Never Tell

by Selena Montgomery

  In rebellion, she tugged at the buttons of the sweltering suit and fairly ripped them from their moorings. She removed the satchel, thrust the jacket off, and bundled it into a crumpled ball of fabric. If wearing the horrid clothes didn’t manage to keep Gabriel or Kenneth at bay, she could see no good reason to sweat to death in vain protest.

  Rolling with the liberating wave of defiance, Erin unfastened the cloth-covered buttons at her throat, not stopping until her fingers encountered the edge of lace at her chemise. There her rebelliousness faltered, and she managed a ragged grin at the image of herself stripped down to chemise and skirt hiked up over naked thighs.

  She settled on a slight hitch in the calf-length skirt and the pleasure of an itinerant breeze occasionally wafting over her skin. As she strolled along the boulevards, beneath a canopy of verdant green and cloudless blue, and inhaled the scent of honeysuckle, the drumming headache disappeared. For the first time, in too long a while, she thought, she might one day be happy. Or at least content.

  CHAPTER 13

  Her good mood lasted until she opened her mailbox. She saw the ivory parchment envelope poking up between the flyers and bills, felt the spurt of terror. Concentrating on each breath, she mounted the stairs to the third floor.

  Later, she would not remember unlocking the door or slamming it shut. She wouldn’t recall drawing the safety chain across before she sank to the floor. For her, it was a series of sounds: the rip of thick paper, the sibilant hiss of the note that fluttered onto her lap. Then elegant script that mocked her with its beauty.

  Analise,

  You disappoint me. Days pass, and you are no closer to my goal. To finishing what started in the cellar. In the mountains.

  Now you have an ally. How soon before he seeks the truth about you? How soon before I tell him?

  You know the words. All the lovely letters arranged to tell the truth. Twenty-six letters. Not a second to waste.

  Find me.

  Erin scrambled to her knees, knocking the note and envelope to the floor. She snatched the phone from its cradle and called information. “Gabriel Moss, please.”

  Soon the operator connected Erin to his line. After several rings, she heard the subtle click. “Hello?”

  “Gabriel?” Erin willed her voice to be strong, but it wavered slightly.

  “Erin?” Gabriel heard the thread of tension. “Where are you? Where’s Gennie?”

  “She’s still at the university. I walked home.” The panic rose higher, choking her. “Can you come to my apartment? It’s important.”

  “I’m on my way.”

  Erin replaced the phone, staring at the note. Calling Gabriel had been instinct. What she had to do next was purely self-preservation. She circled the breakfast island and entered the kitchen. Coolly, she reached into the kitchen drawer for a pair of scissors. The strip of paper with her name on it floated down into the sink. The rush of tap water blurred the ink before the compactor ripped the sliver to shreds. She filled a glass, drinking to soothe her tight throat.

  Erin paced beyond sight of the window, able to see out without others seeing in. At each creak and moan of the old building, she shivered in the evening heat. She should be terrified, she imagined. But there was no room for terror, only survival.

  There was no question now: The killer wanted revenge. Revenge for the death of Nathan Rhodes. Because she’d chosen her life over his, knowing she had no choice.

  It had been months before she could sleep in Sebastian’s apartment with the door closed, the lights off. In the dark, the dreams waited.

  If the killer knew of Analise, knew of Nathan, then he knew of the dark room and what she’d seen. He knew that she had run to the mountains to escape. Horror forced her to run. But she’d run as far as she could, and Nathan had found her. She’d run again, only to wind up in the middle of a nightmare. This time, she had to take a stand.

  She would not run again.

  So she was calm when Gabriel’s battered Jeep screeched to a halt at the curb. As she pressed the buzzer to admit him, she thought about how much of the truth she could give him.

  “What happened?” Gabriel demanded as he rounded the corner, seconds later. “Are you okay?” Without waiting for a response, he pushed past her into the apartment.

  Erin closed the door and secured the latch. She handed him the doctored note. “It was waiting for me this afternoon.”

  The words on the paper skittered nerves Gabriel thought long since deadened. “Where did you find it?”

