by Beth Rhodes
“You’re safe here.” Tan gently nudged her aside, and something about the way he acted as if she could handle this, could handle anything, reminded her. She could, and she blew out a breath as Tan continued, “It’s the way most of the guys on the team think. Outside the box. Come at it from all angles, and of course, Malcolm does a lot of searching for Hawk Elite, so he’s used to looking for a way around the expected.”
She took a sip of the coffee and sat down at the table to watch him. He wasn’t tall like Hawk, more of a medium height, an average six foot. But he carried himself with confidence. “What about you?”
“What about me?”
“Do you think outside the box?”
“No,” he answered firmly. “There’s way too much crap outside the box. I like to have those boundaries, knowing the rules.”
Her heart pounded when he came toward her at the table, set his cup down, and leaned over the edge and into her space. “No kissing clients, Ms. Whitney. Do you hear me?”
She nodded, unable to put together a good argument, not with so much swimming around in her head.
“Someone is still out there. Could be Gabriel Sands, and I am not going to let distractions get in the way.”
“Will we still go see him?” She ignored the talk about kissing even as she remembered the soft feel of his lips against her skin. Inwardly, she sighed. “Do the police know?”
“Malcolm will call the detective in charge. If we want to talk to him, we’ll need to leave right away.”
“Tonight?”
“With your incident and your connection to him, his history, by tomorrow, they’ll have him in for questioning. So, yeah. Tonight.”
Her insides quaked, but she stiffened her spine, forcing the fear into submission.
“You ready?” He didn’t ask her to stay behind, tell her she didn’t have to go.
A sign of his trust, which boosted her confidence.
She could do this. “Ready when you are.”
~ 22 ~
“I think it’s going to snow again.”
Tan kept an eye on the late-night traffic and an eye on the rearview mirror, his gaze always moving to take it all in.
And she knew for a fact Bobby was somewhere behind them as well.
“Yup,” he responded, turning on his blinker to get off the highway on the right. “Looks like it.”
“How far is it?” Nerves had settled inside her.
He settled a hand on her shoulder. “Another ten minutes or so. You okay?”
She nodded. “Maybe I’m making a mistake. I want to face him. I don’t have to face him. But I want to face him.” A nervous laugh escaped. “Looney much?”
“You’re fine.” He squeezed her shoulder, and she took his hand and gripped it in his lap. This was not kissing, and she really needed a connection right now. “Of, course you’re nervous, and you can do this.”
“Part of me wants to have the last word. All those things he thought about me—Ice Bitch.” She wanted him to see he hadn’t gotten to her. She was stronger now, better now… But the images of the past were hard to ignore. The rage she hadn’t recognized until too late…because she’d been too busy, too centered on skating, on herself.
Her heart raced as the images from that night came rushing back. Coming back to his apartment late. A date. She’d forgotten the date, and he’d made dinner, set out flowers. But she’d had a competition and compulsories the next morning. She hadn’t had the heart to cancel again, so she’d gone.
And he’d held her too tightly, hurting her hand as he dragged her into his dining room and made her sit. He’d hit her, making her woozy, and tied her down…
Her stomach turned. Oh, shoot. “Tan, stop. Quick.” She swallowed, breathed, swallowed.
Tan swerved to the side of the road, which made the flip become a flop, and Liz opened the door as he slowed, making him slam on the brakes. “Damn it, Liz.”
She put her feet on the running board and leaned over her legs. Cold air shocked her system, and she sucked it into her lungs. The panic subsided with each breath. “My stomach hurts.”
“Take it easy. Shit.” Tan rubbed a hand over her back. “It’s okay. No one’s going to hurt you again.” His hands became increasingly gentler until he was more caressing her than offering her first aid. “I wish you would have stayed home,” he said, his voice low and soothing.
“Unfinished business, Tan. One chance to look him in the eye and say, I survived.”
Liz sat back up and took a deep breath. “I’m good now.”
