Chapter Thirty-Four
Sommer
Saturday, Afternoon
“Absolutely not,” Gabriel said, standing in front of her driver’s side door to block her.
“I’m fine,” Sommer insisted.
“Have you seen you move? You’re like the oldest grandma that ever lived. You have the reaction time of a sloth. You’re not driving on the highway.”
“Is this our first fight?” Sommer jabbed a hand onto her hip. “You do not get to tell me what to do.”
“But I’m right, and you know it.”
He was right. And she did know it.
And if she were being honest with herself, she liked that he was willing to fight to keep her safe. A reluctant smile twitched her lips.
“See? Here’s the new plan. I drive you home. Then, on Sunday, if you have full use of your arms and legs, I'll bring you back up. We have a nice picnic. Whiskey gets to smell all the nature smells, and you drive home. When’s your next shift?”
“Tuesday. It starts a long week. I work 12-hour shifts with a 4-day week followed by a 3-day week. This week I had friends filling in because I worked their shifts.”
“Grueling. So you need to use all of that time resting and building up stamina.”
Sommer stepped to Gabriel’s passenger side.
He fobbed the car unlocked, then opened the door for her, waited until she was in, and shut it.
Whiskey jumped her front feet onto the passenger seat behind Sommer, and from there Gabriel had to hoist her up. “Can we stop by the hospital to check on Abbie and Marna?”
Gabriel rounded to the driver’s side and climbed in. “They’ll start her in the emergency department?”
“It depends on what Iniquus radioed in.” She pulled her safety belt in place. “If they’re highly contagious, the staff will isolate them to protect the other patients.”
“They’re highly contagious.” After drawing his belt in place, Gabriel pressed the engine button to start the car.
“I agree. Norovirus sheds badly, and they won’t clear it from their systems for weeks. You and I and all those Iniquus people are likely candidates.”
“So if Abbie and Marna are in isolation. They won’t let you in to see them.”
“Possibly true. Probably true. I should go home and call them from there. If they’re sleeping, I’m not going to wake them.”
“Rerouting for home,” Gabriel said, backing out of his space.
“Thank you.”
As they drove, Gabriel reached out to hold her hand. The radio played pop music with the volume set low.
Sommer was in and out of sleep.
When Gabriel’s phone rang, he squeezed her hand and released her to answer.
Sommer only got snippets. From the shift in his tone to efficient and focused, Sommer assumed it was a work call, and something was brewing.
“I thought they were looking for them in the mountains,” Gabriel said.
…
“Three? What are their statuses?”
…
“I can imagine. But out of crisis and stable? What about the fourth? No sign?”
…
“Yeah,” Gabriel looked over at Sommer, catching her gaze.
“I’ll come now. I need to drop my—” He cut himself off.
“I have Sommer in the car with Whiskey and me. I’ll drop them off and come straight in.
” His eye moved to the clock on his dash, then back to the road.
“Depending on traffic, an hour, maybe an hour and a half.”
“That was work,” she said as he put the phone in his cup holder.
He worked for the FBI. It was Saturday afternoon. It must be something bad to pull him in like this.
“There’s something on my desk that needs immediate attention.”
“A picture, right? You need to geolocate a place?”
“Correct.” He looked over his shoulder at Whiskey, then back to the road. “Would it be okay if I drop you off at your house and leave Whiskey with you? It’s urgent that I get to my office as soon as possible.”
“Of course. I only have cat food at my house. If you tell me the brand, I’ll go buy something for Whiskey.”
“You don’t have your car,” he said gently.
“Right.”
“There’s kibble in my pack. I’ll hand it to you when we get there.”
“It sounds like someone’s in trouble. I’m glad you’re down from the mountain and able to go help.”
He focused on moving efficiently through traffic toward her house.
Sommer stayed quiet to allow Gabriel to stay on task. His brain was obviously churning thoughts.
When he pulled into her drive, she said, “Just the kibble. You can get my stuff to me later. You need to go.”
He rounded to his hatch while Sommer unloaded Whiskey from the back seat.
After accepting the baggie, he kissed her, then jogged around the front of his car and left.
“You and me, Whiskey,” she said and started toward her door.
Whiskey wouldn’t budge. She sat in her driveway whining as she watched Gabriel drive away. “He’ll be back. Come on.”
Whiskey looked at her house, then her nose went into the air.
“Raccoons,” she said. “They’re as cute as can be.
Did you know that raccoons have evolved to the point where humans find them cute?
The raccoons in my garden aren’t the same as in my grandparents' day. And I know they’re winning the evolutionary game, because I actually left some cat kibble and water near my trash cans as a kind of exchange. ” Sommer tugged Whiskey's leash.
Whiskey whimpered and backed up.
“Oh, lord, I wish it didn’t come to this for both of our sakes.
” Sommer put the baggie of kibble between her teeth, then bent and lifted Whiskey around the waist. And, just like for Gabriel, Whiskey turned into a taxidermy project as Sommer carried her all the way up the sidewalk.
All the way up the stairs. All the way through Sommer’s fumbled attempt to get the key into the lock.
Once they were inside, Sommer took off the leash and set it on the table with her keys. Taking the bag from her mouth, she shook it in front of Whiskey. “Shall we eat?” Sommer turned toward her kitchen. “I’m getting hungry, aren't you?”
“I am,” said a man with a balding head and his black shirt stretched over a sizable stomach, sitting at her kitchen table. “We were wondering when you were getting home.”
Sommer blinked at him.
Her focus slid to the man in a blue shirt, standing at her counter near her splintered kitchen door. She turned to the window Gabriel had said she’d left unlocked. They hadn’t needed to damage her door, she thought nonsensically.
