Never Tell

by Selena Montgomery

  “Why? She doesn’t believe me.”

  “Not yet,” he acknowledged. “Which is why we have to work down here. The captain doesn’t buy the story, either, and she’s under orders not to be cooperative.”

  “Why is she taking the chance of getting caught?” The idea of such a sacrifice seemed alien to Erin. “What changed?”

  Gabriel’s sly grin, which she was fast learning to distrust, cut through the badly lit space. “You have to know how to sell a story, darling,” he drawled. “And I do.”

  Erin snapped the folder shut and moved on to the next cabinet.

  Swigging from the can of Coke resting atop the black steel, Gabriel studied Erin. She worked hard. In seconds, she skimmed reports and moved ahead. He might have suspected she wasn’t really reading, but for the tiny wrinkle that appeared on the smooth forehead when something struck her as odd. Then the quick, lustrous eyes would narrow in concentration.

  While he watched, she propped a negligent hip on the conference table, which dominated the center of the cramped, airless room. Black pants bagged at the waist and revealed a strip of creamy skin. Angling for better light, she flipped through the pages of the police report, and the black cotton top rode higher as the waistband dipped lower. The slow striptease of inches of flesh mesmerized Gabriel like he was a randy kid. Passion flared in silver heat, so blistering, it would have shocked Erin had she turned.

  When she absently yanked the shirt down, he grasped slickly at control and forced his attention to the report in his hands. Hands that were not quite steady. Desire hummed over his skin, punched his gut, scrambled his brain whenever he was within arm’s length of her.

  Not since his return to New Orleans had a woman called to him, blood to blood. Whether she liked it or not, fate intended Erin Abbott to be his.

  Soon, he decided, as hunger coiled tight and treacherous. It will be soon.

  “Oh, no.” Erin dropped the blue-tabbed file to the table between them and buried her face in her hands.

  Gabriel picked up the file. “Officer Rose Young.”

  “She audited one of my classes. When she dropped out, I assumed she didn’t have time to attend.” Remorse rubbed her conscience raw. “I didn’t call to check on her. All this time, and I didn’t bother to ask.”

  “She was a grown woman, Erin.” Seeing the glaze of pain, Gabriel tried to focus her attention. “Why did he choose her? What’s the connection?”

  Erin forced herself to read the file. “She was assigned to intake. Murdered on March twenty-fifth,” Erin murmured, a theory spinning. “The police report says she was mugged.”

  “‘Stabbed,’” Gabriel read aloud. “With a short, serrated blade left at the scene.”

  Erin pointed to the photo of the weapon taped inside the jacket. “A dagger. Ceremonial. Late twelfth-century China.” Nathan had loved Chinese artifacts.

  “What’s the connection?”

  She lifted her troubled gaze to meet his. “Intake at a jail, that includes fingerprinting, right?”

  “Yes.” He waited a beat. “And?”

  A grave sigh preceded her answer. “The Greek word daktylos literally means ‘finger.’ In Latin, the word is dactylus.”

  “And in English, the word becomes the description for fingerprinting.”

  Impressed by his swift comprehension, Erin closed the file. “Dactylographer. Fingerprinter.”

  “He’s good.” Gabriel took the file and laid it on the table. Her chin jerked when he tipped her eyes to meet his. He caught the flicker of horror and wanted to cradle her to him. “You’re brilliant. I’d guess you’re a bona fide genius.”

  “I’ m responsible.” She automatically tugged at his wrist, but he did not release her, as had become his habit. Erin didn’t fight too hard, grateful for the warmth, however fleeting. For weeks, for months, she’d been so cold. But when he touched her, heat curled in her belly. At this moment, she needed it. Needed him.

  “You didn’t do this to her or the others. But you’ll find him. Only you.”

  “I know some words,” she said softly.

  “I’m a writer, darling. I know some words.” Gabriel stroked the dark curls resting along her temple. “You know all of them, don’t you?”

  “And he’s using that to pick who he kills next,” she said.

  “Their deaths aren’t about you.”

  “He’s choosing them because of me.”

  “His choice. We all make them. Hell, you just chose to give thousands in jewels to a complete stranger. Like it or not, you’re here with me because you chose to come. We’re not puppets, darling. Human beings act with free will.”

