The only sounds in the room were the snakes' hissing and the thunder of his heartbeat. His hand slickened with nervous sweat as he tightened his grip on the gun, trying to decide if he could shoot one without the other three striking at her, if he could kill one without the bullet winging her at the same time.

A fear he'd never known backed up in his throat, making him feel nauseous as he tried to make a decision, any decision that would do no more harm to Marlena than had already been done.

His aversion to snakes disappeared as his only thought was to get them away from her. She had yet to move, making him worry he was already too late.

He stared at the snake closest to where he stood. Could he grab it by the tail and pull it off the bed without stirring up the others? He had to do something. If Marlena had been bitten, then she needed emergency care as soon as possible.

Despite his own healthy fear and repugnance of snakes, he knew he couldn't stand by any longer. With a deep breath, he grabbed the tail of the nearest snake and whirled around to smash it against the nearby wall. He turned quickly and shot the snake at the top of the bed closest to Marlena.

As he popped off two more shots to kill the others, he was vaguely aware of the rumble of footsteps. The air smelled of cordite and snake guts, and one more lingering odor.

As Jackson raced into the room and flipped on the overhead light, he gasped in stunned surprise.

"What the h.e.l.l?" Andrew said from behind him.

"Call the sheriff and call for an ambulance," Gabriel cried as he dropped his gun and then rushed to Marlena's side. The deafening gunshots hadn't awakened her. She hadn't moved during the entire drama, and that terrified him.

"Marlena." He touched her face and still she didn't stir, although he was grateful to realize that she was breathing-but that didn't mean she wasn't in grave danger.

He had no idea if the snakes had been beneath her covers, if there were bite marks he couldn't see, but he was also afraid to move her, afraid that doing so would make her heart pump faster, make the venom flow more freely through her veins.

"Sheriff Thompson and an ambulance are on the way," Andrew said from the doorway.

"Marlena, open your eyes." Gabriel fell to his knees at the side of the bed, his gaze focused solely on the woman there and how dead she already looked. "Marlena, for G.o.d's sake, wake up." Anguish squeezed his heart so hard he could scarcely breathe.

Jackson placed a hand on his shoulder. "Gabriel, get up. She's not going to wake up." Gabriel shot him a frantic glance.

"She's not sleeping. She's unconscious."

Gabriel stumbled to his feet and fought against a burning pain in his eyes, the squeezing vise of his heart. How had this happened? She'd told him she loved him-she couldn't die now.

"I came in...and she was there on the bed, with four snakes next to her.... I shot three of them...." His voice trailed off, and then he continued, "They didn't end up in here accidentally."

Within minutes the ambulance arrived, and two stocky paramedics moved Marlena from the bed to a stretcher. They were focused on their victim, professional in their demeanor. Neither of them mentioned the dead snake parts and guts that littered the room.

As they wheeled Marlena to the awaiting ambulance, Gabriel ran after them. At the same time, Sheriff Thompson arrived and got out of his car. Obviously the call had pulled him out of bed. His shirt was half-b.u.t.toned, and his thin gray hair stood on end. "What's going on?" he asked.

"Talk to Jackson and Andrew," Gabriel said as he started to climb into the back of the ambulance, only to be stopped by one of the paramedics.

"n.o.body can ride back here. Regulations and all that," he said. He slammed the back door and the ambulance backed up to leave.

Gabriel fumbled in his pocket, grateful that he still had the car keys. Ignoring the sheriff, he raced for his car. He had to be with her. He had to see if she made it to the hospital alive.

GABRIEL SAT IN the hospital waiting room alone, after explaining to the doctor that it was possible Marlena had suffered numerous cottonmouth bites.

He'd been thankful that she'd still been breathing when they'd taken her back to the examining room. And as he waited to see that she would survive this night, new emotions warred inside him.

Seated in an uncomfortable yellow plastic chair, he recognized that he loved her, that he would always care about what happened to her. That didn't mean he intended to walk side by side with her for the rest of her life, but it did mean he was capable of loving and being loved, and that was an epiphany he'd have to explore another time.

The second emotion that built up inside him was rage of overwhelming proportions. Somebody had wanted those snakes to bite her, to deposit their venom inside her and kill her.

Somebody had wanted her dead, and he believed he now knew who that somebody was. The only reason he wasn't going after the person now was because he had to know if Marlena lived. He had to know if he was going to beat the h.e.l.l out of somebody for a murder or an attempted-murder rap.

And he wanted to beat the h.e.l.l out of somebody. He wanted to cause pain to the person who had been behind the attacks on Marlena. He needed to know why, and he needed to know if that person was also responsible for the Connellys' probable deaths, too.

