17. Gabi
SEVENTEEN
GABI
“Not crazy. Just motivated.”
The lantern light cast harsh shadows as Daniel hauled our intruder down the hallway. Blood trickled from a cut above the guy’s eye, probably from when Daniel tackled him. Given the look of both of them, that might have happened more than once. Or maybe it was all the debris that would’ve battered them both from their mad dash through the hurricane. The captive’s shoes squeaked against the linoleum, leaving wet tracks from the rain they’d brought in. Even in the emergency lights, I could see the cuts on Daniel’s bare feet. They left spots of blood on the floor as he walked.
I followed them into the break room, where Daniel shoved the man into one of the metal chairs. The stranger’s dirty blonde hair plastered to his forehead, water dripping down his face. His eyes darted between us, but he kept his mouth shut while Daniel secured the man’s already bound hands behind the chair. Then he retrieved yet more rope from his supplies and set to work on his legs.
“Hold the light closer,” Daniel ordered, as he worked on securing the guy’s ankles.
I lifted the lantern, getting my first good look at our captive’s face. Mid-thirties, maybe, with a scraggly beard and a small scar near his chin. Not someone I recognized from the island. But I’d been gone a long time and working so much that unless the guy had come through the clinic, I wouldn’t necessarily have seen him.
Daniel stepped back, his chest heaving. Blood trickled down his back from a gash and from his nose. A bruise was already blooming on his shoulder. His knuckles were raw and bleeding. The adrenaline must have masked the pain until now because he winced when he tried to flex his hand.
“Sit.” The word snapped out like a whip, driven by all the fear and adrenaline that had crashed over me when I’d watched the man I loved, the man I’d only just gotten back in my life, race out into the middle of a fucking hurricane.
With a wary eye on the captive, Daniel sat in a chair across the room. I set down the lantern and reached first for his injured hand.
“I’m fine.” But he didn’t pull away when I examined his split knuckles. “Check him first.”
The cut above our intruder’s eye had mostly stopped bleeding, but would need cleaning. As I moved closer with my kit, he jerked his head away.
“Hold still,” I said. “That needs antiseptic.”
The guy’s brows drew together as I cleaned the wound, as if he couldn’t make sense of the fact that I was still treating him like a human being.
“Do you have any other injuries I can’t see? Any other cuts or bruising?”
“Sure, I’ve got plenty of both.” He managed a leer. “You wanna untie me for a head-to-toe inspection?”
“Not happening, Mickey,” Daniel growled.
He’d learned the guy’s name sometime during their flight?
Deciding the onus was on the reluctant patient to disclose anything else that needed tending, I turned back to Daniel.
“What in God’s name were you thinking running out there into a hurricane without a shirt or shoes? ” My voice rose an octave, and I lapsed into the Spanish my parents had spoken while I was growing up, shooting a litany of insults about Daniel’s intelligence his way.
He simply sat, placidly listening to the torrent, until I fell silent. “I was thinkin’ that I wasn’t about to let a threat to you get away to potentially hurt you another day.”
I yanked the med kit closer and pulled out gauze and antiseptic. “You’re an idiot. A complete and total idiot.” My hands shook as I dabbed at his nose, checking to make sure it wasn’t broken. “You could have died out there.”
“Gabi—”
“No. Shut up.” I tilted his chin, examining the bruising. “There are pieces of who knows what embedded in your feet because you ran out there without shoes like some kind of action movie hero.”
His feet were a mess. I grabbed tweezers and started working out splinters and bits of shell and other debris. Each piece I extracted made my stomach clench tighter. “What if you’d stepped on a nail? Or gotten hit by flying debris? Or?—”
“Hey.” He caught my wrist. “I’m right here.”
I yanked free and grabbed more gauze, maybe with more force than necessary. “Turn around. Let me see your back.”
The slice across his back wasn’t deep, but needed cleaning. I swabbed it with antiseptic, ignoring his sharp intake of breath. “Your ribs are already bruising. Deep breath.”
He inhaled, wincing slightly.
“Probably just bruised, not broken. But you’re lucky.” My voice cracked on the last word. “Do you have any idea what it was like watching you disappear into that storm? Not knowing if you’d come back?”
“About as bad as realizing I might lose you again when I’d just found you?” His voice was soft.
I pressed my forehead against his uninjured shoulder, breathing in the scent of rain and antiseptic and him. “Don’t ever do that to me again.”
“Which part? The hurricane chase or the leaving?”
“Either. Both.” I straightened and reached for more gauze. “Now hold still while I finish patching you up, you reckless idiot.”
When I was finished, Daniel dug dry clothes out of his pack and changed. He’d be sore for a bit, but all of it would heal well enough, so long as he avoided infection.
As I cleaned up and reordered my supplies, Daniel pulled a chair closer to Mickey, his movements deliberate despite his injuries. “So, what was the plan? Wait for the storm, hit the clinic while everyone’s hunkered down?”
