by Nancy Gideon
Whether it was his plan or not, Marcus Sinclair was going to kill him.
"All right, McGraw, now that there's no distraction, let's you and me talk."
Gabriel groaned mightily as Sinclair's expensively shod foot caught him in the ribs. He collapsed full length on the hard packed ground. What seemed like an eternity later, he found the strength to get to his knees, where he wavered and blinked groggily up at his attacker.
"What do you want, Sinclair? What is it you think I've done?"
"I told you not to harm them. I warned you, but you didn't listen."
"Who?"
"The girls. You just couldn't leave them alone. What is it, drugs, sex, both?"
"I don't—"
Sinclair kicked him over onto his side. “You don't need to feed me a line of bull. You show up, and things start happening. Parsons resigns, or did you arrange that so you could bring your Amazonian friend on board? Then the girls start acting strange and disappearing. And now Naomi. That was the last straw, pal. She so above you, so above the both of us, she's on another planet. You understand?"
"I would never hurt Naomi or any of the others."
"That's right. Because you won't get the chance. Did you think this was going to be a warning? Think again. You were warned. This is the end of the road for you.” And to prove his point, Sinclair drew his pistol.
Gabriel dove into him. It wasn't a forceful attack, but it was effective enough to topple the vengeful bodyguard. The gun discharged, sending a streak of fire along Gabriel's ribs. Then he was scrambling, burrowing into the low, prickly scrub brush, using the night to his advantage.
"Where do you think you're going to go?” Sinclair taunted after him. “We're in the middle of the fricking desert.” He bent to touch his fingertips to the thick dampness dotting the sand. “You won't get far, my friend. There are worse things out here than me, and I hope you run into every one of them."
Pocketing his revolver, he got into his big car and headed back toward the lights of Las Vegas, leaving the rest of his work to the less kinder elements.
Gabriel waited until the sound faded, until those of the night resumed their natural cadences. He tried to stand and found he could not. Fire and ice chased through his system, weakening him with disorienting pain. To a lesser degree, his side burned. Both things would heal with time, but time was not his friend. Not with the way the palette of pastels seeped over the distant mountains. If the sun found him upon the desert floor, it would consume him like dry tinder.
He tried to shape shift into something light and fast that could escape the approaching day, but pain and confusion kept him from holding the image for long enough to transform. He had one more option, but did enough strength remain to send a summons?
Agonizing minutes ticked by. He began to burrow into the softer surface sand but quickly reached the rocklike dirt that refused to absorb moisture just as they refused to absorb him. His insides cramped and quivered. His exposed skin began to prickle, dry and crack. To distract himself from the pain and pending fiery destruction, he summoned the calming image of Naomi Beorhthilde seated at his family's table as he told them of his plan to wed her upon his return. She's looked up through eyes great and round with surprise and shy delight. And hope. There'd been such hope in her trusting gaze.
What hope would Naomi Bright have if he died here in the desert without ever giving her the chance to truly live again?
And then he heard it, the deep, full-bodied rumble of a big block V8.
By the time they reached him, he was curled into a tight protective ball to reduce his vulnerability to the first few pools of dawn spreading along the desert floor.
"Help me with him. Quickly, girls."
And then the heavy trunk lid closed, and blissful darkness took him in its embrace.
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Chapter Thirteen
She heard the sounds the minute she opened the front door. Soft, snuffling sounds of distress.
Instinctively, her hand dove for her handbag, but there was nothing in it except house keys, Tums and sunglasses. No .38 Special to back her play.
Rita advanced quickly through the living room, doing a visual check of the perimeter as she moved. The noises originated from Naomi's bedroom. Was she alone, or was there an attacker?
A quick pass through the kitchen and she wielded a knife serious enough to make sushi out of anyone threatening her home. And she thought of the neat little bungalow with its tasteful beige accessories as home for the moment, as much of a home as she'd had in a long time. And she'd be damned if anyone was going to come party crashing.
