He had done this. His weakness, his addiction, his gluttonous lust for escape, the need to boost his faltering confidence, his inability to cope with his responsibilities and the job he had been entrusted with.
Watch. Guide. Protect.
“Sara!” he yelled as loud as he could. “Call 911.”
Yanking off his T-shirt, he reached out and pulled Rochelle’s hands and wrists together, swaddling the shirt around them tightly, so her fingers entwined. Pulling to create pressure, hoping to staunch the flow as much as possible, he looked into her eyes. She was losing focus, her legs starting to crumple, and he slid his free arm around her back, holding her up against his chest so she wouldn’t fall.
“Stay with me, Rochelle.”
“I . . .” Her eyes started to roll back into her head.
Gabriel shook her a little. “Look at me.”
She did, sad, confused, scared.
And Gabriel did what he never did. He locked gazes with her and let her see into his eyes, his soul, his true nature. He let her see the light and full force of his power, the hope and beauty and promise and future. Projecting into her mind, he showed her what she could have—a man who truly loved her, a house in the Quarter with a lush courtyard, her every heart’s desire. He found her love of art and passion for sculpture in her racing thoughts, and so he showed her a successful career, where her work showed in national galleries and the art community knew her name. It was wonderful and it could all be hers if she held on, clung to it, chose it.
Her eyes widened, in wonder, awe, joy.
And then she lost consciousness, slack in his arms.
Sara drove back from the hospital, eyes scratchy and throat dry. Gabriel had insisted on staying with Rochelle, who was thankfully okay, but had been admitted. Sara was exhausted, with a clinging headache and a ravenous cotton mouth, which had to be from the absinthe drinking. She hadn’t wanted to leave Gabriel, who was taking Rochelle’s suicide attempt hard, but she had realized her presence was only distressing Rochelle, and distracting Gabriel.
So she had decided to come back to the apartment and leave him to wait for Rochelle’s parents to arrive from Baton Rouge.
She had no idea how they had become embroiled in this girl’s problems, or why Gabriel seemed to think he had any reason to feel guilty about anything, but she completely understood wanting to stay with her, to try to help her.
It had been heartbreaking when Sara had seen the girl in a faint, blood all over her hands and arms. When Sara had first grabbed the phone, dialing 911, and run down the stairs, she had almost fainted herself. The sight was so shocking, so unexpected, the blood jarring and vivid and a horrible reminder of her mother’s death, that Sara had almost thrown up. She had still been drunk, which she hadn’t realized until that moment, when her mind had rolled slowly and laboriously to process what she was seeing, to take action, to separate fear from reality and understand that Rochelle had tried to kill herself.
She hadn’t seen that coming, hadn’t understood how truly desperate Rochelle had been, and she had actually told Gabriel he shouldn’t follow after the girl. Now she knew that they would have probably found Rochelle dead in the passageway in the morning if Gabriel hadn’t had the compassion to go after her.
His face had been so intense, so rigid, so filled with self-condemnation when he had looked up at her, Rochelle slack against his chest, her blood smeared on his bare chest and forearms, that Sara had actually been frightened. It had made her realize she didn’t know exactly what had happened to Gabriel’s girlfriend, only that he clearly still lived with the damage from the tragedy every day, just like she did.
Interesting, though, that neither of them had chosen the out that Rochelle had. Sara had never wanted to die.
But maybe she and Gabriel had been slowly killing themselves with sleeping pills, alcohol, guilt, anguish.
She didn’t want that for herself or for him. She wanted to live, to breathe in at the start of a new day and look forward to what was ahead.
Finding a spot on Dumaine, which she was starting to realize was a miracle in the French Quarter, she pulled in and then readjusted her car to be aligned better. The day was already hot, even though it was barely eight in the morning. It was quiet, the sound of water dripping down from the recently watered potted plants on the balcony above creating a rhythmic and soothing pattern. Sara stepped out and tipped her head left and right, trying to release the tension in her neck. Eventually when Gabriel got home, they were going to have to talk about Rochelle. Try to process what the hell had happened. And acknowledge what Rochelle had interrupted.
What had seemed so logical and reasonable when she’d been drunk now had her blushing in the daylight. She would have sworn on a stack of Bibles at the time that she wasn’t drunk, and her thoughts had been so clear, her actions so natural, that she hadn’t hesitated to touch herself in front of him. It had been right, good, sexy as hell. Last night.
Today she was feeling a bit like she wanted to run away and never be seen by Gabriel again, clothed or unclothed. God, what had she been thinking? He had told her straight-out he couldn’t get involved with her, couldn’t have sex with her. So her solution was to masturbate in front of him? Nothing about that made sense.
But it had been sexy. And he had liked it. She felt warm just remembering the look in his eye, the sound of his music swelling around her, the way he had grabbed her and tossed her on the piano. His tongue inside her.
Sara pushed open the gate and stepped inside, unable to prevent herself from glancing at the spot where she had found Gabriel with Rochelle. She was expecting to see dried blood splashed on the ground, but it wasn’t there. Which made sense. Most of Rochelle’s blood had been caught by her shirt and Gabriel’s, and it wasn’t the kind of wound that sprayed and dripped all the way down to the ground anyway. But Sara still looked before heading up the stairs.
And stopped in shock when she saw what was sitting in front of Gabriel’s apartment door.
It was an unopened bottle of absinthe.
What the hell was that doing there?
Sara went up and studied the green bottle sitting there. It was the same brand that Gabriel had opened the night before. Maybe he’d had a second bottle. Maybe he’d bought another one to replace the one she had put a serious dent in. But she knew immediately that made no sense because he wouldn’t have had time to do that and he wouldn’t have left it sitting on the landing.
A cold chill raced down her spine. She darted her eyes back down the staircase, then tested the doorknob to the apartment, leaning around the bottle. It was locked. She’d locked it after the ambulance had left with Rochelle, before she and Gabriel had headed to the hospital.