“The two men at the table in the back gave me this note for you.” Dana indicated Brian and Ethan. “That and a very healthy tip.”
Rory opened it and read:Something wrong?
She pulled a pen from her pocket and wrote:Please check on Gideon now.She didn’t care if she ended up looking like a fool. She knew something had happened to him. She didn’t know what or how, but something was terribly wrong. She pressed a hand to her stomach, suddenly frightened for Gideon as she watched Dana take the folded note back to the table. Would they even take her seriously?
Both men looked up at her, and then Ethan was up and out of the bar while Brian was on his phone texting. That fast. No one asked questions; they just took her at her word. She let her breath out and did her best to turn her attention to her work.
Scott Tinsdale kept his seat at the bar, eating a few pretzels and ordering a second drink. He was very pleasant without being overly flirtatious. He talked to the man on his left side and bought him a drink. He watched the mirror quite a bit. He wasn’t looking at the women in the room. He wasn’t even looking at Dana. Most single men looked at Dana. Tinsdale kept his eye on Rory, but he also appeared to be watching both entrances. He was subtle about it, but he was aware of who came and went from the bar.
As the night wore on, she realized Tinsdale paid attention to anyone conversing with her. Once, she was certain he had hit the record button on his phone and laid the phone on the bar, which really made him a creeper. She was tempted to accidentally knock it off the bar while she worked, but she turned away to help several people down the bar from him. Scott Tinsdale was making her very uneasy. She had walked to the bar earlier in the day and would have to make her way home on foot.
Last call for alcohol was announced, and Tinsdale slid off the barstool. With a friendly wave, he went out the side door toward the parking lot. That meant she no longer had eyes on him. She wasn’t scheduled to close. Lani was staying late with two of the waitresses, and Brutus, one of the barbacks, was cleaning.
Rory went to the back room and used her nebulizer, taking her time, inhaling the medicine while she considered her options. She had no choice but to walk back to her apartment in the dark unless she wanted to call an Uber or a cab. Leaning against the long cabinet, she did her best to clear her mind and focus on Gideon. Again, she couldn’t connect with him at all. Where before she’d felt warmth when she reached out to him, there was nothing but a cold abyss. Instantly, she didn’t want to go home; she wanted to go to his house to check on him. No one had contacted her to tell her he was all right. What could have happened to him?
She stood there in the break room, her heart pounding, her nightmare coming back to her. Had she brought him into it somehow? The idea was preposterous, but she’d been curious about various paranormal talents, and she’d read about them. Experiments had been done in quite a few countries. Some had centered around dreams. She’d heard his voice calling out to her.
Gideon.She whispered his name in her mind.Please be all right. Please don’t let me have done something terrible to you.
She pulled out her phone and stared down at Gideon’s name. What if she had inadvertently hurt him? She remembered waking up with owls flying all around her. She’d been standing right on the ledge of her patio. Had he been locked on to her? She should never have gone out with him. All along she’d been nervous about dating him. She’d been too attracted, the connection between them far too strong. Nothing about their relationship made sense.
They had bonded too fast. She had already begun to make plans to stay when she never stayed anywhere for long. She’d blurted outprivate things to him she’d never told a single soul. That wasn’t like her either. Nothing about Gideon and her made sense, and yet... she couldn’t stop thinking about him. She wanted to be with him. She was obsessed with him.
Rory glanced at her watch and then pushed the call button. Gideon’s cell went directly to voice mail. She left him a text message.I’m worried about you. Was coming over to check on you. When you get this, call me back.She hesitated but decided to tell him about Tinsdale just in case.Am about to walk home from work. Strange man was in tonight and he gave off a weird vibe. I’m a little nervous. Check in with me, okay?
She felt like a complete fool. She wasn’t a woman to be so anxious she had to ask a man for protection. She wasn’t clingy. Yet she was becoming that woman. Shoving her phone into her pocket, she stomped out of the break room to the back door. Mostly, she had to know he was alive and well, even if he didn’t want to see her anymore, which, truthfully, would be best for him.
