by Naima Simone
The truth of his words resonated in his soul. For the qualities he quoted were the same traits sending unease swimming through his veins.
She gaped at him, eyes wide. “Wow. I think that’s the most I’ve heard you say at one time since I’ve known you,” she teased. He scowled, and she chuckled softly. “Thank you, Gabe,” she said, cupping his jaw. She leaned forward, pressed a kiss to his cheek.
Several sensations hit him at once—the puff of her breath against his skin; the caress of her full, pretty mouth; the clean, vanilla scent of her.
Fear, desire, and resentment tangled together in a snarled knot he had no hope of unraveling. He didn’t want to notice the feel of her lips or smell what her kiss would taste like.
He didn’t want to want her.
Covering her hand with his, he lowered it from his face and stood. He paced to the window, crossed his arms, and focused on a white cruise ship cutting through the river waters below.
“So I assume you’re going to investigate Richard’s disappearance,” he said.
“I’ve okayed it with Nathan and, yes, he already gave me the speech about the likelihood of this ending up nowhere. But I still have to try.”
Gabriel recognized the tenacious tone; he’d bounced against it often enough. No words or arguments would change her mind. Not any wisdom about how sometimes the past needed to remain just that—the past. No cautionary advice about how following this path might wreak more harm than good. No warning of the truth possibly being uglier than the lie.
Unease slithered into dread.
Another moment passed before he tore his gaze away from the placid, dark waters of the Charles River to study the woman perched on the edge of the couch cushion.
She scares me.
The silent admission sucker punched him in the gut, and he braced his feet farther apart, steadying himself against the blow. So strong, so independent, so fearless. Even as a child she’d appointed herself defender of the bullied, the protector ready to rush into the fray at just a whiff of injustice. And as an adult, nothing had changed.
But he’d changed.
“I don’t know what I can do or what difference I’ll make,” she continued. “But I need to find out the truth. He was my uncle, Gabe, a good man. He cared for me when I had no one—I owe it to him.”
Bullshit. She didn’t owe Richard Pierce a damn thing. Her “uncle” was indebted to so many people he could hock his soul to the devil and still have a balloon payment due.
“Sweetheart, you’re looking at Richard through the eyes of an eleven-year-old girl. If he’s dead, it’s not because he was kind to a child.” He paused, swallowed. “You know as well as I do there are tons of motives for murder. Greed, lust, jealousy. Whatever the reason, someone would’ve had a very strong one for killing him—and the reason hasn’t disappeared because twenty years have passed.”
Leah rose from the couch, tossed the envelope to the table. “What’s your point?”
Rage sparked alongside fear. “My point is,” he snapped, “it might be better to let sleeping dogs be fucking euthanized.”
She rocked back on her heels, blinked. Then a corner of her mouth twitched.
“Nice,” she drawled. “You might want to save that one for a book.”
“I’m not joking, Leah,” he snapped. “Damn it.” He stalked across the room, pivoted before coming to a halt on the opposite side of the coffee table. “Digging up the past can sometimes cause more harm than good.”
“For who?” She threw up her hands, humor replaced by exasperation. “For God’s sake, Gabe, it’s been two decades. I can finally provide answers and closure. Who can the truth hurt?”
“You!” And, God help them, so many more people.
Her face softened, the irritation bleeding from her expression. With a sigh, she reached out, grasped his hand in hers.
“I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself,” she murmured. “But it comes down to this— he’s family. My family. If something happened to you, I’d move heaven and hell to find out where you were and how to help. It’s the same thing here. I need to know.”
He slid free of her grip and steeled his heart against the flash of pain in her eyes. Shit. Part of him longed to drag her in his arms, hold her close…protect her. He smothered a curse. Him. Protect her. She wouldn’t appreciate the sentiment. And the need was futile, anyway.
If she insisted on this course, nothing could shield her from the devastation the truth would rain down.
“Why are you telling me all this?” he demanded.
