Gabe (In the Company of Snipers, #8)(49)

“I’ll take care of that, sir. I started the fight.”

“That’s not like you, Maverick. Come on. I can’t help you if I don’t know what’s going on.”

Nothing broke through. Maverick’s expression turned to stone.

Good enough. Mark would chalk it up to the stress of two assassination attempts, one fatal. “When this is done, we all need to head on down to O’Connell’s and throw back a few. You in?”

Maverick pushed his chair from the table and stood. “Will that be all, sir? I have a mess to clean up.”

Mark let him leave. A man wound that tight needed more than conversation and a beer. He needed a friend. One thing was clear. Whatever had happened between him and Landon, it was bad.






Chapter Fifteen


“So where is she?” Zack asked. “She’s not in the house. Where’d she go?”

“What? Who? Kelsey?” Gabe jumped up from the kitchen table. He’d made the plaster casts and barely reheated the spinach omelet Nurse Sullivan had left for him.

“I’m right here,” Shelby said from the guestroom doorway. “Did you check her bathroom?”

The way the Stewarts’ house was built, the front door opened into the living room and then immediately led to the kitchen. The hall branched off the front room with Kelsey’s bedroom to the south, the guest bedroom to the north. She couldn’t have gotten past Zack, Gabe, or sharp-eyed Nurse Sullivan, either.

“Why do you think I’m looking for her outside?” Zack peered out the back window.

Gabe ran to Kelsey’s bedroom, Nurse Sullivan on his heels. The door stood ajar. It was a small enough room, all of it visible from the hall. Photographs littered the bed, but there was no sign of her.

No way. No one could’ve gotten in or out of here.

“This is my fault. She wanted me to know Alex,” Nurse Sullivan murmured. “We were looking at old photographs. I know it wasn’t good for her, but she needed to see them, you know?”

The raw anxiety in her voice brought Gabe up short. “What’s wrong with you?”

“I’m sorry. I just meant to help. She’s so sad.”

And then he heard it, the softest murmur. Gabe didn’t have time to worry about Sullivan. The closet door was barely open. He peered inside. Kelsey sat on the floor in a heap of clothing. An over-sized sweatshirt swamped her tiny frame with big bold USMC stenciled in yellow across it. She held a crumpled T-shirt against her teary face, breathing deeply into the cotton fabric, her eyes red and swollen.

Gabe sank to his knees beside her, his heart lodged up high in his throat. The poor thing was falling apart. “We thought you ran away and left us.”

She offered him the T-shirt. “He was here. He really was. Here. Smell.”

God, I know he lived, sweetheart, but now he’s gone...

Gabe took the shirt, wanting to hold her instead. “We couldn’t find you.”

“But...” She hiccupped a noisy sob. “I’m not lying. He really was here, Gabe.”

“I know.” Tears stung his eyes. “We believe you. Honest, we do.”

Zack bellowed from the back door of the house. “Cartwright! You find her?”

“Here,” Gabe called out. “We’re in her bedroom closet.” With all the ghosts...

“What the f—?” Zack shut his mouth when he caught sight of Kelsey. He dropped to one knee at the door, the wind knocked right out of his sails. His tone softened. The man could pour on the honey, and if ever there was a time, it was now. “Kels. Honey. What are you doing in here all by yourself? Are you looking for something?”

Dumb question, bro. Of course she’s looking for something. Him.

She buried her face in the front of the USMC sweatshirt and cried. “Alex. I just want him back. I don’t want to hurt like this anymore.”

Nurse Sullivan angled her shoulder past Zack’s, reaching for Kelsey’s arm. “Let’s get you out of there and—”

“No. I want to sit here and... and...”

“And think about him,” Gabe finished.

She nodded, her eyes brimming with tears. “Yes. I don’t ever want to forget him.”

“Then by God, if you want to sit here, that’s what you’re going to do.” He rolled to his butt and sat cross-legged alongside her, fingering the old T-shirt. “We need some tissues in here, Zack.”

Distress shifted through Nurse Sullivan’s features, but Gabe didn’t care. Right then and there, Kelsey could’ve asked for the moon and he’d have found a way to deliver.

Zack tossed Gabe the tissue box off the nearest nightstand, and Gabe transferred a handful to Kelsey. Nurse Sullivan leaned against Kelsey’s bed, watching, her arms crossed over her chest, her spectacled expression nearly as sad as Kelsey’s. Something was up with her, but Gabe could only deal with one unhappy woman at a time. Sullivan was on her own.

“Hey, Zack, you ever seen such an organized closet?” Gabe changed the subject while Kelsey sniffed and dabbed her face with the tissues.

The choking sounds coming from the back of her throat were killing him. It was like watching his best friend fall in Afghanistan all over again. There wasn’t one day Darrell Carson’s bright smiling face didn’t show up to remind Gabe of the aching hole in his heart. How much worse to have lost half of that heart, your eternal companion, the one and only one you’d given your body and soul to?