Gabriel

by Naima Simone

  Hell, she wasn’t some doe-eyed Pollyanna who believed sex transformed pumpkins into horse-drawn carriages and ogres into Prince Charmings. Even mind-blowing, can-you-puh-lease-write-a-manual-for-the-less-gifted sex wouldn’t change a person. A faint curl of humor appeared and vanished in the next moment like a wisp of smoke. The same issues that existed between them before he’d covered her mouth with his were still there after the heat had simmered.

  The next time she met his eyes, would desire darken the arctic blue? Or would it be regret, self-contempt, and anger she saw?

  A shiver raced over her, through her. When she left the bathroom, she’d intended to climb back under the sheets and press her body against his, share his heat and inhale his warm rain-and-skin scent. Instead, with the hem of Gabriel’s borrowed shirt brushing against her bare thighs, she turned from the bed and fled the room.

  If only she could escape her thoughts as easily.

  She moved on quiet feet to the kitchen. Coffee. Sure it was something-in-the-a.m., but sleep was no longer an option.

  Gabriel’s kitchen was as familiar to her as her own. She tugged open the cabinet drawer, and the small motion set off an answering protest in her shoulder. Which of course brought the memories from the evening’s attack rushing in with malicious glee.

  She slapped her palms down on the counter as if bracing herself for the onslaught of terrifying images. The attic ladder. The cold edge of the knife against her skin. The glint of the blade as it arced down toward her. And that awful whisper.

  “Tell my special boy I said hello.”

  Special boy…special boy…my special boy… Why did—

  Holy shit! Recognition and shock collided, hurtling ice through her veins. That phrase—Catherine’s phrase for Richard.

  The intruder had said to tell his special boy hello. But tell who hello? He couldn’t have meant Richard—he was dead. What special boy had he been referring to?

  I’m missing something. What am I missing?

  She sensed it, wriggling right beyond her conscious mind’s grasp. So close but…damn! What can’t I see?

  Abandoning the coffee, she hurried out of the kitchen and cut a beeline for the dining room and the tote bag Gabriel had placed on the table earlier. Snatching it up, she continued to the living room and perched on the edge of the couch. Since leaving Chay’s home, a voice had been nagging her to remember…something. But whatever it was eluded her. Now that same voice insisted the answer was close. And could be found in the papers she’d combed through time and time again. With shaking fingers, she withdrew the long, white envelope with her name and Whelan Investigation’s address printed on the front.

  She opened the flap and withdrew the yellowed flyer, leaving the letter inside the envelope. Slowly unfolded the paper.

  Her uncle’s likeness stared up at her. She smiled and traced the black-and-white picture. He’d been so handsome. Even on the two-dimensional image, Richard seemed vibrant, alive, his grin wide as if inviting a person in on one of the many jokes he liked to tell. Tell badly. She shook her head, heart seizing. Her uncle had loved to laugh.

  She glanced down, skimming over the gender, age, height, weight, race, last seen wearing—

  Oh. God.

  A bell clanged in her head, the clamor deafening. Her hands trembled, and the flyer shook. Again, she read the single line. Last seen wearing: dark blue blazer, light blue shirt, dark blue pants.

  Her heart pounded against her rib cage so hard her chest felt bruised. But the soreness dwindled in comparison to the queasiness wiggling in her stomach like a worm on a hook.

  Catherine’s words came back to her. “He had a business dinner and wore the dark blue jacket I’d given him for his birthday two months earlier. He’d paired it with a light blue shirt, and he’d laughed when I told him he resembled a peacock.”

  Then Leah recalled Chay’s statement about the last time he’d seen Richard. “He came upstairs to say good night before he left that night. Blue jacket, blue shirt. It’ll stay burned in my mind forever…”

  The nausea in her stomach burned an acidic path up her chest to the back of her throat. Catherine’s recollections were of Friday night when he’d left home, while the details Chay had relayed were of Thursday night, before Richard disappeared.

  Yet both Catherine and Chay had described the same outfit.

  Catherine could be mistaken, but Leah doubted it. Richard’s mother remembered every detail about her son with an obsessive memory that defied her eighty-plus years and the intervening span of two decades.

