Page 40 of Gabe

None of it was what I was looking for.

A few of the car alarms went silent. The remaining ones still made plenty of noise, but I was running out of time.

I had to stop blindly searching and start thinking with a criminal mindset.

If I was trying to hide sensitive information in a place that wasn’t easily found but also not incriminating, where would I hide it?

Well, I wouldn’t be able to make any obvious alterations to the van. That would be too suspicious, and my plausible deniability would go out the window if the alteration was ever discovered. So, the lists would have to be hidden in a part of the van that would typically exist on this type of vehicle.

Snapping my fingers, I pushed a few stacks of flyers out of the way to reveal the latch for the spare tire compartment under the floorboards.

Locked.

Annoying, but a good sign that I was on the right track. Normal people didn’t bother locking up their spare tire.

With the help of my homemade lock pick, I had the spare tire compartment open almost as quickly as I’d opened the van’s door.

Jackpot.

There were several binders of paper stashed where the spare tire should have been, and a quick glance showed that they were full of lists of names. One binder looked to be lists of women who had applied for help from Love Without Limits, and another was filled with info about the charity’s volunteer staff. The third binder I didn’t recognize the information it contained, but I grabbed it anyway.

We needed all the info we could get, and I wasn’t about to waste this opportunity.

I closed and relocked the van just as the last car alarm fell silent. With the binders clutched in my arms and turned to run from the van, only to immediately run smack into Gabe.

“Whoa. Oh, hey. You’re back. Good job with that distraction.”

He didn’t say anything. Just grabbed my arm and quickly dragged me away from the van. We stuck to back alleys and didn’t stop running until we’d put several blocks between us and the van. I wasn’t even sure which building we were behind or which direction the car was, but it didn’t matter. We were safe, and we’d gotten away with some hopefully useful information.

“That was fun,” I gasped. It was hard to speak as I caught my breath while also trying not to laugh from the sheer exhilaration of it all.

Gabe wasn’t laughing, nor was he even breathing hard, so his next words were crystal clear.

“You know how to pick locks?”

If I’d been paying attention, I would have noticed the odd tone in his voice. Instead, I just smiled up at him with a proud flush on my cheeks.

“Oh, yeah. I told you how I had a rough time after I was attacked and lost my scholarship. Well, I kinda went off the rails for a while. Nothing too bad but breaking into places became a common hobby for me. I didn’t steal stuff. I just liked the thrill of being where I wasn’t supposed to be and knowing that I could steal something if I wanted to. You know.”

I held out the three stolen binders to him.

“My physical therapist helped me through it, and eventually, got me back on the right track, but I’ve still got the skills. Never thought I’d put those skills to good use like this, but, ta-da. Success. Hopefully, we’ll be able to do something with these lists.”

My excited flush turned to ice in my veins when I finally noticed the look on Gabe’s face. He stared at the binders in my hands with an odd expression. It wasn’t mad, but it certainly didn’t look happy either. He was obviously feeling some sort of strong emotion, but I had no idea what it was.

“Sorry,” I said, though I wasn’t sure what I was apologizing for. “I just wanted to help, but I guess I shouldn’t have?—”

Before I could finish, I was suddenly shoved backward against the alley wall. Gabe’s hand on the back of my head protected it from hitting the brick as he pressed his mouth to mine. I shouted into the kiss, uncertain what was happening at first, which provided an opening for his tongue to plunge forward. My shout turned into a moan, and I kissed him back with equally heated force.

I wanted to cling to him, but my hands were stuck gripping the binders that were now crushed between our bodies. Instead, all I could do was writhe in his embrace and try to spur him on with my enthusiasm.

He kissed me like he was trying to inhale me into his lungs while also surrounding me on all sides. It was midday. The sun shone high in the sky, yet Gabe’s form blocked out the light and wrapped me in the coolness of his shadow.

There was no way to tell how long we stayed like that, but it must have been a while, because when Gabe finally pulled back enough for me to think straight, the angle of the sun had shifted.

My legs felt like someone had replaced my bones with jelly, but Gabe still looked infuriatingly composed as he started pulling me down the alley.

“Back to the car. We need to leave.”

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