Ricky and Olivia had broken from their roles. And Gabriel . . . ?
The memory changed. He was standing in his bedroom doorway, Olivia sitting up in his bed, her eyes wide from whatever she'd been dreaming. No, not whatever.
"You left," she said, "and I didn't know why. I was trapped in the dark, and I couldn't get out, and I called and you wouldn't come."
"I wouldn't do that."
The memory shifted. He was eating dinner tonight. He couldn't even remember what it was--takeout bought at a drive-thru, mechanically eaten as he'd sat at the table, staring at a pile of papers and pretending to read. Then his phone rang.
Olivia's ring tone. She'd set it up a week ago. They'd been talking when a client called, and he'd gotten annoyed because he'd had to pause the conversation long enough to check his call display.
"You need ring tones," she said. "So you'll know if it's important without needing to take two entire seconds to check."
"Do you really think I know how to set a ring tone?"
She'd put out her hand. A few minutes of tapping and she handed his phone back. "One for Rose and one for Lydia. One for Don, too, as your premier client. One for Ricky, because he'd feel left out otherwise. And, of course, one for me, so you'll know I'm bugging you, and you can ignore it."
Which would never happen. That's what he'd thought, with an oddly warm feeling. I'll know it's you, and I'll always answer.
Now the phone rang, her ring tone, a jaunty little tune that reminded him of Olivia in a good mood, chipper and bouncy. It rang and it rang, and he did not answer.
Back to the bedroom.
"Anytime you need me, I'm here," he said. "If you call, I'll come."
"I know."
She'd called once more after that. Late, as he was in bed, trying to sleep. He'd heard it ring, and he'd rolled over and waited for it to go to voice mail. He didn't check the message. Nor had he checked the last one. Ignoring voice mail, texts, and e-mail. Getting his distance. That was best for both of them.
Because I am Gwynn, and I can't escape it. He destroyed her, and he loved her. I'll destroy you and . . .
He fell into the memory again, Olivia sitting up in bed, eyes wide as he assured her he'd never fail her. He'd always be there for her. Always, always, always.
"Gabriel!"
He shot upright, as if he'd been only dozing. He blinked and peered around the room. The dark and empty room.
I was trapped in the dark, and I couldn't get out, and I kept calling and you wouldn't answer.
His phone started to ring. It wasn't her ring tone, but he'd gotten another call, not long after the first one this evening, from a number he hadn't recognized, and he'd answered and heard nothing, and known it was her.
But this time, call display showed a client's name. He hit Ignore and flipped to his voice messages. He was going to listen. He should have listened, damn it. Just in case.
As the first message played, his heart picked up speed with every word. Tristan? The hospital? Goddamn it, yes, that was a trap, and she shouldn't have gone without him.
And how the hell was she supposed to know that when you wouldn't answer your fucking telephone? Besides, she has Ricky.
That didn't matter. Yes, Ricky would look after her, but no matter how much he knew, he didn't really understand. He couldn't.
How many times over the last week had Gabriel felt that kernel of jealousy grow, felt that Ricky was taking everything, leaving nothing that was his alone? This was. Ricky didn't understand the magnitude of the situation, of the danger, the threat, because if he did, he'd be on that phone himself, telling Gabriel to quit his sulking and get the hell down there to help her.
Gabriel rolled out of bed and grabbed his trousers from the chair.
Now you're going to help her? Three hours after she called? Much too little, much too late, and you know it.
That's when he remembered the second message. Calling to tell him it was all right? Situation resolved?
He played the message, and when he finished listening, he pounded in her number, punching the keys so hard that he kept striking two at once.
It's been an hour. A goddamn hour. She needed you, and you rolled over and went back to sleep.
The phone rang once. He exhaled, eyes closed, waiting to hear her voice telling him it was fine, she was fine, they were fine. And by the way, Gabriel? Get the fuck out of my life and stay there.
The line clicked.
"I'm sor--" he began.
A computerized voice intoned, "The customer you are trying to reach is not available. Please--"
He grabbed his shirt and raced out the door.
