Fallen (33 page)

“I don’t know . . . maybe. I went over to Rafe’s before I came here and some woman was there getting his mail. He had obviously moved out of his condo. This woman said she was his girlfriend . . . and that her name was Marguerite.” She had also mentioned Gabriel.
Say hi to Gabriel
.

Oh my God. Sara suddenly remembered where she had seen the name Marguerite Charles. In the court records of the trial of Jonathon Thiroux. Marguerite was the congressman’s wife who had posed nude for him.

“Since when does Rafe have a girlfriend?” Jocelyn looked as offended as Sara had felt. “It’s a little soon to be moving in with another woman. It’s been three weeks since his acquittal. God, that’s tacky.”

“
Thank
you.” Sara couldn’t agree more. “That is exactly what I thought, but I figured I was totally biased.” She either had to be wrong or it was some kind of monstrous and weird coincidence that a woman arrested for prostitution in Louisiana could be the same woman Rafe was dating. And it was flat-out impossible that she could be the same Marguerite in the court records, or that she could have been physically present at the scene of Anne Donovan’s death.

But now she was curious to know if Gabriel knew a Marguerite, and how.

“Well, I guess that’s typical for a man,” Jocelyn said. “But it’s still rude.”

“She invited me to dinner with the two of them.”

“Eew.” Jocelyn wrinkled her nose. “I hope you told her to go fuck herself.”

Sara laughed. God, she loved Jocelyn, and she had missed her. “Not exactly, but I doubt she was serious. She was just trying to be territorial and prove a point.” And in light of everything else, Sara no longer really gave a damn that Rafe had a girlfriend. What concerned her was who the girlfriend was, and what relevance she had to Gabriel or herself.

Everything was too strange, too circular, too oddly familiar and overlapping, and it was disturbing, unnerving.

“I think I’d like that glass of wine. And if you don’t mind, I’d like to give Gabriel a quick call.”

Jocelyn’s eyebrows went up. “Who the hell is Gabriel and why did your eyes go soft when you said his name?”

“Oh. Didn’t I mention him?” Sara felt a burn race up her neck to her cheeks. “Let me call him really quick and then I swear, I’ll tell you everything.”

But first she had to find out what he knew about a curvy and seemingly wealthy brunette named Marguerite.

Raphael just shook his head at him. “I don’t think so. If I’m going to die, it will be my own hand.” He frowned. “Besides, I thought we were friends. We used to go to dinner at the club together. I did my best to steer the jury to a not guilty verdict in your trial. Why would you want to kill me?”

Gabriel couldn’t imagine what was so hard to grasp about the concept. “You’ve killed what . . . four women? The first of whom was under my protection. It’s my responsibility, fallen or not, to vanquish you.”

“I told you, I didn’t kill them.” Raphael fell backward onto the bed and stared up at the ceiling. “Don’t you understand what I’m saying? This has been my punishment . . . that if I care for a woman, if I have sexual intimacies with her, she is killed.”

“But . . .” Gabriel lowered the knife in his hand. That didn’t sound like a legitimate punishment. Death to a mortal wasn’t something even a Grigori demon would condone. “Why so long into your relationship with them? And why wasn’t there evidence of intercourse with either Anne or Jessie?” It was crude, but he felt like he had to ask.

Raphael stayed on his back, expression rueful. “I don’t know why it happens when it happens. And there was no evidence of intercourse with Anne because I was the coroner. I lied, thinking it would help your case. I didn’t want to see you rotting in prison. As for Jessie, the reason is because we didn’t have sex that night. Doesn’t mean we didn’t plenty of times before that.”

He put his hand out, not wanting details. “Okay, I got it. But if I believe you, which I’m not sure I do, then who killed them?”

“I don’t know. I wish I knew.”

Pacing back and forth in the narrow room, Gabriel felt the humid heat, the small space, the lack of answers, pressing in on him. The floors were the original wood planks, dusty and nicked, but there was no evidence of where Anne’s blood had been in front of the bed. The stain had been sanded away. But Gabriel couldn’t make it disappear as easily. He wanted, needed, to know who would have done such a thing. If it was punishment for him, for Raphael, or a horrible sick quest that had nothing to do with either of them.