She turned in the seat and closed the door. Looking around, she was caught by the decrepit quality of the neighborhood they’d turned into. Rundown rowhouses, abandoned storefronts. “Did we make a wrong turn?”
Tan scanned the area. “Nope.”
He turned left at the next intersection.
“Tan?” The neighborhood took another dive. Thankfully the streets were pretty much deserted. “This can’t be right,” she whispered. “Gabriel Sands wouldn’t be caught dead in this neighborhood.”
Tan pulled out his phone and thumbed through a few screens then showed it to her. “This is definitely it.”
She frowned as they passed old rundown houses, probably in their prime forty years ago. On the right a halfway decent homeless shelter caught her attention. A sign out front boasted a soup kitchen on the ground floor.
Checking her watch, she saw it was 11:30.
Tan pulled over and parked along the curb. “Open 24 Hours the sign says.”
“Gabriel is not homeless, Tan. Someone’s got you on a goose chase, because this doesn’t add up.” He’d hurt her and acted like the lowest class of human being, but that had nothing to do with his finances. And this place made her nervous. The unfamiliar.
Liz watched as he pocketed his identification and money. He also grabbed what looked like a set of brass knuckles. Then he got out and walked around the front of the car. He was easy on his feet—no surprise—and his eyes never stopped moving. He opened her door. “I grew up around the corner from here. A second home, my grandmother’s, and despite the conditions, it’s an okay place…if you know the right people.”
Her mouth fell open, and shock kept her seated. He held out a hand. She had to think for a minute. When he gestured for her to take his hand, she took it and stepped out of his truck. “You should have told me.”
But that wasn’t right either.
“Does it matter, really?”
She heard the word he didn’t say, Princess.
And she bit her lip. “No. I’m just…surprised and, I thought I knew you, was getting to know you. And then you throw this at me, and I realize you’re very good at your job, because you make people think they are safe—”
He frowned.
“Not like that,” she continued. “I mean how can a client feel safe, if they don’t know you and have a certain amount of intimacy. But all along, you are only creating a feeling and it’s not real. Even your brother’s death. There’s more to it, isn’t there? You let other people in only enough to give them a feeling of safety.”
“Do you feel unsafe now, Liz?”
She had to think for a minute. “No. I’m safe. I’ve figured out your methods. And in figuring it out, I’ve created more intimacy than you’ve ever been able to hoodwink on any other client.”
Tan actually snorted as he closed the door behind her and led her to the shelter. “You sure you’re okay?”
She nodded again. “I’m too curious not to go in now.”
Tan greeted an older man who came up the sidewalk and entered the building through the glass doors. His tattered overcoat hung from a skeletal frame. A wool cap covered his head.
He opened the door and went through first, blocking her view of the main room. The low murmur of voices settled and quieted. The smell of unwashed bodies mixed with a savory scent of beef broth and cooked carrots. And bread, the distinct smell of yeast lingering in the air.
Tan threaded his
fingers through hers and guided her around a cluster of tables to a door at the back of the room. Stuck to it was a paper with the word KITCHEN written in big bold letters.
“We’re not going to find him here, Tan.”
But Tan was already turning, as if he’d heard someone coming up behind them, and protectively set her at his back.
“Lizzie? Is that you?”
Tension slid through him, and she placed a hand at the small of his back.
She didn’t recognize the voice, didn’t hear the sound of a man she’d known years ago, yet there was something familiar anyway, and she knew it had to be Gabe.
But the man in front of them stood as tall as she remembered, but he was thinner. Skin and bones, really. Jeans with holes in them rode his hips and his red t-shirt was detailed with a cross emblazoned on the front. Under in big lettering were the words, Let the Son’s Light Shine.
She stared. She knew she was staring, but couldn’t stop herself.
This was the man she’d known, but it was not.
“Tancredo Byrnes.” Tan stepped forward, held out a hand, surprising Liz.
“Gabriel Sands,” the man before her replied. “But I guess you know who I am.”