  “Not all of us,” she whispered. “Not all the time. If you’ve never known you had a choice, how could you make one?”

  Gabriel wondered how long it had taken for her to break free. He stepped toward her, and she shifted away. He tried not to be hurt by the reaction, remembering what she’d said to Lindy. “Don’t help him by becoming a victim, too. Use what you are.”

  “What am I?”

  “Better than he is.” With that, Gabriel handed her another file.

  In silence, they read through reports of murder. Finally, Gabriel spoke. “Take a look at this one,” he said.

  Erin flipped the cover and stared at the photo of a middle-aged woman lying in a pool of blood. Beside her, the same blood drenched a tapered bit of wood. The face tugged at her memory, but in death, it was slack and terrified. Recognition dawned, and her shoulders slumped, overwhelmed. Another face in the crowd she had made herself oblivious to. Another kindness she hadn’t noticed, had not acknowledged. “She used to wait for the bus with me. Every Thursday. Told me about the children she worked with at a school. She’d chatter on, but I never spoke to her. I was too busy keeping myself isolated. For all the good it did her.”

  Hearing the grief that was about to overwhelm her, Gabriel covered Erin’s cold hand. “Focus, Erin. She needs your help now. Do you think she’s one of them? Could she be F?”

  Taking a deep breath, Erin scanned the police report. She read aloud, “‘Mrs. Harriet Knowles. Lived near the college. She was the assistant to the head of St. Ignatius’ Academy for more than thirty years. According to his affidavit, she did everything for him.’” The word revealed itself, but she tapped the picture of the weapon. “I think it’s famulus.”

  “Fabulous?” Gabriel’s head shot up. “Did you say ‘fabulous’?”

  “No. Famulus. It’s German, from the Latin. It means private secretary or attendant.” She examined the date. “Mid-April. It fits. But I don’t recognize the weapon.”

  Gabriel stared at the strip of wood. “It’s called a fid. Sailors use it to open the strands of rope on a ship. Or a shrimping boat. He used it to stab her.”

  Very slowly, she closed the file. “So much death,” she whispered. “How can he do it?”

  Gabriel fought the urge to console. Right now, she needed to talk, not be coddled. And she needed logic, not sentiment. “You know why. Murder isn’t unnatural. It’s an innate part of the human condition, whether we like it or not. Gruesome but real.”

  “I know. But taking a human life tears at you. It can eat you alive.”

  “Murderers don’t care about human life. I doubt they feel a thing.”

  “You can’t know that.” Erin thought of that night, the way the gun had kicked and emptied its bearings into Nathan. “Maybe they feel everything. Too much.”

  “A killer isn’t a tragic hero,” he chastised. From experience, he knew there was nothing beautiful or lovely about the violence of murder. Nothing poignant in apprehending the brutal, the vicious. “They take something that can never be returned.”

  “What if they have no choice?”

  Gabriel snorted. “I told you. There’s always a choice. Sometimes it’s not one we’d like to make, but it’s a choice.” He watched her thoughtfully, then added, “But murder is not the same as protecting yourself. I think taking another person’s life can
be necessary to save your own.”

  “Sometimes it’s the only way.” Indeed, Erin knew it had saved her life. But the police and a jury of her peers would not be as sympathetic as Gabriel. More likely, they would share the killer’s blood thirst. “He isn’t motivated by self-protection.”

  “What, then?” Gabriel rose from his seat to prowl. “Revenge, certainly. Rage at those who show you mercy. He’s also deeply jealous of your mind. Envious, in fact. Look at the obits he sent you, versus the ones he hid. It’s taken us three hours to find the victims. And only because we had to weed through so many files. Once you had the files, you instantly recognized the words.”

  “He’s smart, too.” The famulus connection had been tricky, made harder because of the shipping tool. “I didn’t know what a fid was. He knew, and all the other words.”

  “It took him ten days to kill after Mr. Johnson. Time to research. He was ready to kill again, but he didn’t know the words. He’s very intelligent, but not a genius.”

  “Not a freak,” scoffed Erin as she glanced at the names and dates on the conference table. “And perhaps not a he.”