Her head snapped back as if his fist had tapped her on the chin. Her soft lips parted. “Why?” She frowned. “You’re my best friend. And I thought, maybe”—she hesitated—“maybe I could pick your brain. Get your ideas and feedback.”
“I’m a writer, Leah, not a detective.” But he was an asshole. Yeah, during his career as a suspense fiction writer, he’d done his fair share of research, had spent hours with cops, and had even enrolled in several investigative forensics classes. But none of his supposed expertise or knowledge mattered right now. Hell, he was in survival mode. He wanted no part of this case. He didn’t want her to have a part in it.
“I have work to do,” he muttered.
“Gabe—”
“No, Leah,” he bit out, shifting back a step. He loved her; she was his friend. But at this moment he only craved distance—to be away from her. She brought too much into his life—disruptions he didn’t need, compassion he didn’t want, desire he resented. After two years, grief and rage still clawed at his chest like an insatiable beast, but the emotions were…familiar.
Leah used to be—but not anymore.
She threatened the little piece of normalcy he’d retained, and he’d be damned if he’d turn it loose because of her misplaced loyalty and his wayward dick. “You’re going to do what you please, so go…do it,” he growled, already turning toward the hallway. “I just hope your need to know doesn’t end up biting you in the ass.”
He strode to his office and slammed the door shut, wishing he could lock his obsession with Leah out of his mind and his life as easily.
Chapter Four
Leah twisted the knob on the dashboard, kicking the heat up a notch as she inched along I-93S. Four-fifteen on a Monday afternoon and five o’clock traffic had started early. She grimaced and flicked her signal up, notifying the parade of cars on her ass she intended to take the Columbia Road exit. Two car lengths, jerks. They taught that rule in driver’s ed.
She sighed. God, she was bitchy. If anyone had been riding with her, they would have resorted to strangling her by now. She wished she could blame her mood on traffic and drivers who’d received their licenses at the nearest bodega. But the honors belonged squarely on the wide, burdened shoulders of Gabriel Devlin.
Also known as her best friend and the man she loved with an unrequited passion that made Cyrano de Bergerac seem like a lightweight.
She loved him—had been helplessly in love with him since she’d turned fifteen and realized his blue eyes contained the power to make her feel as if she’d eaten too much cotton candy and discovered the perfect shade of nail polish at the same time—fluttery and delighted.
As a teen she’d adored him with the awe and happily-ever-after dreams of a teenager. At thirty-one, the awe remained, but the woman’s heart understood heartache and disappointment. The woman realized and accepted that love did not conquer all. Sometimes the heart just settled for what it could get. Barely out of college, she’d witnessed Gabriel marry another woman, and six years later, she’d seen him plummet into the bowels of grief and eventually start to claw his way back to life…and she’d been there, quietly loving him through it all.
She didn’t know if the devotion made her brave, stubborn, or just plain pathetic. Probably a Prozac prescription away from all three.
Because Gabriel was not an easy man to love. He had the dark, brooding writer stereotype down—even before he’d attained fame and success a
s a New York Times bestselling author. Still, it hadn’t been until after the deaths of Maura and Ian that he’d become bitter, angry, and a recluse. And there were times—like Friday—when she despaired of ever seeing the man he’d once been. She missed the Gabriel who quietly teased her, the Gabriel who gifted her with a beautiful St. Michael’s pendant after she’d graduated from the police academy seven years earlier. The Gabriel who laughed…who lived.
She refused to give up until he returned.
But, damn, when he snapped and snarled before retreating into the cave he called his office, she wanted to cry and rage while slamming his head repeatedly against a wall.
She’d loved Ian—the boy had been a part of the man who owned her heart. And though she’d envied Maura, Leah had genuinely cared for Gabriel’s wife as well. Watching the large white casket with Maura’s and Ian’s bodies locked inside lower into the hollowed-out ground had been one of the most heartbreaking days of her life. But God forgive her, as she’d stared at the terrible, muddy scar in the earth, her main thought had been, Thank you, God, that Gabriel was not in the car or in this casket.
