Shattered Secrets (Cold Creek #1)(44)

“My real war room. I just didn’t realize I had the recording with Jill’s voice up so loud.”

“You probably didn’t. I have excellent—sometimes too-good—hearing. Sounds seem to stick with me.”

“Like the harvesting machine sound you mentioned.”

“Do you have the others’—our voices recorded?”

“All but yours. But yours, I remember. I was there not only when you were taken, but also when they got you back. I rode my bike into town when I heard they’d taken you to Dr. Marvin’s office. I blamed myself for what happened to you. I had to see you, so I waited, but your father came out and told me to leave, to stay away from you. But then he saw my mother in the little crowd gathering, and he told her he was sorry for what he’d said to me, that he knew what happened wasn’t my fault. They...hugged each other—hard.”

Tess put her arm around his waist. He put one hard-muscled arm around her shoulders. “As I said a couple of days ago, Gabe, I don’t blame you. And I understand you’re partly so...so into this—”

“Say it. Obsessed.”

“—because you’re trying to finish what your dad started. You drive yourself hard for the victims, for his memory and for yourself too. But if you don’t get some rest, you won’t be any good to anyone.”

He hugged her to him, sideways, hip to hip. When he spoke, his deep voice vibrated through her. “My mother would love you. ‘Are you eating well, Gabe? Be sure you get your sleep and exercise even with all that’s going on.’”

“Then she’s still a good mother. She saw your father work so hard and tried to help him any way she could and now you.”

“Yeah,” he said, his voice hard again, but he sounded exhausted instead of intense. “She was a good mother, but he was gone a lot and that was hard—too hard for her sometimes as a wife, I guess. Let’s get some rack time before the sun comes up, okay? And I’d appreciate it if you don’t tell anyone about this room, including Vic Reingold or Deputy Miller.”

“Right. I understand.”

“You know,” Gabe said, turning her to face him, “you do understand.”

His blue eyes shimmered with unshed tears. Was he falling apart under the strain? She understood that too. He’d made a memorial here to all his tough times, his failures—including the bulletin board with his battle against bombs.

Maybe she should see if Miss Etta had a book that would help him—though she wouldn’t say who it was for. Something about pressure on the job, stress, handling hardship. She desperately wanted to do anything possible, not only to help him solve the abductions, but to help him stay stable and strong. Strange, but worrying about him actually made her feel a little better about herself.

*

The next morning, Tess and Gabe had breakfast together, then she offered to clean up as he rushed out the door to head for his meeting with Vic and Jace. He also intended to have Ann check the stuffed pit bull into evidence. Washing up their dishes by hand, she thought about the difficulties of being married to a sheriff or any law enforcement agent. He might always be rushing out the door. Did Vic Reingold have a wife? If so, he had been gone from her for days. Jace Miller was a newlywed, so how hard was his job on his marriage?

And standing in Gabe’s mom’s kitchen she wondered about those long days alone when Gabe’s father was working on her abduction case and then Jill’s. It was a lonely life, but Gabe had explained at breakfast that his mother had friends, including Marva Green, no less, and Wanda Kurtz too. They’d even worked together sewing those small scarecrows to earn extra cash. Did the wives of law enforcement men ever hear about their cases the way Gabe had shared with her last night?

She went up to make her bed and looked out the window across the cornfield toward her house. There was an AEP electrical truck in the driveway. She’d promised Gabe she wouldn’t leave until he called, but she couldn’t wait to tell him that.

She cleaned up the room, then walked through the downstairs. Despite how tidy things looked, except for the kitchen, things were really dusty. So Gabe kept things neat—or had cleaned up the place once—but didn’t manage the upkeep.

At seven-thirty, Tess got her cell phone out. She wanted to call Char in New Mexico and knew she’d have to phone her before she went out among the Navajos in their distant houses, some of them traditional hogans, which she visited as a social worker. But it was only five-thirty out there and she hesitated to punch in the numbers. Char would console her but question her too. She’d figure out how close she and Gabe were, then lecture her that she was crazy.

Holding her phone, Tess continued to pace in a big circle, through the kitchen, the dining room, the living room, around again. Surely, if she could just find the spot she’d been held prisoner, she would recognize it somehow, the house, at least. But the numerous places she’d driven past already, slowing down, staring, had not rung a bell. Even if she’d been kept inside all that time, she’d surely have looked out the windows. She must be able to recognize things outside, a barn, a field, a road—something. Maybe if she drove more of the roads around here, something would strike her as familiar.

Tess jolted when her cell phone rang.

“Tess, it’s me.” Gabe’s familiar voice seemed to fill the house, to warm her, even though he sounded all business now. “I’m going to talk to Sam Jeffers, John Hillman and Dane Thompson, separately and on my own, so Vic won’t spook them. I want you to stay put until you get your power restored and—”