  “My mailbox. Just like the first one.” She took a seat on the couch, sipped from the water she’d poured. “The next victim is coming. Soon.”

  Gabriel leaned against the mantel, which gave him a clear view of the windows. “Tell me about the cellar, Erin.” It was a command. His hard voice contained no compassion, no hesitation. Just certainty that his orders would be met. “What happened in the mountains?”

  She stared at him for infinite seconds. Tall, solid, with skin burnished to a copper sheen, he reminded her of a sculpture of a modern god. His smoke gray eyes, so unexpected amid the shades of brown, seemed to burrow into her. They demanded her secrets, every story she could tell.

  She shifted forward. “Metaphors. Heights, depths.”

  “You’re lying, Erin!” Gabriel stormed toward her, mouth tight with anger. “Seven people are dead. And you know why.”

  “I’m trying to stop him!”

  “Try harder! Tell me the truth.” Gabriel slapped the manila folder on the coffee table. “You knew all of them, Erin. All five of the victims.”

  Erin recoiled as though struck. “I didn’t,” she whispered.

  He squatted beside her, caging her in. With one hand, he opened the file. “I had my reporters run a cross-check. Everything they could find out about you and the victims.” Jabbing a photo of a man. “Julian Harris attended your gym. He asked you out on a date once.”

  The photo watched her with damning eyes. Eyes she recognized now. The 6:45 A.M. treadmill. “No,” she murmured, touching the glossy print. “I didn’t know his name.”

  Relentless, Gabriel ripped out a second page and laid it beside Julian’s photograph. A familiar name had been scrawled across the bottom of her loan papers with First Bank. “Burleigh Singleton approved your loan for this condo. Did you forget him, too?”

  “Oh, my God.” Erin reached for the next sheet, fingers trembling. Another photograph of a face she’d seen but never looked at. “Phoebe worked part-time at the Newbern Menagerie? I never paid attention to her. I try not to notice other people, hoping they won’t notice me.”

  Gabriel rose from his position on the floor. “You’re not invisible, Erin. We touch the world, and the world touches us.” He joined her on the sofa, lifting her hands to hold them. “What did he do to you?”

  “Made me a shadow. A pathetic shell. I don’t want to become that woman again.”

  “We won’t let him win. Let me help you.”

  The words, as rough and potent as whiskey, sped through her like lightning.

  Gabriel gently traced her widow’s peak and the curve that flowed from it. “What are you afraid of, Erin? Tell me and you’re safe with me.”

  “Rubbish,” Erin whispered. The tension tightened and the churning in her belly became a flutter.

  “True,” he agreed immediately. “But your secrets will be. Trust me.”

  “He wants me to tell you. To pull you inside.”

  “I’m already there. He knows we’re working together. This note intends to make us weak. You won’t let him.”

  The guilt burned through her like acid. “I didn’t mean to harm those people. I thought it was finished.”

  “You didn’t do this.” Driven to comfort, Gabriel tugged her closer. “I want to know what’s going on in that complicated head of yours. I want to know you, Erin.”

  “If you do, he’ll come after you as well.”

  “Haven’t you noticed I don’t frighten well, darling?” Gabri
el shifted forward until Erin bumped against the sofa back.

  He lifted a hand to cup her cheek, and she shook her head in fierce denial. “Yes,” he corrected.

  “Don’t.” Erin’s mind swirled with possibilities. Push him away. Keep him at arm’s length. It was the only way to protect herself. But a traitor’s voice whispered louder than logic. It demanded action. Pull him closer. End the ache and taste. “Please don’t,” she whispered, and turned her hand beneath his, palm to palm.

  “I don’t seem to have a choice.” He slid the hand cupping the soft cheek in search of the slender nape of her neck. On his way, he became distracted by the pins holding the dreary bun in place. With slow, deliberate movements, he drew pins from the black, silken mass. Drawn down by its weight, it spilled over, caressing his fingers as he tangled them in its skeins.