His cell phone rang in his pocket and he pulled it out. It was Sara’s number. He wanted to answer it, but if she was calling, then clearly she was okay and he needed to finish this conversation before he spoke to her.

“You can answer it,” Raphael said. “I don’t care.”

“It’s too late. She hung up.” Phone in his left hand, knife in his right, Gabriel stared at the shutters. What the hell was he supposed to do? He knew he had to do something, knew there was a key, something he was supposed to accomplish before he would be free, but he had no idea what it was. He wanted to solve these murders but didn’t know where to look next.

Raphael’s cell phone started ringing, his ring tone an irritating hip-hop song.

Pulling it out of his pocket, Raphael glanced at the screen. “It’s Sara. I’m going to answer it.”

Feeling offended that Sara had called Raphael immediately after calling him, he glanced down at his own phone. She hadn’t even left him a voice mail. She was clearly still angry with him. But it still made his blood pressure increase to know that the woman he loved was perfectly happy chatting with Raphael.

Raphael had sat up, and he said, “Hi, Sara, how are you?”

There was nothing as annoying as standing there only able to hear one half of a conversation. He should be talking to Sara, not feeling like a complete outsider, in that room of all places. He was ready to leave, wanted away from the bed, the dingy walls, the lingering smell of cigarettes and rot. He was standing right where Anne’s little table and his chair used to rest, and it made him frustrated in ways he couldn’t even describe or explain.

Raphael was frowning. “I told you I was moving out.”

It sounded like Sara was angry with Raphael too, which gave him a petty satisfaction.

“What? Who? Sara, calm down . . . no, I didn’t. I don’t know what you’re talking about. Hold on a second. Here’s Gabriel.” Raphael shoved his cell phone at him. “I think you should talk to her. She’s really upset and I’m not sure why.”

Great. Just great. They weren’t even supposed to know each other and Raphael had just blurted out that he was standing right next to him. He hadn’t given him any way to ease Sara into an explanation, but had just handed him a hand grenade.

“Sara? I’m sorry I just missed your call. Is everything okay? How are you?” Gabriel put his own phone in his front pants pocket and twirled the knife with his free hand. He had a bad feeling this wasn’t going to be a good conversation.

“Why the hell are you with Rafe?” she said. “You said you weren’t going to come to Florida! What the
hell
is going on?”

No. That wasn’t a good start. “I’m not in Florida. I’m still in New Orleans.”

“How can you be in New Orleans? Why is Rafe there? And how do you know each other?”

There was no easy way to explain their relationship or what was happening. So he stuck his hand in his hair and closed his eyes and said, “Um. It turns out we do know each other. I didn’t realize that because he’s using a different name now, but I just saw a picture of him and put two and two together. And I was pretty sure he was here in New Orleans, because I figured out he owns the house on Dauphine Street. Which is why I was okay with you going back to Florida, because I was almost positive he wouldn’t be there, but here. Therefore, you wouldn’t be in any danger from him.”

Oh, God. That sounded absolutely all wrong. The more he spoke, the deeper the hole he was digging. From her perspective it wasn’t going to make any sense.

“Okay, I cannot even figure out what is going on here . . . there was this woman at Rafe’s condo and his stuff is all gone, and she said she’s his girlfriend and that they’ve moved in together. She invited me to dinner with the two of them, but now you’re telling me that Rafe is in New Orleans? And my friend Jocelyn ran the samples I gave her, and she did a fingerprint search on the print from the Anne Donovan sketch, because I forgot to tell her I didn’t need a search, but here’s the really bizarre thing—she found a match. That fingerprint on the sketch matches a woman named Marguerite Charles who was arrested for running a prostitution ring in Louisiana in 2003. Louisiana. Marguerite Charles. A match. And the woman who said she’s Rafe’s girlfriend also said her name was Marguerite. What kind of a freak-out coincidence is all of that?”

Marguerite. Gabriel’s eyes shot open. He started pacing again, kicking Raphael’s foot to get his attention. “Marguerite’s prints match prints from the Donovan crime scene?”

“Yes.”

Holy shit. Alex’s daughter was a killer. Gabriel would have never suspected in a million years, had no reason to suspect. Raphael’s eyes had gone wide in shock, but there was no skepticism. He looked like he believed Marguerite perfectly capable of murder.

