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She sat.
Gabe returned to his seat on one end of the couch. Blake perched on the opposite arm. Both of them looked at Page, who faced them defiantly.
Gabe took a deep breath.
“All right,” he said. “Let’s put aside personal feelings for the moment. Blake and I think you’re in trouble. You’ve been living the life of a fugitive for the past couple of years. I want to know why.”
“You have no right—”
“Page,” he cut in, still in that quiet voice he used when he was at the end of his patience. “Don’t tell me again what my rights are. You really don’t want to get into that with me just now.”
She bit her lip and glowered at him.
“Now,” he continued. “It’s obvious that you’re running from something. And, no matter what you may want us to believe, I know damned well it isn’t me. We know that you’ve changed your name at least twice in the past year. Before you moved to Des Moines, you lived in Denver as Pamela Harper.”
Her eyes widened. He could tell he’d surprised her with that bit of information, but she didn’t speak.
“You worked as a bookkeeper in a mortuary there,” he added. “Nice, quiet job. Your employer said you were a good worker, but not overly friendly. You kept to yourself. Your landlord said you never had visitors and rarely went out. You wouldn’t sign a lease, but paid your rent in advance, always promptly, filed no complaints, caused no problems. And then you moved out two weeks before your rent was due again. You quit your job without notice. Your employer wasn’t happy about that.”
Page slanted an angry look at Blake. “I suppose your lackey dug that up for you?”
“Lackey? I like that,” Blake said, grinning.
“You would,” Page said witheringly.
Gabe brought the conversation back on track. “Actually, no. It was the P.I. I used before Blake.”
“If I’d been on the case then, you wouldn’t have slipped away without anyone knowing about it,” Blake murmured.
“Don’t bet on it.”
Gabe interrupted before the bickering could start again. “A year after you left Dallas, months before we found you in Denver, another investigator identified someone who might have been you who’d lived for a few months in Ft. Wayne, Indiana. She called herself Patricia Webster, a blue-eyed brunette who worked in the claims department of a small insurance company. She made no friends, worked hard and well, then suddenly quit without warning.”
Again, Page reacted to the report with a slight grimace. Gabe hadn’t known until that moment whether the woman in Indiana was really Page. At the time he’d gotten that information, he’d found it hard to believe she would live under an assumed name, making no effort to contact the people who cared about her.
He believed it now. She really had been on the run. . And he was more determined with each passing moment to find out why.
It was obvious that she wasn’t going to volunteer any explanation. She sat very still, her arms crossed in a vulnerable, defensive position, her eyes haunted.
Gabe felt another momentary twinge of guilt for hounding her this way, but he forced it aside.
She was in trouble, he reminded himself. For whatever it was worth, she was still his wife. And he didn’t think either one of them could go on much longer the way they’d been living for the past two and a half years.
5
GABE LOOKED at Blake, deciding to try a new tactic. “You’ve had some experience searching for people .who’ve run away. What are their usual reasons?”
Blake made himself more comfortable on the arm of the couch, looking entirely at ease. He held up one finger. “Running from the law is the primary reason,” he said. “Embezzlers, insurance cheats, murderers...” Page gasped in involuntary indignation, but obstinately pressed her lips together when Gabe and Blake looked her way.
Gabe turned back to Blake. “What else?”
Blake lifted a second finger. “Mental illness. Schizophrenic, paranoia, delusions—all can make a person behave in ways that seem inexplicable. Many homeless people are mentally ill, you know. Or addicted. They’re simply incapable of leading what most consider to be a normal life.”
Page’s scowl grew heavier. Gabe could see she was making an effort to stay quiet in the face of Blake’s dramatic speculation.
“I find it rather hard to believe that Page is mentally ill, despite her erratic behavior,” Gabe murmured, just a bit tauntingly.
She gave him a withering look. “Thank you for that, anyway,” she snapped.
