” Gabe says soothingly. “Hey, hey. C’mon, darlin’. Hold back.” He pulls me back against his chest, enveloping me in his arms, in his warmth, in his stone-set steadiness. “He’s a prick, yeah, but ain’t no honor in beating a bound man.”
Honor? With Harmon freaking Ketchum? He has to be kidding.
I’m ready to scream, cry, twisting my shoulders and shoving against him. “Yeah? Then tell me how’d he get that black eye?”
“Bastard woke up right when I was about to drug him. No other choice.” He’s calm and steady and logical, his voice a low coaxing rumble in my ear. “Knocked the syringe right out of my hand. It was either punch him or shoot him. If I’d shot him, we weren’t getting a damn thing out of his corpse.”
“Maybe not,” I hiss. “But I sure as hell can cut a few things out of his screaming, mangled body. He needs to start talking now.”
Harmon lifts his head, squinting at us through his swollen eye, then leers. “Knew you weren’t gonna do it,” he slurs. “Too chicken to kill me. Bitch. You ain’t even gonna hurt me. Why should I talk?”
Before I can spit anymore hatred at him, Gabe cuts in.
“Because,” he says implacably. “I may not hurt you. But I can only hold Sky back so long before she’s gonna do what she wants. And what she wants to do sounds pretty painful.”
He’s lifting the back of my shirt, then, and I gasp, chills going through me as his fingers graze my spine, every inch of me far too reactive with adrenaline and rage. But he pulls the knife from where it’s tucked in its sheath against the base of my spine.
Jerk.
He must have felt it when he crushed me against him. He must have felt my rage, my intent, my human kill-or-be-killed need to carve Harmon up.
Gabe lets me go, slipping the knife from its sheath and whistling as he turns it over, studying the serrated edge.
“Damn,” he says. It’s almost too mild, too pleasant. “Back where I’m from, we use these kinda knives to truss up deer. Gut ‘em and skin ‘em. Thing is, deer are dead when it happens. Can’t feel the pain. You, though...” He smiles at Harmon. “What d’you think you’ll feel if Skylar takes this thing to you?”
Harmon goes pale. His gaze darts between the two of us nervously. “Y-you just said it’s not good to beat me while I’m tied up...what about your fucking honor?”
“I said that,” Gabe retorts. “Southern hospitality and all. She didn’t. And I ain’t her keeper. ‘Sides, she wouldn’t be beating you.” That friendly smile widens as he tucks the knife into his pocket. “She’d be cutting you, little man. And that’s a whole different thing.”
I get it now.
Even through the insanity and rage and hatred, I almost smile when it hits me.
Gabe's a genius.
Bad cop, plus creepily congenial good cop who’s somehow worse than the bad cop. He’s playing me against Harmon as the real threat. It’s brilliant.
That doesn’t mean I’m not five seconds away from peeling Harmon’s face off, though.
Harmon’s gone beyond pale, white as a sheet, really, under the blood and grime. He swallows thickly, then spits a mouthful of blood before snarling, “Fuck you. Fuck you, fuck your mother, fuck each other. I didn’t do nothing. That whore Monika sent you? Tell her I don’t have her fucking brat.”
“Liar!” I hiss. “I’ve been tracking you. You’ve been trying to hide your tracks.”
“Because I stole a whole fucking key of cocaine, you bitch,” he throws back. “Not a kid. Christ. You think I got room in my life for a fucking baby? I didn’t want that runt to start with! Nothing but trouble and goddamn courts hounding me for maintenance. Why the fuck would I fuck up my life for a kid I never wanted? I told her to get rid of it!”
That urge to kill him is never stronger, trembling under my skin like my blood’s turned to lava and is about to erupt out of me.
This piece of shit.
This piece of Satan shit never deserved Monika, and never deserved to breathe the same air as baby Joannie. I hate that half her blood is his, but as far as I’m concerned, she’s all Szabo pride and doesn’t belong to this pile of human refuse in the shape of a man.
“Try a better lie, shithead,” I bite off, trying to keep my voice from trembling with rage. “That’s exactly why you’d get rid of Joannie. If she’s gone, you’re not tied up with Monika anymore. No more child support, no more obligatory visitations, no more social workers checking in on you and getting in the way of your little drug habits.”
“I may be dumb, but I ain’t stupid,” Harmon retorts, glowering at me sullenly. “Look, I didn’t want the damn kid, but I didn’t take her. I look stupid to you? And I didn’t fucking hurt her. I’m not that low.”
“Like hell you –”
“Sky. Sunbeam,” Gabe cuts in softly. This time, the nickname just numbs me, a welcome distraction. “I don’t know. He’s better off coming clean. Life sentence for murder is better than letting us kill him right here. Don't add up.”
“I didn’t murder no one!” Harmon screams. “You ain’t gonna kill me, and you ain’t gonna put me away for something I didn’t do! Look in my goddamn wallet, you idiots. Look!”
“Nothing in your wallet's going to save you,” I bite off, but Gabe raises a hand to stall me and circles Harmon to fish his wallet from his back pocket. His expression is tight, his brows knit, as he flicks through cards and receipts.
“The business card,” Harmon urges. “Powell Construction.”
Gabe says nothing, just continues thumbing through until he extracts a creased and crumpled card with a company’s logo on it. He flicks it between two fingers, raising a brow expectantly as he eyes Harmon.
Harmon smirks back.
“That’s my job,” Harmon says. “You don’t believe me? Call 'em. Those pricks will tell you. The day Joannie got snatched, I was working. Putting in long hours. I got nothing buried in that construction zone but the rest of the money I owe Mr. Fix-It here, and that cocaine I stole. Now you know why I can’t g
o to the police for protection or to clear my name. But you want that money, you let me go and we’ll just forget all this shit ever happened.”
“Liar!” I snarl again. “You’re caught up with all kinds of bad people. Any one of your shitty criminal buddies could've snatched her, taken Joannie just to give you an alibi.”
Harmon only smirks at me. It’s the last straw.
I lunge – not for him – but for Gabe, going for my knife. It's still in his pocket.
But Gabe’s faster than me, and he angles his body away, then hooks his arm around my waist and captures me against his side, leaning down to murmur low in my ear.
“Don’t,” he says softly, dark with warning. “This is all too convenient. Something’s not adding up. There are holes in his story...but he’s not nearly as afraid as he should be if he murdered anyone, darlin’. I’m not so sure it’s him. But I am more sure Joannie’s alive.”
“Come on,” Harmon wheedles. “I got enough trouble without making more. Just let me go and take the cash. I’ll even let you have the coke. It’s gotta be at least five hundred big in street value.”
Like half a million dollars will save his lying ass.
Like hell.
But something about that sleazy whine in his voice seems to just...suck the air right out of me. Suck the soul right out of me, too. I’m so tired. I’m tired of going in circles, I’m tired of dead ends, and suddenly that thick arm around my waist is the only thing holding up my sanity.
I collapse against Gabe, resting my brow to his shoulder, and he envelops me in a heavy, sheltering embrace. Sweet familiarity.
His body’s a wall that blocks out the world. His strength lifts a bit of the weight crushing me. I can’t stop myself from grabbing, falling, clinging to him. Cleaving to him, really.
Gently, he presses the business card into my hand, his voice soft in my ear.