Even if it was the charming and no-longer-to-be-trusted Gabriel McGraw.
Naomi's room was dark. The only movement was beneath the antique satin and lace coverlet, the restless movements of someone caught in the throes of a nightmare.
With a sigh of relief, Rita lowered the knife. There were no bad guys to slay here.
Or were there?
"Please. You mustn't. I cannot. Please stop."
The words moaned from the woman thrashing through the tangle of her dream. The idea of withdrawing silently was abandoned. Rita sat on the edge of the mattress and placed a hand on one slender shoulder. Naomi cringed beneath that touch as if it had become a part of her frantic ramblings.
"Sweetie, you're having a bad dream. Wake up."
"My lord, you mustn't. Let me grieve. I have yet to grieve."
Frowning slightly, Rita gave her a shake. “Nomi, wake up."
Instead, the fearful cadence grew stronger, more forceful. “Nay, I say nay. I must mourn my love. There will ne'er be another for me save Gabriel. No other can assume his place, not in my heart or in my bed. Honor my wishes if in truth you honor me."
The strange dialect, the anguished words so ripe with regret and sorrow. Gabriel? She spoke as if they were lovers and he was dead. Naomi's dreams were certainly more colorful and creative than her own. Hers were of slow-motion chases and forgotten locker combinations.
"If I cannot be lady of this manor, I will give myself to God.” And she lunged forward, coming off the bed to sit for one long minute, eyes open and unseeing. Her body strung tight, her breath caught. Then the tension dissolved into a jerky trembling, and her breath released on a sob.
Rita gathered the wailing figure into a comforting embrace, rocking her slowly as her mind raced along a scary path she'd once traveled alone.
Now she knew what demon plagued Naomi Bright.
* * * *
"Naomi, when did it happen?"
Naomi frowned at her roommate and took another sip of the rich black coffee, hoping it would clear away the fog from her brain. Even a shower hadn't helped. She felt like the tissue coaster beneath a cocktail glass, all limp and worn thin. The last thing she could remember clearly was sipping wine with Gabriel McGraw. Then, if Rita was correct, she'd lost a day and a night to some kind of hysteria. Madness. Her sense of self was slipping away again. Rita sat in the opposite chair, watching her as if expecting her to snap at any second.
Perhaps she wasn't too far off the mark.
"When did what happen?” She was cautious now. Dates and time were her secret enemies, enemies hidden from her by her own blank memories.
"When were you raped?"
That was the last thing she expected to be asked, and she stared at Rita, her expression mirroring her utter disbelief. “What? I don't know what you're talking about. Why would you think such a thing?"
"You were out with Gabriel the other night,” Rita continued carefully. “When you came home, you were acting strangely ... as if something bad had happened. Did he ... Nomi, did Gabriel hurt you?"
Startled by the idea, she blinked as if slapped. “Gabriel? Gabriel would never hurt me."
"How can you be so sure? You hardly know him."
That wasn't true. She'd known him ... forever? But then again, what did she really know?
She tried to remember. The restaurant. The wine. Th
e pills she never should have combined with alcohol. Gabriel asking questions that disturbed her, forcing her to think back to a past she couldn't access. She'd tried to deny what he was saying ... what had he been saying? ... denying first in words, then by running away, by escaping. Her head pounded. Nausea curdled in her stomach.
"I wasn't well. Gabriel sent me home in a cab."
"He never touched you?"
The feel of Gabriel's arms around her. The scent of his clean shirt and cool skin. The sense of safety.
"No."
"Oh, shit."
Naomi regarded her more closely, alarm sharpening her concentration. “Why? Did something happen with Gabriel?"
"Now I'm not so sure. Maybe just me making conclusions in giant leaps and bounds. Nothing that can't be fixed with a good apology. I hope."
Naomi rested her forehead in the well of her palms. Her headache roared. “Why all these questions about Gabriel?"
