Chapter 25
25
How could any man disobey a request like that? On his way to Victor’s house, Gil stopped at the nearest grocery store to stock up. He had a stash of condoms back at Lachlan’s house, but who knew when they’d make it back there. He wasn’t going to keep Ani waiting that long.
He added some snacks to his purchase—a block of cheese, some bread, some deli slices, chips and guacamole. As he waited in the checkout line, he second-guessed his choices. Ani was probably a health-minded woman, being a doctor and all. He went back to the produce section and grabbed some organic salad greens and a handful of oranges, along with a package of fresh-picked local blueberries.
Back in line. Staring into his shopping basket.
What was salad without salad dressing? As the checkout clerk rolled her eyes, he went back a third time and spent ten minutes reading the ingredients on the backs of salad dressing bottles. In the end, he chose three different types, just to be safe. Then added some chocolate to his haul. Five different types of chocolate ranging from milk to extra-dark.
You have it bad, Gil McGowan.
He’d never paid this much attention to what groceries to pick up for a woman. Had he even bought groceries for someone before? He debated abandoning the whole basket and cutting his losses, but those blueberries looked good to him, and he certainly had to get the condoms.
He gave the checkout clerk a broad smile when he finally reached her.
“Picky wife?” she asked with a smirk.
It occurred to him that this grocery store was probably the place where Victor shopped. It was the closest to his house, after all. He decided to play along with her incorrect guess. “I like to get it right, what can I say.”
Approving nod. Good.
“Say, I bet you get a lot of regulars here. I just got back to town, and I thought I might run into my friend Victor. Has he been through here? Mid-thirties, dark hair, likes to talk.”
“Victor? That’s my boo,” said the young checkout clerk. “Yeah, I saw him. He was loading up for a big camping trip. Said he was going to be gone for a while.”
The hairs on Gil’s arms stood up. “Damn, can’t believe I missed him. When was this?”
“Mmmm, day before yesterday?”
Well, shit.
“Did he shake that cold he was talking about? Last time we talked on the phone, he said he’d been sick.”
“Seemed fine to me. I mean, he was going camping. People don’t go camping if they’re not feeling good.”
“Good to hear.” He made a show of sorting through his wallet for a credit card, just to give himself a little more time. A quick glance behind him told him the line was building up. He could probably get one more question in before she clammed up. “Heading back to Firelight Ridge, is he?”
“I don’t know,” she said indifferently. “I think he said something about a lake.”
He paid with cash, since he’d never actually intended to use a credit card anyway. She shot him an irritated look and waved him through.
Just to be thorough, he drove to Victor’s house a few blocks off the main road.
As he cruised down his street, he noticed a black sedan with tinted windows parked a few houses away, a man sitting low in the driver’s seat.
Seriously?
Gil was careful not to look directly at the car as he passed by, but was able to give it a comprehensive peripheral vision scan. Alaska plates. Could be a government vehicle, but there was no overt sign that it was. The driver watched him cruise past, so Gil kept his gaze straight ahead, not looking toward Victor’s place either.
He got a quick impression of an olive-sided one-story building with bright yellow trim. An overgrown vegetable garden filled the front yard, as if Victor had planted a bunch of things early in the season and hadn’t weeded since then. All the mustard greens had bolted, and the kale was reaching elephant ears proportions.
Then he turned the corner and headed back to the main road, monitoring his rearview mirror almost more than the road ahead.
They should ditch the Chevy pickup, just in case. Luckily, Fairbanks seemed to be blessed with an inordinate number of old junkers taking up space on people’s property. It shouldn’t be hard to either make a trade or leave this one at the hotel and buy a different one.
He relaxed when he reached the main road—College Avenue, which would take him to the university—with no sign of the sedan following him. But he kept watch nonetheless. That guy could have flagged him as suspicious and someone else might pick up his trail. Just to be extra safe, he took a meandering route through town, stopped for gas, pretended to use the bathroom.
His move would have been to plant a tracker on his truck, so disappearing into the restroom would give any potential pursuer the perfect opportunity to do so.
When he was finally satisfied that his cruise past Victor’s house hadn’t set off any alarms, he headed back to the hotel.
Sweet anticipation flooded his veins as he climbed the stairs to the second floor. He couldn’t wait to see Ani snuggled up in bed, maybe still asleep, her lush thick hair spread across the pillow, her brown skin glowing against the white sheets. Coming home to a woman…no, to Ani…he liked it. It felt right.
But something didn’t feel right when he pushed open the stairwell door at the end of the second-floor hallway.
The door to room 224 was slightly ajar. And behind that door, he heard Ani’s raised voice.
He raced down the hallway, still clutching the bag of groceries, and shoved the door open with his foot. A man swung around to face him, blocking his view of Ani, so he couldn’t even see if she was okay. On the man’s face, Gil saw raw, hot anger—but a quick scan told him he wasn’t wielding a weapon. “Who the fuck are you?” he yelled as he stalked toward Gil.
Gil wasn’t usually the act-first, think-later type. But in security, sometimes you had to react quickly. He dropped the bag of groceries and ducked under the approaching man’s arm. One quick move and he was on the floor, face-down, with his arm wrenched behind him. If Gil had had zip ties with him, he would have used them. Instead, he kneeled on the man’s back, lightly enough not to crack his spine, heavily enough so he was immobilized.
“Who sent you? What do you want?” he demanded.
The man coughed and said in a quavering voice, “Ani? Can you get him off me?”