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Page winced. “I’m afraid so. She called me, the day after he was fired. She asked me to recant my story. She told me he loved his job, and wouldn’t be able to survive without it She...she told me she was sure I’d misunderstood. She said he loved her deeply, and would never leave her for anyone else. I felt so sorry for her, but I told her there was nothing I could do. I asked her to please not call me again, and I hung up.”
She could still hear the woman’s sobs, haunting her. Making her wonder if there hadn’t been some other way to have handled the mess.
But Page had been so young, and had no experience in dealing with anything like that Her parents were both dead, and she’d had no one else to turn to during the ordeal, except her young friend, Jessie. She’d just wanted to be left alone.
“A couple of years later, after I earned my graduate degree in Houston, I received a congratulatory note from a friend in Alabama. She mentioned in the letter that Professor Wingate had shot himself and his family. My friend thought I already knew, but I hadn’t heard, since I’d deliberately distanced myself from that whole experience. I was upset, but I convinced myself it wasn’t my fault. Even if Professor Wingate’s suicidal depression developed when he was fired, there was nothing else I could have done at the time.”
“There’s no way anyone could consider it your fault.” Gabe sounded as though he would hear no argument
Blake didn’t seem as certain. “You said the caller told you he didn’t want you to have a family. That he wanted you to be alone, as he was. Wingate shot himself, his wife, and a son. You’re sure there was no surviving offspring?”
“From what I know, there was only the one son. He would have been in his late teens when he was killed. I was told that the boy walked in on the scene just after his mother had been killed, and that Wingate then shot his son before turning the gun on himself.”
She shuddered, trying not to imagine the gruesome incident. The terror and betrayal the boy must have felt in those last frightful moments.
“There has to be a connection,” Blake muttered, still lost in thought. “A man kills his entire family because of you, and now someone else wants you to suffer. To be alone. It’s too much of a coincidence to overlook.”
Page almost felt her cheeks blanch in response to Blake’s careless wording. Because of you.
Professor Wingate had lost his job. Because of her.
Wingate, his wife, and his son were dead. Possibly because of her.
James K. Pratt was dead. Because of her.
Gabe was in danger. As were Jessie and her children. And now, very likely, so was Blake.
Because of her.
“It’s not your fault, Page,” Gabe said, staring at her with narrowed eyes, as though he could read her thoughts. “You had no control over Wingate’s actions, and you can’t take responsibility for this lunatic who’s been stalking you. The only mistake you’ve made was to run away without giving me a chance to help you.”
She knew he meant the words to comfort her. He probably wasn’t aware of the accusation laced beneath them. She bit her lip.
Blake glanced sharply from Gabe to Page. His expression softened. “You believed you had no other choice,” he said, and it wasn’t a question.
Page felt her eyes moisten. Blake understood, she thought.
Why couldn’t Gabe see that she had left him, not because she hadn’t loved him, but because she’d loved him more than anything else in her life?
Gabe stood abruptly. “I’ll get the photographs,” he said, moving toward the doorway. “You can look them over, Blake, and see if there’s anything you can learn from them.”
“Good idea,” Blake said:
Page remained silent
Without looking at her again, Gabe left the room.
“You can’t blame him for being hurt,” Blake said softly when he and Page were alone. “I know you’ve been through a difficult time the past couple of years, but he has, too.”
“I know,” she whispered.
“Do you really?” Blake didn’t look convinced. “Everyone he knows thinks his wife deserted him three weeks after the wedding. He wasn’t joking when he said there was some suspicion that he had harmed you. I heard a few rumors to that effect.”
She caught her breath. “No one who really knows Gabe could believe anything like that of him.”
“I have a feeling he’s changed since you left,” Blake murmured. “He has gained the reputation of being a hard man. Driven. Cold. He lets his guard down only with his immediate family. And even they say he’s not the same man he was before.”
Page frowned. “You interviewed his family?”
