Summer Attractions (21 page)

Kimber was waiting for them in the shade of an outdoor café, a plate of untouched food in front of her and an anxious expression on her face.

“Kimber, are you okay?” Jemma said, throwing her arms around her and giving her a tight, reassuring squeeze. Kimber relaxed into the embrace, the haunted look in her eyes retreating a little but not enough. Not for Jemma, anyway. She sat down, arranging her pad on the table. Glancing up at Gabe, who’d stayed standing, she shot him a questioning look.

“I’m going to get us some breakfast and something to drink,” Gabe said. “I’ll be right back.”

He was giving them the time to get the story worked out privately. It was true that Kimber probably would have shared the details with Gabe sitting there at the table, but it would definitely make it easier if it was just the two of them.

Jemma flipped open her notebook. “Okay, let’s get started.”

They talked for a solid hour. Gabe showed up at the midpoint, depositing a takeout container with some fruit and breakfast pastries on the table and handing Jemma a bottle of water, and then said he’d be around.

More than once Kimber got teary-eyed, but all Jemma felt was a further hardening of her resolve to make Julia Holloway pay for what she’d done.

Near the end of the hour, Kimber leaned back and eyed Jemma speculatively. “Enough questions about me. You really
weren’t
lying, he’s hot as hell.”

“He’s the best friend of my boss,” Jemma admitted with a blush. “He’s just my tour guide.”

Kimber glanced over at where he was lying in the sand only a few feet away, eyes closed, expression peaceful. “It must be quite the tour.”

“Kimber!” Jemma exclaimed, semi-scandalized.

Kimber smiled knowingly. “You’re cute together.”

“Aren’t we supposed to be talking about you?” Jemma insisted, trying to get them back on task, though they’d addressed most of the points that she’d thought could be important.

“We did,” Kimber said, clearly agreeing. “And you got everything. Or enough of everything.” Her tone of voice turned bitter at the end.

Jemma reached over and grasped Kimber’s hand, gripping it as comfortingly as she could. “I wish I could get you the final draft so you could read through it first . . .” she hesitated but Kimber jumped right in.

“I trust you,” she said. “I trust that you won’t make a mess of it. I wouldn’t have given you the story if I didn’t.”

And give it to Jemma she had. Quotes, details, Kimber even said she’d take pictures of some of the contract verbiage if she could. The only thing left was for Jemma to write the story and beg Duncan to publish it.

Jemma was pensive as she gathered her things and Gabe bustled Kimber off into the cab he’d called for her. They met back at the front of the café, Jemma mostly lost in thought as she mentally started organizing her notes and information into an outline structure. In fact, she was so lost in thought she almost didn’t notice the enormous crowd queuing in front of the Olympic Festival entrance.

“That looks dangerous,” Gabe observed. Jemma glanced up and nearly stopped in shock. They were several hundred yards down the boardwalk of Copacabana, but the entrance gates were already beginning to give away under the pressure of so many people trying to get in. They stopped and watched as security attempted to stem the tide but couldn’t quite get ahold of the large, but mostly calm crowd.

Gabe stopped someone, holding a hand out and asking them a few questions in Portuguese. Nodding, he listened to their answer and then turned back to Jemma.

“They’re giving away tickets for the footie finals today. They opened up some extra sections today, I guess and there’s a ton of demand.”

The soccer tournament at the Olympics that year was particularly fierce, with both the men’s and women’s side having some of the best matches of the Games. They’d made it to one match, early on, but Jemma had struck out getting tickets as each successive game grew more suspenseful. She knew how much Gabe wanted to go, though, and had tried anyway, to no success.

“Do you think we could . . .” Jemma didn’t even get the words out before Gabe shook his head emphatically no.

“We’re not going anywhere near that mess,” he reiterated firmly.

“It doesn’t look so bad,” Jemma protested. She wasn’t really lying; it
was
all very peaceful, just a
lot
of people in one place. Maybe not the safest situation, but hardly as dangerous as Gabe was making it out to be.

Jemma hadn’t even known how much she wanted those tickets—for Gabe, because Jemma was done with lying to herself—until she was faced with an actual possibility to get them.

She turned to Gabe, ready to plead for the chance. “You don’t even have to come. There’s so much security around, it’ll be plenty safe. I just want the chance to get these tickets. Even as a member of the press, it’s useless. This is my only chance.”

He was staring at her like she’d grown a third arm. “I can’t believe,” he said slowly, “that you’re even attempting to convince me to do this.”

“Not convince you to
come
,” Jemma insisted, “more like convince you that it’s perfectly fine for me to go and meet you at the hotel after. It’ll only take me an hour or so.”

The crowd was still growing. Gabe looked over at it, an excessively dubious expression on his face. “That’s not going to take you an hour to wade through,” he said.

Jemma threw her hands up, annoyed for the first time since the day she’d arrived that he was being so insistent on his protection. “I don’t care,” she said bluntly, “it’s my decision and I’m going to try it.” She shot him her best
I’m not fucking around
look and started walking toward what could generously be called a line. It more resembled a sort of wildly multiplying amoeba, and Jemma felt a flash of fear as she walked determinedly toward it, but she tamped it down. She was a new person now, not afraid of a little crowd. Defiantly, she didn’t even glance back toward Gabe, because she was sure what she’d see: him glowering, almost certainly contemplating how he could throw her over his shoulder and forcibly cart her back to the safety of the hotel.
Well
, Jemma thought,
that isn’t happening today.

