by Kylie Brant
Logic reared and reminded him of all the reasons for the inappropriateness of his mental wanderings. He’d made a promise to her at the beginning of their relationship, one he meant to keep. It wasn’t her fault if he couldn’t bring himself to mean the words; if they’d taken on a sense of falseness the moment he’d uttered them. There were many reasons why he needed to avoid a closer relationship with Meghan Patterson. His promise was only one of them.
“You’ve got a visitor, Gabe.” Cal’s quiet words succeeded in shaking Gabe from his reverie, and he looked up, half expecting that his thoughts had conjured the very woman who dominated his thoughts. Then reality slapped at him. His voice expressionless, he said, “Ma.”
Joyce Reddington smiled tentatively at her son, that half hopeful, half scared kind of smile that always managed to make Gabe feel annoyed and guilty by turns. She clutched her glossy leather purse, the one he’d sent her for her birthday, and her fingers twisted nervously on the handle.
“Gabriel.” She took a couple of steps closer to his desk, then stopped again and fixed the smile that threatened to waver. “How are you?”
“I’m good.” Gabe looked around, noted the studiously turned heads of his colleagues that couldn’t disguise their heightened radar, and rose. “I’m gonna use the coffee room.”
Cal nodded, although he knew the remark had been directed at everyone in the room. “Yeah, okay.”
Rounding the desk, Gabe took his mother’s elbow in his hand and guided her away from listening ears and prying eyes, wishing the whole time that he was on the other side of one of those desks. Grimly he pushed the door open into the empty room and ushered his mother inside. “Coffee?”
“Oh, no.” Joyce shook her graying head. “I don’t drink coffee anymore. Butch says it’s bad for my health, and he’s probably right. He knows about that stuff.”
Gabe pulled out a chair for her and propped one hip on the table, facing her. “Yeah, Butch is a real expert on a lot of things.”
At his terse words, her fingers worked the purse’s leather strap more vigorously. “I wish you understood him better. He’s a good man. Been real good to be me, better than I deserve.”
Because he didn’t want to focus too much on what she deserved, on what either of them deserved, he changed the subject. “So what brings you into the city? You don’t often leave the suburbs.”
“We were at a big revival meeting they had downtown at one of them fancy churches. You should have seen it. Everyone was singing and clapping…we heard lots of real good preachers, too.”
That would explain, Gabe thought dispassionately, why Joyce had been allowed to leave the domains of the suburbs. The only things that would bring Butch to the city was booze or Bibles. Both of which, in that man’s hands, were equally dangerous.
“And where is Butch?”
One hand fluttered nervously. “Oh, he’s waiting for me while I run some errands.”
Meaning of course, that he was skulking in a corner tavern nearby while Joyce did his bidding. The scene had been replayed too often for Gabe to mince words. “What’s he want?”
“Oh, nothing. Not a thing.” She shook her head to underscore her words. “You’ve been nothing but kind to us. We wouldn’t think of asking you for—”
“Ma.”
At the edge of impatience in his tone, Joyce stopped and pressed her lips together. “Well, the thing is, I wanted your advice on something. You know that house you bought me is just the best place ever. I figure it’s the nicest place I’ve ever had to live. But it’s really too big for Butch and me. I don’t know what we need with two bedrooms. And the yard—” Her words stumbled, and she visibly fought to recover “—we really aren’t gonna want to worry about yard work as we get older.” Her smile now seemed more like a grimace. “Not that we don’t appreciate all you’ve done for us.”
“I didn’t buy the house for Butch, I bought it for you.” Gabe made no attempt to curb his bluntness. “And it’s in both of our names for a reason. So tell Butch to forget about selling it and pocketing the money.”
He could tell by the flicker in her eyes that he’d guessed correctly, and not for the first time he cursed the man his mother insisted on staying with. “Ma.” He forced his voice to a gentler timbre. “You love that house. And your garden.”
