Somewhere Along the Way (12 page)

Reason made him take a deep breath. Maybe he was wrong. Even if someone was searching for him under his pen name, the odds were they knew of no connection between him and the sergeant named Gabriel Wiseman who walked away from an army hospital one night five years ago and disappeared. They couldn’t have tracked him. No one in the army knew his real name was Leary, or that he’d called his dad to come pick him up that night. Once he got home, he’d picked Smith to use on all business deals simply because it was so common. He’d had three names in his life . . . three lives . . . and he’d kept them all separate.

Five years ago flashed in his thoughts. He’d been near death when he’d heard two men talking beside his bed.

One said, “Any chance Wiseman will recover?”

“He might.” The other’s voice had the hint of a New York accent. “A nurse at the desk said if he makes it through the next few days, he’ll have a chance. She also said the guy has no family. Lucky for us, he came from a long line of generals who go all the way back to dying in the Revolutionary War and he’s the last of the clan. They said the only name he listed to be notified of his death was Uncle Sam.”

“Good, that’ll make it easier. Less questions. No visitors. No one asking for an autopsy. But I say we wait a couple of days. No sense silencing him if nature will do our job for us.”

“I guess you’re right,” the New Yorker said. “We come back in three days, late at night. You distract the nurse with questions and I’ll slip in and make sure Sergeant Wiseman takes his last breath. There’s only one way to make sure he tells no one about what he saw a moment before that bomb went off.”

“What if he didn’t see anything?”

“We can’t take that chance. Plain and simple. The last Wiseman has to die, one way or the other.”

Gabe’s mind had been so fuzzy from the drugs he could barely think. It took him two days to focus enough to use the phone by his bed. He’d asked the nurse the date so often she’d thought he was out of his head, but every time his mind had cleared, he’d been counting down the hours and planning.

He remembered being surprised when his dad took the collect call. Then even more surprised when his father agreed to drive for hours down to San Antonio to pick him up.

The old man never asked a single question when he followed Gabe’s instructions into the back of the hospital; he just listened to Gabe’s directions, wheeled his son to the car, and drove home.

Gabe was so tired by the time they got to the farm he barely noticed the ramp Jeremiah Truman had built on the porch or the braces he’d hammered to the bed so he could pull himself up. All Gabe remembered was swearing beneath his breath that he was home, then closing his eyes and realizing he was safe.

In the following weeks, what tortured Gabe more than the recovery without painkillers to take the edge off was the fact that two men planned to kill him and he didn’t know why. He’d seen nothing before the bomb went off.

That night, leaving the hospital, he abandoned the name Gabe Wiseman and stepped back into the life he’d left ten years before. In Harmony he was Gabe Leary, but when he recovered enough to work as a graphic novelist, he took on the name G. L. Smith. He never had the feeling that he was somehow more than one person. Mostly, he felt he was no one inside, and the names were of little more importance than the clothes he wore. Leary had been a frightened kid, Wiseman a soldier, and Smith a writer. None reflected him.

Logic told him there was no way the two angels of death could find him as Smith or Leary. The only record of Smith was a lease on an office where he picked up his mail, and he used the drop-off office only for mail related to his work.

He moved from shadow to shadow, working his way to the far side of the town square. The bookstore lights were still on. A hand-lettered sign read: SPECIAL FRIDAY NIGHT COFFEE AND READINGS. The dry cleaners shop was dark and closed up tight.

Circling, he noticed Elizabeth’s car and took the back stairs.

Her office light shone beneath her door. He tapped.

It seemed to take her a while, but she finally opened the door.

He stepped inside. “Don’t open your office door after hours. It’s not safe.”

“Okay,” she replied evenly, though he swore he saw anger spark in her eyes. “Step out and knock and I’ll take your advice.”

He couldn’t hide the smile. “All right. I’ll amend that comment. Don’t open the door to anyone but me.”

“But how will I know it’s you?”

He looked at the door. “I’ll put a peephole in tomorrow, and a bolt if you like.”

She relaxed. “I’d like that very much. I have this worry that Mr. Kaufman will just unlock the door and come in one night. If he caught me sleeping here, he’d probably charge me double.”

Gabe looked in at the papers on her desk. “I didn’t mean to interrupt you working. I just wanted to tell you to watch out. I’m worried that my office might be broken into.”

“I thought of that too when Alex told me about the Smith break-ins around town. The sheriff’s department can’t see any logic to it. The thieves don’t even take anything of value. They seem to be looking for something, but whatever it is, they’re not finding it.”

Gabe followed her into her office and took the chair across the desk from her. “You’ve heard the details.”

Elizabeth smiled. “Everyone’s heard. This is Harmony, the only town that will never need a local radio station.” She stared at him. “But I wouldn’t worry, Mr. Smith. No one will have to knock your door down. It’s unlocked and there is nothing to steal except a box.”

She was speaking calmly, too calmly. Something was wrong.

“What else have you heard?”

“Nothing,” she answered. “It’s what I know, Mr. Smith.”

“Stop calling me Mr. Smith.”

“Why, because that is not your name?” She smiled, but he wasn’t sure he liked her smile any better than he did the know-it-all attitude.

Standing, she circled the desk. “I’ve done some searching. You rented this place about four years ago. Pay in cash a year in advance. There is no G. L. Smith living in this county and never has been. No car registration. No library card. No voter signed in on the county books.”

As she moved toward him, he saw the lawyer in her, but he had no intention of playing the witness on the stand. He simply watched her.

She paced half the room, pointed at him, then paced the other half. “You’re lying, Mr. Smith, admit it.”

He smiled slowly. “Is that your question for the night, Elizabeth?”

She blinked and would have stepped back, but he caught the hand that was pointing at him and pulled her toward him.

