by Gina Wilkins
Resting one lean hip against the edge of her desk, he picked up her stapler, tape dispenser and a brass paperweight and absently began to juggle them. Paula’s eyebrows lifted as she watched the heavy items arc lazily through the air.
“It’s a beautiful day,” he said enticingly. “It’s finally starting to look like spring. Much too nice for a brown-bag sandwich. Wouldn’t you rather get out of the office for an hour or so?”
“No. I’d rather eat in,” she said firmly.
She was momentarily diverted when he skillfully shifted into a new pattern of tossing the desk accessories from one hand to the other. “You missed your calling,” she couldn’t resist saying. “You should have joined the circus.”
He stilled his hands and replaced her possessions on the desk. The sleeve of his pale blue shirt pulled back when he reached out, revealing a glimpse of what might have been a small tattoo on his right wrist. Before Paula could identify it, he’d hidden it again beneath his cuff.
“Been there. Done that,” he said without elaboration. “Last chance for Chinese?”
She shook her head. He heaved an exaggerated sigh and sauntered toward the doorway. She’d noticed that Blake rarely seemed to move in a hurry.
“Some other time, then,” he said.
She didn’t respond. She had no intention of having lunch with him at any time, but she didn’t want to issue a challenge by saying so now. He would lose interest in her soon, she assured herself. They all did, after a while.
Ignoring the hollow ache of loneliness inside her, she turned her thoughts firmly back to her paperwork. She was very good at her job.
It was all she had.
PAULA STOPPED at a take-out Chinese restaurant on her way home that evening, ordering egg drop soup and cashew chicken. She’d been craving Chinese food ever since Blake had asked her out for lunch.
Carefully balancing her dinner, she unlocked the front door of her tiny furnished apartment that was tucked into one secluded corner of an uninspired, moderately priced complex. The apartment was quiet and empty, as always. The furnishings were bland and inexpensive and she hadn’t bothered with accessories or bric-a-brac.
She never had visitors, so it didn’t matter if the place was dull and gloomy. More cheerful and tasteful decor wouldn’t have made a difference to Paula; the bleakness she carried inside her would have prevented her from fully appreciating even the most elegant surroundings.
She set her dinner on the tiny round table in her kitchenette, pushing a newspaper and the day’s mail to one side. The glasses she didn’t need lay on top of the mail. She’d been relieved, as always, to find only advertising fliers and an electric bill in her mailbox.
Except for bills and junk mail, her box was usually empty. She received no magazines, no personal letters. Yet checking her mail was undoubtedly the most stressful activity in her rigid daily routine.
She ate her dinner, cleared away the remains and then went into her bedroom to change out of the dress she’d worn to work and into a soft sleep shirt. She pulled the pins out of her hair, and the severe bun fell apart. Her thick hair tumbled to her shoulders as though relieved to be released from confinement. She combed her fingers through it, looking in the mirror for signs that the drab color needed retouching.
She washed her face, brushed her teeth, and took out her brown-tinted contact lenses, storing them carefully in their case. She glanced into the mirror over the sink and grimaced at her blue-eyed reflection. She often had the unsettling feeling that the ghost of a past life was looking back at her from behind the glass.
She spent the remainder of the evening ensconced on her sofa with a paperback novel and a bowl of strawberry ice cream. The television was on, but she paid no attention to the program. She’d turned it on only for the comforting sound of human voices.
It was the only companionship she had allowed herself for more than two years.
IT INFURIATED GABE that his hand wasn’t quite steady when he reached across his desk to accept the photographs Blake offered him. He would have liked to believe that Blake didn’t notice, but he suspected that very few details escaped the man’s deceptively lazy-looking gaze.
Gabe studied the photographs closely. They were candid snapshots, taken without the subject’s knowledge. The woman pictured was hardly spectacular. She appeared to be in her early to mid-thirties. She looked stern and humorless. Mousy hair. Brown eyes. Heavy glasses. Unflattering clothing.
Page would be almost twenty-eight now. Her hair had been a rich honey-blond, her eyes the pure blue of a clear summer sky. She’d had a weakness for pretty clothes in bright colors. Her smiles had been sweet, a bit shy, and while there’d occasionally been shadows in her beautiful eyes, she’d never looked as unrelentingly grim as the woman in these photographs.
It had been two and a half years since she’d walked out on him.
“Well?” Blake prodded from across the desk, a hint of sympathy in his voice.
Gabe sighed and nodded, his gaze riveted to the pale face in the photograph he was holding in his left hand. The hand on which he still wore the ring Page had put there on their wedding day.
“Yes,” he said heavily. “This is my wife.”
He lifted his head to look fiercely at the blond man. “Where is she?”
PAULA WAS ALWAYS tense when she looked through her mail, never knowing what she would find, but this Saturday morning seemed worse than usual for some reason. She tried to reassure herself that there was no reason for more than the usual concern. But there was one small detail that worried her.
Blake Jones had disappeared.
Without even calling his employer, he’d simply not shown up for work two days ago—the day after Paula had declined his invitation for lunch. No one had heard a word from him since.
