Gabriel almost wanted to tell her the truth. Almost wanted to blurt out who and what he was, what he’d seen, what he’d done, what he felt. Instead, he gathered his strength, his resolve, his determination. He had to do what was right for Sara, not what he wanted. So he looked her in the eye and said, “Stay here and just overnight the lab work to your friend.”
He knew it would piss her off. And it did.
She gasped and dropped her hand from his arm. Tears in her eyes, she popped up on the steps. “I’m going back to pack.”
“Okay, I’ll walk with you.” He stood up too, stretching out his arms as he turned to follow her up the stairs.
“Gee, thanks so much,” she said sarcastically.
He could have said something. Knew she wanted him to.
But Gabriel kept his mouth shut.
Chapter Sixteen
JURY SET TO DELIBERATE IN THIROUX TRIAL!
January 22, 1850—After instructions from the judge, the jury will go into seclusion to deliberate the verdict in the shocking and sometimes unbelievable trial of Mr. Jonathon Thiroux, accused of stabbing Anne Donovan seventeen times to her death. While it would seem the prosecution has a strong case, one can only speculate what a jury will decide. Mr. Thiroux is an attractive, quality member of our city’s society, a true peer to those sitting in the box, who has never displayed any violence in a public setting. It is hard for the mind to wrap itself around the concept that such a gentle artist could lift a bowie knife and strike with such ferocity and ill intent, especially when one looks into the frequently confused and sad eyes of the defendant.
If Mr. Thiroux is found guilty, anticipate the temperance and vigilance movements to gather steam and push their opposition to spirits, for if a man such as Jonathon Thiroux can kill under the influence, they would ask you to imagine it in the hands of the less gently bred. The prosecutor maintains that the question of the connection of alcohol to crime will be debated another day, and not through this case, but the majority will recognize that this is naïve. It was public outcry that forced the initial arrest, not justice for Miss Donovan, and from the beginning the question of the influence of alcohol on behavior has been indelibly wrapped around this case just as the oppressive heat of summer tendrils about our city.
Sara hung up the phone after purchasing her airline ticket and went to pack her suitcase, the unmistakable and irritating feeling of tears in her eyes yet again. She didn’t know why she felt like crying. She was angry, maybe irrationally so, given the length and depth of her relationship with Gabriel. She had no right to assume anything or to expect anything from him.
But she had. She did.
It made her angry at herself. She had wanted something from Gabriel, right from the beginning, without even being aware of it. She had thought he could provide it, only to discover that she really didn’t know him as well as she’d thought she did.
Tossing her suitcase on his bed, she started shoving random clothes into it, pulling her things out of his drawers. That upset her even more. She had actually unpacked her clothes into his drawers. Yet they’d never even had sex. How weird was that? She had allowed herself to get carried away by that friendship, that sense of comfort she felt with him. She’d made assumptions.
Now she felt like a fool.
Gabriel was tapping his absinthe spoons in the other room. She could hear the frantic, agitated rhythm of two spoons hitting the desk simultaneously. Absinthe. God. Why had he let her drink it when he knew exactly what it did? He’d admitted it had been his drink of choice prior to his sobriety.
It didn’t make sense. None of it made sense. Gabriel had withheld important information from her, had accused Rafe of murder, yet was perfectly willing to let her go to lunch and pal around with Rafe.
Sara leaned over Gabriel’s bed, which neither one of them had bothered to make after her marathon sleep session, to snag her pillow. She never traveled without her down pillow. Dragging it across the bed, she was irritated to see that one of Gabriel’s long caramel-colored hairs was stuck to her white pillowcase. It was irrational, but seeing that made her absolutely furious. He wouldn’t have sex with her, but he could shed on her linens, depositing his DNA all over the place.
