Javier was silent for nearly a block. “Rory, Gideon was worried you might take what he did the wrong way. He was trying to get you help.”
She sighed. “I’m not discussing this with you. I’m staying away from you people, and I want you to stay away from me. I mean it. I’ll leave the city as soon as I can.”
“What about Gideon? I thought you cared about him.”
As much as she wanted to stay silent, she was so upset that she couldn’t help snapping at him. “You don’t have a relationship with someone who breaks trust with you, Javier. You of all people know that. You would never, under any circumstances, trust that person again. Over and over, he told me I was safe with him. He assured me anything I told him was safe with him. That wasn’t the truth. He didn’t tell you my most intimate secrets to save me. He told all of you to save you.”
She knew he couldn’t deny the truth any more than Gideon could have. She didn’t try to hide the pain in her voice or on her face. She didn’t even dab at the tears filling her eyes. They didn’t spill over, and she turned her head straight to face toward the apartments.
“Look, this all appears bad. Really bad. I know it does. We can’t talk about things that go on in our lives, and that makes it hard for Gideon to share the things he wants to with you about himself. He’ll be able to when you get past this.”
She had to hand it to Javier. He hung in there and kept trying when she knew instinctively he wasn’t a man to bother. He was the type to just walk away.
“I appreciate you trying to fix things for your friend, Javier, but there isn’t going to be a resolution for this. You already know it, so please just let it go. My apartment building is right there. I can cross the street on my own and get inside.”
“The last time didn’t end so well. You went up to your place alone last night, and it was trashed. I’ll just go in with you. Where are you sleeping?”
“Lydia’s apartment. I have her key.”
“Just so you know, I’ll be escorting you all the way inside. Hopefully, her kid is a sound sleeper. I’m not taking any chances this time.”
She didn’t reply. There wasn’t much she could say, not when she had to admit she was just a little nervous going into the building. They walked the rest of the way in silence. Javier opened doors and rode the elevator in silence to the second floor. Lydia’s apartment was quiet, and he went in first, signaling her to wait. When he returned, he just nodded and sauntered away. She felt oddly grateful that he didn’t prolong his goodbyes. She didn’t want to continue the argument. There was nothing more to say.
Rory found herself taking another shower, trying to scrub Gideon’s touch from her skin and lips. She wished she could scrub his memory from her mind and forget him the way she had her parents. She found herself sobbing. She had never broken down completely like this. She cried like a baby, weeping with abandon until it hurt.
He had done this to her. Gideon. No, she had done this to herself. She had always believed in taking responsibility for her own actions, and she had let herself trust him. All along, there had been warning flags. She saw them. Felt them. She’d even talked to herself about them. Still, she’d chosen to ignore them.
She should have known better. She should have left when everything had begun to go south. So many warning signs along the way. She liked her friends too much. Her job. And him. Gideon. Why had she connected so fast with him? Fallen so hard? She was so lonely. That was the only reason. She had unbelievable chemistry with him. Chemistry could happen with any number of men. She just hadn’t been open to it. When she moved, she would have to explore that possibility. Not a relationship. Just sex. Just fun. Just someone to share a little time with so she wasn’t quite so lonely and wouldn’t fall into any more traps.
Rory took her time drying off. Her skin hurt. Her muscles. Her heart hurt. She couldn’t remember aching inside and out like this. She’d packed most of her clothes and recovered ninety percent of her things from her apartment. Once she put in her notice and met her obligations, she could leave. It would be wrenching to leave the friends she’d made at the apartment building, but it would be so much better for her to know she would never have to run into Gideon or any of his friends. And it would kill her to see Gideon with another woman. She wouldn’t be able to face that. She was crying all over again. An endless faucet. At least no one was awake to witness her foolish breakdown.
There was no way to fall asleep. She just stared at the ceiling. Most of the time, she couldn’t see it because she was still crying. All that did was give her a headache. In the end, she dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, wrote a note to Lydia, grabbed her car keys and jacket, and headed to Golden Gate Park. She needed to walksomewhere quiet away from the wharf with no chance of running into Gideon’s friends.
