Chapter 24 #2
Everything that had happened with him flooded back to her.
When she’d first felt his presence, she’d been afraid of him.
Then they’d come to some kind of uneasy accommodation.
That had turned into a deep need, each for the other.
As the relationship had progressed, they’d grown closer and closer.
He’d been able to—she wasn’t sure what to call it.
Attach himself to her? Live through her?
It was far from ordinary. And it certainly wasn’t ideal to have a lover nobody else could see or hear.
But it had worked for them. They’d been as close as two people could be.
He’d come to be within instant reach. And he’d helped save her from drowning.
When he’d said he could also save Gabe, she’d urged him to do it.
He’d warned her that Gabe would never be the same.
And he wouldn’t either. She hadn’t known what that would mean, but she’d desperately wanted Gabe to live, because his only crime had been helping her find Travis’s killer.
In the urgency of the moment, there hadn’t been time for explanations.
Maybe even Travis hadn’t known what was going to happen.
But when he’d brought Gabe back to life, everything had changed.
Instead of being attached to her, Travis was now part of Gabe.
That had to be a good thing. He was no longer dead.
He was a living, breathing man again—as part of Gabe.
But could the two men happily exist in the same body?
Would the transformation be too much for them?
She didn’t know, and she was sure they didn’t either.
From observing the other couples forged from Dr. Solomon’s experiments, she could see what she had lost. They were all so close. And now she was cut off from her soulmate. Even though he was right here.
A wave of deep sadness swept through her.
She could never get back the closeness of having Travis with her the way he had been.
That was gone forever. He was now part of Gabe Bowman, a man who probably hated having a parasite attached to him.
Was that how he thought about Travis? Or would he come to see the other man as value added?
She laughed bitterly. Maybe her newfound happiness was over before it had had a chance to really take root.
Could she and Gabe/Travis forge something else together?
There was no way to formulate an answer yet. Having come to no firm conclusions, she tried to sleep, but her mind was still churning too much for her to relax.
It was almost a relief when Jake and Craig came back, and the group pulled a couple of tables together so they could eat in one room.
She watched the couples automatically choose seats next to each other, leaving two adjoining chairs for her and Gabe.
She gave him a shy look. As far as the group was concerned, they were paired up, yet they weren’t the same as everyone else.
She watched Jake, who owned a restaurant in New Orleans, take a bite from a crab cake sandwich and chew. “Different from our seafood style,” he announced.
“Trust you to critique the food,” Rachel teased, her remark slicing through the tension they were all feeling.
“Gabriella would do it too—if she were here,” Jake answered in mock defense.
Olivia supposed he and Rachel were trying for normality. But it wasn’t quite working.
* * *
Gabe felt guilty as he tried to choke down some crab cake and onion rings. He knew this was the first food Travis had eaten since Smith had captured him, and he wasn’t letting the guy enjoy his dinner.
Sorry.
We’ll both feel more like eating when this operation is over.
He’d managed to finish half the crab cake and most of his onion rings when Craig brought them all back to business.
He put down his sandwich and said, “I’ve set up two teams. One for the land approach and the other by the river. Gabe and Olivia, Elizabeth, and Matt will be Team A—coming in by water, since...” he stopped and looked abashed for a moment. “Since Travis knows the river.”
“Makes sense,” Gabe said.
Since the trip was shorter by road, team B, consisting of Rachel, Jake, Craig, and Stephanie, would wait at the motel until the boat was on its way to Smith’s mansion. This would also give them a chance to make sure telepathic communication between the teams was working.
After eating, they packed up and put all their clothing and equipment into the SUV.
Before leaving, they wiped every surface in the motel that they had touched, and took their trash to a dumpster a couple of miles away.
They set out on the mission not long after dark. There were few boats on the river, but Gabe did see some marine lights in the channel.
He watched Olivia, Matt, and Elizabeth standing beside him in the wheelhouse.
“We’ve got communication with the other team,” she announced.
“Good.”
“We’ll keep checking in.”
“Okay,” Gabe answered. He didn’t have a big role in the communications.
He was still too new to talk mind-to-mind over any distance.
But he marveled that he was the captain of the A Team.
Although he was the new guy in the group, Travis had made his living on the water.
He was the one who had the knowledge of the river and the properties along the bank.
He was also the one who had the most to fear.
He knew from firsthand experience that Smith had more tricks up his sleeve than the others could imagine.