Nothing else made sense to her.
Unless he really had been passed out and someone else had come in and murdered Anne. But why?
No answers, only questions.
Hungry and tired, Sara left the archives room with her notebook crammed with harried notes, and went outside. The sun felt warm on her chilled arms and she sat on the steps, pulling out her cell phone. It was hard to feel afraid when there were people rushing around downtown in every direction, the sun was shining, and she had the comfort of knowing she didn’t have to go home to an empty apartment. Gabriel would be there, and God, she liked that.
It was a dangerous feeling, an emotional crutch, a kick in the teeth of her independence, a mockery of her strength, but she liked the rhythm of being around another human being. Liked the ability to say a thought out loud and have someone there to hear it. Liked the sound of movement, his feet echoing across the hardwood, his throat clearing, the crack of his knuckles when he was thinking, and the growing familiarity of his smile, the toss of his head to rid his eyes of dangling hair, his always clean smell. Liked knowing that it didn’t have to be difficult with him, that silence was okay. And she liked waking up with the solid presence of a man beside her, since he’d insisted she sleep, platonically, in his bed with him. It should have felt uncomfortable, overly intimate, but it didn’t. The fear stayed small, contained, in its locked box when she was around Gabriel, and sharing an apartment, her thoughts, her life with him seemed altogether so easy that she was afraid to think about it too much and what that might mean.
She had never lived with a man other than the occasional weekend or vacation spent with a boyfriend. She’d never experienced true cohabitation with a man, just being together, moving in and out of the day’s routine, each other’s space, living and working and coexisting. At twenty-nine, staying with Gabriel, she realized she was ready for that.
Of course, she couldn’t have that with him. It was an illusion, a fantasy. They were both barely hanging on. They’d just fall over the edge faster if they were hanging on to each other.
But that didn’t stop her from desiring him. From wanting to pretend, for now, that they were friends, together.
Digging out her sunglasses, she popped them on her head, stretched out her legs, and called Gabriel on her cell phone. “Hey.”
“Hey, are you done?”
“Yeah. Can you pick me up or should I take a cab?”
“Did you find anything?”
“No, not really. John Thiroux disappeared after his trial.”
“That’s what I figured you’d find, but it was worth checking out.” There was rustling as Gabriel obviously shifted his phone. “I have one more thing to do. Do you want to wait for me or take a cab back?”
“I can take a cab. Are you at the apartment?”
“No. I’m downtown. I’ll pick us up some dinner and I’ll meet you at home.”
That use of the word
home
sent a little shiver through Sara, which annoyed her. She couldn’t do that, couldn’t go there. There wasn’t a future with Gabriel, and home was what and where she made it herself. She was on her own. Just like she’d always been.
She must have paused long enough to concern Gabriel, because he said, “Are you okay going in the apartment by yourself?”
And he actually sounded worried about her, as opposed to impatient or irritated at her overreactions. For some reason, his concern made tears pop into her eyes. Blinking hard, she said, “I’m fine. Thanks. If I freak out, trust me, I’ll be calling you.” She forced out a laugh, though it probably sounded completely fake.
“Absolutely. Call me. I’ll be home in like an hour, tops, okay?”
“Okay.” Sara said good-bye and hung up. Let the tears roll down her face and her chest heave with her silent sobs.
Maybe she didn’t cry enough. Maybe she needed to let it out. Let it go. Allow herself to feel.
Gabriel had ensconced himself in the corner of a busy coffee shop to talk on the phone to the reporter, Dan Fieldhouse, from the Florida paper who had covered the bulk of the Michaels investigation and trial. He had arranged the interview on the pretext of clarification for his book, which was true. But Gabriel now had a personal investment in discovering the truth about the case. He wanted closure for Sara. He wanted to protect her from incidents like getting those horrific pictures sent to her.
After they went through the basics of the case, Gabriel asked him, off the record, “Going on your experience, Dan, and your gut, did you think Dr. Marino was guilty?”