If he was doing his job correctly, he would have called Jackson and Andrew to capture the culprit. He would have called Sheriff Thompson to make an arrest. But he didn't want this done correctly. Selfishly, it needed to be him who faced the perpetrator.

He jumped out of his chair as Dr. Sheldon approached him. "Is she going to be okay?" Gabriel asked before the doctor could say a word.

"We checked every inch of her body and couldn't find a single snake bite," he said.

The air blew out of his lungs with relief, but it lasted only a second as he stared at the doctor. "Then why isn't she awake?"

"She's definitely unconscious. I've taken some blood and we're running tests, but it's my belief that she's been drugged."

Gabriel's blood ran cold even though he'd suspected as much. Drugged and left alone in a bed with vipers-the only reason for that was a murder attempt. Those snakes hadn't crawled in through the back door.

"Needless to say, she'll be staying here for the night. We'll monitor her, and hopefully by tomorrow afternoon she'll have metabolized whatever she was given and will be awake." The doctor frowned, as if he wasn't sure she'd ever awaken.

"I'll be back later tonight or first thing in the morning," Gabriel said, not wanting to hear anything bad the doctor might have to say. He simply couldn't handle the idea of Marlena never waking up. "You make sure you take good care of her."

"We're going to take very good care of her," the doctor a.s.sured him.

With a curt nod, Gabriel turned on his heels and headed for the exit, his rage building. He couldn't wait to get back to the bed-and-breakfast. He was certain that he knew who was responsible for the attacks on Marlena. He just couldn't figure out why.

Before this night was over he'd have his answers, and before the sun rose, the culprit would be behind bars. Of that he was determined.

Chapter Thirteen.

Gabriel walked into the bed-and-breakfast to find Jackson, Andrew and Sheriff Thompson sitting in the common room. All three men stood at his appearance. "Is she going to be all right?" Andrew asked worriedly.

"The doctor couldn't find any snake bites on her, so she should be fine, although he believes she was drugged." He looked at the sheriff. "I suggest you get some men out here and process that bedroom. It's definitely a crime scene."

He was vaguely irritated that he had to tell the man to do his job, that Thompson wouldn't already have called out men to begin his own investigation into Marlena's near-death experience.

"I didn't know if this was something you all wanted to handle or you wanted my men to handle," Thompson replied.

"We're here to investigate the disappearance of a family. These attacks on Marlena fall under your jurisdiction," Jackson replied.

Maybe legally, but there was no way Gabriel intended to allow the lazy, mostly retired sheriff to do what needed to be done for Marlena.

"John and Cory aren't here?" he said, stating the obvious.

"We figured they either haven't heard the commotion or are out somewhere together in town," Jackson replied.

Gabriel nodded and then turned his attention back to Sheriff Thompson. "The first thing you might want to collect is the gla.s.s on her nightstand. If she was drugged, I imagine you'll find trace evidence of it in that gla.s.s," Gabriel said. "And I've got to get my gun. I dropped it after I killed those snakes."

He didn't wait for a reply but went back into Marlena's bedroom. The sight of the dead snakes fed the rage that filled him. He grabbed his gun from the floor near the bed and then walked into the kitchen to grab a flashlight he'd seen beneath the sink. Armed, he went into the dining room table to pull on his holster.

He was about to go hunting.

As he stepped back into the common room, Jackson looked pointedly at his gun in the holster. "What have you got in mind?"

"I want you and Andrew to oversee the evidence gathering in the bedroom. I'm going for a walk."

Jackson's eyes narrowed. "You need your gun to go for a walk?"

Gabriel shot him a cold, bloodless smile. "You never know when you might need to shoot a snake." He slid out the door and into the darkness of the night.

Thankfully the moon was a bright half sphere, spilling down enough illumination that he didn't need to use the flashlight. The first place he went was to Cory's small apartment, although he knew if the young man had been there, he would have heard the gunshots and come running.

He knocked three times before confirming that Cory wasn't inside, which meant he was probably down at the cottage with John, the great snake hunter.

As he walked the pathway around the pond, Gabriel knew he'd gone rogue, that he should have his partners out here by his side. But this was personal, and he wanted to finish it for Marlena's sake, for his own sake.

As he walked past the area of the pond where he'd dragged Marlena to the sh.o.r.e, he balled his hands into fists. As he thought of her lying on the floor at the foot of the stairs after having been pushed, he wanted to slam his fists into somebody's face.

He knew he had to push past the rage and instead reach for the cold professionalism that had always gotten him through difficult cases.

No emotion, just get the job done. No thoughts of Marlena, or Sam and Daniella and little Macy, just get the job done. It was a mantra that calmed him as he reached the end of the walkway where the path veered into the woods that would eventually lead to John's cottage.