  The announcement stopped Gabriel. “A woman did this?” He lifted the crime scene photo of Burleigh Singleton. “He was six-two. Julian Harris was just under six feet.”

  “I’m not saying the killer is a woman. Traditionally, yes, serial killers are male. But when the motive is revenge or jealousy, the killer targets the same type of victim. Aileen Wuornos chose johns. John Wayne Gacy strangled young men because he thought they represented the inadequacies his father saw in him. Ted Bundy killed women who resembled his fiancée—women with long brown hair. At the most superficial level, serial killers attack the vulnerable. Children or women are their prey.”

  “He or she is killing men and women.”

  “The crimes are not sexual for the killer. He kills quickly. No torture, no perversions.”

  “And that sounds like a woman to you?” asked a dubious Gabriel.

  “The murders are clinical, almost dispassionate, except for Julian. He could be a she.”

  “Damn.” Gabriel flipped the cover of the manila folder shut and stretched cramped arms to push away from the low table. He got to his feet, his bones stiff, his stomach growling. He could practically hear the gears turning in her brain. Gears that he doubted ever shut off.

  Outside the single narrow window, evening had succumbed to a deep violet midnight, long past Sylvie’s deadline. Though she didn’t say it, Gabriel could tell that the normally gruff Detective Iberville had relented solely because she’d been impressed by Erin’s care with Lindy.

  But a murderer was prowling the streets of New Orleans. He glanced over at Erin, but his companion didn’t seem to notice or care. Hunched shoulders hovered below her ears, and he understood the concentration. She was determined to find a clue to the person’s identity, a predictor for his next act.

  Regret flared inside Gabriel as he watched her strong, elegant profile. Death surrounded her at his insistence, since he’d pressed her to continue helping, even after she tried to pull away. Because of him, she’d confronted raw brutality upstairs. It had been caged behind bars and chained to desks, but it was there.

  Gabriel stared at her, watching as full lashes swept down over tired brown eyes in an effort to fend off fatigue. She would fight exhaustion, he acknowledged wryly, and she would probably win.

  Frustrated by what he read in those simple gestures, he moved to stand in front of her and grunted, “I’m hungry. Time for dinner.” On cue, loud rumblings from his belly echoed his pronouncement.

  Erin ignored the sound effects and the edict and turned a fresh page in the legal pad. At the top, she noted the case number, the victim’s name, and the officer in charge. Detective Iberville had forbidden the removal of any items or even a photocopy. Erin saw no reason to explain her eidetic memory, or that she would only use the notes as filler.

  “I said, ‘Time for dinner,’ Erin.” Taking matters into his own hands, Gabriel nipped the file from beneath her nose.

  As expected, she snapped her head up and glared. “I was reading that.” She stretched to reclaim the file, but he held it high above his head, beyond her reach. A cursory glance at the table height showed Erin that if she scrambled atop its surface, she had a shot. But she refused to lower herself to chase after information she had already memorized. Instead, she did the dignified thing and pouted. “I wasn’t finished.”

  Gabriel shrugged as he strolled to the black cabinet. He opened the drawer labeled MARCH and located the proper date. Sliding the file into place, he shoved the drawer closed with a metallic click. “Now you are.” Crossing over to the table, he sat on the edge. “We got what we came for. Time to go.”

  “You might be through, but I was looking for something,” she fumed. The spectacles she’d perched on the tip of her nose slid askew.

  “You’re not a detective, darling.” Leaning in, he used a finger to push them firmly into place. “But you’re damned cute in glasses. Makes me want to have you teach me something. A one-on-one tutorial.”

  The blaze of infuriated heat she shot at him should have melted the glass. “Give me back the file. I’m not done yet.”

  Gabriel rolled his shoulders in disagreement. “We promised Sylvie we’d be out by now. She only let us stay because I swore we’d leave by midnight.”

  “It’s not midnight yet,” Erin argued.

  As a gentleman, he declined to point out that it was ten past or that she didn’t wear a watch. Instead, he gripped her fisted hands in his and tugged. “Close enough.”

