Never Tell

by Selena Montgomery

  “I didn’t ask for his help, Genevieve,” Erin said, protesting. “You saw me run.”

  “Yeah, I did. And I know that once Gabriel decides that he’s going to fix something, no one can stop him. Not even those who love him,” she added meaningfully.

  “I don’t—”

  Genevieve held up a hand. “Whether you admit it or not, it doesn’t matter. But you need to know, Gabriel’s in love with you.” She dropped her hand, tucked it into the pocket of her jeans. “It terrifies me, because my brother would die for the people he loves.”

  Erin shook her head fiercely. “I won’t let him be hurt because of me. I swear it. Kenneth Bernard is behind bars. They found lashes on his back and thighs, fresh wounds. Sadomasochism is a warning sign in killers. Sylvie thinks she can get a warrant to search his place tomorrow. It could be over by morning.”

  “So I heard.” Linking their arms, Genevieve towed Erin toward the trio that had gone ahead. As they joined them, Gen whispered, “I like you, Erin. I’m glad my brother likes you. But you break his heart and you answer to me.”

  “What did she say to you?” Gabriel asked, taking in the shell-shocked look. “Damn it, she swore to me she’d apologize.”

  “She did,” Erin replied. Taking a chance, she reached for his hand. When his fingers twined with hers, she smiled. “Don’t worry. We understand each other.” She looked back at the station. Kenneth continued to deny the allegations, but Erin hadn’t expected anything else. She had hoped, though, for some measure of relief. “I don’t want to go back,” she blurted out.

  “Back where?”

  “To my apartment. Not yet. I just—I just want to forget for a while, you know? Just for a night.”

  Gabriel brought her hand to his mouth. “Why don’t we ditch the others and you let me show you New Orleans?”

  With a slow smile that reminded Gabriel of sunrise, Erin agreed. “Yes, but you have to buy me a beignet.”

  For the next few hours, Gabriel showed Erin a New Orleans she’d never seen. It seemed to her he knew every priestess, bookie, and charlatan in the town. And they all adored him.

  Erin had her palm read, her leaves read, and even her epitaph. Oddly, all of them seemed to involve a gray-eyed man in her future.

  “You’re bribing the fortune-tellers,” Erin accused as they sat down to dinner. Gabriel had dragged her to the dingy little hole-in-the-wall with a crooked sign that promised the best jambalaya in the bayou.

  “I can’t be responsible for the whims of fate. If they say we’re meant to be, who can argue?” He plucked a menu from between the napkin stand and the ketchup bottle. Flipping it open and spinning it toward her, he said, “Prepare yourself for culinary delight. Especially if you have the house special.”

  “I’ll have the house special.” As though he’d been waiting to hear those words, a chubby little man bounded over to take her order.

  Two glasses of iced tea materialized in front of them. The man spoke to Gabriel in a stream of Creole that sounded like singing. When he grinned at Erin and bent low over her hand, she arched a brow at Gabriel. Shrugging, Gabriel gave the man their orders. As suddenly as he’d come, he disappeared.

  Gabriel shifted his legs beneath the table, where they bumped into Erin’s. She angled away, but like magnets, his followed.

  “Should we ask for a bigger booth?”

  “I’m comfortable,” he said. “I like seeing you smile.”

  “I haven’t had a lot of practice since we met.” Not since she realized a killer hunted her.

  “No.” He covered her hand on the red-checked tablecloth and turned their hands to rest them palm to palm. “Stop thinking about it, Erin. You’re not to blame for Kenneth Bernard. He’s sick.”

  “I know. At least, I know in my head.” Nine deaths. Eight linked to her. She lifted her tea but didn’t drink. Determined to keep tomorrow at bay she asked, “Did you always want to be a journalist?”

  Gabriel heard a hesitation, and wanted to push. But he saw the fatigue in her eyes and relented. Tomorrow, he thought, he would have all of it. “I’m very nosey. It fit.”

  “And if you couldn’t write? What would you do?”

  “Middle linebacker for the Saints,” he said without hesitation. “Their defense sucked this year.” He reached for his tea, drained it. “What about you? All the kids have all the knowledge they need. What do you do next?”