And even though she expected it every moment, she did actually reach the main bulk of the crowd, weaving carefully but quickly through the crowd outliers, without a heavy hand on her back to stop her.

Everything was fine, perfectly dandy, even. Jemma stood calmly and quietly around lots of other excited but mostly calm people, when she began to hear a bit of rumbling and rustling, like a wind rolling through a field of dry grass.

Jemma had never before cursed her height so much as when she
knew
things were happening far ahead of her and she couldn’t see them. And then suddenly it didn’t matter that she couldn’t
see
, she could hear. She could very clearly hear the loud exclamations as a rumor, broken down and re-translated into a dozen different languages like the Tower of Babel’s version of Telephone, began to trickle through the crowd. Jemma could only catch bits and pieces of English, but from the growing agitation of the crowd, whatever they’d discovered wasn’t a good thing. The rumblings grew in volume and density, rolling through the crowd like thunder, and with each growing moment, Jemma felt apprehension rise in her chest.

Why hadn’t she listened to Gabe? She was stuck now, surrounded at least fifteen people deep on all sides, and unless she wanted to start elbowing and creating a panic situation, there was nothing to do except take deep breaths, try to stay calm and hope everyone else would stay calm too.

The calm only lasted five breaths and then all hell broke loose.

Gabe knew how to follow someone without being seen. He’d done it plenty of times, shadowing suspects in LA and in training. Some of his supervisors had even suggested that maybe one day he might want to make a bid for Quantico, as he had a talent for disappearing when he didn’t want to be seen. But following Jemma? It was the easiest thing he’d ever done. She didn’t take one casual glance in his direction. Not even one. He was annoyed that she’d put them in this situation—her, specifically, and then him by extension, because
of course
, he had to follow her—and incredibly pissed that she had the nerve to think he’d just leave her and go flouncing off to the hotel like he could’ve given a shit.

He was bigger than she was, and should’ve had more trouble wading through the crowd to get in line, but again, he knew what he was doing, and he knew just the path to take to not be seen and to cause the least problems.

They’d been standing in line for only five minutes when it started. Gabe wondered, as he stood there, staring at the back of her head, probably 50 yards away, how long it would take her to realize what was happening.

It took her about a minute less than he’d anticipated, and about thirty seconds before he started elbowing people out of the way to get to her. But by that point, things had devolved, pushing and shoving and worse, and he couldn’t get to her.

His pulse spiked. He could see her, hair caught up in a ponytail, the dark sheen of it shining in the sun, could see her neck tense, could see her brace herself and try to ride out the growing agitation of the crowd. But Jemma hadn’t had crowd control training like Gabe had had; she couldn’t possibly know that the first rule of these sort of things was that they always got worse, not better.

His palms began to sweat, and he made the executive decision that enough was enough. He couldn’t stand by one moment longer and watch her try to hold her own in an increasingly volatile crowd.

Gabe took an elbow to the face and a full body to the back. He didn’t retreat, just kept moving, thrusting people out of the way, his eyes focused solely on that dark ponytail. He watched with painful clarity as her arms came up and she started using her hands to push back, to try to keep herself from being tossed like a bottle on the ocean waves. He wanted to yell at her,
keep upright
,
just keep upright
, but the dull roar of the crowd was at such a peak, he didn’t think there was a chance in hell that she’d hear him.

His heart pounded. He felt the pulse of adrenaline through his veins. Felt the inevitable shot of panic as it reached his system and bloomed. He shoved faster, plowing through people like a hot knife through butter, his only grip on rationality that dark ponytail.

He saw her go down. He saw her scream. He could only plow through the crowd and pray, through a red haze, that he would reach her in time.

The last ten feet were agony. Gabe had been in standoffs, shootouts, two hostage situations, countless dangerous moments when life or death was a dicey prospect. He’d held Nick in his arms and been covered in his blood only a few weeks ago. But he’d never been as afraid as he was in that moment, heart pumping wildly, her name a single driving thought.

When he reached her, he didn’t even hesitate. She’d curled into a defensive ball, which he vaguely thought he would praise her for later, when he was done screaming at her for the stupidity of her decision, and he just scooped her right off the ground. Holding her protectively, he battled through the crowd to the edge and didn’t look back until they were clear of the mess.

He could feel her shaking, taste the fear bitter on his tongue. Setting her down carefully onto an empty concrete bench, he stepped back even though the last thing he wanted was to physically let go of her. His entire brain was one long cautionary tale that he’d never be stupid enough to let her run wild again.

She uncurled herself and looked up at him, dusty and grateful, her mouth trembling, her eyes wide with panic. “Oh thank god,” she said, surprisingly put together. Unlike him, who wanted to tear everything down, Hulk-style, for daring to come down on her. “Oh, Gabe, I got the tickets! I had to go to the ground to grab them, but I got them!”

Holding up two worn, dirty, creased pieces of paper, her smile broke through the remaining panic on her face, and he just stood there, staring at her, emotions draining out of him until he was just an empty shell.

“Gabe?” she asked, more hesitantly. “Are you okay?”