He backed up, bumped against a cabinet. His chin jutted out belligerently, and he glared at her. “I didn’t kill that whore!”
“Then tell us where you went.”
“How dare you speak to me like this?”
“Gabe—” the Duke tried.
“Tell me where you went that night,” Kendra persisted, crowding Gabriel.
He said nothing, only looked at her with glittery eyes.
“You don’t like women very much, do you, Gabriel?”
He kept silent.
“What’s that about anyway?” she goaded. “Something to do with your mother probably? You have mommy issues, Gabriel?”
His reaction was instantaneous. He turned bright red; his eyes bugged out of his head. “How dare you!”
Hot button, she thought, satisfied. Kendra leaned in, intentionally provocative. “I guess that’s a yes. What, did she not love you enough? Or did she love you too much? Was she too controlling? You said it yourself. Women have their place.”
“You—”
“My dear . . .” the Duke said uncertainly.
She ignored him, pressing, “Your mother controlled your life, didn’t she? That’s it. I’ll bet she had you on a strict schedule. When to wake up—”
“Shut up!”
“—when to eat, when to sleep. I’ll bet she even chose what clothes you wore.”
“Shut up!”
“Gabriel!”
Out of the corner of her eye, Kendra saw the Duke rise, but she kept her attention fixed on Gabriel. “You’re looking a little red, Gabriel. You know what I think? I think you don’t want anyone to know the truth—that you actually hated her.”
His breath was coming out in furious puffs. His mouth twisted with rage. His hands, now down at his side, were clenching and unclenching.
“What did she do to you?” Kendra kept up the pressure. “Did she punish you when you didn’t do exactly what she said?”
“Damn you! Shut up! Shut up!”
“Gabriel—” That was from Aldridge, a low warning.
“Was that why you called her a manipulative bitch? Do you hate women, Gabriel? Do you hate women like you hated your mother?”
“No!”
Something seemed to snap inside him. She saw it in his face, in his burning eyes. Belatedly, a warning bell rang inside her head and she took a hasty step back, but it was already too late. He launched himself at her, his hands finding her neck.
“Shut up! Shut up!”
Kendra stumbled backward, completely unprepared for the attack. The back of her knees hit the sofa, and she fell down, with Gabriel crashing on top of her, his hands like a vise at her throat, squeezing. She bucked and twisted, her fingers trying to pry his hands away, her nails scoring bloody grooves into his flesh. Through the loud buzzing in her ears, she thought she heard the Duke shout. Above her, Gabriel’s face loomed red and sweaty.
Monstrous.
Lungs burning, she abandoned her attempt to peel away his hands. Instead, she brought her own hands up to his face, positioning her thumbs against his eyes and digging down viciously.
He howled and reared back, releasing her and rolling onto the floor. He pressed his palms to his eyes, momentarily blinded.
“Jesus Christ!” Kendra gasped for air, her chest heaving. She caught sight of the Duke standing, his face pale, his blue eyes pinpricks of shock. He was holding a beautiful old vase like a club. One more second and she suspected Gabriel would’ve been nursing a headache in addition to gouged eyes. Holding a hand to her throat, she got shakily to her feet. Her chest felt as tight as if she’d run a marathon.
“My God!” the Duke whispered, his gaze moving from her throat—which was already showing bruises—to Gabriel. “My God . . .”
Kendra bent over at the waist, hands on her knees, drawing in great gulps of air.
“Miss Donovan, are you—?”
“Yeah. I’m fine. Just give me a second. A minute. Maybe a year.”
She looked across at Gabriel. He was curled up on the floor, his hands against his eyes. Blood oozed from the scratches she’d inflicted.
As she stared, he slowly began to lower his hands. Sanity, she could see, was returning. His eyes were demonic red, the white cornea obliterated from burst blood vessels.
“I didn’t . . . oh, my God, I . . . didn’t mean to . . .” Horror filled his face. He looked at Aldridge. “Your Grace . . . Duke, I do not . . . I do not know what came over me! I swear!”