“Off the record? Hell, yeah, I think he did it. Though unlike our esteemed prosecutor, I think he did it all on his own. I saw the victim’s daughter several times, in court and at the funeral. No way was that chick involved in having her mother killed. She was grieving for real. But Marino’s grief, it’s that glossy, paint-by-numbers grief. It’s calculated. I’ve seen a lot of murder cases, seen a lot of petty criminals and violent criminals. They all lie. Some are just better at it than others. Marino’s a good liar, but he’s still a liar, in my opinion.”
That was the same vibe Gabriel had been getting. The charm, the poise, the perfect grieving boyfriend, the care and concern he showed Sara—it had all set off alarms for him. He had thought maybe it was just jealousy on his part, or the fact that he didn’t know Rafe so it was easy enough to judge him, but Dan Fieldhouse was confirming his own gut reaction.
“So you think it was premeditated?”
“No, I think something set him off on that particular day. But I suspect she’s not the first woman he killed. But I have no facts to back that up. Just a feeling.”
“Did he ever say anything incriminating in your interviews with him?”
“Well, his lawyer was always there, so he was pretty much giving me the party line every time I talked to him, you know what I mean? But one day I dropped by the prison without advance warning figuring he’d say no without his lawyer around, but he actually agreed to talk to me. And he was chatty that day. Full of himself. Talked about his plans to go west and start over as soon as he was acquitted, which he was sure he would be. Then he dropped a quote on me, which was weird as hell.”
Gabriel sat up straighter in his booth, phone propped on his shoulder, laptop open, and fingers ready to type. “Was it a Bible quote?”
“No. Hang on, let me look it up.” There was a pause, then Dan came back on. “He said to me, ‘My soul can find no staircase to Heaven unless it be through Earth’s loveliness.’ It’s a quote by—”
“Michelangelo,” Gabriel said before Dan could finish. He knew the quote. Knew it well because the artist had seen angels in his work. He had found heaven through his painting, sculpting. Through earth’s loveliness . . .
“Yeah. Michelangelo. The artist. There was no lead up, no reason for it, he just rips that off in the middle of a conversation where I’m digging at him, trying to get a motive for the crime, trying to ask if they had problems, if he hated women, you know, and he just drops this line on me. What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
Gabriel was just about certain it meant Rafe Marino was a killer.
Sara was trying to hang tough and not put in a panicked call to Gabriel as she got out of the cab, walked the two steps across the sidewalk, and unlocked the gate to the courtyard. It wasn’t a big deal. It was no big deal. No one was in the courtyard, no one was in the apartment.
Only there
was
someone sitting on the steps. It was a young woman in her early twenties, her hair dyed dark black, her bare shoulders and arms tattooed with a swarm of butterflies. She was sitting with her satchel purse in her lap, biting her black fingernails.
Sara smiled at her, prepared to walk right past her, assuming she was waiting for the guy who lived on the second floor, who Sara had yet to encounter.
But the girl jumped up when Sara started walking up the stairs. “Hey, wait, is that your apartment?” She pointed up to Gabriel’s front door.
“Yes.” No point in getting into lengthy descriptions of the truth.
“What happened to Gabriel? Did he move?” She was nibbling her nails again, even as she spoke, her eyes anxious.
“No, he still lives here,” Sara said cautiously, not sure where this was headed.
“You live with him?” The nail-bitten finger came out and pointed at Sara.
The rudeness irritated Sara. “Yes. Can I help you?”
“I’m Rochelle,” the girl said.
Okay. That told her a whole lot of nothing. “Would you like me to tell Gabriel you stopped by?”
Rochelle seemed to think about that for a second. “When will he be home?”
“Later.”
“And you really live with him?”
Sara could have told the truth, that she was just staying with him temporarily, but she didn’t feel inclined to point that out. She just held up her apartment key. “Yes.”
To which Rochelle burst into tears. “How could he do this to me? I’m . . . I’m in love with him . . . and he stopped coming in to the shop, and now you’re here, and I . . . God, I just want to die!”
Rochelle turned and ran down the stairs, her sandals pounding on the courtyard bricks.
“Wait!” Sara called, running down the stairs after her. She needed to be honest and tell Rochelle that she wasn’t really living with Gabriel, not in the truest sense. What if Rochelle really was his girlfriend and she’d just screwed up their relationship? Part of her couldn’t help but think,
Oh, well,
but the better part of her knew it was wrong to mislead Rochelle.