  Chay, on the other hand, claimed not to have seen Richard at all on Friday. So how could he know what her uncle had been wearing?

  The truth slammed into her with the force of a sledgehammer.

  He must have seen Richard the day he vanished.

  How else could he have known about the blue jacket and shirt? And if Chay had lied about seeing him Friday, then Malachim, Rafe, and Gabriel had also lied about the sequence of events that night.

  But why?

  The “why” of it lurked at the back of her mind, whispering its evil like the serpent in the Garden. It made an awful sense. If one—or all—of them had something to hide.

  It explained their verbatim recitation of events. And it would also explain Gabriel’s abrupt about-face in deciding to help her with the investigation. My God. What if his intention had not been assisting, but hindering? Malachim, Rafe, Chay—they were his best friends since birth, closer than brothers. And his fierce protection of them rivaled a lion’s over its pride.

  “What are you doing?”

  She jerked, fisting the flyer. “Gabe!” she gasped, willing her racing heart to slow. “I didn’t hear you.”

  He crossed his arms over his bare chest. Moonlight streamed into the room through the floor-to-ceiling windows. The pearly glow flowed over him, transforming him into a marble statue. Hard shoulders, muscled arms, ridged abdomen, and the chiseled angles of his face—all hard as stone. The tousled curls tumbling around his cheekbones and the faded denim hanging low on his hips were the only soft elements about him.

  Even with doubts and questions flooding her mind, desire heated her blood, coursed through her in a hot torrent. Her heart continued to drum but no longer out of surprise.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked. His gaze flicked down toward the flyer in her fists.

  Deliberately, she relaxed her grip on the wrinkled paper. “I couldn’t sleep.”

  “Nightmares?” His voice gentled. She bet he understood about the sly terrors lying in wait until a person slept before they attacked.

  “No.” Leah shook her head. “But I did start thinking about last night. And how since leaving Chay’s house yesterday something has been nagging at me. Something important I’m missing. It came to me a few minutes ago.”

  The warmth leeched from his features, leaving a chill that pierced her flesh and bone to the very soul beneath.

  Damn.

  “What did you realize?”

  She stared at him. She licked her lips, dread robbing her mouth of moisture. Part of her feared asking the question hovering on her tongue. Once she voiced her suspicion, she couldn’t take it back—couldn’t repair the damage or pain her words inflicted.

  Yet the other part of her needed to know the truth. For the sake of Richard, justice…and herself.

  “I realized that Chay killed Richard.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  The world went totally still—even the muted hum of the refrigerator and the soft click of the central air turning on faded and disappeared. Gabriel hovered on the edge of a precipice. On one side loomed familiar territory—his friends and the past they’d shared and guarded for twenty years.

  On the other side yawned a dark abyss where the murky depths of trust existed. Leah beckoned him to bridge the chasm, to place his hand in hers and walk across the bridge built on years of friendship and two years of unselfish care and sacrifice.

  “Didn’t he?” she as
ked.

  He stared down at her, studied her lovely face with the bewitching eyes…and stepped across the abyss.

  “Yes,” he murmured. “Chay killed Richard.”

  She didn’t blink, didn’t flinch from the stark admission. “Will you tell me what happened?”

  Realizing he placed not only his own safety but that of his friends into her slender hands, he moved to the coffee table in front of the couch and lowered himself to its hard surface. Head bowed, he revealed the secret binding him, Mal, Rafe, and Chay, thicker than blood ties ever could.

  “Friday night I had a football game. We’d planned on going to a party at one of the player’s houses afterward, and I went home to change clothes. Mom had gone out with Evelyn, Pam, and Ana for a girls’ night out, so I was home alone. Not long after I arrived, the phone rang. It was Mal.” Gabriel swallowed hard, and though the call had come two decades earlier, he could still hear the shrill ring as if the sound had occurred two minutes ago. He would never forget it. “Chay had called him and asked that we all come over right away.”

  He paused, and his heart thundered in a steady drumbeat. Even now, the confusion and terror as he’d dropped the phone back on the cradle and ran out of his house gripped him tight. The bite of the cold October night as he’d stood on the street corner nipped his skin, despite the central heat in his condo. He could still feel the beads of sweat that had slid down his spine under his sweatshirt and jacket that terror-filled night.