The Duke stared at him with matching horror. Carefully, he set the vase he held on a nearby table. His hands, Kendra noticed, were shaking, almost as much as hers. He looked at her. “Miss Donovan, are you all right?”
“Yeah . . . no lasting damage.” Her voice was only a little hoarse.
His gaze fell to her throat. Fury sharpened his features and he wheeled around to confront his nephew, who was getting to his feet. “Dear God in Heaven, Gabriel! You nearly killed her! What kind of monster are you?”
The flush had receded, leaving Gabriel’s face ashen. In contrast, his red eyes stood out, looking even more fiendish.
“I-I beg of you . . . I did not intend harm!”
“You put your hands on her throat! You throttled her! And you have the utter audacity, the bloody gall, to tell me that you did not intend harm!” Aldridge yelled, staring at his nephew as if he’d never seen him before. “Dear God, Gabriel, did you kill those women?”
Gabriel looked like he was going to cry. “No. I . . . I . . . no!”
“How can I believe that? You attacked Miss Donovan!”
“I don’t know . . . I didn’t intend . . .” He shook his head miserably. His fingers trembled as he ran them through his hair.
Kendra felt nauseous. She laid a hand on the Duke’s arm. “Enough. Let him go.”
The Duke shot her an astonished look. “I’m thinking of calling the bailiff!”
Panic crossed Gabriel’s face. “I swear to you—”
“Let him go,” she repeated. “I’m fine.”
She didn’t know who looked more stunned at the dismissal—Gabriel or the Duke.
“Miss Donovan—”
“Please.”
Aldridge frowned. “I am not certain—”
“Please.”
He sighed. “Very well, Miss Donovan. But only because you insist. Gabriel—leave. Go to your room. And stay there.”
Gabriel hesitated only for a second, then he moved toward the door, his gait like that of an old man, measured but unsteady. The aftereffects of an adrenaline rush, she knew—she was feeling the same jittery nerves.
Gabriel opened the door and paused, glancing back at them. He looked as though he wanted to say something, his face twisting, but in the end he simply shook his head and left the room.
The silence was profound.
Aldridge sank down on the sofa as though his legs could no longer support him.
Kendra glanced over at the decanters that Gabriel had been coveting earlier. “I think I could use a drink. Do you want one?”
Aldridge stared at her like she was crazy. “Gabriel attacked you, Miss Donovan!”
“Yeah. I was there.” Screw the sherry, she thought, and selected the more hard-core scotch. She splashed the amber liquid in two glasses, surveyed it in the soft light of the room, then added some more—what the hell? She brought a glass to the Duke.
“Cheers,” she said, taking a hearty swallow. The alcohol burned its way down her tender throat and lit a merry fire in her belly.
“How can you be so calm about this?”
“I’m not calm.” She sat facing the Duke, and lifted one hand. It was trembling violently. “Adrenaline’s a bitch.”
He stared at her for a full minute, then shook his head. “Miss Donovan, I don’t know what to make of you.”
When she said nothing, he lifted the glass to his lips and tossed back a healthy portion of the scotch. “God. Gabriel . . . I cannot believe it. I simply cannot believe that he attac
ked you!”
“I deliberately pushed him.”
“There’s no excuse for what he did!”
“No. He’s definitely got problems. I didn’t anticipate his reaction to become so . . . physical.”
“Miss Donovan, this is not amusing! He most likely killed those women! He most certainly would have killed you. I still believe I should send for Mr. Hilliard. Alec . . . Alec will be devastated.”
She took another swallow of scotch. “Gabriel isn’t our killer.”
He stared at her, bewildered. “You are now sitting there with bruises on your throat because he tried to throttle you!”
“I told you. I pushed his buttons, and he lost control. The unsub wouldn’t have lost control so easily. I would’ve had to apply a lot more pressure than I did just now.”
“You do not believe Gabriel killed those women?”
“I believe if Gabriel had killed those women, it would have been in a frenzy. That’s not what we’re dealing with.” She thought of the calculated cutting of the torso.