Golden Gate Park was a getaway she’d found almost immediately when she’d first arrived in San Francisco. She needed wide open spaces, and the park had over a thousand acres of lakes and meadows to explore. She liked to walk and often chose to investigate the various trails, taking photos of the shrubs, flowers and wildlife, particularly the birds she came across.
The park was open twenty-four hours and free to the public. There were popular attractions that cost admission, but Rory avoided people for the most part. She wanted to be out in nature, and the park had never-ending trails for her to take to the lakes.
On the drive to Golden Gate Park, Rory did her best to stop crying, but it wasn’t easy. Once she’d started, she couldn’t seem to turn the faucet off. She didn’t want to get into an accident because she had finally cried and now couldn’t stop.
She might have eventually gotten to a place where she would have been able to allow Gideon to talk to his friends about her past in order to know why she couldn’t remember. He could be right, and she had been bought from an orphanage. Every time that man’s name was mentioned, she got that terrible sensation above her left eye. That had to mean something.
Rory parked her car in her normal spot. Dawn was breaking. There were runners and people walking their dogs, so she wasn’t alone, but she wasn’t taking chances. She took weapons with her. She knew she could look like someone easy enough to assault. That wasn’t the case. A time or two, it had been tried, and no one had been successful. She wasn’t in a very good mood, so she hoped no one was foolish enough to try.
She chose one of the wider, more well-traveled paths to start on. It was beautiful and quiet, and the peace of her surroundingsbegan to slowly push aside the wild grief and pain of betrayal. She wanted to think more clearly about the things Gideon had said, not focus on his betrayal.
Dr.Peter Whitney. Deliberately she made herself think the name. The moment she did, her body had that same visceral reaction, violently rejecting even the thought of the man. That spot above her temple gave off that strange sensation that made her feel sick. So sick she even stumbled. She refused to give into it. She was alone and walking along a beautiful path toward the lake. There was a slight breeze tugging at her hair. She’d swept it up into a high ponytail to get the thick mass off her neck. Touches of mist kissed her face. She breathed deep, drawing in the morning air.
Whitney wasn’t going to defeat her. Gideon wasn’t going to defeat her. She would figure out what was going on with her without help. She’d been alone for so long and she was used to relying on herself. It was better this way. She just had to go over the things Gideon had told her and determine if what he said was fact or fiction. Just because she didn’t like hearing it didn’t mean it wasn’t the truth.
All right, so Gideon had said Whitney had taken female infants and toddlers from orphanages. That would explain why she didn’t remember parents. If Gideon was correct about where she came from, she didn’t have parents. Once more, she deliberately thought in terms of Whitney’s name. Focused on it. Tried to put an image with the name, but the sickness increased without any visual on the man.
Breathing deep, Rory forced her mind to go blank as she walked along the trail, breathing deep again. She could only take that horrible feeling of her skin trying to peel away for so long. She concentrated on allowing the serenity of her surroundings to bring her peace again. It wasn’t easy, although she was used to taking walks out in nature to calm her mind. It was just that now that shewas determined to solve the mystery of her past, her brain kept looping back to the things Gideon had revealed.
GhostWalkers.That term wasn’t familiar to her. The two tattoos on his shoulder weren’t familiar, were they? How could she see them when he claimed no one else could? And what of the tattoo on her ankle he said another woman he knew had? How could all that be true when she knew nothing about it? A small moan of despair escaped. She detested that he’d betrayed her confidence to his friends. If he’d just given her a little time to process the information, they could have worked it out together. She would have gotten there eventually.
And what about Gideon? Why didn’t he want to tell her anything about himself? What was that all about? Why didn’t he give her anything about himself? If he had, she would have been more willing to listen to him. No, wait. Shehadbeen listening to him. Until she found out he’d told his friends everything she’d told him in confidence.
Now she was crying again. She cursed Gideon under her breath, grateful she was alone. How would she ever explain to her friends that she couldn’t stop crying? Lydia was close to taking a chance on accepting a date with Detective Larrsen, who appeared to be a good man. The last thing Rory wanted to do was mess up that situation.
