They were headed for the door when the cellular phone rang.
Page and Gabe both froze for a moment, staring at each other. Slipping an arm around Page’s shoulders, Gabe lifted the phone to his ear, reminding himself it could be his secretary. “Hello?”
“Gabe? Are you and Page okay?”
Gabe thought for a moment that his knees might buckle in relief. “Blake?” he croaked.
Page gasped and sagged against him.
“Yeah,” Blake said. “I’m calling from a pay phone. The bastard got my cell phone.”
“We thought the bastard had gotten you.”
“He did. But not as badly as he thinks.”
“You’re hurt?”
“Yeah. Can you come?”
“Of course.” Gabe was already moving, towing Page with him as he asked for directions.
THE PAY PHONE was attached to the end of a dilapidated strip center that held a coin-operated laundry, a used comic book store, a shoe repair shop and two empty storefronts. Few customers were patronizing the businesses and the parking lot was nearly deserted. Gabe and Page found Blake sitting on the rutted asphalt beneath the phone box, his knees drawn up, his head resting on top of them.
He looked like hell.
“We’ve got to get you to a hospital,” was the first thing Gabe said when he saw the other man’s condition. Blake’s face was gaunt with pain, and the front of his once spotless pale yellow shirt was spotted with the blood that dripped slowly from an angry-looking gash on his forehead.
No one else in the rundown neighborhood had apparently even bothered to ask if he needed help.
Blake shook his head, then groaned when the movement apparently set off a fresh wave of pain. “No hospital,” he said, fending off Page’s hands when she reached out to check his injuries. “Just get me away from here.”
“What did he do to you?” Gabe asked, eyeing the ominous hollows beneath Blake’s shock-glazed blue eyes in concern.
“He shot me. In the back, damn the coward.”
Gabe hissed a curse and went down on one knee to examine Blake’s back. The bullet had torn across Blake’s left shoulder, leaving a ragged wound and a great deal of blood. Blood that was still oozing from the injury.
“Damn it, Blake, you are going to the hospital,” Gabe said, sharing a quick, worried look with Page.
“No. The bullet just grazed me. It hit a metal phone box I was standing by when I was shot. The cut on my head came from a piece of metal that broke loose when the bullet hit.”
Gabe looked instinctively at the phone box above Blake, but Blake shook his head. “Another phone. I’ll tell you about it on the way back to the cabin.”
“Are you sure we should go back there?” Page asked.
“I don’t know how he could have found out about the cabin,” Blake answered, his head drooping wearily. “If he’d known we were there, he wouldn’t have been hanging around the garage, waiting for one of us to show up for your car.”
“And if he’s watching us now? Waiting to follow us?” Page asked, darting nervous looks around the nearly deserted parking lot.
“He won’t follow us,” Gabe said grimly. He only wished he could get his hands on the son of a bitch. But first he would make sure Blake and Page were safe.
“I still think we should take him to a hospital,” Page fretted, nodding toward Blake, who looked as though he could keel over at any moment.
“No hospital.” Blake sounded prepared to fight with his last breath on that count. “I hate hospitals. I’ll be okay.”
He sounded, Gabe thought, as though he’d been through similar situations before. Gabe was becoming more curious all the time about Blake’s background.
Blake looked up at Gabe. “I could use a hand,” he said.