“I’m lying. My name’s not Mr. Smith. It’s just a name I use for a mail drop.” Before she could ask another question, he pulled her onto his knee and closed his mouth over hers.

For a moment she was stiff in his arms almost as if she were trying to decide whether to fight and make him let her go, or surrender. He loosened his grip, silently telling her he wouldn’t hold her if she wanted to leave.

The slight gesture seemed to be all she needed to make up her mind. She circled her arms about his neck and kissed him back.

Gabe had known a few girls over the years. Most he dated casually until they asked one too many questions or wanted more than he could give. He’d slept with a few one-night stands, but the next morning always made him feel more empty than if he’d never met them. But Elizabeth was different. He doubted he’d ever get tired of the taste of her, the feel of her.

When he walked away from her, he had a feeling he’d ache for her forever. Nothing had ever felt so right.

She made a little sound of pleasure as he ended the kiss and moved to her throat for one more taste of her skin. Her skin was cream as he slid his tongue over her delicate collarbone, then lightly bit down at the side of her throat.

He swore he heard her purr as his hand brushed along her rib cage a moment before he pulled away.

“I have to go,” he whispered an inch away from her throat. He wasn’t touching her, but he knew she could feel his warm breath against her damp skin. “I’ll be back tomorrow night to install the peephole and the bolt.”

Like a pouty child, she climbed off his lap and went to the door. “I wasn’t finished,” she said.

“I know.” He smiled, knowing she’d probably gotten everything she wanted, when she wanted it, since she was born. “Tomorrow night we’ll start with the kiss and save the question for last.”

“Maybe.” She crossed her arms. “If I open the door. I don’t like being lied to.”

“I didn’t lie to you, Elizabeth. I just didn’t correct you when you called me Mr. Smith.” He met her gaze. “I’m not very good at talking about myself.”

She smiled. “No kidding, but I see things when I look in your eyes sometimes.”

He raised an eyebrow.

Laughing, she added, “I don’t know how to explain it. I think I see an honesty about you that frightens and intrigues me.”

Pulling her against him, he kissed her again, deep and long. This time his arms held her close and his hands were bolder, feeling the curves of her. He wanted to tell her that this wasn’t just a game they played, but he guessed she knew it even if they both realized it was too early to say the words.

When he finally pulled away he whispered, “I owe you a question. Now, lock the door behind me.”

He stepped through and closed the door before she could answer, then waited until he heard the click of the lock before he headed down the back stairs.

WEDNESDAY, 8:30 P.M.
FEBRUARY 6, 2008
BLUE MOON DINER

REAGAN STARED OUT AT THE EMPTY DINER. WHEN THE place was busy, packed with people eating and talking, she didn’t notice how shabby the booths were or how the walls had faded to gray with no one to remember what color they’d once been.

“It’s my birthday,” she whispered to the vacant diner. “And no one knows.”

Last year she hadn’t mentioned it to Uncle Jeremiah. He’d done so much by giving her a home she couldn’t just say,
Hey, it’s my birthday, how about a gift?
Reagan could never remember really celebrating the day she was born. Her mother probably gave her away that day, and No Name, her father on the birth certificate, was undoubtedly relieved he didn’t have to pay child support.

Speaking of her birth certificate, she’d carried it with her from foster home to foster home and now she couldn’t find it. After she moved in with Uncle Jeremiah, she’d no longer felt the need to look at it every so often to make sure she was alive. With him, she had a family, even if it was only one member.

“His old house is full of junk,” she mumbled as she wiped the cabinet. Jeremiah saved everything. He’d probably put her folder, with all her papers, on a stack of mail. He wouldn’t throw it away; he never threw anything away. At least she’d gotten him to put his bonds in a safe-deposit box. It was just a guess, but she figured if the house ever burned, he’d have enough to rebuild.

Until then, she’d make little changes. He complained, but he never said no to any of them.

Her phone sounded, making her jump. “Hello.” She caught it on the second ring.

“When you coming home, girl?”

Reagan grinned. Her uncle rarely used the house phone she’d made him install, and he never bothered with
hello
or
good-bye
. “Ten minutes, tops. I just have to do one more thing, then I’m locking up.”

“You drive careful. The radio says the roads are getting slick.”

“I will.”

He hung up without another word.

She picked up the takeout meal and headed to the back door. It was a little early, but she wanted to go home. No one but Gabriel would be stopping by on a night like this.

At the back door, she didn’t see him, so she grabbed a flashlight in her free hand and walked across the back lot. Thinking more about it being her eighteenth birthday than about the cold, she trudged over frozen weeds to the trees that wound along the old creek bed. This part of town, where old houses and businesses curved along the memory of streams, always seemed odd. People and traffic moved on the streetlight side, unaware that just behind the buildings a wilderness waited.

A huge cottonwood branch swayed, crackling and showering tiny pieces of ice down on her.

Reagan jumped out of the way. Her left foot touched solid ground, but her right slid into the gully that had eroded its way between two trees.

Screaming, she tumbled backward.

The wind carried her cry through the frozen branches. More ice tinkled to the ground, muffling the sounds as she rolled over the hard earth until she finally landed among roots rigid as rocks.

Reagan lay still for a moment, feeling the cold, the uneven ground digging into her back, warm blood washing across her face. She tried to move, but all the world spun in protest. “Help me,” she whispered. “Someone help me.”

One arm was wedged behind her back. Her sweater must have caught on something because it pulled against her throat, choking away most of her air passage. One leg felt as if she’d skinned her knee and to her horror, she couldn’t feel the other knee at all.

“Help,” she whispered again. “Help.”

When there was no answer, Reagan closed her eyes and drifted away from the pain.