--
Gabriel strode down the corridor of the main hospital building. That seemed to be where Olivia had called from, if he was inferring correctly. No, not inferring. Not deducing, either. He was worried enough to strip away those logical explanations and admit the truth to himself.
I know she's here. I just know it.
As for "where" here, well, that was the problem. He'd tried calling on the drive. Tried Ricky, too, only to get the same "customer unavailable" message.
He climbed to the second floor, and when he walked along the main corridor, a board creaked overhead. A footstep sounded, then another.
So where the hell were the stairs? He continued down the hall and found them. Broken steps, half the treads rotted, but footprints on the remaining ones. As he climbed, he saw someone passing in the hall above. The figure stopped.
"Gabriel. Thank God. I-- Whoa! Stop!" Ricky's hand shot out, palm up. "That whole stair is rotted. I already put my foot through it. Step over it to the next one."
Gabriel grunted and did that. "Where's Olivia?"
"I was hoping you'd tell me. She's here. I know she's here."
That knot of jealousy tightened. Of course he knows, too.
"What happened?"
"We were talking outside, in this little graveyard, and the next thing I know, she's walking toward this building. I go to grab her and it's like grabbing air, and all of a sudden she's ten feet ahead of me, and when I get in here, she's gone completely. I know something like that happened with you, so I went back out and waited, figuring I hadn't really seen her leave. When she didn't reappear, I came in. Only I can't find her, and it's been two damned hours. I've scoured every inch of this place."
Gabriel nodded. "We'll do it again. Systematically, room by room."
"That's what I did." That flash of annoyance Gabriel knew well. Ricky's don't-treat-me-like-a-child look. Which was never what Gabriel intended--he simply didn't trust anyone else's intelligence, which was perhaps equally insulting. Ricky's intelligence, like his maturity, was just fine. Unfortunately.
"Never mind," Ricky said. "You're right. We'll do it again. Reverse order this time. Starting up here. You search rooms while I stand in the hall. That way there's no chance she'll get past us accidentally."
While there was a niggle in Gabriel's gut that wanted to amend the plan, simply for the sake of amending it, he did as Ricky suggested, searching room by room, checking behind every item that could hide Olivia, unconscious. He didn't hear so much as a rat scuttling until he reached the belfry. That's when he caught a moan, half stifled, as if it had escaped unbidden, Olivia injured and gritting her teeth, trying not to cry out. Which is exactly what he'd expect of her, so much so that he didn't pause. He loped straight for the ladder and climbed up, ignoring Ricky's "Hey!" below.
Ricky's boots pounded as he ran into the room below the belfry. Gabriel was already at the top. The room was bigger than he'd expected, perhaps eight feet square. And empty. Completely empty.
He heard the moan again. Coming through a hole in the opposite wall. He started toward it.
"Whoa!" Ricky said. "Stop!"
Gabriel rocked there, shooting a look back at Ricky.
"Hey, don't glower at me, big guy. I'm not trying to stop you from finding her. I'm saving your ass again. Look down."
Gabriel did. Like
the stairs, the floor was rotted, boards missing or half broken.
"I heard--" Gabriel began.
"Yeah, so did I. But you're a good thirty pounds heavier than me. Which means I'll be the one crossing the rotting floor and hoping I don't plummet to my doom."
He wants to rescue her. He wants to be the first face she sees.
Which was ridiculous. The floor was clearly rotted. Ricky was smaller. He'd stopped Gabriel from hurtling into danger twice and now offered to take the risk. Any competition existed only in Gabriel's mind, and he was ashamed of that.
He's doing it on purpose. Showing you up.
Gabriel growled softly and shook his head.
That was Gwynn. The part of him that was Gwynn ap Nudd. As Gabriel, he could look at Ricky and see someone he respected, trusted. An ally who could even be considered a friend. Then he'd think of Olivia, and jealousy would surge, sometimes more than jealousy, something bitter and hard, almost like hate.
That's not me.
Or is that just an excuse?
"You got my back?" Ricky asked.
"Of course."