  Before she could answer, their dinner arrived. They ate in silence, knees nestled beneath the table. Later, when bread pudding sat in a dish between them, he asked again.

  “I’d travel the world and study languages,” she answered softly. “In East Africa, there are dialects that fewer than five hundred people still speak and remember. I’d love to learn them all.”

  He finished off his tea. “All the languages. To save them.”

  Not many would have understood. Absently, she slid her glass to him, taking the one he’d just emptied. “Words are vital, yet we treat them so cavalierly.”

  “Language is malleable. Fluid.”

  Erin disagreed. “There’s a precision to language that we’ve forgotten. Words have precise meanings. They’re not interchangeable.”

  “Semantics,” Gabriel countered, enjoying the fight.

  “Absolutely,” she agreed. “I’d think a writer would appreciate that it’s all about semantics. Words have particular meanings; otherwise, we wouldn’t have quite so many of them, would we?”

  “Like passion? What is its precise meaning?”

  Her voice, when she answered, reminded him of smoke. “Passion. Emotions as distinguished from reason. An intense, driving, or overmastering feeling or conviction.”

  “And desire?” Gabriel stroked a long finger down the center of her palm, in imitation of the palm-reader. “Can you see its heart?”

  “To have a longing for.”

  “Come home with me, Erin.” Eyes dark and intense, he stood and drew her from the booth. “Say yes.”

  She met his eyes. Thought of her fate. “Yes.”

  Gabriel tossed some bills onto the table, dragged her outside to hail a cab. Soon they were at the station where Genevieve had left his Jeep. Tension stretched taut between them, but neither wanted it to end. Not until they could begin.

  They hurried to the lot.

  Suddenly a scream rent the air.

  “The street.” Gabriel took off, dragging Erin behind him. A second scream joined the first, and he veered. The next street, he realized. The third scream pierced the air and abruptly faded, as though cut off.

  They reached the entrance to the alleyway at a dead run, too late. The crumpled body lay sprawled along the asphalt, a parody of sleep. In the distance, an engine roared to life and headlights flashed briefly when the vehicle turned the corner. Beyond them, the night blared welcome to the all-hours party, the muffled lyrics of James Brown proclaiming that he felt good. Not so for the broken body of the woman at Gabriel’s feet.

  He spun around and shoved Erin into the alley. By God, he thought, she would not end her night with an image of death. The angle of the young girl’s head told the story, but he would check for a pulse.

  “Wait here,” he commanded.

  The minute Gabriel returned to the body, Erin darted around him. “Oh, Lord,” she prayed as she sank to weakened knees. “It’s Harmony.” Quickly, faster than Gabriel, Erin lifted the stiff wrist. The skin was cold, too cold for the vibrant girl she’d seen just yesterday. Though she understood the meaning of the cold, she refused to accept what logic told her. “I can’t find a pulse. Gabriel, I can’t find a pulse.” She bent over the girl’s body and pressed her head to the unmoving chest covered in a baby blue tee. The shirt revealed a strip of midriff that did not rise and fall with life. Still, there was nothing.

  Harmony couldn’t be dead, Erin thought, too sick of Death to give him another victim. Grimly she gently angled Harmony’s head and pinched her nostrils. Timing the breaths, she puffed air into the unresponsive mout
h, did compressions on the fragile ribs. Nothing. Over and over, she exhaled and pushed, but nothing. Save her, Erin. Press on the rib cage, then count out the breaths. One. Two. Fifteen compressions, she remembered, then two more breaths. Find the pulse. One. Two. Again. Again. Again. Again. Again. Again.

  Meanwhile, Gabriel whipped out his phone. He hurriedly punched in the emergency number, adrenaline surging. The eternal ringing drew a smothered curse. When the line finally connected, he impatiently barked out information. “Possible homicide. Corner of Royal and St. Inverness. Two blocks from the Eighth District Police Station. Female, approximately twenty years of age. No pulse. We’re doing CPR. Send help immediately.” The last bit was purely for Erin’s sake. He cut the line without waiting for affirmation and dropped to his knees beside Erin.