"I thought—I assumed when you came home all disoriented that he'd—that he'd done something he shouldn't have. It wasn't like I couldn't recognize the signs."
"Signs of what?” She peered at a curiously subdued Rita through the spread of her fingers.
"Physical assault. Honey, if Gabriel didn't harm you, someone must have. I'm not off base here. I've been there, Nomi. You don't have to be ashamed. It's not your fault."
Confusion swirled through the agony in her temples. “But I've never been attacked."
"Nomi, I've lived with it, too. I've watched you shy away from contact with men. You make yourself unattractive so they won't notice you. You live for your job. You have no life. You're hiding from the pain. You're blaming yourself. Nomi, it's okay. Those are normal reactions to a terrible crime. But you have to control it. You can't let it control you."
After Naomi continued to stare with a frightening vacancy, Rita probed deeper.
"You don't remember, do you? Sweetie, it's eating you alive. I know. I tried for the longest time to hide what had happened from those who cared about me, even from myself. I tried to pretend it never happened, that it didn't matter, and, God help me, that it was somehow my fault, that I'd asked for it. Nomi, no one asks to be raped.
"He was my supervisor. I thought he was going to go over some test scores. He wanted to start with a drink, then when he suggested we go to his apartment, I said no. He said he'd take me home. He didn't. When he finally dropped me off hours later and in shock, he told me if I said anything, he'd tell my superiors that I'd used sex to try to bribe him for a promotion and that when he'd said no, I threatened to cry rape. And I knew everyone would believe him. Everyone except Rae Borden. She knew something was wrong. She got me to take her self-defense class, and eventually the truth came spilling out. She made sure they listened to me. The bastard was fired. And I stopped being afraid of who I was."
"But you're still afraid to let a man get close to you,” Naomi surmised with a surprising empathy.
"Well, I'm working through that. But for now, I'm concentrating on me, on finding my strength, my center. And that's what you have to do, too."
Naomi was silent, taking in all Rita said. Could it be true? Could a savage assault have stolen away her memories? A lot of the pieces fit, especially the physical evidence she'd so determinedly ignored.
"What am I going to do, Rita? How do I know if what happened to you happened to me?"
"You need to talk to someone. A professional."
Her defenses shot up, surrounding her behind a wall of suspicion and fear. “You mean a shrink?” Someone who would pry into her private agonies, push into her life, prod for reasons, real or imagined, behind her pain. Someone who would strip her emotionally naked and leave her vulnerable to a truth she might not be strong enough to hear.
There were things she mustn't tell, things no one could know.
"A shrink, a priest, Oprah. It doesn't matter. Talk to Mel. Talk to me."
"And if I don't have anything to say?"
"There's hypnosis to reach repressed memories. Just don't think you can do it alone, okay? Turn to someone you can trust."
"And who's that?"
"Me, for starters."
Naomi nodded. She could trust Rita. And Kaz Zanlos. But Gabriel? Why did she automatically pause when she considered trust and her handsome knight in the same equation? Had he done something to make her doubt his sincerity? Had he done something to betray her belief in him? How was she to know when she couldn't remember the last two days let alone twenty-seven years?
"There's more, Rita. It's more than just the not remembering. It's the dreams, too."
"What dreams?"
"Dreams of the past. Not my past but one from centuries ago. So real. I feel all the emotions, all the fears. Like I'm living them myself. Not just when I'm sleeping, Rita. I see things and hear them when I'm awake, too."
Rita frowned slightly, saying nothing. So Naomi hurried on, letting it spill just as her friend recommended.
"It has something to do with the Excalibur and Gabriel. Something pulls me toward them that I don't understand. But not Gabriel as he is now. Gabriel, the knight he played in the arena.” She blushed. “I told you I was strange."
"Honey, I've seen strange. This isn't strange. Odd maybe in a twisted, Freudian sense."
"Feeling more comfortable in a world that existed centuries ago is only a little odd?"