Ricky started picking his way across the floor. The boards groaned and creaked with each step. One gave way, but he jumped off it fast enough. Then, as Ricky was still leaping over the broken board, something flew from the hole in the wall. Something bright and fast, flying toward Ricky, his switchblade rising with a "What the hell?" The thing hit him in the neck. Blood spurted. Ricky fell.
No, Ricky was pushed. Shoved hard toward the front railing. He hit it and it shattered, wood exploding as he fell through.
Gabriel lunged toward him, but the first plank he hit gave way, his foot falling into the hole, enough for him to stumble, and when he recovered, he could see Ricky's hands, grasping the edge of the floor.
"Gabriel!"
"Hold on. My foot . . ." He wrenched his leg. His foot was wedged into the hole. He bent and pulled at his shoe.
Are you sure you want to help him? This time the voice came, not from his head, but as a whisper, right at his ear. He turned and saw no one there.
Look at him. He's barely hanging on. He's bleeding badly. It's a four-story drop. The fall would likely kill him, and if it didn't, he'd bleed out before help came. All you need to do is stay right where you are. Or better yet, walk away. No one knows you were up here.
Gabriel managed to get his foot free. He took one careful step, calling, "Just hold on."
Is that really what you want? You're right. You aren't Gwynn. You don't have the balls to be Gwynn. You pride yourself on being a man of resolve. You see what you want and you go after it, everyone else be damned. This is what you want. Ricky, dead. Olivia, yours. And all you need to do is turn around and walk out.
He took another careful step forward.
Don't pretend you aren't thinking about it.
Gabriel tested the next board with his toe.
It's not safe. You should just stop. Stop and think about it. Imagine it. Ricky, dead. Olivia, yours.
He stopped. He imagined it. Ricky called for him, confused, but Gabriel stood there, lost in his thoughts.
Then he made his decision.
CHAPTER SIXTY
Gabriel never called back. I tried Ricky again but continued getting the "customer unavailable" message. In desperation, I dialed Gabriel's number forty minutes later, only to find that I had no reception.
Maybe he tried to call.
That wasn't it. I'd checked for messages every few minutes as I'd wandered the hospital, the endless halls and sequences of rooms that only ever brought me back to the cribs. My phone worked fine then.
When I realized he wasn't calling, I'd thought of dialing someone else. Anyone else. Hell, 911 if it would help.
Nine-one-one, what's your emergency?
I'm lost.
Where are you?
In an abandoned hospital. I can give you directions, but I don't think you could find me even if I did.
I had to get myself out of this. Only I couldn't. Walk in any direction and I ended up back with the cribs. I'd tried staying there, in case there was more for me to see, trapped in a performance where the exit doors wouldn't open until the final curtain call. But the same scenes had repeated over and over.
"Okay!" I finally shouted. "It was Pamela. Todd was the innocent one. I get it. And also, you'd like me to kill myself. I get that, too. Not happening!"
No one answered, of course. Ricky had long since stopped shouting for me, if it ever had been Ricky at all, and not just a phantom voice. If it hadn't been Ricky, where was he? Was he all right?
Those were just the kind of thoughts that sent my brain flapping madly, like a bird in a too-small cage. I'd told Gabriel that I felt as if I might go mad in here. I'd been trying to joke--hey, if it gets any worse, I'll belong here, permanently, heh-heh--but it was no joke. I kept thinking about Isolde and seeing those words, feeling the truth of them, along with the very possible truth that I wasn't in the hospital at all but had already gone mad, and that's why Ricky wouldn't answer and Gabriel wouldn't call back. I was trapped in the prison of my mind, and there was, indeed, no escape.
Finally, I did what I would have sworn I'd never do.
I gave up.
I stayed in that crib room as long as I could bear it, until I was certain there was no more to see. I walked in every direction, only to end up where I'd started. Then I walked into the hall and sat. Just sat, because for the first time in my life there was honestly nothing I could do, no action that would fix this, and that was, perhaps, the surest sign that I was, in fact, losing my mind.