The random thought made her pause in the act of picking the hair off the pillow, her original intention to fling it down onto
his
pillow. Wait a minute. Tossing it defiantly back at him made no sense. It was his DNA. In her possession. Glancing toward the door, reassuring herself that he couldn’t see her, Sara took the hair and unzipped the makeup bag she had already slung into her suitcase. Wrapping the hair around a lipstick, she settled the tube and hair in the bottom of the bag, zipped the case back shut, and jammed it in her purse. She could head down to Royal Street and mail it overnight to Jocelyn with the other samples so she could have the results sooner. Maybe Gabriel wasn’t curious to see what a comparison would show, but she was.
It wouldn’t change the past or the future, but she wanted to know if Jonathon Thiroux was a killer.
From the Court Records of
the Willful Murder Trial of Anne Donovan,
State of Louisiana v. Jonathon Thiroux
January 23, 1850
FOREMAN: We the jury find the defendant, Jonathon Thiroux, not guilty of murder in the first degree.
From the Court Records of
the State of Florida v. Dr. Rafe Marino
July 31, 2007
FOREMAN: We the jury find the defendant, Rafe Marino, not guilty of murder in the first degree.
Gabriel pulled up to the terminal at the airport the next morning and put his car into park. When he glanced over to ask Sara what time her flight was supposed to arrive in Naples, she was already opening the passenger door and climbing out. Great. She was just going to grab her suitcase and leave without saying a word.
Turning his car off, he jumped out and beat her to the trunk of the car, pulling out her suitcase before she could. He set it on the ground and pulled the handle up, facing her. It had been a cold, quiet day and night, with her avoiding speaking to him more than was absolutely necessary, and he was frustrated. He missed her. Wanted to see her smile.
“Call me when you get in,” he said.
She just nodded. “Thanks for watching Angel.”
“Sure, no problem.”
The longing to touch her, to reassure, to make everything right again, was almost overwhelming. Gabriel clenched his fists and studied her, wanting her to see in his eyes what he couldn’t say in words. Wanting her to know that there were a million things he wanted to tell her but couldn’t. That she had stepped into his lonely life and made it better. Made him better. That he had met and known a lot of women, but that she was the only one who had ever made him feel such an acute longing, such true, deep love.
“You’re coming back, aren’t you?” he asked.
“Probably.”
“Probably? No, you need to come back.” He wanted a commitment, a promise. Needed to hear that she would be back, and soon. She wouldn’t leave her kitten with him permanently, he was positive of that, but he wanted her to return to be with him, not just to collect the cat.
“Why should I come back?” Her head tilted and she was asking so much more. She was asking for all the answers, for everything.
He gave her all he could. “Because I want you to.”
Sara sighed.
Gabriel ground his teeth together, desire, frustration, love all spilling up and over and making him want to kick her suitcase. Or more accurately, to pull Sara into his arms and kiss her senseless.
Instead he settled for a watered down nothing of a kiss that he brushed over her forehead and a muttered “Be careful,” before he turned and walked away, afraid of what else he might say or do.
Afraid that if she asked again, he would tell. Touch.
But when he got in the car and looked in the rearview mirror, she was already walking through the airport doors, without a single glance back, and he was regretful anyway.
Either way, he was going to lose, and he hated it.
Rafe wasn’t home. In fact, it looked like he had moved out. Sara stood on the front walk of his condo and glanced around. Everything was quiet. The blinds were partially open and there was no furniture in his dining room.
He had left. Without telling her.
Stunned and hurt, Sara felt more tears pricking her eyes. Damn it, she hated to cry, and she’d been on the verge for twenty-four hours.
She wouldn’t do it.
Taking a deep breath, she dialed Rafe on her cell phone, leaving a voice mail for him to call her back when he didn’t pick up.
She had turned to head back to her rental car and to Jocelyn’s apartment, where she was staying, when she almost collided with a woman with dark hair and big sunglasses. “Oh! Sorry.”
“It’s okay.” The woman smiled. “You’re Sara, aren’t you?”
Anyone knowing her name made her wary now, so Sara said cautiously, “Do I know you?” She didn’t recognize the woman, but the sunglasses make it harder to see her features. Sara estimated the woman was in her late twenties, and that she had money, given her sundress and expensive handbag. She had a firm, curvy figure, and her dress was flattering, her demeanor confident and sensual.
