Gabe (In the Company of Snipers, #8)(59)

A round of sneezing delayed his answer. Zack strolled into the kitchen, his arms crossed over his chest. “You couldn’t leave well enough alone, could you?”

Gabe sneezed again. “I made a darn good movie,” he said, surprised his voice had gotten hoarse on the drive home. He shrugged out of his jacket and unlaced his boots. “Mark was here?”

“Don’t worry. He’ll be back. Tell me about the body you found.”

“A body?” Shelby hitched her glasses up with her index finger again.

“Bodies,” Gabe corrected, holding up two fingers. “Both male. Manson and Echevarria. Both shot. They’d been underwater a while, maybe as long as Kelsey’s accident.”

“Are you sure?” Zack asked.

“Yes. Weren’t those two of the guys Mark’s looking for?”

Zack pursed his lips and nodded. “Yeah. Mark didn’t have names, last I heard. Our mystery Good Samaritan must’ve hit two of the group.”

“And his buddies drove their vehicle into the river with them still in it. Wonder if they were dead then?”

“Don’t care one way or the other,” Zack muttered. “They’re dead now.”

“What are you guys talking about?” Shelby demanded. “You guys know who tried to kill Kelsey?”

“Shh,” Gabe cautioned, his gaze on the hallway again. “We didn’t have names until today.”

“And someone really did save her, like she said?”

“Yes. Only you’ve got to understand. I was there the day her husband was shot. I tried to help Alex and I’ve got his blood all over my clothes. I know damned well he’s dead, so...” Gabe snapped his mouth shut at what he’d said. He looked at Zack. “Damn it. I’ve got evidence. My bloody shirt. My pants. We can prove if it’s Alex’s or not. That will support my video.”

His brain drifted to the day in the parking garage. The bright red blossoms in his boss’s chest. The lack of blood pouring out of those three gunshot wounds. It all came back. So did the questions. “I tried to keep his heart pumping, you know, massaging it through his shirt until the paramedics got there, but there was so little blood.”

“What are you saying?” Zack asked.

Gabe honestly didn’t know. He’d been panicked, so scared he hadn’t thought about what happened within the turmoil. His brain replayed the images now. The sound of gunfire. The bile creeping up his throat when he saw that Alex was shot and dying. The anger. The fear. But other details pierced the fog. He’d attributed the lack of blood to internal hemorrhaging, but was it? And the feel of that blood wasn’t right.

“I need to get back to my place, Zack. The blood’s all wrong.”

“What do you mean?” Shelby interrupted.

Gabe focused on her face. She was a nurse. She should know about physical trauma. “It was thick and cold. I remember thinking how strange it was for a man as hot-tempered as the boss. I thought it would’ve been warmer. Thinner, too.”

Shelby grabbed hold of his forearm. “Are you sure you’re remembering right?”

“Yeah. I was right in the middle of his chest. Believe me, I’m sure, but the whole damned thing was a nightmare, and I got caught up in the commotion. I hadn’t thought about it until now. There was so little blood. I barely got my hands wet, just enough to make them sticky.”

“He had to have been losing a lot, being shot like that. You would’ve been covered in it,” Shelby said. “Was it all over your clothes?”


“No. That’s the thing. I had some on my hands, but not much. I wiped it on my pants, but there’s something else now that we’re talking about it. It was like he was shedding his skin. You ever see a gunshot victim do that?”

“Shedding his skin? What do you mean?” she asked.

Gabe brushed his thumb and index finger together to demonstrate. “It’s like his skin peeled or something. Every time I’d push on him, you know, to see if I could get him to keep breathing, I could feel my palms slid over his shirt, like his skin was bubbling off of him in tiny patches.”

Now he had Shelby’s complete attention. “Was his car on fire? Did he get burned?”

“No fire. He just got shot.”

“Wait a minute.” Zack held both hands up for silence. “You’re confused. It was an awful day. None of us were in our right minds.”

“I was there, Zack. I saw three red splotches on his shirt. That’s all. Even at the hospital, I never saw the actual physical damage on his body. Just bloody packing and rags on the floor. Medical instruments. I never saw the actual holes. Neither did Kelsey.”

“That’s not right,” Shelby murmured. “The hospital would’ve never allowed Kelsey to see her husband like that. Someone would’ve cleaned the room before they let her in.”

“And that’s another thing. You ever hear a man talk after he’s been shot dead?”

“I’ve seen dead patient’s lips move, like they were trying to say something, but... why? Did Alex say something?”

“Yes, but he had to have been dead by the time I got to him, right? I mean he’d taken three to the chest.” Shit. Here I’ve been blaming myself instead of questioning what really happened. Shit. Shit. Shit!