Chapter Thirty-Six
Gabriel
Saturday Night
With the glasses in place, Gabriel walked up the street to his car, drove home, and pulled into the driveway.
He got out and walked slowly to the front door, stopping to look at the splintered frame.
When he lifted his gaze, a man was waiting with his gun pointed. “We’re back in the kitchen,” he said with an Eastern Bloc accent. “Come. Say hello.”
Gabriel moved back, and there was Sommer sitting in the middle of the room just like the screen had suggested.
She looked hard at his glasses, then dropped her gaze to her lap.
“Sommer, are you hurt?” Gabriel forced himself away from emotion and back in combat mode, hard and purposeful.
Sommer looked up and shook her head.
Gabriel slowly turned so that the team could see the men’s positions and the layout of his kitchen. “And what are you doing here? Did I forget I was having a party?”
“You testify against my cousin, Igor, on Tuesday,” the black shirt said.
“Not me,” Gabriel said.
“You testify as expert at trial.”
“I don’t know anything about the crime or your cousin.
On Tuesday, I’m a subject matter witness.
My specialty is geolocating. I will be talking about a single image of a parking lot outside of a laundromat and beside a lube shop.
And I’ll explain how I found the address. That’s the extent of my involvement.”
“Not curious?” the gunman asked.
“Absolutely, because of shit like this. I wanted to go pick up my dog, have a beer, and head to bed. It’s been a long couple of days.”
“Geolocating,” Blue Shirt said.
Gabriel narrowed his eyes at the guy. He was working to get even footing with them, and submissive, he thought, was the wrong tack. “Climbing mountains and carrying out two women with the runs.”
“Women who run?” Blue asked.
“Runs. The shits. Puke. Sick in the hospital.”
“I’m sorry,” Sommer said. “But you three have been exposed now. It’s a serious and highly contagious illness. Gabriel and I are for sure carriers. I’ve been feeling really awful for the last few hours.”
“They’re in the hospital with this?” Blue asked.
“Both of them,” Sommer said. She turned to Gabriel. “How are you feeling?”
“Like complete crap.” And he hoped she knew he meant about getting her into this situation.
“You weren’t at work just now?” The gunman turned and looked at Sommer. She turned and looked at Gabriel.
“I was at work.” Gabriel shifted his weight to his left foot so he could slide his right leg free. “Now that you know I know nothing about nothing, you can see yourselves out.”
“We’ll stay.” The gun swung and pointed at Sommer, and Gabriel stepped between the barrel and her. “The woman stays.”
The gun pointed at Gabriel’s chest, but he was pretty confident the guy wouldn’t pull the trigger. There was an ask on the tip of the man’s tongue.
“You will go to the court, and you will change your testimony to introduce doubt to the jury. We will sit down and come up with plan for what you will say. Then you go. We stay with—” The gunman leaned to the side to see Sommer. “What’s your name, princess?”
“Sommer,” she said.
“Pretty.” He licked his lips. “Very pretty.”
Gabriel calmed the snarl that teased his lips, stepping to the side to block the man’s view of Sommer.
“He’s playing you. Keep your cool,” came softly into his ear.
The gunman focused back on Gabriel. “And you come back, and we wait. If our man is cleared and everyone is good? We let you go. If our man is convicted and sent to prison, you and the princess will die. Dog, too.” He looked over at the man in a blue shirt. “Where’d dog go?”
“I don’t know. It’s running around the neighborhood finding stray bitches to bang.”
“She’s girl dog,” the black shirt said.
Blue shrugged.
Gabriel walked over to the table, picked up a chair, and set it near Sommer. If nothing else, when he got the signal in his ear, he was close enough to effect plan B.
But it would be better if he could get her behind a closed door.
Gabriel made the slightest gesture with his head.
Sommer’s gaze slid toward the door he indicated. Sommer lifted her chin in that direction. “Is that your bathroom?” she asked him.
“Yes,” Gabriel said.
She turned to the gunman. “I have to go.”
“Pee in your pants,” the black shirt said.
“I don’t have to pee,” Sommer said, brave as hell. “I have to change my tampon.”
“No.”
“So here’s the thing about women’s bodies,” Sommer said in a practical, possibly nerdy tone. “If a woman leaves a tampon in for too long, she gets a thing called toxic shock. If I get toxic shock, I could just die. I’m a nurse. I’ve seen terrible things come through the emergency department.”
Blue shirt’s brows furrowed into deep ridges. “You can die from tampon?”
“From leaving a tampon in too long, yes,” she said.
“And women use tampon knowing this?” The guy’s face contracted in disgust.
“Well, it’s that or let menstrual blood soak through our clothes and run down our legs.”
She grossed the guy out. Well done.
The gunman waved her in, and as soon as the door shut and the water flowed in the sink, Gabriel heard the command in his ear.
On the first “Execute,” Gabriled dove for the floor near his center island, curled into a ball, and covered his ears as flashbang sailed through the windows.
The room filled with noise and smoke.
Ears ringing, disoriented, Gabriel tried to get up and get to Sommer, and completely and utterly failed. The dizziness made his stomach churn, and bile slicked up the back of his throat.
Lifted from under his arms, he stumbled outside into fresh air.
Sommer was there on the ground under a tree beside Striker, who was holding out a bottle of water to her.
As soon as she saw Gabriel stumbling toward her, Sommer stood and flung herself into his arms.
When Gabriel had her tucked against his heart, she said, “I believed in you the whole time.”
And Gabriel stroked his hand through her hair and thought, “I believe in you, too.”