A heart that had seized when he’d stood in the bathroom door and spotted her huddled
next to the toilet.
His first impulse had been to snatch his phone from his pocket and call an ambulance.
Leah hadn’t been one of those children who suffered from seasonal and annual bouts
of flu or infections. He could count on one hand the number of times she’d been ill,
including a ruptured appendix at thirteen and pneumonia at fifteen. Seeing her swollen,
tear-stained face and shaking body, alarm had cut off his windpipe.
But then she’d pushed to her feet, and he’d glimpsed the anguish darkening her eyes
into moss-green pools. In an instant, it dawned on him that her pain wasn’t physical
but emotional. He’d been on intimate terms with the kind of torment reflected in her
shattered gaze—the kind capable of piercing flesh and bone and tearing into a heart
without mercy.
Dread had rippled through him even as he’d closed his arms around her and anticipated
her rejection. But when she’d lain back in his arms, then asked him to make love to
her, a knot inside him loosened, eased.
Now, in the quiet after the storm of their lovemaking, he waited. His heart pounded,
his stomach clenched with anxious anticipation. What had occurred in the time since
she’d left him this morning? Yet even as the question popped into his head, he maintained
his silence. As selfish as it may be, he wanted to eke out every possible second of
this eye-of-the-storm time. His arms tightened around her as if he could trap them
in this precious gloaming. The time to let her go and watch her walk out of the apartment
and away from him would arrive soon enough.
“There are videos, Gabe.” Her voice, husky from her emotional tempest, was a soft,
weary confession in the quiet of the room.
He stiffened, shock rolling through his body like a lightning bolt.
What the hell is she talking about?
“Richard raped so many boys. And he recorded the acts. He kept a collection. My God,
Gabe.” Her fingers curled into his skin. “He molested his own stepson. How could he…?”
She shuddered violently, and Gabriel squeezed her closer even as the depths of Richard’s
evil rolled over him in a tidal wave of horror.
“How did you find out?” he asked.
“Renee,” she replied, and revealed the details of her visit to Richard’s ex-wife.
As Gabriel listened, his revulsion and terror grew. Five boxes full of tapes. How
many boys had Richard violated, damaged, stealing their innocence? How many lives
and souls had been tainted because of his perversion?
The son of a bitch sickened him. And though Gabriel understood his callousness might
make him a bit of a monster, he didn’t regret Richard’s death. Not for one second.
He hated that Chay had been forced to take a life, hated the burden of the secret
he and his friends had carried all these years, hated the pain Richard’s disappearance
had caused the people who loved him…but, no. He couldn’t find remorse that the asshole
was in the ground where he could no longer hurt anyone else.
Richard had so much blood on his hands. Still did.
Gently, Gabriel palmed Leah’s shoulders and eased her up. She gathered the sheet to
her breasts as he rose and rested a shoulder against the headboard.
“Did Nathan call you?”
Her shoulders slowly straightened, and she lifted her chin to a stubborn angle.
“Yes, he did,” she said. “It didn’t take long to figure out you’d called him first.
I believe if I was a man, the term could be called cock-blocking.” Her eyes narrowed.
“Nathan pulled me off the investigation.”
“So why were you at Renee Pierce’s house, then?” He wouldn’t apologize for trying
to protect her. She refused to listen to reason—a psycho had already attacked her.
Continuing to dig into Richard Pierce’s past would only enflame the perpetrator’s
anger and paint an even bigger target on Leah’s back. Gabe would do anything to keep
her alive and safe, even if protecting her meant going behind her back and playing
dirty.
“Nathan is my employer, not my keeper. Neither are you,” she added grimly. “I believed
going to Renee’s would provide more answers. And it did. Now we have material evidence
strengthening Chay’s claim of self-defense. And I’m not sorry about taking the risk.
Gabe,” she said quietly. “I’m not Maura.”
An immediate objection rose inside him. He’d never expected her to be like Maura.
He—
Hell
.
Do I?
He stared at Leah.
Yes. Yes, I do
.
Until the night she died, he hadn’t worried about his wife’s safety. He hadn’t harbored
concern over whether or not he would find Maura unscathed at the end of the day.
First a police officer and now a private detective, Leah wouldn’t be content with
the sheltered life Maura had led. Leah was a protector, a champion; it was her nature.
She would demand to shield instead of being shielded.
He closed his eyes. Snapshots of time flashed across his eyelids: Leah checking up
on him, a plate of food in hand. Leah holding him in her arms as he sobbed his grief
over his family. Leah twisting and arching beneath him in sweet, sensual abandon.
Leah bursting through the front door of her home, bleeding and bruised
.
“When I was a kid, my mother dated men who…hurt her,” he murmured, meeting Leah’s
gaze. He searched her face, touching on every feature, committing them to memory.