Habits were ingrained in Rory. Even as she stepped out the door of the bar, she automatically scanned the parking lot and then the street for signs of danger. Finding nothing out of the ordinary, relief rushed through her, making her feel a little weak. Shouldering her small backpack, she walked briskly toward the apartments, grateful it was only a couple of blocks from where she worked.
Rory kept her pace the same as always. She didn’t want to run out of oxygen, and that happened if she pushed her limits. Once she couldn’t breathe adequately, she couldn’t think. In an emergency, she needed to be able to use her brain. Already, the fog had blanketed the streets. The damp air gave her lungs a problem. That was the one bad thing about living in the area. She might love it, but her lungs didn’t love the fog.
The biggest problem she had wasn’t being worried about her own safety; it was trying to keep her mind from straying to Gideon.As she walked toward the harbor, the feeling of uneasiness grew stronger. Without conscious thought, she continually reached out to Gideon, anxious to know if he was alive and well. She had nearly decided to bypass her apartment building and see if she could get him to answer his door when the feeling of immediate danger rushed over her.
She took a deep breath, drawing in air. Was the danger to her? To Gideon? The warning signals were alarmingly strong. She was too far from Gideon. She spun around, facing back the way she’d come. The danger seemed to be emanating from that direction. The fog had crept completely in, leaving the streets gray and damp, making it difficult to see very far. She had excellent hearing. The fog could muffle sound, but not from her. She tended to be able to hear whether that heavy mist had rolled in or not. It was one of the reasons she never worried about walking home at night.
Listening, she heard muffled movement in the street. Not a car. Footsteps. Hurrying. Not running but coming at her fast. There was no time to make it to her apartment building. She was right at the crosswalk, so there was no building to shelter against and blend in. Her heart rate increased before she had a chance to keep it under control.
Instantly, there was a faint stirring in her mind.Red? Are you in danger?
Gideon sounded very far away. His voice was thin. Thready. The moment he spoke to her, there was someone else protesting, pulling him away from her. She detected the presence but didn’t recognize the person, and she knew Gideon wasn’t alone. The distraction allowed her assailant to reach her before she’d prepared an adequate defense.
Scott Tinsdale caught her wrist as she stepped to one side to put herself off the sidewalk and onto the lawn of the closest building’s landscaping. She let him have her wrist, but she brought her armup, closing her fist as if prepared to fight. Shifting her weight to the balls of her feet, she kept her legs shoulder-width apart, knees light.
“Tinsdale.” She feigned surprise. “Let go of me. What do you want?” Pushing outrage into her voice, she kept her tone a little shocked and frightened, twisting her wrist and pulling experimentally to see what he’d do. She wasn’t surprised when he automatically tightened his grip.
“I just want to talk to you. I need you to deliver a message for me.”
“You could have asked me in the bar.”
“Someone could have overheard. It’s important no one hears.”
“If no one can hear the message, it’s the kind of thing that can get someone in trouble. I don’t want any part of it.” Rory began working the moves she needed to break away from him over and over in her mind. She was certain she could get him to release her wrist, but trying to break his kneecap was risky. She only had one shot at it. If she missed, he’d be on her too fast and she’d never get away. Not to mention, he’d be royally pissed.
“We don’t have anyone else, so it’s on you.” He tucked an envelope into the pocket of her jacket. “I suggest you keep that sealed. He’ll know if you opened it. Give it to Harvey when he comes to you.”
“Harvey? The Harvey who the cops already think I’m working for? They’re following me everywhere I go and asking me all kinds of bullshit questions I can’t answer. I don’t want any part of this. Take it back.” She reached into her jacket with her free hand.
“Leave it. You don’t want us coming after you. We’re just asking you to deliver the message to him. That’s all. No one is asking anything else of you. Just give him that when he sees you next. You don’t have to look for him; he’ll find you. Just carry it on you and when he comes to you, hand it over. That’s not a lot to ask.”
