Tapestry of the Past (24 page)

A hard shudder went through Gabriel as he seemed to pull himself back to the present. When he continued, his voice was devoid of all emotion. “After a while I no longer wanted to die. I wanted to kill. Kill the shadowy figure behind my torture. I lived for the moment I could put my hands around his throat. Dreamed of it, held onto it by sheer force of will when the knife cut my back, when the wire around my wrists, wrapped so tight I couldn’t bleed, cut to the bone.”

Kalesia’s
stomach roiled and she swallowed convulsively. But she didn’t say a word, unwilling to risk Gabriel pulling back inside himself. As painful as she found it to hear, she knew he needed to tell her.

“After two weeks I escaped. Managed to make it back to the alternative rendezvous point, more dead than alive.” His thumb stroked the back of her hand. He stared straight ahead, unblinking. “He broke me. Damn near killed me with his torture. The doctors expected me to die. I didn’t, though. I couldn’t. He had given me a reason to live.

“Before I was even out of the hospital, the CIA recruited me.” Gabriel looked down at the rumpled sheet, avoiding her gaze. “It seemed the perfect hunting ground for tracking down a traitor. Each lead was investigated with meticulous care but the bastard always managed to elude me. Along the way, however, I gained the reputation as the best. When you come right down to it, our friend behind the anonymous packet is damn close to the truth. I was an assassin. The fact that it was for the government doesn’t change the fact that I killed for a living.

“You know,” he continued in that same flat voice that sent chills down her spine, “after a while you learn to push the faces into a closet deep in the back of your mind, close the door and go on to the next job. But night,”
Kalesia
heard him swallow, “night has a way of creeping up on a man. A way of sneaking in and making you remember—the heat, the stifling smell of rotting vegetation in your nostrils, the scarlet lace of blood, the faces captured in death.”

Kalesia
slid her hand free of his, wrapped her arms around him. She stroked his back, the scars beneath her fingers tiny brands that seared. He didn’t resist but buried his face in the side of her neck. One long, hard tremor racked him.

What could she say? Her visions of murder didn’t even begin to compare to what Gabriel had gone through. As personal and real as each one seemed, when you came right down to it, they were still secondhand. Tears burned her eyes as she hugged him fiercely to her. She buried one hand in his hair, kneading his scalp, as the other stroked down the muscled length of his spine. Beneath her palm, his skin was damp. At last Gabriel spoke.

“Do you hate me?”

“God, no. No. I don’t hate you. I could never hate you. Oh God, Gabriel, haven’t you realized yet?” She framed his face in both hands. “I love you.”

Shock jolted through Gabriel with the force of a live wire. “What did you say?” he asked hoarsely, not daring to believe his ears.

Love reflected in her gentle gaze as she touched a forefinger to his mouth.

“I said I love you,” she repeated, her breath puffing against his lips.

His eyes slid shut. An aching hunger woke. He’d never thought to hear those words. He cleared his throat. “I-I…” Frustrated, he trailed off.

“
Shh
, don’t. I don’t need words.”

“I don’t deserve you,” he rasped and gripped the soft flesh of her upper arms. Gabriel knew he was probably bruising her but couldn’t seem to make his fingers turn loose. The feel of
Kalesia
under his hands was the only thing that anchored him in the storm of emotion buffeting him. “But, dear God, I can’t bear to let you go.” His mouth crushed hers as he pulled her to lie on top of him.

She opened her mouth, giving him everything he demanded and more.

His breath rasped painfully from his lungs when he lifted his head. “You won’t regret loving me.”

“I know.”

Something inside Gabriel was soothed and reassured by the quiet promise. He tucked her face into the crook of his neck and ran his hand down the silky length of her hair, patiently untangling knots his passion had put there.

Love. It was such a foreign concept. His world knew much of death, of betrayal. He understood and valued honor and loyalty. They were the codes he lived by, had survived by. But love? Gabriel felt totally inadequate when it came to that emotion.

Against the side of his neck,
Kalesia’s
breath slid into a slow, steady cadence as she fell asleep. His heart turned over at the utter trust it showed after what she’d learned tonight.