“I remember hiding in my room, helpless, listening to her being slapped and punched
by men she invited into our lives.”
“Gabe,” Leah breathed, brushing a caress over his jaw.
“I couldn’t do anything to defend her then, but when I met Maura, I swore she would
never have to fear me, and that I would protect her with my life. Her and Ian. But
I failed—I failed to keep my wife and son safe. Losing them broke me. I begged God
to let me die with them.” He’d even bought a gun intent on joining them. Fortunately,
the courage to take that final, lethal step had eluded him. “But you wouldn’t let
me go. You nagged, bullied, and pushed me into living again, into feeling again. I
didn’t want to desire another woman—a part of me still doesn’t. I’m a selfish coward,
because I don’t want to need you. Because losing you—” He broke off as his throat
went dry and closed on him. “Because losing you would destroy me. And I’m not ready.”
A sad smile curved her lips. “I’ve loved you since I was sixteen years old, and I’ve
lost you twice since then. First to Maura, and again to her death. If I lost you tomorrow,
I’d grieve but at least I’d have had touched you, held you, loved you.” She cupped
his cheek, smoothed the pad of her thumb over his bottom lip. “For me, whether it’s
one moment or one hundred, you’re worth the risk. But I can’t make you want more.
And I can no longer go on without it.”
She slid from under the covers, gathered her clothes from the floor, and silently
dressed. He sat, frozen. “
I’ve loved you since I was sixteen years old.”
Jesus. How had he not known? Yet if he thought about it, she’d shown him in a thousand
different ways.
God. Leah loved him.
Stop her!
his heart cried out.
Don’t let her walk away
.
The words lodged in his throat. The finality in her tone and the resignation and acceptance
that had darkened her beautiful eyes before she turned from him clawed at his chest.
Again, his soul demanded he call out to her as she crossed the room, her spine straight,
proud. But once more he remained silent.
She was leaving him.
And this time, he knew she wouldn’t come back.
Chapter Twenty-one
Leah glanced across the conference room table to meet Raphael’s dark gaze. The short
sleeves of his black, vintage Metallica T-shirt revealed vivid tattoos covering his
arms from wrists to shoulders, and silver glinted at his eyebrow and ears. With the
body art, piercings, and fierce scowl creasing his forehead, it seemed he should have
been visiting Malachim’s law office as a client instead of a guest. He was an intimidating
figure until you peered into his navy blue eyes and noticed the worry and fear lurking
in their depths.
“What now?”
“We go to the cops,” Gabriel said, replying to Raphael’s question. “Especially now
that we have the tapes.”
Leah risked stealing a look at him. He stood in the corner of the conference room,
arms crossed, knee bent, and foot pressed to the wall. As he’d done all morning, he
avoided meeting her gaze, instead staring at some distant point above her head. The
pain and disappointment tried to swell inside her, but she submerged the hurt under
reason and determination. Right now, they—she, Gabriel, Malachim, Rafe, and Chay—had
decisions to make. She’d met the four men at Malachim’s office, where she and Gabriel
had informed the other three about her visit with Renee the previous day and the video
tapes.
God
. She briefly closed her eyes. The grief and shame in Chay’s hazel eyes had nearly
punched a hole in her stomach. She despised Richard for causing such suffering for
the teenage boy Chay had been, and the haunted man he was today.
Later—there would be plenty of time later to excavate the pain of Gabriel’s rejection
and wallow in it.
This moment was about Chay.
“After all this time?” Raphael challenged. “Who’s going to believe us twenty years
later? I say we find this asshole—”
“And how do we do that?” Gabriel snapped. “We don’t even know where to start.”
“Richard,” Leah murmured. “It starts and ends with Richard. The person who broke into
my house is the same one who sent the letter and the flyer. For some reason, he turned
on me, thought I made a better casualty than investigator.” She paused, having already
considered the angles. “Before running out of the house, he said, ‘Tell my special
boy I said hello.’ When Gabriel and I visited Catherine Pierce, she called Richard
her ‘special boy’ several times.” Leah shifted her hands to her lap, hiding them under
the table so neither Gabriel, Malachim, Raphael, nor Chay could see the nervous twisting
and clenching of her fingers. She’d never forget the malicious glee in her attacker’s
sibilant whisper. Never. “Catherine displayed a…fanatical desire for revenge. What
if she’s the one who sent the letter? She hated seeing Gabriel with me. What if she
decided I wasn’t giving the investigation enough effort and sent someone after me?
Punishment for failing, maybe.”
“Special boy?” Chay rasped from the end of the table.
“Chay?” Malachim half rose from his chair next to Leah. “What’s wrong?”
