Besides, on that point he might be right. “Okay, finish the short version. What about this Joe Dayton?”
“He was as dirty as they come,” he answered after hesitating. “We didn’t know if he was working alone or if what you learned would make you a target.”
She shook her head, not understanding. “So, why did he wait two years to come after me?”
“You’ve been hiding all this time.”
Finally, something made sense. But it was just the beginning. She needed a lot more pieces of information for this puzzle to come together.
Gabe’s pager began to beep. He jabbed the button to make the sound stop and sprang to his feet. In the same motion, he whipped out his pistol and reeled toward the door.
Leigh hadn’t thought she could be any more frightened, but that did it. Her heart began to pound. “What’s wrong?” she asked, getting off the gurney.
Gabe motioned toward the window. “See if anyone’s out there.”
She hobbled toward it, ignoring her stitches, and peeked through the side of the blinds. It was dark, and they were several floors off the ground, but she saw six cars in the parking lot.
“Nobody,” she reported. But the words hardly left her mouth when four men exited one of the cars. “Somebody,” she amended. “There are four of them.”
“Watch the door,” Gabe ordered and then traded places with her so he could glance out the window. “We don’t have much time. We have to get out of here.”
Leigh started out the door, but Gabe latched onto her arm and yanked her back. “We can’t go that way.”
“You’re not suggesting we use the window?”
“No. They probably left someone to take care of us if we try that.”
That was a chilling thought. Take care of us. In other words, kill them. “So, how do we get out?”
He didn’t answer. Gabe grabbed a box from one of the shelves and pulled out another gun. It looked even more deadly than the one he already had. He checked to make sure it was loaded. It was. And he thrust it into her hands.
“What—” But Leigh didn’t get a chance to protest. Gabe shoved open the bathroom door, pulling her inside with him. He held open the laundry hatch with his elbow and swung his leg into the opening.
“I’m going down first,” he told her. “Count to ten and follow me unless you hear gunfire. If that happens, barricade yourself in here and shoot anyone who comes through that door. And I mean anyone. Understand?”
She nodded and examined the gun. “Do I know how to use this?”
“You know.” He climbed into the duct. “Now, let’s hope you remember.”
Leigh hoped the same thing. “Let me guess—I learned how to fire guns like this at the bookstore?”
Gabe flashed her a dry grin and ignored her question. “There’s no safety on that piece. If necessary, aim and fire. And Leigh? This time do as I tell you.”
Before she could ask what he meant by that, he let himself drop. She kept her gaze on him until he disappeared into the tunnel.
“One,” Leigh counted.
She stood there for a few panicky seconds, wondering again if she should trust him. And wondering if she should follow him. She really had no reason to trust him, but she wouldn’t have any reason to trust those four men about to come through the door either. They no doubt wanted to kill her. She didn’t know for sure what Gabe wanted to do with her.
So this was the proverbial rock and a hard place?
“Ten,” she mumbled when she heard hurried footsteps in the hallway on the other side of the wall.
She climbed into the laundry hatch and let herself go. Moments later, she heard gunshots, but it was too late to stop her downward slide. Or anything else for that matter.
She was headed straight toward those deadly-sounding shots, and there was nothing she could do about it.
Chapter Three
Leigh saw Gabe just before she reached the bottom—a split-second glimpse of a man prepared to kill. He was behind a concrete post about fifteen feet from the laundry chute. He’d assumed a classic isosceles stance with a two-handed grip on his pistol. Every inch of him looked primed to fight.
“Take cover!” Gabe yelled. Someone punctuated his command with a spray of bullets.
She torpedoed out of the chute, quickly rolled over the side of the bin and dropped. She landed in an unladylike sprawl on the concrete floor.
“I said take cover. Now!” Gabe yelled.
She was certainly trying to do that. Unfortunately, her body didn’t want to cooperate. Leigh scrambled to her feet and with her flip-flops smacking against the floor, she ducked behind another of those concrete posts.
Should she try to get to Gabe? she wondered. Even with the obvious danger of someone shooting at them, she still considered the idea. It seemed a better option than being on her own when she didn’t know what to do.
The next bullets that strafed across the floor put a stop to that notion. She had to stay put.
From her position, she couldn’t see Gabe. There were more laundry bins, huge washing machines, industrial-size dryers and rows of metal tables. From the narrow view that she had, there were many places a gunman could hide.
Too many.
Besides, she didn’t even know if there was just one gunman. She’d seen four men in the parking lot, and it was entirely possible all four were somewhere in the room, waiting for her to make a mistake.
If she called out to Gabe to ask him what to do, she might give away her position and force him to give away his. He probably wouldn’t appreciate that. Sweet heaven. Another rock and a hard place.
“I’ll take that,” the man snarled. He snatched the gun from her hand and pressed it to her head.
Not Gabe. Someone else. One of the gunmen, no doubt. How the heck had he gotten so close? Leigh hadn’t heard a thing. Of course, her heart was pounding so loudly, she was practically deaf.
Relying purely on instinct, she stabbed her elbow into the man’s stomach and quickly spun around. Leigh used all her strength and rammed the heel of her right hand into his Adam’s apple. She followed it with a left-handed jab to his mouth. He hissed and staggered back.
Leigh saw him clearly then. Too clearly. He was most certainly one of the men from the parking lot. There was no expression in his muddy-colored eyes, no emotion on his face. He latched onto her neck and roughly twisted her so her back was against his chest.
“Quit fighting me,” he warned, shoving the gun even harder to her temple.
His voice was raspy, apparently from the blow she’d