“Yes.” Tan put an arm around her, which was probably a good thing because she was beginning to wonder if she wasn’t about to fall into a hole—like Alice. “Could we talk to you…in private?”
Gabriel looked at his watch. “Sure. Let’s go into my office.”
“His office?” she mouthed to Tan, lifting one brow. He’d only been out of jail for three weeks.
He led them through the kitchen and into a small room with a desk and two chairs. “Please, sit down. I don’t have a lot of time. We serve one last meal before midnight.”
Liz cleared her throat, and her legs gave way to the folding chair in front of the desk. “You work here.”
“You could say that,” he answered. But he frowned. “I don’t mean to be rude. As you can imagine, I’m a little surprised to see you here. What is it you want?”
A numbness settled over her, and she stared blankly at him. What the fuck was this?
“We’re hunting up some answers about a string of murders and an attack on Liz last week.” Like a leashed tiger, Tan stood over her and barely-contained energy rolled from him like waves on the beach. “There is history between the two of you...” He trailed off, letting the silence fill in the blank.
“I don’t know anything about any murders.” Gabriel stood behind the desk. He met her gaze. Her heart fell because in his eyes, she did not see the Gabriel Sands of yesterday. She was not going to get the answers they were looking for. “I’m sorry Lizzie.”
She wanted to tell him not to call her Lizzie. How dare he stand there as if they could talk like two people who had once dated but broke up?
Gabriel’s frown deepened the crease on his forehead. “I moved…yes, was forced to move from my home.” He grasped the back of the chair and leaned into it. “I was angry—at the time.”
When he turned away, Liz got a really funny feeling in her gut. Like what you get when you’re watching a horror flick take that turn for the worse.
Like she was going to hate what he had to say…
“But then I didn’t have time to be angry.” Gabe shrugged. “I was diagnosed with cancer a few months later. Spent my years in prison on chemo and radiation.”
“What?” Liz, flat out floored, stared up at him, noting the skinny face and the sunken eyes. The man who’d changed so much. “No,” she whispered.
Gabriel answered hesitantly. “This is my life now, Lizzie.”
“You come home a month ago, as an ex-con, and you get a job—” It seemed unfair when she’d worked the last three years to even get over one night. She’d fought over and over again to regain her life.
“It was timing and a godsend, really.” He had the decency to look sheepish. But Gabriel, humbled, hardened a different part of her heart. “The former manager went home to Oklahoma. The position had opened shortly before I was released. I have a business degree and experience…” his voice faded. “It seemed right, Lizzie—Elizabeth.” Gabriel came around the desk. “I guess you could say I had a come-to-Jesus moment while in prison. Seeing death will do that. I’m sorry—”
“You broke my leg,” she breathed, the pounding in her head, muffling her words. “You can’t merely apologize for ruining my life.”
Gabe backed up a little. “No. I didn’t mean— I meant, I’m sorry I can’t help you.”
A surge of tears backed up into her tear ducts.
“You!” A small, dark-haired woman flew into the room. “Get the hell out of here, you bitch.”
“Mom!” Shock rang in his word.
Liz’s mouth fell open. “Mrs. Sands?”
“How dare she come here?” Her shallow breathing became rapid and uncontrolled. “Are you here for the second round? My boy finally has his life back, and you can’t stand it, can you? You’ll ruin him again.”
“No, I—”
When Mrs. Sands stepped closer, Tan made a wall of himself between her and the woman ball of fire. “Well, you can get the hell out of here—”
“Mom,” Gabriel finally put a hand on his mom’s shoulder. “Please, Mom. Liz isn’t here to cause me any harm.”
“What do you know?” She scowled. “You’re a man. I know how a woman’s mind works. And this one will do whatever it takes to make your life miserable again. She hasn’t let bygones go—”
Shocked, Liz glanced at Tan, saw the very guarded look in his eyes, saw he was about to take care of the woman himself.
