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Refocusing on the situation, he put his finger to his lips. “Shh. We better hurry.”
Taking her hand again, they moved forward, keeping close to the buildings. Up ahead, Frank slipped down a side alley. Gabe and Kristina ran for cover behind a parked car where they had a clear view of the alley. They watched as a man stepped out of the deeper darkness. He was of medium height and build with short cropped hair and a goatee on his pointed chin.
Kristina raised her camera.
“Hey, be careful,” Gabe admonished softly.
“I will.” She snapped some shots.
In the alley, Frank was handing the man an envelope. The man ripped the envelope open and spilled the contents into his hand. From this distance, Gabe couldn’t see what had come out.
Just then, Frank spun in their direction, seeming to stare directly at them.
Gabe grabbed Kristina and pulled her into a crouch.
“I don’t think he saw me,” she whispered, her voice shaky.
Gabe clenched his jaw tight. He scrambled onto his belly and watched the two men from underneath the car. The two spoke for a moment more, then the man handed Frank something before Frank scurried down an adjacent alley while the other man disappeared back the way he’d come. Gabe listened hard, but he didn’t hear a car engine start. Which meant no plates to run. He shoved himself to his feet and brushed himself off.
“Aren’t you going to arrest him?” Kristina asked.
“For what? We don’t have any idea if he’s up to something illegal and I don’t want to spook him. Let’s see where he goes now.”
Cautiously they followed Frank back to his little car.
“I parked over there.” Kristina dug into her pocket for her keys.
Gabe took her hand. “We’ll take mine.”
He led her to his black 4x4. Once settled inside, he pulled out of his parking space and followed Frank’s car onto the tollway back to Miller’s Rest.
“Nice ride,” she commented, her tone bland.
Unsure if she was mocking him or not, he said, “I like it.”
“It suits you.”
“Meaning?”
“All of our choices in life reveal a little about us.”
She’d become philosophical in the past eight years. “And what does my rig say about me?”
“You like to be in control and have a lot of power. Black is the absence of light. It’s mysterious, serious and dramatic.”
He wasn’t sure exactly how to take that. “And you know this…how?”
She waved a hand. “Just one of the many things I learned in college.”
“Ah, yes.” She’d been enrolled at Boston University when they’d met. He couldn’t remember her major. “You a psychologist or something?”
“No. Just took some psych classes.”
“So what color car do you drive?”
She gave a small laugh. “Oh, my car won’t reveal anything about me. It’s my grandmother’s car.”
He glanced sideways, taking in Kristina’s profile, liking the straight line of her nose and the arch of her brows. Her cheekbones were high and her jawline strong yet feminine. She’d actually grown more beautiful over the years.
She’d taken off her black cap. Her long blond hair fell over her shoulders, the strands illuminated against her black clothing.
Gabe slowed the car as Frank parked at the retirement center and hurriedly entered the facility through a side entrance. “Investigation’s over tonight.” Unless Gabe wanted to break in and follow, which he didn’t. He made a U-turn and headed back the way they’d come.
“Did you find out anything about Carl and Lena?” Kris asked.
“Not yet.” He put his hand on her shoulder. “This isn’t some game, you know.”
“I’m not playing a game,” she said with a huff.
“You can’t go around sneaking through the night like some superhero looking for danger. Eventually you’ll find it, and then what?”
She batted her lashes at him. “I’ll call you.”
The mockery in her tone made his lips twitch but deep down he did want to be the one she turned to.
As she had today.
Pushing away that errant thought, he had to make her understand that putting herself needlessly in danger was not a good thing. “Listen, Kristina. I appreciate your loyalty to your grandmother and her friends, but you can’t go around sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong.”
“No one else will believe Grams,” she asserted defensively.
“It’s difficult to believe such accusations without concrete proof.”
“Well, that’s what I’m trying to do, find proof,” she shot back.
“But you could get hurt.”
“I didn’t.”
Gabe sighed.
She touched his arm, drawing his gaze. There was no mistaking the sincerity in her eyes. “God sent you to protect me.”
Gabe’s stomach sank. “That kind of thinking can get you killed.”
Through the slit in the curtains inside his apartment at the far end of the retirement center, Frank watched the dark vehicle’s taillights as it left the parking lot. His gut churned. What should he do?
After turning on every light, he grabbed the phone and punched in a number.
A few moments later a groggy voice answered. “Hello?”
“It’s me, Frank.”