  The cool strands burned like separate flames, and his hands tightened. “You make me wonder why you bind this beauty so close. Why your clothes don’t fit you. Why you have keepsakes you’d never own.”

  “I don’t know what—”

  Gabriel shook his head once, unable to trust his temper. Understanding, she fell silent. So close to her, able to read the wide brown eyes, his fury rose. “I don’t know you, but I know lies. This,” he lifted a handful of glorious ebony hair between them, “is a lie.” With his thumb, he smudged away the last remnants of the bronze gloss she painted upon her lips. “You wouldn’t wear this color. It’s too innocuous. Your mouth needs a deeper hue, earthy. Hot. You know this.”

  “I can choose my own—”

  “Shut up,” he said quietly. “I don’t want to hear another lie from you. From your mouth. When I kiss you this time, I want only the truth between us.”

  Inexorably, Gabriel drew her to him. Desire fisted inside him, demanding he take. Still, he denied himself speed, wanting only to savor. Mysteries caught him this way. He peeled away at layers, at a leisurely pace. Eventually, he would get his answers, and he would enjoy the journey.

  A breath sighed out between them, and he breathed deep. It told him of need. Of craving. Her sigh, he had to believe, was the truth. Needing to be convinced, he closed the distance between them. As his lips met hers, a broken moan rose between them.

  He couldn’t tell whether it was him or her.

  In the next instant, he didn’t care. The kiss thundered through him, hard and fast, though his mouth barely moved. Then her lips parted, and he could do nothing but sink inside. Exploring, he found the serrated edge of teeth a spur, the satiny tongue a revelation. It danced with his, and he dragged her closer, diving inside. Soft, wet, perfect, her mouth met his every thrust, parried with delight. Flavors so exotic they could only be called Erin burst inside the kiss, and he reveled. Turning her, he pressed them together, not daring to separate.

  Erin felt herself falling. Tumbling, she thought dazedly, into nothing. Into everything. As she searched his mouth for safety, she found only danger. A stunning, seductive danger that called out to her. Demanded she join. Heat suffused her, and she could only reach out for anchor. Unable to not, she stroked her hands along the chest that loomed over her, across the broad back that tempted her. When the feel of cloth tormented, she searched for more.

  Her hands skimmed along beneath his shirt, and Gabriel arched with pleasure. He rewarded the discovery with tender kisses pressed to her temple, gentle nibbles along her throat. Tracing the collar of her shirt, he pushed the wide band aside and traced the bared flesh with warm licks of fire. Down, over her shoulder, the shirt fell, and he followed, unwilling to miss even a taste.

  Not to be outdone, she shoved buttons from plackets, eager to feel. To know. When the white cotton fell open, it draped them both, cocooning her from the outside world. Shrouded in the scent of him, Erin tested corded muscle at his neck. Unsatisfied, she nipped at his chest, soothing small wounds with delicate flicks of tongue. He tasted mysterious and familiar. She feasted.

  “Who are you?” he demanded, the question a groan. “I need to know.”

  Erin surfaced. Remembering, she scrambled away from him, until she reached the arm of the sofa. Clumsily she closed her shirt. “We can’t do this now.”

  “Now,” she’d said. Not “ever.” Hearing the promise, even if she didn’t, Gabriel sat back against the opposite arm. His blood beat hotly in his veins, but he kept his unsteady hands to himself. He didn’t like the feeling that if he continued to touch, he would want to take. “Fair enough.”

  The simple agreement threw her. “I don’t understand you.” She fumbled the buttons into place.

  With a harsh laugh, he reached out and gently rearranged her collar. “Liar. You do understand me. And it’s scaring you to death.” Retreat won more wars than people realized, Gabriel thought. He’d pushed her as far as he could without breaking one of them. Instead, he twisted on the sofa and lifted his file and hers. “Have you made any progress on the profile?”

  Erin inhaled sharply. Her pulse might be pounding, but she could be clinical. Detached. She’d explain the profile and the desire would go away. It had to. She lifted the photograph of Julian, the implications suddenly clear. “Julian’s murder was the trigger.” When Gabriel frowned in confusion, she explained. “The first murder was emotional, but it gave him the rationale he needed. He wanted vengeance, and he found satisfaction in hurting Julian. But his ego needed more. It had to be complicated. He had to convince himself that it was part of a larger plan.”