  “Mal lifted the keys to his father’s car, picked up Rafe, and they came and got me. When we arrived at Chay’s house, he met us at the back door, staring at us like a zombie and covered with blood—Richard’s blood. That night when Chay arrived home, Richard had been waiting for him. He’d threatened Chay. Either have sex with him, or Richard would hurt Evelyn. And because he was wealthy and connected, he could get away with it.”

  Gabriel heard Leah’s strangled gasp. His fingers fisted at the disbelief, shock, and pain his story must be causing her. He’d warned her—he’d warned her digging in the past would hurt.

  “Chay let Richard believe he was giving in, but then broke free, ran to the kitchen, and grabbed a knife. Richard chased after Chay and lunged for him—impaling himself on the blade.”

  Gabe was transported back to Chay’s kitchen. The four of them had crowded around Richard’s slumped body, staring at the knife protruding from the man’s chest. Bile had churned in Gabriel’s stomach, burned a path to his throat until he’d raced out the kitchen door and vomited in the bushes. Humiliation had singed his face until he’d reentered the house and spied the same sick complexion on his friends’ faces. While he’d been outside, Rafe had lost the nachos and popcorn he’d eaten at the game in the sink.

  “We knew no one would believe Chay. He and Richard hadn’t gotten along since Evelyn had started dating him. And as Richard had pointed out at the time—who would believe this poor, sullen kid from Dorchester over a rich, successful, much-loved businessman from Weston? Chay would have been thrown in jail and would never see the light of day again. So we decided to cover it up.”

  None of them had been criminal masterminds. They’d gone with the first thing that had been handy: garbage bags and rope. Terror and desperation had driven them, and it amazed Gabriel to this day they hadn’t left evidence behind. At least none that had been found. Thankfully, forensic science hadn’t been advanced enough all those years ago.

  “We put Richard’s body in the trunk of his car, and I drove it while Mal followed in his father’s car. We drove out to the Cape where Mal’s family has a second home. Since it was autumn, the house was empty, and the neighboring homes were deserted as well. We—”

  His voice faltered, and he could almost smell the scent of loamy, upturned earth. Could feel the strain of muscles in his arms and back…the slick glide of sweat down his face and over his chest and back.

  “We dug a hole in the backyard and buried Richard’s body. Then, on the drive home, we drove his car into one of the marshes and waited until it submerged before leaving. We made a pact to keep it our secret to the grave, to tell no one. And I’ve honored that vow. Until now.”

  Silence permeated the room. It pressed in from all sides, crushing him under its weight. Other than the one soft whimper, Leah hadn’t made another sound. He wanted to reach out, to place his hand on her knee, beg her to look at him. Would he see condemnation in her eyes? Disillusionment? Hatred? The man she’d loved as an uncle—a surrogate father—was dead and disposed of at the hands of the men she considered big brothers. The same men who had lied to her every day for the past two decades. He, Malachim, Raphael, and Chay had comforted her after Richard disappeared, all the while knowing his blood smeared their hands.

  Would she despise them, not just for the murder, but for their deception?

  Fear and self-disgust soured his stomach like curdled milk. But he’d known he and Leah would eventually come to this. Standing over her hospital bed as the doctor had bandaged her cuts, he’d realized he couldn’t keep his secret and protect her at the same time. And now the moment had arrived, and inside, he trembled like a storm-tossed leaf.

  He inhaled. Lifted his head. Straightened his shoulders. And faced his judgment.

  Leah stared at him, dry-eyed. He’d expected tears, fury. Not this…nothing. A veil had dropped over her face, as concealing and effective as a Halloween mask.

  Say something, he silently begged. He curled his fingers into tight fists. Tell me to go to hell. Fuck you. Please just say…something.

  “It all makes sense now,” she finally said in a voice devoid of emotion. Her eyes, always so expressive, remained dark pools reflecting nothing but shadows. “Your dislike for Richard. Your ambivalence toward discovering the truth behind his death and who killed him. You knew all along.”