Here he needed his flashlight, and he cupped the beam with his hand to allow him to maneuver with a minimal amount of light. What if Marlena wasn't just unconscious, but rather was in some kind of overdose coma? His heart beat the rhythm of an agony he'd never known before.

He shoved these thoughts away, needing to focus on the here and now and nothing else. He'd just reached the bottom of the path. John's cottage was on his left, and he took several steps toward it but then paused as he saw a flash of light just to his right.

He turned off his flashlight, and in the moonlight that filtered down through the trees, he saw two figures magically appear as if spewed out of the earth.

The bunker. His heart pounded so loud he was surprised John and Cory couldn't hear it. They were laughing about something, but their laughter halted as Gabriel stepped into the moonlight, his gun in hand.

"What's going on, boys?" The question shot out of him like a bullet.

The two froze, and then suddenly John took off in the direction of the cottage and Cory ran up the walkway that Gabriel had just come down.

With a muttered curse, Gabriel holstered his gun and took off after Marlena's brother. He wasn't about to shoot him in the back, but he definitely wanted to get him into custody.

Cory was fast, but Gabriel was driven by the sheer adrenaline of a desire for justice, the need for answers. He chased Cory around the pond and finally managed to tackle him in the lawn at the side of the parking lot.

"Leave me alone," Cory cried as he managed to escape Gabriel's hold. They both got to their feet as Jackson, Andrew and Sheriff Thompson came out on the porch.

"Why did you do it, Cory? Why are you trying to kill your sister?"

Cory looked around wildly and then back at Gabriel. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"I smelled you, Cory. I can smell you now, and it's the same odor I noticed when I first walked into your sister's room and saw those snakes on her bed. It was the scent of pot lingering in the air."

"You're crazy," Cory replied, his boyish features twisted in anger in the moonlight.

"No, but I think you might be crazy for trying to kill your own sister, for trying to hurt a woman who has nothing but kindness and love in her heart."

Cory's eyes narrowed, and his features became almost feral. "She doesn't love me. She's just had to put up with me. Eventually she'll leave me like my mother did. She'll find a man or get a good job. She wants to drag me to some other town and make me get on with my life so she doesn't have to take care of me anymore."

It was as if a dam had broken. "I hate her. I wish she was dead. I don't love her. All she's ever done is make my mom go away and nag me all the time. I'll never love anyone except myself, and she was s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up what I wanted for my own life. Well, screw her."

"I'd say you've managed to screw up your own life," Gabriel replied. He took a step closer to Cory. "Thompson, toss me your handcuffs."

The cuffs landed in the gra.s.s near Gabriel, and as he bent to pick them up, Cory stepped forward and delivered an uppercut to Gabriel's jaw that nearly threw him to his back.

Gabriel had been containing himself, trying to go easy on Cory for Marlena's sake, but with that single punch to his jaw, Cory had changed all the rules.

Gabriel grabbed the cuffs and then tackled Cory once again. He planted his fist in Cory's nose, hearing a satisfying crunch. As Cory screamed, Gabriel flipped him over on his belly and cuffed him behind his back.

Gabriel pulled him up off the ground.

"You broke my nose," Cory cried.

"You want to be a big tough murderer, suck it up, big guy," Gabriel returned. He looked up at the porch, where none of the three men had moved from their positions.

"Thompson, come and get this trash and take him to your jail. I'll be in touch with you later." He motioned for Jackson and Andrew to follow him, and then Gabriel turned and hurried back around the pond.

"Where are we going?" Andrew asked.

"To a secret underground bunker where I hope we'll find the Connelly family alive." Gabriel's jaw ached, and his heart hurt for Marlena. If and when she awakened, she'd discover that it had been her own brother who had tried to kill her.

"An underground bunker?"

"Yeah. While I was reading through the old file on Daniella and Macy's kidnapping, I found out they were kept in an underground bunker someplace here. I came to check it out and just happened to see Cory and John coming up from it."

"Where's John now?" Jackson asked as they started down the path toward the cottage.

"He ran the opposite way of Cory, and my first goal was to get Cory under arrest. I don't know what part John played in what's happened, but he shouldn't be too hard to find even if he runs all the way to a different state," Gabriel replied.

They veered off to the narrow trail that led to the cottage, and when they reached the end of it, the bunker door was still open, emitting a faint glow of light.

"Wow," Andrew exclaimed. "Who would have thought?"

Gabriel's heart began a new bang of anxiety...and of hope. "I just want to find the family safe and secure, and this definitely seems like a likely place to keep them."

"Let's just hope they're all okay," Jackson said softly.

The door led to a set of earthen stairs that went down to another door. The one at the bottom was secured with a padlock. "Stay here," Gabriel told the other men as he drew his gun.