“I’ve never had either one before, that’s true enough. I do like to putter around in the yard.” As if the enthusiasm in her voice was a betrayal, she immediately shifted back to her earlier recitation. “But we really could use a smaller place…an apartment maybe.”
“Tell Butch I said no.” His tone brooked no argument. “If the yard and house get to be too much work for you, I’ll spring for someone to help out.”
An odd look of pride crossed her face at his words. “Well, Gabriel, if you aren’t the best son a mother could want.” The statement told him better than words that it hadn’t been her idea to come here, hadn’t been her idea to sell the first home she’d had in years.
He shifted away from the hug she would have pressed on him and opened the door. “Let me know if you need anything. You know I’ve got a grocery account set up for you at the Safeway in your neighborhood.”
“I do know. A mother just couldn’t ask for more.” An uncertain expression crossed a face that had once been pretty but now bore the ravages of her past. “It sure would be nice to see a little more of you. Maybe you could come to dinner sometime?”
The timid tone, the commonplace remark, stirred old feelings in Gabe, feelings best kept tucked firmly away. “Yeah, maybe. I’ll let you know.”
She got to the door and hesitated, looked up at him. “Well, bye, then, Gabriel.”
His hand propped on the doorjamb, he watched her walk away, weaving through the maze of desks and tables over-flowing with caseloads. He wished he could feel something normal, something that didn’t summon old resentments and regrets.
Cal came by, his parka in his hand. “I’m heading out. How about you?”
“Yeah.” Grateful for the diversion, Gabe stepped out of the room and headed toward his desk. “I think I’ll head out, too.”
“Everything okay?” Cal’s diffident tone indicated a man who knew he was tiptoeing in a minefield.
“Yeah.” Gabe slipped his coat from the back of his chair and shrugged into it. “Everything’s great.”
The knock on her car window caught Meghan by surprise. The figure that bent to peer in, didn’t. She collected her purse and got out of the car, pressing the automatic lock. “I didn’t see you drive up.”
“Must be my years of undercover work. Sneaking up on people was my specialty.”
She shot him a look as they started across the street to the large rental storage units. “Your years undercover…or your years as a delinquent?”
He didn’t spare her a glance. “Probably both.”
She studied him carefully as they continued in silence. It didn’t take any special intuition to perceive that he was in a fractious mood tonight, with an edginess layered beneath simmering temper. She wondered what had caused that mood. What would it take to ruffle Gabe Connally’s customarily stoic demeanor? And why should it matter to her?
“I’ve brought a flashlight,” she finally ventured, almost trotting to keep up with his pace. “It’s lit inside but at this time of the evening it will be hard to see.”
His attention shifted to her, and she almost wished she’d kept quiet. “I hope you’re not telling me you’ve been here at night before.”
“Not at night, no.” She pulled her identification tag from her purse to show to the watchman at the door, and he waved them both in.
“But you have been here alone? In the evening?” He made a sound of irritation. “You’ve gotta know that’s just plain stupid.”
“Thank you very much for your unwanted commentary on my intelligence,” she snapped. Now it was she who strode ahead, leaving him trailing in her wake. “Somehow I’ve managed to muddle along in life without you
r brilliant advice.”
“You’ve been lucky,” he commented flatly. They entered an elevator, and Meghan stabbed a finger at the button marked for the third floor. The door slid closed. “A woman has to be careful where she goes in this city.”
“I’ve been moving about in this city on my own quite successfully for a number of years.”
He regarded her profile in the confines of the elevator compartment. He’d gotten her in a snit somehow, without even half trying. Something lightened inside him a fraction. She looked good with storm clouds brewing in her eyes and temper heightening the color in her face. A measure of tension began to seep from his limbs.
“Excuse me, ma’am. I didn’t mean to impugn your intelligence.”
The apology lacked sincerity, and she rightly chose to ignore it. “Impugn? Vocabulary word of the week, Detective?”
