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Part 20

Chapter 19

Gabe nodded without another word, but the small wince that followed did not escape my attention.  Would it be bad if I completely disregarded my earlier promise?  Would he really know if I was the one who killed the gardener?  I’m sure there were others who hated the man.  With a personality like his, there couldn’t be very many people rooting for him.

“You’re not killing him,” Gabe said with a stern expression on his face.

I smiled up at him, putting an innocent expression on mine.  “Whatever do you mean?”

“Dee,” he warned before shaking his head.  He must have realized that it was no use.  I wasn’t going to make any promises, just like I wouldn’t expect him to make any.  With a sigh, he reached out and gripped one of my hands.  “Come on.  I’ll take you to Hodge.”  He hesitated.  “Just don’t be too surprised if he doesn’t want to see you.”

I followed along, but confusion hit me hard.  “Why wouldn’t Hodge want to see me?”

Gabe glanced over his shoulder but kept walking.  “If you held secrets, ones that you have hidden for years and suddenly you realized that those secrets were a lie, would you want to admit it?”

“You’re confusing the hell out of me.”

He turned his face away from me.  “You’ll know what I mean in about twenty minutes.”

“Wait,” I said, tugging on his hand.  He paused, looking at me with a frustrated look on his face.  I stared at him, refusing to talk until I saw the corner of his mouth twitch.

“What?”

A large, cajoling smile formed on my lips.  “Can you maybe call him?”

“Why?”  He drew the word out, as if he suspected something bad to come out of my mouth.

“Does there happen to be a burger joint nearby?”

With a laugh, he tugged on my hand.  “I’ll call him in the car.”

A relieved sigh left me as I followed him to his car.  Maybe, it was a little selfish of me to want to meet somewhere that I could get a decent meal, but after the past few days, I needed something other than four grapes to fill me up. 

Light hit me in the face, breaking me from my thoughts.  Squinting up at the sky, I let out another relieved sigh.  I loved the sun, loved the heat hitting my skin, but Dorothy wasn’t one to tan.  She believed in keeping her skin white.  Mitch was lucky that my last assignment had been somewhere cold, if not, I wouldn’t have been able to pass as Dorothy, wouldn’t have been able to take her place.  Although, I was doing a horrible job at the moment. 

“Get in,” Gabe said, letting go of my hand.

I looked up at him, and when he smiled at me, I couldn’t help but smile back.  “You sure you want to do this?”

He nodded towards the open passenger’s door.  “You need your answers, and I’m not going to provide them for you.  You need to hear them from the source.  I know you.  If you don’t get your answers, you’ll obsess over it until you do.  So, hop in.”

I narrowed my eyes at him, but when he did nothing but chuckle, I relented.  He was right.  If I didn’t get my answers now, I would never be able to relax.  I would constantly search for Hodge, would constantly wonder what it was that Mitch was hiding.  Sliding into the door, I sat there as he slammed it shut.  Reaching out, I ran my hand across the leather dashboard. 

“For a doorman,” I started as soon as he jumped into the driver’s seat, “you sure do have a nice car.”

He shot me a smirk.  “It’s not my car.”

“Whose is it?” I asked as he peeled out of the driveway.

An innocent expression formed on his face.  “It’s yours.”  When mine turned to shock, he laughed at me.  “Buckle up.  It might be a short drive, but it’s better to be safe than sorry.”

My seatbelt snapped closed as Gabe continued to speed down the road.  “I thought you were going to call Hodge.”  I ignored the fact that while he preached to me about safety, he didn’t partake in it himself.  Soon enough, I would scold him for being a hypocrite.  Now, I wanted to make sure that we would be able to meet Hodge.

“He can hear us,” Gabe said with a shrug.  One hand came off the wheel to point towards the visor.  “He has bugs everywhere you go.  Don’t be surprised if he knows who is in your bed at night too.”  Gabe wiggled his eyebrows at me while returning both hands to the wheel.

“Haha,” I mumbled as we pulled to a stop.  Glancing out the window, I smiled as I read the sign.  If it was right, the place in front of me had the most famous burgers around.  “I hope that isn’t a lie.”

“It isn’t,” Gabe said as he exited the car.  “Believe me,” he continued once he opened my door.  “They have the best burger I’ve ever tasted.”  His eyes smiled at me.  “And I’ve traveled a lot in my line of work.”

“Hmm, maybe next time you do any traveling, you'll do it safely,” I mumbled as he helped me from the car.  When he narrowed his eyes at me, I smiled and changed the subject. “What is it that you do for a living again?”

“I could ask you the same thing,” he joked while locking the doors.  “Come on.  If I’m right, Hodge will be sitting in the left booth with four burgers in front of him.”

“He’ll eat four?”

Gabe shook his head with a chuckle.  “No.  Four for each of us.”

“I thought there’d only be three.”

Reaching out, he gripped the handle to the restaurant.  With a sigh, he turned concerned eyes on me.  “If at any time you want to leave, just tell me, okay?”

“Okay,” I echoed, unsure of how to deal with the emotions in his eyes.  If I weren’t mistaken, I would almost think that he was beginning to truly care for me.  That he maybe even liked me.

His hand tightened around mine.  “I’m here for you,” he whispered while pushing the door open.

I followed, staring at his back.  He was being honest; I could hear it in his voice.  Gabe, a man who I barely knew, was there for me.  He would help me escape if I wanted to leave, help me run if I needed too.  It was an odd feeling, having someone who truly cared.

“Dee,” a man’s voice called out.

I forced my eyes off Gabe to look towards a booth.  Just as Gabe said, Hodge sat there will four, mouthwatering burgers in front of him, and just as Gabe said, Hodge had company. 

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