Mickey stared at a point on the wall behind us.
“Or maybe you had bigger plans.” Daniel leaned forward. “Maybe you were supposed to meet someone. The Lowe brothers, perhaps?”
My hands stilled on the supplies I was repacking as I caught the flicker in Mickey’s face. That name meant something to him.
“Fuck you,” Mickey spat.
“No? How about Heneghan? Or does Ortiz run this particular operation?”
Each name landed like a stone in my stomach. These weren’t random guesses. Daniel knew these people, or at least knew of them.
“You Coast Guard types think you know everything.” Mickey’s lip curled.
“I know enough.” Daniel’s voice stayed steady, controlled. Professional. “I know the patterns. Gulf Coast to Eastern Seaboard. Using storms as cover. Switching up routes to avoid detection.”
The pieces clicked together in my head. The transfer to Nag’s Head. The questions about previous break-in attempts. His presence on Hatterwick during the storm.
“This isn’t just about hurricane response, is it?” The words came out before I could stop them.
Daniel’s shoulders tensed, but he didn’t turn around. “Not now, Gabi.”
“You’re here on an investigation.” The med kit slipped from my fingers, clattering to the floor. “That’s why you’re really here.”
His silence was answer enough. How could I have been so stupid? He’d made a name for himself in his posting in the Gulf for drug interdiction. What was the likelihood that some kind of appropriate posting at Nag’s Head just happened to show up right when he wanted to get out of Seattle?
“Gabi, whatever’s going through your head right now, it’s not the truth.”
“And what is the truth? Hm?”
“It’s complicated.”
God, after everything having been so simple with us in New Orleans, would we ever have anything come easily to us again?
“Uncomplicate it,” I insisted.
Daniel glanced at Mickey. I could tell he was reluctant to leave the man alone, and that he was just as reluctant to speak in front of him.
“Hall.” There was no other exit to the room, no windows. Even if Mickey somehow managed to get loose, he couldn’t get past us if we were just outside the door.
I didn’t wait to see if Daniel complied, just turned my back and walked out.
A few moments later, he joined me, pulling the door not quite closed. He positioned himself between me and it.
“My position here is part of a joint task force between the Coast Guard and local law enforcement attempting to find and dismantle a drug trafficking organization in the area. My skills in that arena are the thing that actually got me the transfer. So, yes, I am here on Hatterwick at this specific time partly on an investigation, in addition to hurricane prep and relief.”
I scooped a hand through my hair. Work. It always came down to work with him. His career. His goals. His priorities.
“So this is just a bonus, then? Getting to see me while you’re here doing your real job?” The words tasted bitter.
“That’s not fair.” Daniel reached for me, but I shifted away. “Yes, the task force got me the transfer. But I requested this specific posting because of you. I’ve been trying to find a way back to you since the day I left for Seattle.”
“And you didn’t think to mention this little detail earlier? When you showed up here? When we—” I cut myself off, not wanting to think about what had happened between us barely an hour ago. How real it had felt. How much I’d let myself believe.
“You were barely speaking to me. I had to start somewhere, and beginnin’ with the personal and an apology seemed the most important.” His jaw tightened. “Look, I know I keep fucking things up with you, but I meant everything I said. I am here on the Outer Banks for you. The case happens to be the vehicle that got me here. I can’t apologize for that. And I can’t promise that sometimes the job won’t come first. But Gabi, I’m doing everything I know how to fix this between us.”
A crash of thunder rattled the windows, making us both jump. The storm raged on outside, but it felt like nothing compared to the tempest in my chest.
I crossed my arms. “So what happens when this case is over? When the next big opportunity comes along? Seattle was supposed to be temporary too, remember? Just long enough to make a name for yourself. Then you’d come back.”
“I’ll figure something out. It’s a big case with a lot of moving pieces. We’re not gonna topple it in a matter of weeks or months. And by the time we get there, my contract will be up. I could get out.”
I stared at him. “You’d… leave the Coast Guard for me?”
“If it comes down to it. I love you.”
I wanted him to prove himself with action. Walking away from the career I knew meant the world to him was sure as hell a big one. Of course, it was all hypothetical at this point. But that he’d even consider it spoke volumes.
Feeling more reassured, I blew out a breath. “And those questions you were asking in there? All that was connected to this task force stuff?”
“It happens that our guest in there came up in some of my briefings. I don’t like the fact that he’s connected to a bigger drug ring and that he targeted the clinic.”
I frowned. “What does that mean?”
“Don’t know. We’ll know more after we interrogate him. But that’ll wait until we can turn him over to local law enforcement after the hurricane. For now, let’s just get through the rest of the storm, okay?”
Nothing was settled, but we couldn’t make any decisions under the current circumstances. This would have to be good enough for now.