But the girl was gone, almost to Royal Street already, running faster than Sara was capable of. Great. Wonderful. How the hell was she supposed to explain to Gabriel that she had potentially ruined his love life? Not that she’d known he had a love life. He had never indicated to her in any way that he was involved with anyone. There had been no phone calls when she’d been around, and he spent the majority of his time with her, so how was she supposed to know he had a Rochelle on the side?
And why was he inviting her to sleep in his bed if he had a girlfriend? That was just wrong on so many levels.
Irritated, jealous, and yet somehow fairly certain he didn’t have a girlfriend, Sara was still standing in the doorway five minutes later when she saw Gabriel come around the corner carrying a brown bag.
“Hey,” he said as he approached her. “What are you doing?”
“Your girlfriend stopped by,” she said, trying desperately not to grimace at the words.
“My girlfriend?” He looked legitimately puzzled. “I don’t have a girlfriend.”
“Rochelle.”
His face was still blank. “Who’s Rochelle?”
That was interesting. “About five foot three, long, black hair—bad dye job, by the way—fair skin, wearing an ankle-length burgundy skirt and an olive green tank top.” Gabriel still didn’t look like he was making a connection, so she added, “Tattoos of butterflies all over her arms. She said you stopped coming into the shop, but she never said what the shop was. Just that she was your girlfriend.”
Which she obviously wasn’t, which gave Sara no small amount of satisfaction.
The butterfly tattoos appeared to have jogged his memory. “
Oh
. I know who you’re talking about. She’s not my girlfriend, she never was. We never even went out. I’m not even sure I knew her name was Rochelle.” Gabriel looked totally perplexed. “She works in the sandwich shop on Decatur. For awhile I was going there a couple of times a week. But I got burned out on po’boys.”
That almost made Sara laugh. “You just got burned out on po’boys? She acted like you were seriously hot and heavy. Wow. That’s weird.”
“How did she know where I live? Or hell, my name, for that matter.” Gabriel held out his arm for her to move into the courtyard ahead of him.
Sara turned back to look at him as she walked. “Do they ask for your name when you order your food?”
“Yeah.” He made a face. “But just my first name. I wonder if she followed me home or something.”
“She looked like the stalker type. Though now that I think about it, she didn’t actually say she was your girlfriend, just that she was in love with you.”
“In love with me?” Gabriel’s eyebrows shot up. “I just ordered a few shrimp po’boys from her.”
“She said ‘in love with’ you, I swear. And she was really upset when I told her that we live together.” In retrospect, it was probably a good thing that Sara hadn’t caught up to Rochelle on the street. It was better for the girl to think Gabriel had a girlfriend so she could move on past her oddly delusional crush.
Gabriel was fighting a grin as he stopped in front of the stairs. “You told her we live together?”
Sara wrinkled her nose. “Yes. It’s true. I am staying here, for now.”
“Were you jealous?” he asked in a low, teasing voice.
She scoffed. “Of course not.”
“You shouldn’t be, since I obviously don’t have any sort of relationship with her. But I’d like it if you were.”
God, he was flirting with her. There was no denying the tone of his voice, the way he was leaning toward her. “Oh, yeah? Why?”
He was so close to her, the only thing that separated them was the bag of take-out food in his hand. She smelled spicy oriental chicken as he touched the end of her hair with his free hand, twirling a strand around his finger. “Because that would mean you’re okay with me doing this.”
“Touching my hair?” she asked stupidly. He was so close she found herself staring at the stubble on his chin. There was no rhyme or reason to his hair growth. It was sporadic and random, the hairs soft, darker than the hair on his head. Yet even though he hadn’t shaved, if you were a foot away from him, you’d never be able to tell there was stubble. He had no imperfections on his face anywhere, no scars or blemishes or discolorations. Up close, he was even lovelier to look at than when she was standing across the room. Up close she could see the strength of his jaw, the sharpness of his cheekbones, and the deep, rich desire in his compelling eyes.