“No. I’m Rafe’s girlfriend.”
Sara took an instinctive step back and said, “What?” Since when the hell did Rafe have a girlfriend? Her mother was his girlfriend.
“I’m Marguerite.” She stuck out her hand. “Rafe’s told me a lot about you.”
He’d told
her
jackshit about Marguerite. Sara took her hand and shook it lightly. “Where is he, by the way?” She couldn’t force a nice-to-meet-you platitude because she really had no goddamn interest in meeting the woman who had replaced her mother in Rafe’s life.
She was angry. It had been a year already, and she understood that eventually he would move on, but it seemed too soon. She hadn’t moved on, not yet. How had he? Plus he’d been on trial for murder. When the hell had he been dating?
“He’s moved in with me. I just stopped over to pick up his mail. It’s not being forwarded correctly.”
“Oh, I see. Well.” Sara had no clue what the hell to say. “I just left him a voice mail, but tell him I said hello. I’ll only be in town for two days if he wants to give me a call.” She had wanted to see him, but now she wasn’t sure she did.
“I’m sure he’ll want to talk to you. Maybe we can go out to dinner.”
So the three of them could discuss how he’d been tried for her mother’s murder? Yeah, that sounded like good times. “Sure. Lovely.” She was such a bad liar and she wanted away from whoever the hell her name was. “Nice meeting you. I have an appointment I have to run to.”
Sara waved and started toward her car.
The woman called after her, “I’ll see you soon. And say hi to Gabriel for me.”
That brought Sara to a grinding halt. Heart pounding, she turned around, wondering if she could have possibly just heard that. The woman was already walking in the opposite direction across the parking lot, her back to Sara, too far away to question.
But she’d heard that name, coming from that strange woman’s lips. No question about it.
The real question was how in the hell could Rafe’s new girlfriend know Gabriel St. John?
Chapter Seventeen
Gabriel picked his way down the narrow alley next to the house on Dauphine Street, tromping through brush and over a random pile of bricks. Ending up behind the house, he assessed the windows and the door. Unlike some of the neighboring houses, this one still had the original wooden pane windows and no evidence of a deadbolt on the door. While not dilapidated, it was easily one of the shabbier houses on the block, paint peeling and various rusted-out pieces of furniture and car parts strewn across the small back courtyard.
Deciding the easiest approach was the door, Gabriel went up the brick step, turned the knob, and shoved, using his immortal strength. The lock gave and the door swung open with a slight squeak. Stepping in, Gabriel paused to get his bearings. This room was a kitchen now. Gabriel couldn’t remember how it had been used in the House of Rest, but it looked like it had been modernized in the eighties. The cabinets were dark, the walls a ruddy yellow, a red fruit-themed wallpaper border hung above the cabinets.
The overall effect was tired and gloomy, the original charm of the transom over the door, the thick moldings, and the wood floor lost under the influence of the drop ceiling and the muted yellow countertops. But someone was obviously in residence, since there was a dirty coffee mug in the sink and a sticky spoon on the countertop.
Moving forward through the kitchen door into the next room, Gabriel saw that a half bathroom had been added in the corner, and the remaining room was being used as an office, a desk and bookcase prominent in it. The house was shotgun style, with the rooms leading off of each other, and no central hallways. When he moved into the front room, he recognized it as the original parlor, where he had entered from the street so many nights all those years ago. At some point it had been painted a mauve color, which offended his artistic sensibilities in the extreme, and the floor was carpeted in a periwinkle blue, but beyond that, the room was unchanged. The fireplace and moldings were intact, and the front windows still had traditional shutters.
He could see it, the way it had looked then, with its scarlet sofas and peeling wallpaper, smoke hanging in the air, the women spilling out of their gowns, perched on the laps of men as they watched them play cards, waiting for the moment when the wine and the winning would cease, and the gentlemen would seek comfort upstairs. Gabriel could still hear the random and sour notes being pounded out on an out-of-tune piano that Madame had won in a game of keno, and could only marvel now how the level of his tolerance for depravity and disgusting surroundings had increased in conjunction with his addiction.