Chay turned, his gaze gone nearly black. “Richard,” he whispered. “Richard called
me his ‘special boy.’ It’s what he called the boys he—” He went silent, and the pulse
at his temple throbbed. “What if the intruder’s message was meant for me?”
An arctic breeze blew through the room. She could sense the ice-cold fury blasting
from Gabriel, Malachim, and Raphael, and it chilled her skin.
“Catherine,” Gabriel bit out. “She called her son by the sick endearment first. If
she sent that man after Leah, she would be familiar with the name.”
“But that’s assuming she also knew Richard was a pervert and that he’d given his victims
the same name,” Raphael said, shaking his head. “And for the sake of argument, let’s
say she did know all of this. How could she have found out Chay killed him and not
have said anything for twenty years? It doesn’t make sense. Why wait so long to make
him, and us, pay?”
Gabriel shoved off the wall and paced to the far side of the office. He tunneled his
fingers through his hair, gripping the strands in both fists. “This is pointless.”
He drew to a stop at the end of the table. “While we sit here and speculate about
who did it and why, somebody else we care about is being targeted. Who’s next? One
of our mothers? He’s already gone after Evelyn—”
“Wait.” Leah slapped her palms down on the table. “What are you talking about? He’s
already gone after Evelyn? What am I missing?”
Quiet descended on the room. She glanced from one familiar face to the other, beginning
to wonder if she’d really known these men at all. They were her best friends, but
had she only been privy to the faces they’d chosen to show her? In a world capable
of changing from one moment to the next, the four of them had been her constants,
her security. And now even they had become unpredictable variables in an equation
she’d never had the answers to.
“Darion,” Malachim said softly. “Maura and Ian.”
“What?” She gasped, jerked her gaze to Gabriel. She examined his stoic features—the
grim line of his mouth, the slight flare of his slender nostrils, and hard ice in
his eyes. “What about them?”
“The person who killed Darion also murdered Maura and Ian,” Gabriel said dully.
“No,” she whispered, her stomach twisting in a slow, nauseating flip.
Impossible. He would’ve said something.
“It was an accident. A tragic—”
“
No
.” His flat tone warned her to drop the subject.
But she couldn’t. Her mind refused to accept his claim of a terrible accident suddenly
turning into something sinister…something evil. “How do you know? What proof do you
have?”
“I found a coin next to Darion’s body,” Chay explained gently. “Two years ago, Gabriel
discovered the same coin with Ian when he and Maura…died.”
Leah rocked back in her chair. “Is this true?” she asked Gabriel.
He nodded abruptly. “While Maura and Ian were Christmas shopping the afternoon they
died, someone gave Ian the coin. When Maura told me about it, I didn’t think anything
of the small gift because of the season.”
“When did you figure out the connection?” She knew the answer; she just wanted to
hear it from him.
“Monday,” Gabriel stated, his gaze steady, unblinking.
The day she’d discovered Darion Sheldon’s body. The evening she’d found Gabriel huddled
on his bedroom floor. The night he’d sobbed in her arms.
She’d believed his harsh outpouring of grief had been over his family’s death. He’d
allowed
her to believe that reason, when the truth had been he’d just learned Maura��s and
Ian’s tragic, innocent, deaths were actually murders.
Because of him
. The guilt and pain must have shredded his soul into pieces. Now his claim about
failing to protect Maura and Ian made sense. And, unfortunately, so did his unwillingness
to take a risk on her—on them.
And yet, he hadn’t said anything then, or even last night. Gabriel had trusted her
with the truth regarding Richard’s disappearance but not about his wife and son.
The knowledge punched her in the chest, driving the air from her lungs. She blinked.
Blinked again.
No tears, damn it.
He could trust her with his twenty-year secret. He could trust her with his friends’
welfare. But trust her with anything regarding his wife and son? No. Never. They remained
off-limits to Leah; they were none of her business. Because as much as she loved him,
his heart had been entombed with Maura.
She looked away from him and breathed past the pain radiating from her chest.
“The coin. Was it gold? With a lion and wreath?” she asked Chay.
“Yes.” Chay’s eyes narrowed. “How do you know?”
“The person who attacked me placed one near my head seconds before you and Gabe called
out and ran him off.”
Gabriel swore low and viciously from the head of the table. She kept her eyes fixed
on Chay, knowing if she glanced at Gabriel once more, she’d break.
“What’s the connection with the coins?” she asked.
“Richard ‘gifted’ them to his ‘special boys,’” Chay murmured, the bitter twist to
his lips echoing the raw fury in his hazel eyes.
Jesus
. “Maura. Ian. Darion. Me. People you love or care about. It’s as if the person responsible
is saying, ‘You took someone I love; now I’ll take those you love.’” Leah glanced
at Raphael. “She wants you to suffer.”
“Catherine,” Raphael said. No disbelief colored his voice. Just resignation. He fell
back in his chair and scrubbed a rough hand down his face. “Okay, but why now?”