  Erin strained against his efforts, not willing to be alone yet. As long as they remained inside the dank basement of archived files, she had company, as macabre as it was.

  Here a killer couldn’t creep into her apartment and leave threats in her mailbox. Here she couldn’t be helped by a stranger and lie awake fearing the stranger would be the next to die.

  She wanted to explain this to Gabriel but didn’t dare. Instead, she did what had become habit around him. She resisted.

  “Stand up.”

  “I’m not ready to go.” Erin tugged at her hands, a now-familiar fight. She tried to ignore the equally familiar sparks. Both efforts met with failure.

  Gabriel stopped trying to bring her to her feet, and he allowed their joined hands to drop low. “Do you enjoy fighting me, Erin?”

  “Not really.” Abruptly tired, she closed her eyes. Her head fell back, as though her neck could no longer support the weight. “I’m tired, Gabriel. I came to New Orleans for a fresh start. To find peace. Not quiet, really. Just peace. And now I’m sitting in the basement of a police station with an investigative journalist trying to find a serial killer who wants me dead.” She chuckled, the sound defeated, her eyes still closed. “I don’t like fighting, but I don’t know what else to do.”

  CHAPTER 16

  “Look at me, Erin.” Gabriel made the request quietly, his soothing baritone a balm. Unable to refuse, she blinked heavily and met his expectant gaze.

  “Will you trust me? Just for tonight?”

  With a tremulous sigh, she nodded.

  He helped her stand and draped his arm across her shoulders. They walked to the door, where Gabriel flicked off the light, and then he led them out to the stairwell. Only Gabriel spoke as he told the new shift of cops goodbye.

  Erin remained silent, her mind blissfully empty. When he led her out of the building, she barely noticed the strident rock that had replaced the earlier velvety notes of jazz. Strings of colored lights kept the deep of night at bay. Raucous laughter punctuated the swirl of light and sound, but the hazy feeling of relaxation didn’t lift. They walked away from the parking lot and along Royal, not quite inside the Quarter. She didn’t ask where he was taking her, content for the moment simply to walk.

  Giving in to need, she tucked her head into the nook at his shoulder.

  Staggered by the trust, Gabriel held her closer. “How do you feel
about Italian?”

  “Impartial.”

  The arm draped around her squeezed in punishment. “You can’t be impartial about Italian food. That’s like not having a favorite football team.”

  Shrugging, Erin confessed, “I don’t.”

  “I think you’ve just broken my heart.” Lifting his hand, he clutched vainly at his chest. “She doesn’t like Italian food or football.”

  “Before you expire, let me explain,” she said, smiling. “I said I was impartial about Italian food. I lived in Rome as a child, and I’ve never found anything Americans can make nearly as good.”

  “But football?”

  “Could never choose between the Raiders and the Steelers. Franco Harris. Marcus Allen. Who can decide?”

  Stopping them dead, he spun her out and bent into a deep bow, doffing an imaginary hat. “Darling, I think I’m in love. Say you’ll be a Saints fan, and I’m yours forever.”

  “Win a Super Bowl and we’ll talk,” Erin teased.

  When he suddenly lunged, she tried to dart out of his way, to no avail. Gabriel swung her up into his arms as though she weighed nothing. One arm balanced her, and she clutched his neck as vertigo struck. He took quick advantage, digging mercilessly into her ribs, tickling.

  Erin started and gasped, struggling for breath shortened by laughter. “Stop it, you maniac!”

  Gabriel shifted her into a more secure hold and continued punishing her. “Say the Saints are supreme!” he demanded. “All hail the Saints!”

  “Never,” she retorted. Wriggling in his arms, shaking with mirth, Erin realized how strong Gabriel was when she attempted to retaliate by poking him in his ribs. Her futile attempts met with solid flesh that scarcely moved beneath her touch.

  “Sing the song, heretic. ‘When the Saints Go Marching In’!” To inspire, he began to hum the opening bars, then broke into the full song. Soon, passersby stopped and pointed at the madman and his captive as Gabriel highstepped in time with his off-key singing. “Oh, when the Saints, go marching in,” he belted out.

  “You fool,” Erin giggled, and buried her head in his chest. “Cut it out. People are watching.”