Could he learn to love?

A hard knot formed in his stomach. Hell, he wasn’t even sure the damn thing existed.

The woman in his arms stirred sleepily, her hand falling over his heart.

Kalesia
believed in love.

She had come to him, believed in him, when by all rights she should have run screaming in the other direction. Freely confessed her love after hearing his horror story. She hadn’t demanded proof.

The knot slowly eased to be replaced by wonder. Perhaps such a thing as love existed, after all.

Was he capable of it? Feeling it. Giving it.

Or had all softer emotions been burned from his soul?

It was a tangled question, one for which he lacked an answer. All he knew is that he wanted it. Wanted the woman in his arms to love him.

Hungered for it.

Hungered for her belief in him—even if he didn’t deserve it. Or her.

Would he be dragging her into the black pit where his soul lived if he accepted her love?

His heart stopped.

Could he do that to her?
Kalesia
lived in the light. Wasn’t of the night as he was.

Maybe he should let her go once she was safe.

Denial, instant and harsh, scorched through his blood, seizing and stopping his heart at the thought of living without her. Of night without her light, of utter blackness without the promise of sunshine and laughter.

A small hand, warm and soft, petted his chest. Came to rest directly over his heart.

Even in sleep, she sought to soothe his pain.

Gabriel, careful not to wake her, lifted her hand and kissed her knuckles before folding it back over his heart and covered it with his own scarred paw.

Content, Gabriel started to drift off to sleep. A man would kill for
Kalesia’s
love. He’d like to get his hands on the bastard who had sent her that damn package.

Gabriel’s eyes shot open. “I wonder how he knew to use my past against us?”

“Shit.” He had screwed up. He should have seen this angle sooner. That the discord between him and
Kalesia
had distracted him and that he’d been busy tracking down the murdered man from two years ago, was no excuse. Gabriel ground his teeth together, biting back a blistering epithet.

Kalesia
stirred against his side. He felt the instant she woke fully.

“It would mean that whoever it is, knows you’re helping me. It means,” her voice trembled, “that now you’re a target.”

Gabriel brushed her concern for his safety aside, the deeper meaning behind the act more important. “I can take care of myself.” He turned on his side to face her. “My cover was very deep.”

She grasped the implication at once. “You mean…”

“Yeah. Someone has power. The kind of power that has access to restricted files and can convincingly alter them.” He sat up. “He knew you were here. With me. Son of a fucking bitch.”

“I don’t understand,” she said, but he could tell she did. Horror strangled her voice. “Only the sheriff’s office…”

Every nerve in Gabriel’s body was tipped with fire and there was a familiar tightening in his gut. It had been well over a year since he had felt the sensation but Gabriel had no doubt what it was. Every hunter instinct he possessed was screaming to life.

“Yeah, only the sheriff’s office. I find it odd that the day after we go see Harley about another vision, a packet designed to make you distrust me arrives. In fact, the timing stinks.” He thought for a moment. “But if someone on the force is involved, why now? Why not two years ago when you reported the murder?”

“Maybe because two years ago I wasn’t a threat.”

He turned that over slowly in his mind. It made a kind of sense. As much as anything about this case made sense. “Why are you a threat now? Why not then?”

“Maybe because no one would take me seriously then,” she suggested.

“Or maybe,” Gabriel drawled, “someone has a reason to fear you might link him to that murder and the murder of Crump.”

“If I can link him now, I could link him then,” she argued.

“Not if he didn’t know of your first reporting.”

“That means more than one person is involved,” she whispered, a fine trembling settling into her limbs.

With a harsh expletive, Gabriel threw back the sheet. “Get dressed,” he ordered, pulling on a pair of jeans.

“Where are we going?”
Kalesia
demanded, wrapping one of his shirts around her.

Even now, some primal, animalistic part of him roared in satisfaction that, just as his shirt swamped her curvy form, so did his scent. Another part demanded her obedience. “To see Tom Harley. I said to get dressed.”

“I am,” she snapped. “My clothes are in the other bedroom.”
Kalesia
marched out of the room, chin held high.

