Total pages in book: 144
Estimated words: 133531 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 668(@200wpm)___ 534(@250wpm)___ 445(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 133531 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 668(@200wpm)___ 534(@250wpm)___ 445(@300wpm)
By the time she reached her car, she’d concluded that Gideon had been telling her the truth, and she most likely had been bought by Dr. Peter Whitney from an orphanage to be experimented on. What that meant in terms of what she was now, she had no idea, but she wasn’t going to take any chances with anyone’s life. She was the same person she’d always been before she came to San Francisco. She was intelligent. Self-reliant. She could manage even with the new knowledge she had. It was frightening to think that Whitney—and she kept repeating the name in the hopes she’d stop having such a visceral reaction to it—planted something in her that might harm others.
She drove back to the apartment building and parked in her usual spot. Each tenant had a parking place specifically for them. She was grateful no one had taken hers, which was sometimes the case. She didn’t want to drive around the parking garage looking for a new parking place. She was exhausted. Part of her problem was she needed to use her regular nebulizer. It was in Lydia’s apartment.
The moment she entered, Lydia jumped up, ran to her, threw her arms around her and hugged her tight. “I was worried.”
“Didn’t you get my note?”
“Yes. But you didn’t sleep all night. Something clearly went wrong. You didn’t stay at Gideon’s, and you didn’t stay here. You should have woken me up, Rory.”
“You have a three-year-old and you work long hours, Lydia.”
“That doesn’t matter. You matter more to me than sleep. Seriously, Rory, tell me what you need right now.”
“My nebulizer first. I can barely breathe. It’s in the guest room by the bed.”
“You sit down and I’ll get it for you.” Lydia rushed off.
Rory sank into one of the two nice chairs Lydia had in her living room. Ellen was playing with her dolls on the floor, and she immediately crawled up on Rory’s lap and pressed a kiss onto her cheek. Rory kissed her back.
“Good morning, Miss Ellie May Rider.”
“Morning.”
Rory’s heart melted. That was the first time Ellen had spoken without an elaborate go-between. She kissed her several more times, making her squeal the way her momma did, grateful she’d made such good friends. Gideon might have made her feel broken and shattered, but friends went a long way to comfort her.
13
Gideon stood on the very edge of his rooftop, facing the bar. “There’s no recovery from this one, Javier. I sold her out and she called me on it. I told her she could tell me anything and she’d be safe. I meant it too. I had no idea she was a GhostWalker. I knew she was afraid of a relationship, but I didn’t have a clue why. I wanted her to know she was safe with me.”
“I heard the resolve in her voice,” Javier confirmed.
“I can’t blame her. Everything she said was true. I didn’t tell any of you the things she said to me in confidence to save her. I told them to you to save you.”
“Gideon. You had no choice.”
“There’s always another choice. I should have thought it through. Taken a couple more days. I could have kept her away from all of you and then talked it over with her.”
“You know better.”
“She’s in trouble, Javier. I know she is. I can feel it. She’s cut herself off from me, but I can still feel the danger to her, and that means it’s growing, getting worse. It’s bad. I don’t know where it’s coming from. She won’t let me in.”
“She doesn’t know all of us.”
Gideon turned to look at Javier over his shoulder. “Rory isn’t going to be so easy to fool now. She’ll be looking. And now she’ll think about the things I told her, and she’ll be afraid she might harm someone. That’s going to be uppermost in her mind. I didn’t blow my chance with the only woman I’ll ever want to be with so Whitney can run his program on one of you.”
“You’re not killing yourself over this, Gideon. Sending out your spies to watch over her is too dangerous for you.”
Gideon turned back to look at the building several blocks down where the bar was located. With his superior eyesight and hearing, he could see the strobing colored lights and hear the music and conversations flowing. He zeroed in on Rory’s voice immediately. She wasn’t laughing the way she normally did. She talked with customers. He was certain no one would notice the difference in her voice but him.
He’d hurt her. No, it was far worse than that. He’d devastated her. She’d cut all ties with him—blocked him from communicating with her. Blocked him from being able to touch her mind. He was a very strong telepath, and when it came to Rory, he had developed an even stronger connection than he normally would have with others. When Rory was concentrating on her work, she forgot to keep the shields in her mind strong, and he caught glimpses of images of what she was thinking or doing. None of it was good. Not when it came to him.