“It’s obviously some bizarre mistake,” Sara said, “since it’s not possible that a woman today could match the prints of someone from a hundred-and-fifty-some years ago, but the whole thing is just off . . . I don’t understand any of it.”

It was entirely too possible, and Gabriel felt the firm grip of fear when he realized what exactly Sara had said earlier. “Marguerite was at Rafe’s condo? She’s in Naples?”

Raphael jumped off the bed. “Gabriel. Sara’s in danger.”

That was exactly what he had just determined. And they were both a thousand miles away from her.

“Yes. Do you know Marguerite? Right as she was leaving she told me to say hi to you. I’m so completely confused, and I’m angry because I feel like you know what’s going on and you’re not telling me.”

He wanted to, but there wasn’t time. And you didn’t tell someone about your immortality over the phone anyway. “Sara, listen to me, sweetheart. I’ll explain everything as soon as I get to Naples. I’m going to catch the next flight. Stay with your friend until I get there, okay? And don’t go anywhere near Rafe’s condo or Marguerite.”

“Why? What’s going on?”

“I think Marguerite killed your mother. So does Rafe.”

There was silence for a long second, and Gabriel stopped pacing. He wished he knew how to reassure her, comfort her, keep her safe until he could get to her.

“Gabriel, I’m scared.”

He could hear it in her voice. She was frightened of what she knew was real—death—and what she didn’t understand— how he, Raphael, and Marguerite were all connected. “It’s going to be okay. I’m on my way.”

Hand in his hair, he paused on his way to the door. “And Sara?”

“Yes?”

“I love you.” Maybe that was too much, too soon, but he needed to say what he knew to be true. He had never spoken those words to a woman, had never understood the true joy of loving another person, but he did with Sara. It was a beautiful and amazing thing to feel at complete peace in another’s presence, to look at someone and know you were better for being with them.

She didn’t answer, but he didn’t expect her to. She was too overwhelmed to offer him the same commitment at that moment, under the circumstances, but he had fallen in love with her, and he would give his life for her, and he needed her to know.

After a quick good-bye he hung up the phone and tossed it back to Raphael, who was following Gabriel out the door.

“How are you going to Florida?” Raphael asked. “I thought you were bound to New Orleans.”

“I am.” Gabriel strode down the hallway and took the steps two at a time.

“If you defy your binding, you’ll never gain your freedom . . . you’ll be stuck here forever.”

“I know,” he said grimly. It wasn’t an attractive future, but he had no other choice. He wasn’t going to sit there and let Sara be killed just to save his own worthless ass.

“I can go to Naples. I can bring Sara back here.”

“No, I’ll do it.” There was no way he could wait, not knowing if Sara was safe.

Raphael’s footsteps pounded behind him as they jogged across the front room, back through the office, and out the back door of the kitchen. “I’m going with you anyway, you know. Marguerite . . . she’s my problem.”

“She’s a demon child. She’s both of our problem.” Gabriel crashed through the brush on the side of the house, jumping over the bricks, letting his demon legs make use of their full immortal speed.

“It’s me, you know. She’s doing it because of me. Marguerite’s wanted me to marry her since, well, the beginning . . . but I had no idea, I swear, I had no clue she was doing this. I never thought she was capable of something so horrible.”

Gabriel glanced back at Raphael, who was running at pace with him. Raphael was pasty white and looked like he was capable of throwing up at any given second. Like he was truly sickened by the realization of what Marguerite had done. Gabriel wanted to believe him.

“We can’t change the past, Raphael. We can only change the present.”

He finally understood that.

Chapter Nineteen

Sara wasn’t sure if fear or frustration was winning. Gabriel had frightened her with the tone of his voice, the way he’d been so adamant that she needed to stay and wait for him. But she was also completely angry—boiling blood mad—that everyone seemed to know what the hell was going on but her.

She was a self-professed control freak, and not having all the information available to her was maddening. Especially when it appeared to exist, but no one saw fit to share it with her.

As far as she could tell, Gabriel had confessed three things to her. That he knew Rafe and Marguerite. That he thought Marguerite had killed her mother. And that he was in love with her.