“Do you know what time it is? What do you want?”
“I’ve got a problem. I think Sadie Arnold’s granddaughter followed me tonight. I think she saw me.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Why would she do that?”
“I don’t know,” he whined. “She’s been at the center a lot lately. I don’t like the way she looks at me.”
“Have you been careless?”
He plopped down on the old blue couch that had come with the room. “No.” At least he hadn’t thought he’d been. “What should I do?”
“Stop worrying. She’ll be taken care of.”
“She will?” Frank breathed a sigh of relief. He didn’t have to do anything. “Good. Okay, good.”
“Now, good night, Frank.”
He hung up and hugged his waist, trying to settle the gurgling in his stomach.
The headlights of Gabe’s SUV sliced through the dark to illuminate the road back into the city. Gabe glanced at Kristina’s pale hand still resting on the sleeve of his jacket. His words hung in the air. “He flicked a peek at her face and met her gaze.” With the faint bit of moonlight, he could see the stunned concern in her expression.
“How can you say that?” Kristina finally asked, tightening her hold on him.
He forced his gaze forward to the road. “You can’t count on God to send someone every time you get in trouble.”
“I trust He’ll provide what I need. Tonight, He provided you.” She tapped his arm before withdrawing her hand. “God takes care of those who love Him.”
He glanced her way. The earnestness in her expression made Gabe tighten his grip on the steering wheel. “You sound like my mother. She’s always saying things like that.”
“So I take it you don’t believe in God.”
Concentrating on the road ahead, he replied, “I don’t believe in anything I can’t see, touch, taste or smell.”
“What a Doubting Thomas you are. Don’t you put stock in gut feelings?”
He frowned. “Of course I do. I’ve had plenty and they’ve kept me alive. But that’s not God.”
“How do you know?” she challenged. “How can you be sure those feelings weren’t God warning you?”
“I just am.” He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Once his ex-partner, Brody McClain, had asked him the same question, right after they’d survived a shoot-out.
Gabe had felt something, an inner knowledge things were about to go bad, a feeling that had made him pull Brody back from the door just as the wood exploded in a spray of gunfire. The incident still puzzled him.
But God protecting him? No way. God hadn’t been there when Gabe had been a child and needed Him. Why would God suddenly take an interest in him as an adult?
“So after college…what?” he asked, needing to change the subject. He hadn’t divulged information about his childhood to her the first time around and he had no intention of doing so now.
“I’m a photographer and I love it.” She shifted toward him, her face animated in the moon’s glow. “I was fourteen when Grams gave me my first camera. I never went anywhere without that little Nikon.”
“I remember.” She’d carried the thing with her all the time. He hadn’t given it much thought then.
“Drove my family crazy because I was always snapping off shots.” She looked out the front window. “Every summer my parents sent me away to Camp Greenleaf. The only thing that made camp bearable every year was my camera and Meg McClain.”
“That’s how you two met?”
“Yep. She liked going there.”
“And you didn’t like camp.”
She plucked at a wayward strand of hair. “Not really. I wasn’t used to the rustic life, which earned me a lot of teasing.”
“I can imagine,” he murmured, thinking back to the days they’d spent together. She’d liked restaurants and the ballet. He’d preferred sidewalk vendors and baseball games.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He shrugged. “You’re a Worthington. Used to the good things in life.”
She sighed. “We’re back to that old argument?”
“No,” he stated firmly. He didn’t want to rehash the past. “I saw the picture in the paper of the new hospital wing named after your family. Nice.”
“Yeah, nice.”
The derision in her voice made him curious. “You don’t like hospitals?”
“I don’t like my family putting their name on a building. It’s too…”
“Pretentious?” he teased, expecting to ruffle her defensive feathers.
“Exactly.”
Interesting. This was a different side to the woman he’d known. He pulled up alongside her car. “You’ve changed.”
She titled her head, her hand on the knob. “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”
“I’m not sure yet.”
She laughed and stepped out. When she opened the door to her car, he called out, “I’ll follow you. Make sure you get home safely.”
“No need. I’ll be fine,” she said before slipping inside.
True to his word, Gabe followed her.
Kris thought that was sweet, really sweet. Her senses still struggled to accept how she’d reacted to his near-kiss earlier. One second they were following Frank and the next—wham. Gabe had been so close, she could breathe in his aftershave, could see the darkening stubble where his beard would grow in and his strong mouth drew her like a beacon on a stormy night.
