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“This is the fourth day.”
“Fill me in on what’s happened.”
He had the manner of a man accustomed to command; rather than requesting, he ordered, and it was clear that he expected his orders to be obeyed. Rachel pulled her hand from his, disturbed by his warm touch and the shivery way it affected her. Clasping her fingers together to dispel the tingling in them, she rested her hands on the table. “I pulled you out of the water and brought you here. I think you hit your head on one of the rocks that line the mouth of the bay. You had a concussion and were in shock. The bullet was still in your shoulder.”
He frowned. “I know. Did you take it out?”
“Not me. I called the vet.”
At least something could startle him, though the expression was quickly gone. “A veterinarian?”
“I had to do something, and a doctor has to report all gunshot wounds.”
He eyed her thoughtfully. “You didn’t want it reported?”
“I thought you might not want it reported.”
“You thought right. What happened then?”
“I took care of you. You were out of it for two days. Then you started waking up, but the fever had you out of your head. You didn’t know what was going on.”
“And the FBI agents?”
“They weren’t FBI. I checked.”
“What did they look like?”
Rachel began to feel as if she were being interrogated. “The one who calls himself Lowell is thin, dark, about five foot ten, early forties. The other one, Ellis, is tall, good-looking in a toothpaste-ad sort of way, sandy-brown hair, blue eyes.”
“Ellis,” he said, as if to himself.
“I played dumb. It seemed the safest thing to do until you woke up. Are they friends of yours?”
“No.”
Silence fell between them. Rachel studied her hands, waiting for another question. When none came she tried one of her own. “Should I have called the police?”
“It would have been safer for you if you had.”
“I took a calculated risk. I figured the odds were more in my favor than yours.” She took a deep breath. “I’m a civilian, but I used to be an investigative reporter. I saw some things in those days that didn’t add up, and I did a little digging, found out some things before I was warned not to go any deeper. You could have been a drug runner or an escaped convict, but there wasn’t any hint of anything like that on the scanner. You could also have been an agent. You had been shot twice. You were unconscious and couldn’t protect yourself or tell me anything. If… people…were hunting you, you wouldn’t have had a chance in a hospital.”
His lashes had dropped, shielding his expression. “You’ve got quite an imagination.”
“Haven’t I,” she agreed mildly.
He leaned back in his chair, wincing a little as he tried to get his shoulder comfortable. “Who else knows I’m here, other than the vet?”
“No one.”
“Then how did you get me up here? Or did the vet help you? You’re not Superwoman.”
“I put you on a quilt and dragged you up here, with help from the dog. Maybe he thought it was a game.” Her gray eyes darkened as she thought of the Herculean effort she had made to get him inside the house. “When Honey got here, we lifted you onto the bed.”
“Honey?”
“The vet. Honey Mayfield.”
Sabin watched her quiet face, wondering at what she wasn’t
