“As far as you’re concerned, I’m Mr. Smith. And I want some answers from you—now.”
Well, that was fortunate, since Gabe had been worried about saying the name by accident.
“What if I don’t want to give them?” he asked.
Smith answered by drawing back a fist and socking him in the face. It felt like a bone might have crunched. He wasn’t sure.
“This is what happens.”
“I’m not telling you anything.”
Another blow, another blast of pain. Smith leaned over and hauled him up by the shirt collar. “I want to know how you found out Langston was connected to Carson.”
So Travis had been right. Smith must want to know why Olivia had shown up when he dragged Pete into Travis’s house. Yeah, right, why would she, if she didn’t know Travis? “Detective work,” Gabe spat out. The words were accompanied by flecks of blood. But not any teeth.
“I don’t want your smart answers. I want the real ones. How did Langston and Carson know each other? How didyouknow her?”
Was Travis still here, watching? Gabe looked around and thought maybe he saw a vague shape just beyond Smith.
He was going to have to answer, and in fact it had better be the right answer. Travis wanted him to convince Smith that this wasn’t a ghost story—that Travis and Olivia had gotten together while he was still alive. He licked his bruised lip.
“You want to know how I found the connection?”
“Yes, dammit.”
“Uh,” He struggled to get it right. “The Howell Institute.”
“And how the hell would you know anything about it?”
Now what? Or what the hell? Smith probably knew about Decorah Security.
“My agency,” he said, “we have access to all kinds of information.”
“That’s classified Top Secret. More than Top Secret. How the hell would you get access to the list?”
“Top Secret,” Gabe replied. “For some people, maybe.”
That earned him another blow to the face. At this rate, he was going to look like he’d gone ten rounds with Mike Tyson.
He spoke carefully through his bruised lips. “People hire us because we have resources others don’t.”
“But Carson’s name wasn’t on the list of children who were brought back for testing.”
Gabe thought fast. “But his mother was on the other list, right? The list of women who were treated there.”
Smith swore as he stared down at Gabe. “You’d better not be lying.” The man’s eyes narrowed. “How didyouget together with her?”
“Her mother was on the list,” he said.
“If you’re lying, you’ll be sorry,” Smith answered.
I’m already sorry,Gabe thought. Aloud, he said, “What would be the point of lying?”
“Misdirection,” his captor snarled.
Gabe said nothing. This guy was already wound up tighter than the mainspring of a mousetrap.
As Smith exited the room, Gabe breathed a little prayer, then reached for Travis. But the ghost was gone, probably back with Olivia.