Aldridge rubbed a shaking hand over his face. “Dear God. This is incredible.”
“I don’t think he’s responsible for the murders, but I think he’s hiding something.”
“What?”
“I don’t know.” She frowned. “I’d like to find out.”
“You truly do not believe he’s responsible for the murders?”
“No. I do not.”
“Gabriel just tried to kill you, yet here you are, professing his innocence.”
“Not his innocence,” she stated carefully. “I just don’t think he’s our killer.”
“You are one hundred percent certain of your hypothesis?”
Kendra considered that. “Not one hundred percent,” she conceded finally. “I’m ninety-nine percent certain. That’s pretty good odds.”
“And the other one percent?”
“I could be wrong.”
43
Because she needed to think, Kendra went up to the battlements on the central tower. She welcomed the cool night air against her skin. Above her, the moon was a waxing gibbous. Without the artificial backsplash of a city to mute them, the stars were a billion brilliant speckles scattered across the night sky. The heavens were, she knew, brighter now, the planets and stars closer to earth. Two centuries closer in the expanding universe. She understood why Aldridge had set up his enormous telescope here on the roof.
Absently she massaged her bruised throat. She could still feel Gabriel’s hands on her, squeezing, could still see his face contorted above her in mindless rage. She was more than a little annoyed with herself for not having anticipated the attack. She’d known Gabriel was unstable. She’d pushed and pushed until he’d lost control.
Still, she believed what she’d told Aldridge. Gabriel had lost it. And if both women had been viciously and uncontrollably stabbed, he’d be her main suspect. But they were dealing with a killer with ice water running through his veins, a killer who actually felt in control enough to taunt the investigators by deliberately positioning April Duprey’s body across a public path.
The vast majority of serial killers existed in the darkest seams of humanity. They didn’t want notoriety. They never sought to bring attention to themselves or what they considered to be their work. They went about their gruesome business, leading dual lives, as noiselessly, as unobtrusively, as possible.
Yet there were a few who made a game out of it. They enjoyed stirring up the media, provoking the police. I’m smarter than you. It was, Kendra knew, another form of control. Dennis Rader, the brutal killer in Wichita, Kansas, had even created his own sobriquet by using BTK—Bind, Torture, Kill—in his public correspondence. He’d taken special joy out of offering up detailed descriptions of his murders. And David Berkowitz, who had identified himself as the Son of Sam, had sent notes to the press and police, labeling himself a monster.
You couldn’t be afraid of the monster under the bed if you didn’t know he was there. With April Duprey’s body, the monster had let them know he was there. And he wanted to play.
She rubbed her arms, mentally reviewing the interviews that they’d conducted. Harcourt’s alibi for yesterday held up—the Duke had questioned the men in the hunting party; they’d insisted the captain had been with them the entire time. But she wondered what he was hiding from the previous Sunday night. It didn’t really matter, she supposed, except for being a loose thread—and she hated loose threads.
Except for Gabriel, who’d gone off like a rocket, the rest of the men had exhibited remarkably similar behavior during the interview process, voicing insult, anger, outrage. They’d also cooperated. Or appeared to cooperate.
Something tickled at the back of her mind. She frowned. Mentally, she flipped through the interviews. Someone had said something that was just a little bit off. What was it? But it remained elusive, as bothersome as an itch she couldn’t scratch.
Then another sensation assailed her, a cold prickle at the back of her neck. This time she could pinpoint the source: she knew that she was no longer alone on the roof.
Slowly, she pivoted to peer into the thick shadows below. As she watched, one shadow detached itself, solidifying into the silhouette of a man. She tensed when the silvery rays of the moon fell across Alec’s chiseled features.
As he walked toward her, she moved to the short flight of stairs that led off the battlements to the roof. He met her halfway, lifting his hand for assistance. She hesitated briefly, then placed her hand in his, feeling the warmth of his palm against her chilly fingers. His gaze flicked to the marks circling her throat, and his hand tightened around hers. The green eyes were colorless in the moonlight. Kendra tried to identify the emotion flaring in them. Anger, yes. And, she thought, remorse.