Damned if she didn’t have him dead to rights. The elevator door opened, and he followed her out, taking advantage of his position to watch that shapely behind. “Learned it today, as a matter of fact. You learn the damnedest things on the job.”
He thought he heard her mutter something about manners not being one of them, and he grinned. It occurred to him that it was easy to be around Meghan. Too easy.
Following her across the dimly lit building, he felt another urge to admonish her for ever coming here alone. He now knew better than to give voice to it. But these places were notorious for housing vagrants who managed to sneak past the guards, something that wouldn’t have been too difficult, given the attitude of the watchman who’d let them in. Thieves, too, targeted places like this. Once inside, a metal saw or wire clippers gained them access to just about anything that caught their eye.
Their footsteps echoed in the cavernous corridor. Built much like a parking garage, the place was lined on both sides with separate spaces enclosed with wire fencing. Gabe scanned the area. It appeared empty except for the two of them.
Meghan stopped before one of the enclosures and fitted a key into the padlock securing the door. Unlocking it, she swung the door open, and Gabe entered, looked around. “Is this it?”
She took the flashlight from her purse and flicked it on. “All of Sandra’s furniture was rented. I packed up her clothes, took Danny’s stuff to my house and just boxed up the rest.”
Meghan looked at the five lonely boxes stacked neatly in the corner and thought again that it was a sad sum of a person’s life. But she refused to dwell on the welter of old regrets that threatened to well up within her. Sandra had left more than this—she’d left Danny. And through her son the mother would, in a way, live on. It was more than some people ever had.
Gabe went down on one knee and pried open the flaps of one of the boxes. “What all is stored here?”
“I told you before there wasn’t much. There are some things of Danny’s that he outgrew…toys and such. Things she kept on her dresser. Albums…old pictures.”
But Gabe had already found those on his own. He drew out a couple of photo albums that dated back to Meghan’s childhood and began to flip through the pages. Without a word he reached out to take the flashlight from her, directing its beam over the pages. He paused over one page, studying it. “That’s you, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” she said shortly. There were few pleasant memories associated with any pictures from her childhood, one reason she’d chosen to store these away. She’d spent years trying to forget many of the events pictured; she certainly didn’t want to relive them now, with Gabe at her side.
He put the album away and reached for the rest of the contents of the box. Recognizing the scrapbooks in his hands, Meghan steeled herself for the questions they would surely elicit.
The only sound in the enclosure was the whisper of paper rustling as he silently turned pages filled with newspaper clippings. Sandra had meticulously collected every article ever written about her, and since she’d made her ability very public whenever the mood suited her, the scrapbook was thick.
His words, when they came, seemed innocent enough. “So I guess that investigation with Wadrell wasn’t your sister’s first venture into the public eye.”
It was difficult to speak around the knot in her throat. “Not exactly.”
Page after page of newspaper clippings were jammed with articles featuring Sandra, even including one magazine cover proclaiming her as one of the leading psychics in the country. The real story, however, was what was missing from the scrapbook. The periods of time during which Sandra had been sent away to school, only to return, dismissed and rebellious. The times when her sister had appeared to conform, only to seek headlines months later.
It was easier from the perspective of adulthood for her to understand Sandra’s motives a bit better. The headlines had provoked reaction from their mother and grandparents, and perhaps Sandra had been willing to accept their censure, as long as it was a response. It wasn’t a method Meghan would have embraced even if she’d been able. Her chosen strategy for dealing with her family had been to stay invisible. The times when Sandra would carelessly divulge her secrets, the attention of her family would be focused on her, and the consequences were still painful to recall. Her only outlet, the only thing Sandra hadn’t been able to spoil for her was her art, and Meghan had pored everything she had into it.
Gabe was studying the last page in the scrapbook, the one depicting CPD’s use of a psychic in a gang investigation. Missing was the one that released her name. Meghan wondered if that was an oversight on Sandra’s part, or if she’d finally recognized the danger of the situation she’d involved herself in.