My surrender didn't last for long. I'm not sure if that's a sign of sanity or sheer bullheaded insanity, banging my head against a brick wall and expecting it to crumble before I dashed out my brains. I redid the circuit, taking every possible route out of the crib room, only to end up back there. On my fourth return visit, I stepped inside to see a figure with his back to me.
I knew who it was. There was no disguising that back. God knows, I'd stood behind it often enough. The white shirt was rumpled. The shoes were brown . . . under black trousers. But there was still no denying who it was. Or who it was supposed to be.
Gabriel turned as my sneaker squeaked. When he saw me, his shoulders sagged, as if he'd been holding his breath. Then, "There you are," with a note of impatience, as if I'd waltzed off five minutes ago. Maybe that should have told me it was really him, but I'd been in this place too long, seen too much that wasn't there.
"What's the first Sherlock quote you said to me?"
"What?" His brow furrowed. Then, "You've been having visions, and you think I'm one of them."
No shit, I wanted to say, but I waited until he said, "The game's afoot." A twist of a smile. "Although, if I admit to it, that might seem proof it can't really be me."
"I'll take it. Okay, so you're here." I glanced around. "You know the way out, I hope."
From the look I got, this wasn't the reaction he expected. And what did he expect? That I'd break down sobbing in gratitude that he'd finally come looking for me? Maybe that's unfair. I was grateful, but I couldn't forget that he'd taken almost two hours to reply to my frantic call for help.
Gabriel used to be very clear that I couldn't rely on him. If we'd stuck with that, then I would be grateful right now. But I'd blurted that nightmare to him, one that now seemed more premonition than dream, and three times he'd told me it was wrong. Three times he'd said he would never ever ignore me if I needed help. That was why I blamed him--not for failing to run to my rescue, but for telling me that he would.
"You haven't seen Ricky, have you?" I said. "I lost him when all this started and . . ."
I trailed off as I saw his expression.
"Something happened," he said. "Ricky . . ."
"Is he hurt?"
I hung there, waiting for that expression to disappear in a blink as he saw I was freaking out, for him to say, No, nothing like that.
But the look did not change.<
br />
"Gabriel?"
"There was . . . an accident."
"But he's all right?"
"He was when I left, but . . ."
"Left?" I strode into the hall. "You left him?"
"To get help, Olivia. We should go and phone for--"
"You go. After you tell me where the hell Ricky is."
"The belfry."
I started to run. Every other time I'd gone that way, I'd never found the stairs. But now the hall kept going, exactly as it should, the stairs ahead. Gabriel thundered after me, saying, "Hold on."
I swung onto the stairs.
"They're rotted!" he called after me.
I ran up, moving fast enough that when one gave way, it broke after my weight was on the next. Gabriel kept calling after me, telling me to stop or at least slow the hell down. He actually said "hell," which was probably code for I'm serious. I did exactly what he'd spent the day doing to me: I ignored him.
I found the belfry ladder. When I reached the top, the first thing I saw was blood. It arced across the wall and dripped onto the floor. The belfry railing was broken. A hole in it, just the size for someone to have fallen through, with fresh jagged splinters on both sides.
"Ricky!" I started running toward the hole.
"Olivia! Stop!" It was Gabriel. "The floor--"
My foot hit a hole, and I stumbled. As I did, I saw Ricky, unconscious, propped against the wall, his neck bound with strips from his shirt, the rest discarded beside him. His chest rose and fell with steady breathing.
I took a step in that direction.
"Careful!" Gabriel said, his voice harsh as he crested the steps.
I picked my way toward Ricky.
"We thought we heard you up here, and something attacked him," Gabriel said. "It cut his neck and knocked him through the railing. Luckily, he caught the edge. I hauled him back in and bound his neck. When I left, he was conscious but weak from loss of blood. Is his breathing--?"
"It's all strong," I said, putting my hands to his chest.
Gabriel exhaled. "Good."
As he crossed the floor, I saw why he'd been slow coming after me. He was limping--badly.
"You're hurt," I said.
He gestured at the hole in the floor. "It's the same leg I injured before. It's just acting up. I'm fine."
It was doing more than acting up. Pain flashed in his eyes with each step.
Deceptions Page 35