Shame stung her. She was selfish. Especially when Gabriel’s devout wish had been to follow his family into the grave. But as she’d thanked God for Gabriel’s life that day, she would help him fight for it now. With or without his agreement.
She turned onto the quiet street in the Dorchester district where Evelyn Gray Sheldon had lived for over twenty years, bringing her thoughts to the task at hand.
She eased her car to a stop in the alley bordering Chayot Gray’s childhood home, and parked next to a dark blue, early model Chevy sedan. She’d known Chayot—or Chay as they called him—almost as long as she’d been friends with Gabriel, but she’d never been to the house where he’d grown up. A damn shame her first visit was due to the disappearance of his mother Evelyn’s old boyfriend, Richard Pierce.
Leah had never met Chay’s mother, either, but she did remember her own delight after finding out Richard and her friend’s mother were dating. Several times she’d pestered Chay with ideas of her flower girl dress and him holding her hand as they walked down the aisle together if Richard and his mother were to marry.
She frowned. Funny how she’d forgotten those details for all these years. Only mention of Evelyn Sheldon—or Evelyn Gray, as she’d been known then—in the old newspaper articles Leah had dug up over the weekend had jogged her memory.
After Richard had disappeared, Chay had never spoken of the man who’d been his mother’s partner for a little over a year. It had been Gabriel who’d comforted her, not Chay. Gabriel who’d listened to her stories of her “Uncle Richard.” Not Chay. Wouldn’t it have made sense for the two of them to share their sadness? After all, she’d lost a second father, and he’d lost a father figure.
At eleven, she hadn’t questioned Chay’s absence and utter silence. But now, with the edge of grief dulled by two decades, it seemed…odd.
She switched off the ignition, palmed the key, and got out. As she rounded the rear bumpers of her truck and the sedan, she noticed a small set of stairs nestled in the short wall of well-groomed hedges lining the alley. She climbed the steps and realized they accessed the Gray property. With only a moment’s hesitation, she lifted the latch on the hip-level, old-fashioned wire gate and swung it open.
Anticipation hummed through her, and her stomach performed a nervous somersault that would have scored a perfect ten. The asphalt stairs represented the first step toward the truth.
I’ll find out, Richard. I’ll find out what happened and bring you home. The vow whispered through her mind as she headed toward the front of the small, olive-green, single-family home and climbed the porch steps. At four thirty on Columbus Day, the bank where Evelyn Sheldon worked as a part-time teller was closed, and Leah had gambled on the hour being late enough for Chay’s mother to have returned home from any errands she’d run that day.
Leah knocked on the front door. Her foot tapped out an erratic cadence as she removed a peppermint from her pocket. She popped the striped candy into her mouth and waited. And waited. Another minute passed and no one came to the door. She rapped the door again. And waited some more.
Frowning, she leaned over the porch railing and peered into the window. But the white curtains were drawn, leaving a sliver of space. The parked Chevy meant someone should be home. Of course Evelyn could have been picked up by another person but…damn. Leah propped her fists on her hips and frowned, disappointed.
After another unanswered knock, she retraced her steps to the side of the house and the alley gate. Silence greeted her as the back door came into view. At this time of day—adults arriving home from work, children returning from school, evening traffic—the neighborhood should be buzzing with activity. Instead, the absolute stillness wrapped around her, almost suffocating in its weightiness. Unease skated down her spine.
She neared the rear of the home in a slow, measured stride. The need for caution clanged in her head, insisting she proceed carefully. Nothing about the narrow sidewalk, tidy bushes, and bright blue welcome mat should have inspired the disquiet tightening her gut. Yet as she stood at the door, the visceral instinct credited with saving her ass more than once while on the force clamored for her attention. And she heeded its warning.
Reaching under her jacket, she thumbed the restraining strap around her SIG free. She studied the window with the shuttered blinds, the cheery yellow paint bordering the frame, and scanned down the white door to the knob.
