He was relaxed, still floating, his vision sharp and clear, tumbling over the familiar hulks of furniture in the room despite the dark, and he enjoyed the vision of Anne lying in bed, one arm above her head, the other carelessly abandoned at her side. Most of her figure was in shadow, but the free arm was milky white, caught in a pool of moonlight bursting through the slats of the broken shutters on the window. That elegant limb beckoned to Gabriel, made him struggle to reach the paper and pencil he kept next to his chair, at the ready in case he felt the urge to sketch. He hadn’t, not in months, but Anne At Rest spoke to him, and he moved his pencil quickly, capturing the bed, the hidden figure, the beautiful, illuminated arm.
Standing up, he stretched his stiff, weak body, ignoring that all too familiar nausea, and walked toward his lover. She was a good girl, Anne, with none of the brashness of many common whores, and she did a fine job of tolerating him. Some nights he even suspected she felt love, such as she was capable of, for him. He read it in her anxiety, her eagerness, that desperate desire to please. In return he felt something like gratitude. Now he simply wanted to capture her features, her expression, see and appreciate how her lovely, worrisome face relaxed into innocence in her sleep.
Still two feet from the bed, Gabriel’s boot heel slipped on the floor and he cursed, nearly going down before grabbing the bedpost for balance. Glancing to see what had halted his progress, he saw a dark spot on the floor, raised like a puddle. Unsure what it was, he shifted forward, his hand sliding along the side of the mattress as he leaned for a better look. There was dampness beneath his fingers, and he realized the puddle appeared to be originating from the bed, a stained trail descending from the sheet to drip upon the floor.
Head snapping up, mouth hot, room spinning from the alcohol, Gabriel rushed his gaze past Anne’s perfect arm and hand, to her face.
Or where her face should have been.
Unrecognizable, covered in blood, Anne was lacerated from hairline to waist with multiple stab wounds, a bowie knife placed mockingly in her other hand, her chemise and huge areas of her flesh shredded.
She was dead.
Bile rose in his throat, and he turned and spilled the contents of his stomach on the floor beside that dark circular stain of her life’s blood, his heart racing, his mind registering a rapid succession of shock, horror, regret, fear. Anne had just been alive, warm and anxiously eager to please him. Now she was irrefutably and grotesquely dead.
Slashed to bloody bits while he floated in a pleasure cloud of drugs.
While he could never die, she had been viciously yanked from this mortal coil, and for him there would be no escape.
Ever.
Chapter One
MICHAELS MURDER TRIAL NEARS END OF TESTIMONY
In a case that grows more complex by the day, defendant Dr. Rafe Marino quoted the Bible, implying he was a positive influence upon her when asked about his relationship with the victim, girlfriend Jessie Michaels. “For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say no to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in this present age,” Dr. Marino told reporters outside the courthouse yesterday.Interesting. Gabriel reread the quote twice, the reference to God having leaped out at him. Curiosity had him heading to his computer, to read all recent references to the Michaels case that he could find. There was no shortage of online articles. It was a case that had captured media attention in South-west Florida.
Two hours later, Gabriel’s curiosity had coalesced into excitement. The parallels were remarkable between Jessie Michaels’s death and Anne’s. This was his next project, without question.
And maybe, just maybe, it could be the way to break his curse. Of course, calling it a curse was irresponsible, implying he had done nothing to be inflicted with his present condition. The more accurate thing to say was that it was his punishment— an ignominy that ultimately punished all the women he encountered. They became a devastating collateral damage, heaping more guilt upon his already oppressive self-disgust. While he could never regain his pre-fallen stature, he wanted peace. To live in the mortal world, without hurting anyone, without the painful bonds of his past mistakes and controlling addictions.
He had to make amends, had to try to find answers.
After a little more research, Gabriel composed an e-mail and hit Send.
ACQUITTAL IN MICHAELS MURDER CASE
After nearly a year of investigation and case building by the city prosecutor, the murder of Jessie Michaels remains unsolved after the acquittal of Dr. Rafe Marino, the victim’s thirty-one-year-old boyfriend. Michaels was found dead in her home on July 14 of last year, stabbed multiple times with a bowie knife in the face and chest, rendering her unrecognizable. The crime shocked Naples with its ferocity and led to an unprecedented manhunt before the prosecution turned its attention to the forty-six-year-old victim’s significantly younger boyfriend.Sara Michaels tossed the newspaper aside without finishing the article. She’d read enough. Knew this story inside and out. It was the reason she was leaving Florida. And while she had told all of her friends and her coworkers that going to New Orleans was a temporary move, in her heart she questioned if she would ever have the strength to return.
She’d sold this house, which thankfully had been bought in the eighties, before the real estate boom in Florida. So despite the sluggish current housing market, and the fact that her mother had been murdered in the master bedroom, she had still been able to sell it for a substantial profit. Money she needed, a nest egg she was grateful for, at the same time she despised that it had come to her at the expense of losing her mother. Glancing around, Sara ran her eyes over the tired beige carpet, the wicker furniture her mother had loved so much, the excessive plants and dried floral arrangements that crowded shelves and walls. She had already taken anything she personally cared about, and anything of real value. Her friend Jocelyn was going to dispose of what she’d left behind before the new owners took possession in two weeks.
Sara hadn’t been able to wait. She had to get out. Now.
Sliding her purse strap back up her arm, she took a deep breath, fought the growing sense of panic and hysteria. Tried to drive back the need to run, not walk, away from Naples, her life, her mother’s murder, and painful memories. She was leaving, fleeing to New Orleans really, but she could kid herself that it was logical to seek answers there. That emotion played the smaller factor in her decision.
Yet she knew she was lying to herself, and they had told her in rehab that it was a pattern she needed to break if she intended to live a clean life, free from the grip of painkillers and tranquilizers.