And lastly, because she really didn’t want to see, she turned to the man sitting on a stool near her island, gun in hand, pointing right at her.
“Where’s Atworth?”
“Atworth,” she repeated the word; the sounds had no meaning. She shook her head.
“Hubby? Boyfriend?”
She shook her head.
“Gabriel Atworth,” the black-shirted man said, drumming his fingers on the table. “Whiskey’s dad.” He looked down at Whiskey with her long, sad face standing between her and the black-shirted man.
“He doesn’t live here,” Sommer managed.
“But Whiskey does?”
“I’m dog-sitting,” she whispered. Her mind was back on the mountain where Gabriel had described what he did for a living. It was in the context of his coming to talk to her about his face being visible on the video. He’d said it put people in danger.
Apparently, the person it put in danger was her.
Black Shirt looked at the man with the gun.
“I’ve been through whole place, and there are only girly things.” The gunman reached into his pocket and pulled out a pair of Sommer’s fancy date-night panties. He looked right at her as he brought them to his nose and inhaled loudly.
Sommer thought she was going to be sick.
“So she takes us to Gabriel’s house,” Blue Shirt said.
Sommer held her right hand in the air. “I swear on all that is holy, I have no idea where Gabriel lives. I only met him yesterday.” Sommer was numb. She should be terrified, but she couldn’t bring up those feelings.
It was like watching a show on her TV.
It was like she could turn this off and walk away.
She’d probably used up every bit of scared and horrified that she had in her when she was on the mountain and then sitting in the car next to the dead woman.
She was wrung dry.
If these men needed her fear, she had nothing to give.
“And yet you have his dog,” Gunman said.
“I don’t think dog sitters need a lot of vetting.” Was it better to be close to Gabriel or strangers? Truth was she was both. “Is there any other way I can help you?”
Blue Shirt said, “All the videos have Atworth at stop sign up the road. He’s got to live close.”
It was her damned videos.
“It was supposed to be a trip to the Bahamas and an umbrella drink, not this,” Sommer heard herself say.
The three men looked at her.
The silence fell thickly.
After a beat, Blue Shirt said, “His dog knows how to go home. We start her off at stop sign.”
They left her house as a group of five, with Whiskey leading the way. Sommer was flanked by Black and Blue Shirt and the gun guy behind her.
Having a gun to her back was a Schrodinger’s cat of bad situations.
Sommer knew it was there. But she couldn’t see it or feel it, so now she was questioning herself.
She didn’t know how to navigate this situation.
So she’d do as she was told and trust that Gabriel had the knowledge and training to do the right thing, whatever came next.
When they got to the stop sign, Sommer looked over to the graveyard. Hey Daniel, a little help, please.
Whiskey sat beside Sommer, looked straight at the graveyard, and there she howled a tune that was remarkably like Addio del Passato from La Traviata, the song she’d sung the first night of their duets.
“Make her stop,” Gunman said with a poke to Sommer’s back.
Yes, it was out of sight, and yet still a gun, and still there.
And still, Sommer couldn’t work herself up to feeling fear.
She actually fished around for it because this numbness felt wrong.
She thought of Sloane’s true-crime stories, and she wondered if the dead women had been equally anesthetized before they died.
“I’m not making her do that.” She turned in the direction Whiskey was looking, and it was right where Daniel was buried. Goosebumps prickled her skin. “I don’t know how to make it stop,” she whispered.
“Tug her,” the black shirt said.
“Which direction?” Blue asked.
They had to wait for the song to be done, then Sommer crouched. “Whiskey, where’s Gabriel?”
Sommer could swear that Whiskey was sending her pictures about wasting time. Would swear that she understood what was going on but didn’t know how to fix it.
Sommer started crying.
And Whiskey walked up the street two blocks, then up a driveway, a sidewalk, the stairs, and sat her butt beside the front door.
Blue tried the door.
He looked in the darkened windows.
“You think this is his place?” Black asked.
“One way to find out.” Blue reared back, swung his knee to his chest, then thrust his leg out, his heel hitting the door just above the lock.
The door sprang open.
Child’s play.
She’d never trust a door again.
If she lived through this, she would be putting shatterproof windows in her house and some kind of kickproof doors.
Fires? She thought. Shut up, she told that voice. That wasn’t the present danger.
Blue went in.
A moment later he was back with a piece of paper in hand. “He’s not here, but it’s right place.” He waved the paper at Black. “Gabriel Atworth.”
“In,” Gunman said.
That was the last place Sommer wanted to go. “Whiskey needs to potty.” Without asking permission, she bent to unhook her lead.
Sommer didn’t know what she was hoping for.
It wasn’t like Whiskey was an attack dog of any kind.
Maybe if Sommer found a way to leave Whiskey outdoors, a neighbor would see the dog or a passing car would call the number on her tags.
Would Gabriel have thought to change the tags with his own number?
Surely, yes. He seemed so methodical in his thinking.
Sommer rubbed Whiskey’s neck, glancing at the tag. That might be the number Gabriel had put in her phone.
“You’re such a good girl,” she said, trying to keep her tone even.
Right now, Sommer was so grateful that she had been trained to work under high stress and adrenaline dumps. Her experience kept her functional.
Somewhat functional.
“Whiskey go potty.” She used the same words and the same hand gesture she’d seen Gabriel use.
Whiskey looked her hard in the eye. And Sommer thought of the graveyard and the howling. If Whiskey went there and did that, someone would notice and try to find the owner.
She pictured that scene hard.
She pushed the picture with her mind toward Whiskey.
She did it in a knee-jerk way, a wishful, hopeful way.
“Go potty,” she said. And making sure Whiskey watched, she pointed toward the church. “Go.”