Shit. Taking deep breaths, Sara willed herself not to be sick, not to read the rest of the article, which was just a recap of everything she already knew. Arresting her was all just speculation, the media trying to draw out a trial that had garnered them a great deal of attention. There was no evidence to prosecute her. Rafe’s attorney had assured her of that over and over again. There was no evidence at all of a relationship between her and Rafe, and the evidence against him presented in court had been purely circumstantial. It had hurt him that he hadn’t had an alibi, but she herself had been at work that night. But despite a lack of alibi, no one had seen him at her mother’s that night either. No one had seen anyone entering the house, or seen his car parked in the driveway, or on the street.
The basis of their prosecution had been the hair and clothing fibers, and a single fingerprint on the window in her mother’s bedroom that matched Rafe’s left index finger. But he and her mother had spent virtually all non-working hours together, mostly at her house, so that meant nothing as far as Sara was concerned. In the end, the jury had agreed. It hadn’t been enough to convict him.
And there wasn’t anything to convict her on. She had to remember that. She had never spent time with Rafe without her mother present, and there had been no phone conversations between them other than when he was at her mother’s house. No one had any reason to believe, or any proof, that they had been involved with each other and could have done something as heinous as plot her mother’s murder.
Besides, why would they have needed to kill her mother to be together? It was completely illogical. Rafe was a doctor. He didn’t need her mother’s tiny insurance policy or house.
Sara was tempted to delete the e-mail, just to get rid of it, but she knew she really should keep it. She should pursue who had sent it to her, try to determine if it was a random person or if it was the newspaper trying to coax a response from her. But she wasn’t up for an investigation at the moment. She wanted Florida to stay in Florida. And the only murder she wanted to think about was Anne Donovan’s, leaving her mother’s for Gabriel to deal with for the book, so she moved the e-mail to a folder labeled “Misc.” and closed her browser.
Then she opened up a Word document and started typing. There were questions she wanted to answer about the Donovan case, whether or not they could ever reach a conclusion as to what happened. There were things she just wanted to know, so she typed them to organize her thoughts:
Where did John Thiroux come from?
Where did he go after his acquittal?
Who was keeping Anne Donovan’s child?
And there was the ultimate question, which she found difficult to even type in black-and-white, that tied present to past, Florida to Louisiana. She had never spoken it out loud, never told anyone. They would think she was either insane or making it up, or look at her like she was a complete and utter freak. Because there was no way around the truth, the question to which she had no answer:
Why were my great-great-great-grandmother, great-great-grandmother, grandmother, and mother all murdered? Was it a coincidence? A curse? Why was Anne Donovan’s granddaughter, Mary Conway, not killed? Does someone know about the first two murders and have they decided to perpetuate them with the last two? Could it have been my grandfather?
Am I next?
The last was a small question, but one which held all her fears, encompassed the very drive behind everything she had done in the last year. The very real terror that it would be her turn at any given moment.
“Want to go to lunch?”
Sara jumped at the sound of Gabriel’s voice. Not wanting him to read what she’d written, to know what she’d been thinking, she slapped the computer lid down hard and blinked at him. He had turned around in his chair and was looking at her curiously. She knew immediately she had overreacted, though he didn’t call her on it.
“Uh, sure. Lunch would be good.” It was a little late for nonchalance, but she faked it anyway.
“Cool. Let me know when you’re ready.” He started shutting down his computer, and hung the unusual spoon back up on its hook next to its brethren.
It was really very nice that whatever Gabriel thought of her, he didn’t seem to think she was a freak, which was frequently how she felt. He didn’t so much as blink at any of her odd behaviors, including the utterly random act of staring wide-eyed at him at four in the morning as he tried to sleep. Nor had he made her feel uncomfortable for doing that, or anything else.
“Does it bother you that I’m in your space?” she asked him as she stood up and stretched. “I realize I could probably do all of this at my place if that works better for you.” She did feel guilty for invading his apartment, his life. She hadn’t realized how much time she would actually spend reading documents and sorting them. It wasn’t something he really needed her to be on-site for, at least not on a daily basis. She wanted to give him the opportunity to lose her if he really preferred to be alone.
“This works for me.”
That’s all he said, and all he needed to. Sara accepted everything Gabriel said at face value, because for whatever reason, she trusted that he spoke the truth, and didn’t waste words where they weren’t necessary.
And she was oddly relieved he wanted her to stick around. Or maybe it wasn’t so odd, really. She liked him. She was attracted to him, even though he had given her no encouragement, no real flirtation, no sexual innuendos. Yet she still enjoyed his company, and in a small, quiet way, knew she was hoping that at some point they would cross the line and explore a physical relationship. She didn’t want anything permanent, not a real relationship, but sex she really could use.
But it was probably a good thing that he wasn’t hitting on her. The complication was something she really didn’t need, even if her body disagreed.
“Will the cat be okay here?”
“Sure. Let’s just close her in one room so she doesn’t get into anything. We can put her in my bedroom. She can’t get into trouble there.”
Gabriel scooped Angel up off the couch and held her with one hand against his chest. His fingers scratched behind her ears. Sara followed them, wanting to make sure Angel was settled.
Then was sorry she had. When she walked into Gabriel’s bedroom, the first thing she saw was an oblong red streak of blood on the outside of his window. “Oh my God! What is that?”
He moved toward it, dropping Angel onto his unmade bed. “A bird must have hit the window. It’s probably down in the courtyard.”