Being someone who knew all about disappearing without notice—and the many reasons a person could be driven to do so—Blake’s vanishing act bothered Paula. Mostly, she worried that it had something to do with her.
She didn’t waste time calling herself paranoid. She, more than most, had every reason to be anxious.
The fact was that Blake had seemed unusually interested in her. And, since she’d determined he wasn’t after her body, she couldn’t help but worry about what he had been after.
Distracted by her nervous speculation, she flipped through the junk mail without interest, tossing the colorful flyers away without bothering to read them. She set the water bill and cable bill aside to pay later. Since television and books were the only entertainment she allowed herself, she ordered as many channels as she could afford.
The final envelope made the blood drain from her face.
It was addressed to Paula Smithers, complete with apartment number and correct zip code. There was no return address, but the oddly slanted handwriting was sickeningly recognizable to her.
She knew exactly what she would find inside. Photographs. Nothing else. No note of explanation or identification.
Her hands were shaking so hard she could hardly open the flap. Two snapshots tumbled out when she finally ripped the envelope apart.
The photos blurred in front of her eyes as she reached out to touch a fingertip to a face she hadn’t seen in two and a half years. And then she recognized the subject of the other photograph. Her breath caught in a painful sob.
“Oh, God,” she whispered, groping for the back of the nearest chair for support. “Oh, God.”
It took several long moments to fight off the dizziness and the nausea. And then she leaped into action, snatching up the photographs and hurrying into her bedroom.
She pulled out the large suitcase that was always kept in readiness, and began to fill it haphazardly, going through motions that had become all too common in the past thirty-odd months. She didn’t bother with the few plain suits and other work clothing, but grabbed jeans, tops, sweatsuits, socks and underwear. Practical, sturdy, easy-care clothing that required little attention, and could be donned swiftly.
/> Paula Smithers, aka Page Shelby Conroy, was on the run again.
GABE ALMOST MISSED her.
He’d been sitting in his pickup for at least fifteen minutes in the parking lot of the apartment complex Blake had directed him to. He’d been trying to get up his nerve to knock on her door, mentally rehearsing the questions he would ask her, the scathing words he wanted to say to her.
Taking advantage of the nice weather on this April weekend morning, two buff, young guys were meticulously washing and waxing a classic’67 Mustang in a corner of the lot. Gabe was aware that they had noticed him sitting there. They probably wondered why he hadn’t gotten out of his truck.
He drew a deep breath, opened his door and climbed out. He had just taken a step toward the building when he spotted a woman hurrying down the walk, dragging a wheeled suitcase behind her.
Had he not seen the photographs, he might not have recognized her. She looked very different from the woman who had haunted his dreams for so long. He was well aware that he had changed, too, though his own changes were mostly internal.
He frowned at the sight of her suitcase. It was obvious that she was running again. But why? Had she somehow been tipped off that he’d located her? And if so, why the hell was she so determined to avoid him?
What in God’s name had he done to her?
He stepped in front of her, blocking her way. “Hello, Page.”
Her face had already been ashen. At the sight of him, it bleached to a deathly pallor. He grimly identified her expression as horror-stricken.
Her mouth opened, but nothing came out. She seemed literally unable to speak.
His automatic response to her obvious distress was concern. The protective instincts he’d almost forgotten kicked in, and he was about to say something to reassure her. Then he remembered the hell she’d put him through, and a wave of hurt and fury crashed though him.
“Don’t look at me like that, damn it,” he snapped. “I have a right to some answers.”
“Please,” she managed to say, her voice thin, breathless. “You have to leave. You have to go now.”
He scowled. “I’ll leave when I’m ready. First, you’re going to answer my questions.”
She shook her head, edging to one side of the walkway as though prepared to bolt around him. He saw her gaze shift quickly from him to the parking lot, obviously gauging the distance to her car.
“Please, Gabe,” she whispered. “Go home.”
“Home?” he repeated bitterly, thinking of that torturous afternoon two and a half years ago when he’d returned home so eagerly only to have his dreams smashed. “You really think I’m going to leave that easily now that I’ve found you?”
“You have to,” she insisted, an edge of hysteria in her voice. “Leave me alone. I don’t want you near me.”
He was rather surprised to discover that she could still hurt him. He’d thought she’d done all the damage she could do the day she’d walked out on him. It seemed he’d been wrong.
“Why, Page?” he demanded roughly. “What did I do to you?”
She shook her head. “I have to go.”
She moved to step around him.
Gabe reached out instinctively to stop her, his hand closing around her upper arm, which felt thinner than he remembered. His touch wasn’t gentle, but he didn’t harm her. Even as hurt and angry as he was, he would never use his size against her.
And yet, the moment he touched her, Page began to scream.
“What the—”Gabe began.
“Hey!” The two young men who’d been pampering the Mustang dropped their chamois cloths and sprinted toward them.
“Let go of her, mister!” one of them shouted.
Gabe automatically released his grip, and held his hands nonthreateningly away from her. “I’m not hurting her,” he said. “She’s—”
Page was already running, the suitcase bumping along behind her.