  Gabriel couldn’t speak, couldn’t force the “yes” past the panic blocking his throat. So he nodded.

  “Did Richard—” Her voice broke, displaying the first sign of pain since he’d concluded his confession. “Had Richard…hurt Chay before?”

  Jesus, how many times had he asked himself the same question? He’d hoped—prayed—Richard’s lethal advance had been the first time he’d approached Chay. But in Gabriel’s heart, in the place he shoved all his darkest thoughts, he knew it hadn’t been. Too much shame and hurt resided in his good friend’s eyes. Old shame. Deep hurt.

  His friend had started to change weeks before that fateful night.

  “I don’t know for sure,” he murmured. “Chay didn’t admit anything beyond why Richard came after him. And we didn’t ask.” Gabriel hesitated. “You believe me?”

  Slowly, so slowly, she inclined her head. She closed her eyes, and the first fissure cracked the blank façade. Her face crumpled, twisted. But as quickly as the emotion appeared, it disappeared.

  “Yes,” she rasped, opening her eyes. “Why would you lie?”

  “Why would you accept what I’m saying so easily, and not trust in the man you revered and called ‘uncle’?” he whispered in desperation—he heard it in his voice, and it tasted like ashes on his tongue.

  “Easily?” Her brittle bark of humorless laughter scraped his ears like tiny shards of glass. “Nothing about this is easy. I just discovered my father’s best friend, who loved and cared for me when my own father wasn’t able to, is dead because he tried to rape a boy. I want to reject everything you’ve said. The same man who took me to the playground, who taught me how to ride a bike, who tucked me into bed because my father was too busy at work to come home, couldn’t possibly be the same one who would extort sex from a young boy.”

  She inhaled sharply. Wrapped her arms around herself. Looked away.

  “And then I think of Chay,” she said, the low tone bleak, haunted. “I remember when I first met him, because it was the first day I met you. His grin had been bigger than Rafe’s. He teased me, called me ‘Thumbelina’ because I was so puny. I remember his laughter. Loud. Infectious.” A sad, quiet smi
le whispered across her lips before fading. “I can’t remember the last time Chay laughed like that. Something stole his joy, his light.” Her lashes lowered, and her soft lips trembled. “His innocence.”

  “Leah…”

  She shook her head, eyes still closed. “No. You, Mal, Rafe—it seemed you three matured after Richard disappeared. But Chay…he changed. And it was because of Richard. It all comes back to Richard, doesn’t it?”

  Gabriel frowned. He leaned forward and rested a palm on her knee. “What do you mean?”

  She opened her eyes, and though they remained nearly black with pain and shock, her voice, as cold as a midnight breeze off Boston Harbor, sent a shiver skating down his spine.

  “He devastated lives twenty years ago, and he’s still causing pain. Like tonight.”

  Gabe’s heart pummeled the wall of his chest like a wild animal struggling to break free of its cage. He seized hold of her wrists, cuffing them.

  “Like tonight?” he repeated hoarsely. “What are you talking about?”

  “The break-in. The attack. It was a message from Richard.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  The next morning, Leah sat in her car outside Renee Pierce’s home while a tsunami of emotions swirled, twisted, and took her apart like a village caught up in its destructive winds. During the forty-minute drive from Boston to the coastal town of Rockport where Richard’s ex-wife lived, Leah’d had plenty of time to replay that devastating conversation with Gabriel.

  Chay killed Richard.

  Pain. Rage. Disgust. They all curdled low in her belly. God. She closed her eyes and curled her fingers around the steering wheel, squeezing until the knuckles blanched. How could she have been so wrong about Richard? How could she not have detected the pure evil skulking beneath his perfect smile?

  Head spinning, she shoved open the car door and stepped out into the quiet residential street. As she took a step toward the drive, her cell phone rang. She removed the phone from her jacket pocket, expecting to see Gabriel’s name scrolled across the top. This morning had been strained. He’d been distant, coldly polite. But when she’d informed him of her plans to visit Richard’s ex-wife, the cool aloofness had melted under his anger. Oh, he’d strongly disagreed. In his words, she was determined to paint an even bigger bull’s-eye on her back by continuing to dig into Richard’s past when she now knew the truth about his murder.