  Gabriel picked up the thread. “So he researches his victim and finds out he’s an architect. He has asphyxiated an architect. Straightforward. Simple, really. This one was the one that determined what became his calling card.”

  “It took him ten days to find the next victim. He wanted to draw attention to his crime, but he knew it would be a while before the links were made. I closed on the condo a couple of weeks later.”

  “At the bank?”

  “No,” she answered. “I did most of the paperwork electronically.”

  “From here?”

  “Here and from the office. That’s why I didn’t remember Mr. Singleton. We never met.” She lifted the loan contract. “I mailed in my paperwork, after I signed it.”

  Unable to sit any longer, Gabriel wandered over to the window. “But someone knew he was your loan officer. The banker. Bludgeoned. Again, simple clues, but not dispositive until someone noticed the pattern.”

  “Now he’s in the thick of it. Two dead bodies. Neither kill is spectacular, though. With number three, he wanted to demonstrate his cleverness and his education. He used an obscure Middle French spelling and the cultural knowledge of a native dance to make his association.” Another thought clicked. “Maggie was G because he was watching me and her. The wire, the violence of it, it was about emotion again. Rage that she could show me kindness.”

  Gabriel heard her voice break, could hear the coating of shame. Not yet, he thought. You won’t get her yet. “D and F are missing.”

  Looking up, Erin nodded. “I know. Without access to police files, I can’t make the connection.”

  He dug in his pocket for his car keys. “That’s where I come in. I’ll get you inside the police station. We can locate the files from the right time periods and see what we find.”

  Then he jerked her close, and his mouth closed over hers in a searing kiss. When neither could breathe, he lifted his head. “Be ready to go when I get back.”

  Sylvie Iberville motioned in her late-afternoon visitor. “Look who finally decided to stop by. Been too busy stirring up trouble to return my call?”

  Gabriel ignored the chair to lean against the filing cabinet, long legs crossed at the ankles. “Something like that. How are you?”

  “Fit to be tied. And you?” Sylvie answered as she settled into her chair, stifling an angry sigh. Men like Gabriel Moss tripped the heart and accelerated the pulse. But they rarely stood still long enough to grab hold of. In her younger days, Sylvie had enjoyed a brief romance with Lincoln Moss, Gabriel’s daddy.
Then Lincoln had met her best friend, Nadia, and Sylvie became an aunt to their two kids. Still, one look at Gabriel reminded her of a young Lincoln and a time she’d never forget.

  “Don’t be mad at me, Sylvie. Who else can save the world and make the best beignets outside Café du Monde?”

  Boy had always been a charmer, working his way around justified anger. She could feel the heat settle, but she wouldn’t smile at him. “Better, boy. Mine are better.”

  “Absolutely right. I’m obviously an idiot.”

  “You won’t get an argument from me today.”

  Gabriel had the grace to look sheepish. “You’re angry about the article.”

  “Damned right I am. More’s to say, I’m mad that you’d write a piece like that without talking to me first. We have enough real killers prowling the town without you starting a panic about a serial killer.” She fixed him with a stern look. “You owed me a heads-up, at least.”

  Like a schoolboy, he tried to worm his way out of trouble. “I heard you tell her you didn’t think she had a case.”

  The anger that had begun to fade flared again. “You eavesdropped on my conversation, boy?”

  Recognizing quicksand when he stepped in it, Gabriel said, “I fouled up. I should have talked to you first.”

  Sylvie huffed. “Damned right. We’ve been fielding tons of calls because of your stunt. Captain’s been all over me to find some reason to arrest you.”

  “It wasn’t a stunt.” At her raised brow, he corrected, “It wasn’t just a stunt. I believe that there is a killer out there who wants to harm Erin. Five have already died that we know of. I need to find out about two other possibles. Any chance you’ll let me look through the homicide files for our next installment?”