Gabriel must have sensed it as well, and he turned his mother back to the door. “They were leaving, anyway, Mom, and I think the kitchen could use your help.”
But Mrs. Sands got one last finger wag in before she disappeared around the corner.
“I’m sorry. She’s—” Gabriel shrugged. “She’s had it rough. My dad’s been sick. I made her move down here, so they could both be close to me. And she’s a mother, so her instinct is to protect…even if I am thirty.”
Her anger had nowhere to go, and that pissed her off. She stood before Gabriel. The man who claimed he’d found Jesus, who worked at a soup kitchen, helping people less fortunate than he, whose mother still held onto some misguided idea Liz was to blame for what happened.
A knock sounded, and a large black man came through the doorway with a grin on his face. “Hey, Boss!”
He wore an apron tied around his middle and held a knife in his right hand.
“Well howdy, ma’am. Sir.” He nodded to Tan first and then to her. “Didn’t realize you had company. Looks like the rush is getting started. People are asking for grace. You know how they all get into it.”
“Give me a minute, Derek.”
“Grace,” she started with a shake of her head. “You mean you’re going to go lead these people in prayer.”
“I changed.”
“Where were you last weekend?” Tan finally spoke. “Saturday evening.”
“I’m here, all the time. Or I’m at home taking care of my dad.” Gabriel shrugged. “I know you probably don’t believe me. I know I did those bad things to you, Lizzie.”
She frowned.
“Elizabeth,” he corrected. “I guess I see what’s happened to me as a bit of karma. And this, working here, is righting a little bit of the wrong.”
Something twisted inside her, and she couldn’t figure out if it was pity or anger or disappointment. She needed a serious weekend away from the real world to process what was happening in her life. “Let’s go, Tan.”
The worst part was she believed him.
~ 23 ~
The truck was still warm when they got back outside, but she shivered anyway, tucking her jacket closer to her chest. Tan got in, clicked his seatbelt on then sat for a second. “What are you thinking?”
Frustration at how unsatisfying this little meet had been mingled with the injustice she felt
at finding Gabriel…normal, which warred altogether with the fact that they’d found nothing in regards to who might have attacked her. “He’s reformed.”
Her insides quaked. She’d been worried about meeting up with an asshole. “An asshole!”
“What?” Tan said, confused, as he settled back, storing his brass knuckles back in their compartment. Then he started the truck and pulled back onto the road, sending a side-look her way. “Are you okay?”
“Oh, yeah. I’m fine.” Her words came out short and full of irritation. Her fists clenched in her lap, and she worked to relax, worked to find sense of what she’d discovered. “That man in there, who indelibly had an impact on every decision I’ve made for the last three years, is in a place where he is happy, happy! And he prays, too? Oh, my God. What if he’s praying for me?”
A chuckle came from Tan’s side of the car.
“This isn’t funny.”
“Sorry.” Tan squirmed uncomfortably. “I’m not laughing at you—”
“Shit. I know.” She quieted. She knew she was on the verge of hysteria. Closing her eyes, she shut out the passing scenery, the stores, the homes. She didn’t want to see it, feel it. “Even when I think I’ve let it go and forgotten the night he broke me, it comes back. A face in the crowd. A kiss—” God, how many men had she turned down because she hadn’t been able to trust them, trust herself?
“What?” Tan asked sharply, looking over at her.
She waved off his confusion. “I’m not making sense. I know. And I get it. It’s not like he won the lottery or something. But he seems so…” She paused. “Well-adjusted and in a good place.”
A tear slipped free and then another one. She bit her lip and turned her head away from the only man who’d been able to touch her so deeply in three years. Tan called her princess, and she’d worked to hide her fears every day, even that day weeks ago when she first entered Hawk’s gym and met Tancredo. To show she was normal.
The truck slowed. Liz opened her eyes as Tan parked around the corner from his place.
“Come on.” The frown he’d been wearing since they left the soup kitchen was solidly in place.