  A closer look confirmed what his earlier guess had told him. The motionless body Erin called Harmony was an empty shell, brain and heart done with their duties. As much to have something to do as to check, he reached past Erin’s futile ministrations for the girl’s throat. Pale ivory skin gleamed in the garish lights. All the warmth had seeped away, perhaps into the concrete, perhaps earlier.

  It was then that Gabriel really noticed the full pallor. He’d spent years in countries littered with corpses. He could identify the complexion of death. Right after death, the human body pretended to hold life near, with the illusion of rosy cheeks and warm skin. Before the onset of livor and rigor mortis, the body looked as if it enjoyed full health. Hours passed before the flesh chilled and the frame stiffened into final repose.

  Still, they’d been taught in combat zones to check for proof of death. Gabriel made a tight fist with one hand and then squeezed Harmony’s arm with his other hand. The taut muscles resisted his contractions. To be sure, he released his fist and squeezed the unbendable arm again. He’d need to ask the paramedics and the coroner to be sure, but the short fingers tipped with blush pink had lost their grip on life at least six hours ago.

  Gabriel grasped Erin’s shoulders. “Come on, baby. Stop it. She’s gone.” He tried to pull her from the body, but Erin jerked away furiously.

  “Move!” she shouted. She leaned protectively over Harmony, prepared to begin her count again. He wouldn’t make her go. Wouldn’t make her responsible for another death. “I’ve got to do CPR. I have to save her.” It was her fault. The accusation screamed through her, pounded at her brain. Though she hadn’t any reason to think the body had been left for her to find, the coincidence was harder to trust.

  Fear misted around her and mixed memory with now. The body, cold and still. The ache splitting through her head like shrapnel. His body and the gun. The gun in her hand. She tossed it aside and scrambled to him. Nathan was so pale. Was he breathing? She had to save him. She had killed him.

  She searched his cold, familiar body, but there was no pulse. No breathing. No life. Only a bloom of red to match the blood dried on her hand. Red flashed and the screams in her head grew deafening. Louder than the thunder. Brighter than the lightning.

  “Oh, God, Gabriel! She’s not breathing! Why won’t she breathe? What did I do?” She broke into racking sobs, but no tears fell. Gabriel watched in horror as she seemed to turn inward, to a shadowy place where another body waited for her. Over and over, she asked the question: “What did I do?”

  Uncertain about how to reach her, or even if he could, he tentatively clasped her shoulder, and behind him, sirens blared. Gabriel’s head shot up at the sound. They’d be here any second, and the police wouldn’t be far behind. His journalist’s eye surveyed the scene. A dead girl, dumped on a street corner at midnight. A broken woman, sobbing out incoherent guilt.

  If the police saw Erin in her current state, the odds were good that they’d assume the worst. The scared, wild look, the muttered imprecations, these were the stuff of suspicions and good copy. He had to get her away from here. Holding her firmly, he whispered to Erin, “Baby, the paramedics are here. We need to go.”

  The ambulance screeched to a halt, and the EMTs descended, hastily gathering equipment. The first person, a solidly built woman with sandy blond hair and a determined look, reached them first. Her badge identified her as Laurette.

  She knelt beside the body and began checking for vitals. “Did you call it in?”

  “Yeah. We found her here.” Gabriel pressed Erin’s face into his chest, both to comfort and to hide. “Tried CPR, but it was too late.”

  “CPR.” Laurette repeated Gabriel’s squeezing of the dead girl’s arm. Looking over her shoulder, she shouted to the second EMT, “Bring the gurney, Jason. She’s already in rigor.” The look she shot at Gabriel changed from determined to suspicious. “You said you found her?”

  “Yes. We were down the street, and we heard a scream. Came running. Found the body. Called it in and started doing CPR.” He shrugged. “Then you arrived.”

  Laurette’s partner joined her. The gurney had been unpacked and waited beside him. “What about your friend? What did she see?”

  “Same thing.” He held Erin tighter. “I need to take her home.”

  Laurette glanced over her shoulder at her partner. “She could be in shock. Maybe we should take a look at her.”

  “No, thanks.” Gabriel stepped away from the body and the twin set of eyes watching him carefully. “I just need to get her home.”

  The partner shifted to block his exit. “You gotta name, sir?”