“Gabriel did this to you?” He lifted his other hand, fingertips grazing the discolorations. His touch was featherlight, but her skin tingled from the contact. “You warned me. This is my fault.”
“No.”
“He’s my brother.”
“You’re not your brother’s keeper.”
“By God, he needs a keeper!” He frowned, puzzled. “Duke said you don’t believe he killed those prostitutes.”
“Did he tell you what I base my conclusions on?”
“He lacks control, or some other such nonsense.”
It probably did sound like nonsense to them. “We’re looking for a very specific sort of individual,” she told him. “I deliberately gave your brother a great deal of stress to see how he’d react. I knew that he was . . . sensitive about his mother. I used that against him. Do you understand?”
“I understand Gabriel tried to strangle you, Miss Donovan. The first girl was strangled.”
“It’s not the same.” She folded her arms in front of her chest. “Someday, someone will push him and he’ll have a weapon in his hand, or he’ll strangle someone who can’t fight back. But it’ll be an impulsive act. Hot-blooded.”
Alec gave her a somber look. “I do not know what to do with him.”
“Intense psychotherapy maybe.”
“Pardon?”
She sighed. “Maybe you should just try talking to him?”
“Don’t you think I haven’t tried?” he began, and then paused, shaking his head. He was silent for a long moment. When he spoke again, it wasn’t about his brother. “You’re shivering, Miss Donovan.”
She shrugged away his concern, but he was already taking off his jacket, dropping it over her shoulders. His hands stayed there, his eyes darkening as he stared at her.
She was intensely aware of him, every detail, from his lean strength, the warmth of his body, the smell of his skin, the way his dark hair fell against his forehead. The tingle she’d felt earlier became a hum. She knew he was going to kiss her. She just didn’t know how she felt about it.
Still, she didn’t step back when he slid his fingers into her hair to cradle the back of her head. The action nudged her closer. She hesitated rather than res
isted, her mind spinning with all the reasons why this was a bad idea. Too many reasons.
“Kendra,” he whispered.
It was, she realized with a jolt, the first time he’d ever said her name. In this era, where the formal address was used even between husbands and wives, it seemed intensely intimate. How would she feel when he actually kissed her?
She had only a half a second to wonder before he was kissing her, his lips pressing against hers, softly at first, then more deeply, with growing passion. Her brain seemed to short-circuit, overwhelmed by the sheer physical pleasure of his stroking tongue, his slanting mouth. Hazily, she was aware of his hands moving up and down her back. She pressed closer, the jacket sliding off her shoulders as she wrapped her arms around his neck, her fingers tunneling through his thick hair, giving as good as she got.
She was shivering again, but this time it was from excitement. And a deep hot need.
He pulled back slightly to give her a look, eyes gleaming black in the moonlight. Then he tightened his arms, and bent for another long, savoring kiss that was as earth-shattering as the one before. Kendra didn’t know how long it went on—the guy could kiss—before she pulled back. “Wait. Wow.”
Deprived of her mouth, Alec nibbled a sizzling path across a high cheekbone to her ear. She was out of breath. It made her instantly wary. She’d known there was an attraction—and how tepid that word sounded. Attraction she could handle, that slightly warm undercurrent, the glow. The buzz. But this was somehow . . . more. It was too intense, too intimate. She felt as though her skin was on fire, her bones melting against the hard length of his body. As his mouth found a sensitive spot below her ear, she clutched at his shoulders and arched against him.
I don’t belong here.
Blood pounded in her ears. “We can’t do this.”
“I believe we can,” he murmured, and brought his mouth back to hers.
She was again breathless by the time they finally eased away from each other. With more than a little satisfaction, she noticed that he was breathing heavily as well.
Then he blinked. He looked like he was coming out of a dream, and entering into something unpleasant. “Good God, what am I doing?”
A Murder in Time Page 33