Rita shrugged. “I'm no psychiatrist, but my guess would be that to deal with the trauma, you've created a safe, sanitized world to live in. One with unrequited romance that's no danger to you."
"But I'm afraid, Rita. I'm afraid I'll forget which is real and which is pretend. I don't understand why this is happening to me."
"There are answers out there, Nomi. You have to have faith."
"And what if I don't like what those answers tell me?"
Rita sat silent. She had no pat response.
And that left Naomi all alone. Unless her boss or Gabriel McGraw could be convinced to reveal all.
* * * *
Only Gabriel wasn't at the Amazon that evening. None of the girls had seen him. No one had heard from him. And only Marcus didn't look surprised. He explained the reason for his unconcerned attitude when Zanlos called him to his office. Naomi sat off to the side, anxious and pale, so much a fixture at Zanlos’ side that she wasn't even noticed.
"What do you know about Mr. McGraw's disappearance?"
"I know he won't be coming back any time soon."
Sinclair's smug certainty quickened a shiver of panic around Naomi's heart.
"And why is that, Mr. Sinclair? What have you done?” Zanlos’ tone was still civil, but Naomi wasn't fooled by it. Fury vibrated beneath the surface. Sinclair was in mortal danger without realizing it.
"I took initiative, Mr. Zanlos, like you're always encouraging. McGraw was trouble. When he showed up, strange things started happening with the girls. I don't know if he was feeding them drugs or what it was. Grace is a basket case and Jeannie disappeared. He was the last one to be with either of them. We don't know anything about him. He just shows up out of the blue with that pretty-boy smile and everything goes to hell. Ask Naomi ... Miss Bright."
Naomi froze when her boss's black stare leveled upon her.
"Miss Bright? What do you know of this?"
"I—nothing. Mr. McGraw was very good at his job. That's all I know about him."
"But he upset you,” Marcus interrupted. “You went out with him, and when you didn't come in and your roommate got in his face, I just assumed—” He broke off, finding no support in Naomi's blank features.
"You assumed?” Zanlos purred. “Do you know the meaning of assume, Mr. Sinclair? You make an ass out of you and me. That's what assume means. And what did this brilliant assumption of yours lead you to do?"
Marcus glanced nervously at Naomi then back to the chill-eyed Zanlos. “I took him for a ride."
"A ride? And the destination?"
"The desert."
"Am I to assume that
Mr. McGraw did not return from this ride with you?"
"He slipped me in the dark. I don't know where he is. He might be ... dead. He took a round when we struggled."
There was a soft thump. Both men looked toward the gentle sound to see Naomi Bright in a heap on the floor. Marcus, for all his bulk, reached her first, lifting her limp form up and steadying it in the chair. He patted her hands and, more awkwardly, her chalk-white cheeks. Slowly, she blinked and gazed at him with a horror that pierced his soul.
"I don't know that he's dead, Miss Bright,” he assured her in a rush. “All I know is that I hit him. He'll turn up. I'm sure of it."
"He'd better, Mr. Sinclair.” That ultimatum from Zanlos needed no chaser to go down with a harsh burn all the way to the pit of Sinclair's belly. “You'd better pray he does. And from now on, don't take the initiative unless you check with me first. Is that understood? Or do I have to draw you a picture?"
"I understand, Mr. Zanlos,” Marcus mumbled, straightening to his formidable height that somehow seemed dwarfed when compared to the magnitude of Zanlos’ cool anger. “I just thought—"
"I don't pay you to think, Mr. Sinclair. Thinking is not what you do best, so leave it to others to do for you."
After Marcus had withdrawn, Zanlos turned his attention to his assistant. His manner gentled.
"Do not worry, Miss Bright. I'm sure no harm has come to Mr. McGraw. It would take more than Sinclair's bumbling best intentions to remove him. Considerably more. When he does arrive, I think it's time he and I had a discussion. Would you arrange that for me, my dear?"
Naomi nodded.
"Very good. It's time Mr. McGraw knew exactly what was at stake."