“Please,” she gasped to her would-be rescuers as she passed them. “Hold him here for a few minutes. Just long enough for me to get away.”
Gabe’s instinctive movement after her was cut off when one of the guys took him down in a graceful tackle that must have been perfected through years of football training. Gabe’s breath left him in a hard whoosh when he hit the concrete, the muscular young man on top of him.
He struggled to get up. “Let go of me, damn it She’s my wife!” he said furiously.
Desperation added strength to his movements. If he lost her now, who knew how long it would be until he located her again? If ever.
“Dave, help me!” the guy on top of him yelled. “I can’t hold him by myself.”
The other young man promptly threw himself on top of the mini pile. The commotion had drawn attention from other apartments. Already others were rushing to help—or to gawk.
“Give me at least fifteen minutes,” Page called from her car. A car Gabe recognized—he’d helped her pick it out the week before the wedding.
“Page, stop!” Gabe shouted after her, momentarily ignoring the others. “Don’t do this. I only want to talk to you—”
The roar of her car engine drowned out his words.
2
PAGE HAD NO DESTINATION in mind when she left Des Moines. She drove aimlessly, almost blindly, south. When she passed the car dealership where she’d worked for the past five months, she didn’t even glance back.
She’d driven away from so many different places in the past thirty months that it barely caused her a pang to do so now. She would call Monday and let someone know she wouldn’t be back. Her employer would be angry, but no one would worry about her enough to list her as a missing person. They would simply assume that she’d rudely quit without notice.
She doubted that anyone ever missed her when she made these abrupt moves. They missed her efficiency, perhaps, but not her. She’d made sure of that. There was only one person in the past two and a half years who’d probably grieved for her when she’d left, and she’d told herself that he’d gotten over her long ago.
Out of habit, she touched the thin gold chain at her throat, where it disappeared beneath the collar of her shirt. She still couldn’t believe that Gabe had found her. She’d nearly had a heart attack when he’d stepped in front of her on that walkway. It had been like seeing a ghost.
Or like seeing a long-mourned part of herself.
How had he found her? How long had he been searching for her? And what was the connection between running into him and the photographs that had arrived in her mail? Both incidents had occurred the same day. Was it simply a bizarre twist of fate—or was it something much more sinister?
She tried to calm herself by focusing on the music coming from the cassette deck. And then she realized what song was playing. Sawyer Brown’s Mark Miller was warning her that even the quickest way wasn’t fast enough when you run from love.
She turned off the stereo and reached up to wipe at her face, finding it wet. She didn’t know how long she’d been driving with tears streaming down her face. She swallowed a sob. She wouldn’t cry. She never allowed herself to cry.
She forced herself to concentrate on her driving. Though she had little regard for her own life these days, as cold and empty as it had become, she was desperately determined not to cause harm to anyone else. That sole motivation had kept her alone and on the run for more than two years.
KEEPING IN TOUCH by cellular phone, Blake and Gabe caught up with Page in Wichita, Kansas, several hours after she’d escaped Gabe in Des Moines.
Gabe couldn’t help but be impressed with Blake; the guy seemed to have an almost psychic ability to locate Page. The other two detectives Gabe had previously hired had not been nearly as efficient.
As though sensing that he’d be needed, Blake had been nearby when Gabe had gone to confront Page at her apartment. He’d seen what had happened with the young men who’d rushed to “rescue” her from Gabe, and had followed Page at a discreet distance when she’d left town.
&n
bsp; When she’d checked into a motel in Wichita, Blake had taken a room directly across from hers where he could keep an eye on things until Gabe arrived.
Her only stop, Blake informed his client after Gabe had slipped discreetly into his room, had been at a small pharmacy just inside the Wichita city limits. She’d emerged with a small plastic bag and had driven straight to this motel. She hadn’t been out of her room since.
Gabe paced the cramped motel room like an enraged panther, his blood pounding in his ears.
“Why did she look at me that way when I tried to talk to her?” he demanded. “Why did she scream and run when I touched her arm?”
Sprawled in a chair by the window, his fingers templed in front of him, Blake watched Gabe’s movements with searching eyes. “You said she acted terrified to see you. What threat do you pose to her?”
“None,” Gabe insisted, throwing up his hands for emphasis. “I never laid a hand on her. Never even raised my voice to her. Hell, we weren’t married long enough to have our first fight. There’s no reason on earth for her to fear me.”
He’d said similar words to the Des Moines police when they’d arrived at the summons of the apartment dwellers who’d acted as though he were an ax murderer. He’d told them that Page was his wife, that he’d only wanted to talk to her, that she hadn’t given him a chance to speak—much less frighten her—before she’d started screaming for help.
The police had been suspicious, but there’d been no reason to hold him, particularly since Page had disappeared. His record had checked out clean, of course, and there was no one to file a formal complaint against him. He’d been released with a stern warning not to cause any further trouble.
Blake continued to watch him. “There must be something,” he mused. “Did she take any money when she left you? Any valuable personal belongings? Is she worried that you want to charge her with theft? Did you tell me everything when you hired me?”
