Recognition flashes across his face in the form of that extraordinarily ordinary grin.
“Abigail Wolff is back, and less than a week later, which we all know can mean only one thing.” He swings himself down off the ladder, the metal rungs squeaking under his weight. “You flooded your house, didn’t you?”
I pretend to be insulted. “Do you really have that little faith in my abilities?”
He leans in, and his grin widens. “That bad, huh? Come on. I’ll show you where the shop vac and drying fans are.”
“Ha-ha. My bathroom is demolished, and look—” I hold up both hands, wiggle my fingers in the air “—still have all ten. No water damage, either.”
Well, almost none. There was a little excitement when a pipe snapped clean in two as I was unscrewing the showerhead, drenching me and the bathroom floor in the process, but I had the rags and the mop, and the water turned off in thirty seconds flat. The only real damage done was to my blowout and a wall I was already planning to paint over anyway.
He holds out his hand, palm to the sky. “Let’s see it, then.”
For a moment, I’m confused. “See what?”
“Your list.” He steps closer, and I can smell the detergent on his clothes, the sawdust coating his apron, his shaving cream spicy and complex. “Does it have Find Handyman ASAP written anywhere on it, because I’ll bet it does.”
His sarcasm, his teasing tone, his half-cocked grin. So far I like everything about him, and it’s distracting me. His closeness is distracting me. His thick shock of hair is distracting me. His looks as if it hasn’t been combed in days, but instead of making him look ungroomed, it makes him look really good in a way that makes me uneasy. Especially in light of what I came here to tell him.
A bitter taste pools on my tongue, as if I’m sucking on old pennies. This is going to be so much harder than I thought.
Because if I’ve learned anything from Chelsea’s death, it’s that I have a lot to make up to the universe for my hand in it. When I set in motion events that ended in her lifeless body hanging in the shower, I upset the universal balance just as surely as pitching the planet a few degrees would transform the earth’s climate. In order to tip the karma scale back to good, I have to do good. I have to do what’s right, which means I have to tell someone about Ricky.
And it has to be one of the good guys.
Just say it, I think, glancing around, my gaze skimming over the lone customer all the way down at the end of the aisle, an elderly man sorting through a markdown bin. He doesn’t seem to be paying us much attention, and he probably can’t hear us from here, but I lean in and lower my voice anyway.
“I need to talk to you about your family’s case.”
Gabe freezes in momentary confusion, but it doesn’t take long for him to catch on, and his expression to catch up. The muscles tighten in his jaw, his mouth, the skin around his eyes, and three vertical trenches slash up the center of his forehead.
“My family’s case?”
I nod.
“My family’s case.”
“Yes.”
Gabe takes two small but significant steps backward. “Are you a journalist?”
“I’m a former journalist, and I’ve found something that—”
“Jesus!” he says, and fiercely enough that the man at the end of the aisle looks up in alarm, dumps his items back in the bin and scurries around the corner. “I can’t believe I actually bought your ridiculous bullshit story about renovating a bathroom. Unbelievable! Is your name really Abigail Wolff, or was that a load of crap, too?”
“Okay, so admittedly, my skills at approaching sources are a little rusty, but, yes.” I take a step in his direction, but he holds me off with two palms in the air. “My name is Abigail Wolff, I used to be a journalist, I have the credit card bill to prove I’m renovating my bathroom, and I came here with information that could make your family’s case take a hard left turn.”
“I’ll make this very simple for you, then. My family is in the middle of a federal investigation. None of us are allowed to talk about the case. If you had done any background research at all, you would know that.”
A fleeting frustration zings up my spine, but I swat it away. I remind myself that Gabe sees me as the enemy, as a member of the same media who has painted him and his mother as ferocious and unreasonable. And with valid enough reason. He doesn’t know me, doesn’t know anything about me. No wonder he sees my coming here as an ambush.
The realization pushes a friendly smile up my face, softens my tone to placating. “I don’t want you to talk, I want you to listen to what I have to tell you. Did I mention this information could change the course of your case?”
“You mentioned it, and now it’s my turn to talk. No fucking comment.”
And there it is, I think. The infamous no fucking comment.
Gabe doesn’t wait for me to argue it, just does an abrupt about-face, cursing under his breath and crossing the entire length of the aisle, past the extension cords and rolls of electrical wire and every kind of lightbulb imaginable, in three angry strides. At the end, he hangs a sharp left and ducks around the corner. I hustle to where he disappeared from sight and lean my head around the corner.
“I found a thirty-sixth soldier.”
My revelation stops him as I knew it would, as instantly and absolutely as it stopped me when I discovered it. His back goes ramrod straight, and he turns, that famous Armstrong jaw clenched and tight, those legendary eyes raking me up and down. I can tell he’s trying to decide whether or not to believe me, so I decide to help him out. I step into the aisle with square shoulders and a high chin, looking him straight in the eye.
“I’ve studied every single document that’s been released,” he says, stalking back up the aisle, his boots thumping out ominous notes on the hard floor until he pulls up right in front of me. “Read every single interview and report and transcript there is. There’s no thirty-sixth soldier.”
“That’s because you’ve only seen the censored versions.”
“And you haven’t.” His jaw is set on neutral, but there’s the slightest crease between his brows, as if maybe he doesn’t believe my claims, but he doesn’t quite dismiss them, either.
“I have every single unmarked letter, period and comma of the medic’s transcript, which include the name of a thirty-sixth soldier that was censored from the version the DOD released.” I reach into my bag, pull out a business card and pass it to him.
He glares at it for a second or two, then looks back up. “What does Health&Wealth.com have to do with my brother’s case?”
“Nothing, that’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. Send me some times that work for you and your mother, and we’ll set something up.”
“My mother. Of course. There’s no thirty-sixth soldier, is there? This is all just another bullshit ruse to get an interview with her.”
I can’t hold back the exasperated sigh that pushes up from my lungs. “Of course there’s a thirty-sixth soldier. Why would I make something like that up?”
Gabe looks at me as if I might be coated in anthrax, his eyes narrowed into tiny slits. “I don’t know. That’s what I’m trying to figure out. Why don’t you just give the copy to me?”
I don’t tell Gabe that I seriously considered doing exactly that, passing