To her relief he put aside the scrapbook without further comment, and together they emptied the contents of another box. They sorted through old toys and abandoned treasures of Danny’s. Meghan was struck, not for the first time, by how meager his belongings had been, as well. Sandra had traveled light, she imagined, and Danny had been forced to do so, as well.
“What’s left?” he asked, when she started on the fourth box.
“More of the same. Like I told you, there wasn’t much. Some of Sandra’s personal belongings that I thought Danny might want someday, a few more pictures, odds and ends.”
“Any embarrassing photos of you when you were young? I didn’t get a chance to look too closely at the album.”
“Hardly. Just a few more Polaroids like the one I gave you. They were the only recent pictures I found. When I decided to do that portrait for Danny I came down here and went through them, keeping the best shots of the two of them. I left the rest of them—” She made a sound of discovery, pulled a handful of the photos from the carton.
“Here they are.”
Gabe checked his watch. “Well let’s finish these last two boxes, and then I’ll follow you home, make sure you get there safely.”
Despite knowing he wouldn’t be able to see the gesture, she rolled her eyes. “That’s hardly necessary, Detective.”
“Humor me. I like to—” His words stopped abruptly.
“I told you earlier, I’ve been taking care of myself for a long time.” Longer, she supposed, than he imagined. “I don’t need—” Two fingers pressed against her lips, stemming the rest of her statement.
Her first thought centered on the heat radiating from his touch, the way her lips seemed to swell in response beneath it. Curiosity followed a distant second. She remained silent, at first to humor him and then because she was listening as hard as he was.
There was a scraping sound, like a boot on cement, and then, silence. After a few more moments Meghan pushed Gabe’s hand away. “You’re jumpy tonight.”
He rose silently and moved to the door of the enclosure. “Someone else is up here.”
“So what? Lots of people have a right to be up here—namely, everyone who rents a space on this floor. There’s no need to be paranoid….”
As if to negate her sentence, the lights abruptly went out. Swiftly Gabe snapped off the flashlight, backed up a few steps and pulled her to her feet. “Ke
ep this.” His voice was a mere thread of sound in her ear. “But don’t turn it on unless I call to you.” He walked her backward a few steps and pressed a hand on her shoulder, forcing her to sit among the boxes. “Stay down.”
Then he melted into the darkness. And it was dark. Despite her earlier assurances to him, without the dim lighting the interior was filled with an inky blackness that was absolute. Straining her ears, she could hear nothing. The lack of either sight or sound lent an eerie quality that began to play on her imagination.
The sound of her own breathing seemed as loud as a siren in the stillness. It occurred to her that the entire floor would be filled with hiding areas. The compartments were all rented out, and most were stuffed with boxes, suitcases and furniture.
Minutes stretched, with only the occasional whisper of sound reaching her ears. Then a clattering noise split the darkness like a shot. Meghan’s pulse froze in her veins. She heard footsteps running, in the direction of the exit.
Anxiety pumping, she rose and went to the doorway of the enclosure, uncertain about her next move. If Gabe was following an intruder downstairs, she wouldn’t be close enough to hear him if he needed help. Even as she had the thought, a figure loomed out of the darkness, and she gave a startled exclamation. “Gabe?” The flashlight in her hand swung upward to identify him, but midmotion the figure swung its arm, and Meghan felt a crushing blow to her head. She crumpled to the floor, the flashlight falling from her hands. She had an instant to register the feel of the cool cement beneath her cheek before the darkness swallowed her completely.
Chapter 7
The key sounded in the lock, and Danny’s stomach lurched in response. Then the doorknob turned and he launched from the couch, unmindful of Callie’s warnings.
“Hey, champ.”
He didn’t pay any attention to the big detective’s words, either. He barreled up to the couple and wrapped his arms around his aunt’s knees.