  “Gabriel Moss.” They stood toe-to-toe, with a quivering Erin between them. The massive paramedic topped Gabriel by at least two or three inches, and only one of them had a terrified woman in his arms.

  “You planning on leaving?”

  “Yes.”

  Laurette, smelling the rise of testosterone, edged between them. “The police may need to question you, Mr. Moss.”

  “Give them my name. They know how to find me.” Finished, Gabriel scooped Erin into his arms. One glimpse at the glazed eyes sent a shiver of fear along his spine. He had to get her away from here. Damn it, he thought as he strode past the paramedics, what the hell could he have been thinking, letting her anywhere near the body? She was a freaking academic, someone who knew nothing about the nastiness of death, despite her protests to the contrary. He’d let himself forget that she inhabited an ivory tower littered with theory, not experience. And he’d let her try to save a dead woman.

  The lights from the ambulance shirred the sky in white and crimson, its sirens muted. A crowd had gathered, drawn by the excitement. They watched in morbid curiosity as the paramedics confirmed the girl’s death. They lifted her to the gurney and shrouded her in white. Onlookers craned for a glimpse of the deceased, eager to see the dead body.

  Gabriel only had eyes for Erin as he crossed Royal. Her slender body vibrated in his arms like a wire plucked too harshly. He thought only to shield. Mewling sounds issued from her throat. He couldn’t decipher much, simply a name. “Nathan.” Shaded with sorrow, the word tripped over itself in a curse or a prayer.

  He pressed her head into his shoulder. Her breathing was warm on his throat. Emotion moved through him, a tenderness he could not turn away.

  “Gabe? What’s wrong with her? Does she need help?” Calvin, the desk officer, had just come off his shift. He’d been with the NOPD for nearly six months. He still hadn’t logged any field time, but his detective intuition prickled at the sight of Gabriel cradling the beautiful woman who’d followed him into the station a few nights before. No doubt, her shivering form had something to do with the flashing lights down the street. “Wanna come inside, Gabe?” he asked, trailing behind as Gabriel wound between the police vehicles to his car.

  “I just need to get her home, Calvin.” Gabriel fished in his pocket for his key and shifted Erin to fit it into the lock. Eager to help, Calvin grabbed the key, unlocked the passenger door, and held it wide. Gabriel softly set Erin inside, his heart twisting at her hushed whimper.

  Calvin stared over his shoulder. “Man, she looks like she’s seen a ghost,” he of
fered helpfully. “Hope she doesn’t get sick.”

  Wanting him gone, Gabriel shut the door and moved to the driver’s side. He climbed into the cab. “Look, Calvin, there’s a corpse on St. Inverness. I don’t think any cops are on the scene.” When the rookie scampered down the street, ready to play hero, Gabriel gunned the engine. He peeled out of the parking lot. Aiming his car south, he headed for a place where he and Erin could be alone. Soon enough, he realized, Calvin would piece together his presence at the scene, and the police would come looking for them.

  Before that happened, he would know what demons tormented the nearly catatonic woman trembling in his car. And what in the devil a dead man named Nathan had to do with it.

  CHAPTER 20

  Weeping willows lined the winding dirt road, their delicate green leaves brushing close to the earth. Trunks grew heavy with Spanish moss, and crickets serenaded with the lazy undulation of Lake Pontchartrain in concerto. Stars dappled the inky sky in glorious bursts of light. Gabriel usually enjoyed the dazzling scenery rushing past his windows. He relished the way the sounds of the city dropped away, as though nature had drawn a shade over the festivities. Out here, the scent of magnolia and musk defeated the smoke and oil of civilization.

  In the earlier hours of what had become morning, Gabriel drove out of the city proper and onto one of the narrow, meandering roads that led into the swamps of Orleans Parish, unmindful of the natural panoply spread out along the path of scattered gravel and packed mud.

  His singular thought was to get his too-silent passenger to safety. To get her home. That it was his home, rather than hers, didn’t matter. All that concerned him was erasing the frozen look of horror from her eyes. The Moss family, like many of the natives, kept what the old folks called hidey-holes near the edge of the swamp. He would take her there and, he hoped, pry from her the secrets she held so close they seared straight through.