“Well, hell,” Gabriel muttered in disgust buttoning the fly of his jeans swiftly. “And don’t be long,” he yelled after her. He slipped his arms in a sweatshirt. “Damn cat!” he roared as Hannibal took the opportunity to slither in the open door and attack his bare ankle.

In the other room,
Kalesia
didn’t even try to restrain the grin that tugged at her lips when Gabriel’s yell echoed down the hallway. He really was going to have to do something about Hannibal—surrender came to mind.

It was a short drive to Harley’s home. The house was dark.

“Wouldn’t it be more polite to wait until morning?”
Kalesia
said, uneasily aware that she was the reason the major’s night was about to be disturbed. Again.

“No.”

And that was that. There was no arguing with Gabriel when he spoke in that tone.
Kalesia
trudged after him, more than willing to let him face Tom Harley first.

“It’s three-damn-thirty in the morning.” Harley glared at Gabriel, his short hair spiking in all directions. “This had better be important.” Hand planted firmly on the edge of the front door, he lowered his voice and growled, “Make it fast, Gabe.”

Gabriel pushed his way inside, dragging
Kalesia
along with him. She smiled a weak apology at the rumpled man as she slid past.

“Someone on the force is dirty. I intend to find out who.”

Gabriel’s words dropped like a rock in a river. Tom Harley did a slow double take and shut the door. “I think we’d better sit down.” He led the way into a comfortably furnished room and turned on a lamp. “Got any proof?”

“Nothing written in blood—yet. I want him, Tom.”

The even tone raised every hair on
Kalesia’s
body but Harley just raised a brow, waiting for Gabriel to elaborate. For the first time, she realized how alike the two men were.

Gabriel passed the other man the packet containing the pictures and letter.

Palms sweating,
Kalesia
watched as Tom skimmed the contents once and then once more, taking his time the second perusal.

“Nasty bit of work.”

“I don’t like it.
Kalesia
goes to you for help because of a vision of her own murder. She leads you to a murdered hit man. Then, a matter of days later, after we ask about a previously reported vision, she receives this. I think I know why.”

“You suspect me?”

Kalesia’s
mouth went dry at the sudden tautness between the two men.

“If I had, I wouldn’t have brought
Kalesia
with me.”

Harley stared at Gabriel’s set expression for a minute longer and then relaxed. “It’s damn little to go on.”

“I’m at my best with little to go on. How many times did you tell me that?”

The corner of Harley’s mouth lifted in a small smile. “I remember. That’s why I sent her to you. I knew if anyone could protect her, you could. Okay.” With a quick glance down the hall, Harley heaved a sigh. “Let’s go over this again.”

After discussing it from all angles, a half hour later Harley agreed, albeit unwillingly, to go along with Gabriel’s plan to leak false information to smoke out an informant.

“If there is one,” Harley amended.

Kalesia
felt sorry for him. It was easy to see he hated to admit there could be a dirty cop on his force.

“There is one.” Sure, cold, dangerous.

Harley didn’t flinch. “Your plan is dangerous. Especially if someone in the department is on the take. Look, no matter how much care we take, it’s chancy to spread rumors that you think your government sold you out on your last mission and because of that you’ve sold your services to a South American cartel, just to see if that information gets back to
Kalesia
. It could very well stir up unanticipated complications.”

“What complications?”
Kalesia
asked uneasily.

“Like someone taking the opportunity to off Gabe and blame it on a drug war.”

“No!” She whipped around. Chill bumps chased along the skin of her arms as she saw his savage grin of anticipation.

“It’s supposed to stir up complications. That information fits right in with the rogue image created to scare
Kalesia
away. By tailoring the story to each person you tell, we can pinpoint the dirty cop.” Gabriel leaned forward, his expression intense. “It feels right, Tom. The bastard likes to hide in the background. Let others, like Crump, do his dirty work. You got to admit, it’s perfect. He won’t be able to resist the urge to make
Kalesia
bolt into the open. If he knows that much about me, he knows his only chance to get her without exposing himself, is if she leaves me.” His gaze became glacial. “Once we know who is feeding him information, I will find out who is behind the threat to
Kalesia
.”