“She’s dying,” Gabriel interjected. “She wants revenge before she dies.”
“Gabe’s right,” Malachim stated after several moments of silence. “We need to go to
the police. Right now we have the advantage because we’re not on their radar. We have
the information to clear up an old case and help them solve a recent crime.” He rose
from his chair, clasped his hands behind his back, and faced them as if preparing
to deliver closing arguments in a trial.
“Even though we’re adults now, we were minors at the time. The odds are high in our
favor we may be tried as juveniles. Chay would most likely be charged with murder,
and Gabe, Rafe, and I would be charged with accessories after the fact for concealing
the crime. But factor in that Chay killed Richard in self-defense and, as Gabe said,
we have the video tapes to bolster his claim, which could result in lower sentences
or even probation.”
“He’s right.” Leah straightened. “If you go to the cops now, it won’t be your word
and twenty years of silence up against the memory of a respected, charming businessman
and a wealthy, connected Catherine Pierce. With you going in together and with the
tapes, it won’t appear as if you’re just maligning Richard’s reputation to justify
murder.” She leaned forward, laid her hands on the table, palms up. “And that’s just
the argument I intend to make to Catherine when I go see her tomorrow.”
“What?” Gabriel snapped. She didn’t look at him.
Malachim’s gaze skipped between her and Gabriel. “Leah…”
“She started this, and I’ll finish it. I’m going to let her know I discovered the
truth about her son,” she said grimly. And look the bitch in the eye as she dared
to try and defend the perversion she’d raised and protected under her roof. “I’ll
tell her the police already have the tapes proving what Richard was. If she is behind
the murders and attacks, it would be foolish to attempt anything else. She wouldn’t
dare. It would only cast more guilt and suspicion in her direction.”
“No,” Gabriel growled. He circled the table and stopped across from her. Leaning forward,
he glared into her upturned face, forcing her to meet his furious gaze. “Absolutely
not. And if she
is
the killer? Your plan is to walk right into the lion’s den? She’s desperate and dying.
What does she have to lose?” He slammed a fist on the table. “
Hell
, no.”
Slowly, Leah stood. The office chair rolled back, the whir of the wheels over the
floor the only sound in the room. She planted her palms on the conference table and
met him nose to nose.
“Fortunately, it’s not your choice.”
…
The conference room emptied so quickly it might have been amusing if Gabriel didn’t
want to grab Leah by the shoulders, snatch her across the table, and shake her. The
fire lighting her eyes warned him if he attempted to touch her, he’d draw back a stump.
“Shit.”
He stalked away from temptation, pacing the length of the room before halting in front
of the single window. The view of the brownstone next to Malachim’s didn’t inspire
the attention he bestowed on it, but the alternative kept him rooted to the spot.
All morning, he’d avoided looking at Leah. Every time he stole a glance at her lovely
face or curved body, he relived the night before.
He squeezed his eyes shut. Remorse flayed his heart. An empty hole had taken up residence
in his chest, and nothing—not even the knowledge that he was protecting both of them
from future pain—could fill it.
“You can’t go through with this plan, Leah,” he said, opening his gaze to the window.
“You’ve accomplished what you set out to do—to discover the truth behind Richard’s
disappearance. Let it go now.”
“How can you say that when the person who killed your family is still out there?”
she demanded.
He turned around, crossed his arms over his chest. “Because they’re gone, and I can’t
bring them back. I almost lost you twice, damn it. And now you’re talking about going
after the same maniac who broke into your home, hid in your fucking attic for God
knows how long, and then came after you with a knife.”
Dismissing caution, he crossed the room, pushing office chairs and sending them rolling
out of his path. He didn’t pause until his chest nearly grazed her breasts. He narrowed
his eyes as she backpedaled a step.
Her lips flattened into a thin, defiant line. “I was there, remember?”
Like a match to kindling, her flippant comeback sparked a fire in his stomach and
spread to his chest.
“Do you understand Maura and Ian are dead because of
me
?” he snapped, reclaiming the space she’d put between them.
He lifted his hands, fingers curled and ready to grab her arms and deliver the hard
shake he’d decided against earlier. But he dropped his arms back to his sides. Touching
her was a mistake he couldn’t afford. A right he no longer had, after last night.
That the pads of his fingers itched to have her skin against his only enflamed the
anger.
“Two innocent lives are gone
because of me
. This asshole didn’t try to take you out because of a poor performance rating. Think
about it, Leah. The hit-and-run followed our visit to Catherine and after we spent
the evening together at the pub. The break-in came after I kissed you. I don’t care
what anyone says, those aren’t coincidences.
I
placed you directly in a killer’s path, damn it. I refuse to allow you to walk right
into his arms.”