Holy shit.
Her heart bucked. Shock lassoed the breath in her throat.
Red streaks marred the white paint near the doorknob, the rust-colored marks like a macabre version of the peppermints she habitually consumed.
Reason interjected, argued the smudges could be mud or dirt or grease.
Intuition asserted that the stains were exactly what they appeared to be—blood.
The car in the alley. No answer to her knocks on the door… A half-dozen explanations scrambled in her head, but one blared louder than the rest. What if someone was lying inside the house, hurt? What if Evelyn, Chay’s mother, was that someone?
An image of Chay’s fallen-angel beauty flashed before Leah’s eyes—the golden, solemn eyes, the pretty mouth with the rare smiles. She loved him. Chay, Raphael, and Malachim were like brothers to her. And if someone Chay cared about might be in trouble, nothing would keep her on the wrong side of this door.
She tugged on the cuff of her knit sweater and dragged the long sleeve over her hand. Chest tight, she twisted the brass handle. The lock clicked, gave. The door cracked open.
Oh, God.
The odor slammed into her, knocking her back several steps. Rancid meat. Sultry heat peppered with bitter copper and waste.
Her stomach heaved. She gagged, swallowed convulsively.
Jesus. Jesus Christ.
Death.
On her first week as a beat cop, she and her partner had found a decomposing body in a garbage-strewn alley. The god-awful stench had imprinted itself on her olfactory memory. She would never forget the reek of the bloated, rubbery corpse that had once been a person with life shining behind eyes that had turned glassy and blank.
Leah pivoted on her heel and a slight twinge spasmed in her hip. She gasped as fire flared in damaged muscle and tendon.
“Son of a bitch,” she rasped, stumbling to the gate, gripping it as she gulped down several lungfuls of fresh air. Long moments passed as she tried to recover from the blast of pain and clear her mouth and nose of the vile smell clinging to her tongue and throat.
“Son of a bitch,” she repeated, her voice lower, softer, bitter. Her fists tightened around the gate, the wire biting into her palm and pushing back the echoes of pain in her hip. The injury reminded her she wasn’t a cop any longer; she should call 9-1-1 now and wait for real officers to arrive.
She set her jaw, straightened. Screw that. She turned back to the open back door, dragged the neck of her sweater o
ver her nose and mouth, and grimly stalked forward.
As she approached the entrance, she removed her gun from the shoulder holster. She grasped the grip and extended the weapon in front of her, the muzzle aimed toward the ground. She avoided the doorknob, nudged the panel open with her shoulder, and eased inside the house.
Eerie silence shrouded the tiny entry hall. Her breath—hot against her lower face—resounded in the space, loud and harsh. The corridor immediately branched off to the left, and she emerged into a large, bright kitchen. Blue-and-white gingham curtains. Pristine, white counters and cabinets. A huge, yellow refrigerator covered with magnets from different cities: New York, New Orleans, Charleston, Las Vegas. The scene was welcoming, cheery—and completely at odds with the body drenched in blood at her feet.
“Damn.” Relief and regret knotted her chest—relief the empty eyes staring up at her weren’t Chay’s mother’s, but regret for the male who had lost his life. From the mottled bruises on his face and ragged tears in his chest and abdomen, he hadn’t gone easy. Blood pooled around the man’s large frame and splattered the pale gold cabinets of the butcher block island and halfway up the nearest wall.
Though the man was obviously beyond any help, she crouched down and pressed two fingers to his neck. Nothing. Not that she’d expected a pulse, but…damn.
She straightened with a sigh. Removing a napkin one-handed from her pocket, she wiped the rust-flaked residue from her fingertips and carefully repocketed the tissue. Weapon still drawn, she sidestepped the body and gore, circled the island, and exited the kitchen. For the next ten minutes, she worked her way through the two-bedroom home, careful to touch as little as possible. She didn’t enter the bedrooms off the hall but elbowed the doors open so she could peer in and scan the area in case another person had been harmed.