Gabriel almost wanted to tell her the truth. Almost wanted to blurt out who and what he was, what he’d seen, what he’d done, what he felt. Instead, he gathered his strength, his resolve, his determination. He had to do what was right for Sara, not what he wanted. So he looked her in the eye and said, “Stay here and just overnight the lab work to your friend.”
He knew it would piss her off. And it did.
She gasped and dropped her hand from his arm. Tears in her eyes, she popped up on the steps. “I’m going back to pack.”
“Okay, I’ll walk with you.” He stood up too, stretching out his arms as he turned to follow her up the stairs.
“Gee, thanks so much,” she said sarcastically.
He could have said something. Knew she wanted him to.
But Gabriel kept his mouth shut.
Chapter Sixteen
JURY SET TO DELIBERATE IN THIROUX TRIAL!
January 22, 1850—After instructions from the judge, the jury will go into seclusion to deliberate the verdict in the shocking and sometimes unbelievable trial of Mr. Jonathon Thiroux, accused of stabbing Anne Donovan seventeen times to her death. While it would seem the prosecution has a strong case, one can only speculate what a jury will decide. Mr. Thiroux is an attractive, quality member of our city’s society, a true peer to those sitting in the box, who has never displayed any violence in a public setting. It is hard for the mind to wrap itself around the concept that such a gentle artist could lift a bowie knife and strike with such ferocity and ill intent, especially when one looks into the frequently confused and sad eyes of the defendant.If Mr. Thiroux is found guilty, anticipate the temperance and vigilance movements to gather steam and push their opposition to spirits, for if a man such as Jonathon Thiroux can kill under the influence, they would ask you to imagine it in the hands of the less gently bred. The prosecutor maintains that the question of the connection of alcohol to crime will be debated another day, and not through this case, but the majority will recognize that this is naïve. It was public outcry that forced the initial arrest, not justice for Miss Donovan, and from the beginning the question of the influence of alcohol on behavior has been indelibly wrapped around this case just as the oppressive heat of summer tendrils about our city.
Sara hung up the phone after purchasing her airline ticket and went to pack her suitcase, the unmistakable and irritating feeling of tears in her eyes yet again. She didn’t know why she felt like crying. She was angry, maybe irrationally so, given the length and depth of her relationship with Gabriel. She had no right to assume anything or to expect anything from him.
But she had. She did.
It made her angry at herself. She had wanted something from Gabriel, right from the beginning, without even being aware of it. She had thought he could provide it, only to discover that she really didn’t know him as well as she’d thought she did.
Tossing her suitcase on his bed, she started shoving random clothes into it, pulling her things out of his drawers. That upset her even more. She had actually unpacked her clothes into his drawers. Yet they’d never even had sex. How weird was that? She had allowed herself to get carried away by that friendship, that sense of comfort she felt with him. She’d made assumptions.
Now she felt like a fool.
Gabriel was tapping his absinthe spoons in the other room. She could hear the frantic, agitated rhythm of two spoons hitting the desk simultaneously. Absinthe. God. Why had he let her drink it when he knew exactly what it did? He’d admitted it had been his drink of choice prior to his sobriety.
It didn’t make sense. None of it made sense. Gabriel had withheld important information from her, had accused Rafe of murder, yet was perfectly willing to let her go to lunch and pal around with Rafe.
Sara leaned over Gabriel’s bed, which neither one of them had bothered to make after her marathon sleep session, to snag her pillow. She never traveled without her down pillow. Dragging it across the bed, she was irritated to see that one of Gabriel’s long caramel-colored hairs was stuck to her white pillowcase. It was irrational, but seeing that made her absolutely furious. He wouldn’t have sex with her, but he could shed on her linens, depositing his DNA all over the place.
The random thought made her pause in the act of picking the hair off the pillow, her original intention to fling it down onto his pillow. Wait a minute. Tossing it defiantly back at him made no sense. It was his DNA. In her possession. Glancing toward the door, reassuring herself that he couldn’t see her, Sara took the hair and unzipped the makeup bag she had already slung into her suitcase. Wrapping the hair around a lipstick, she settled the tube and hair in the bottom of the bag, zipped the case back shut, and jammed it in her purse. She could head down to Royal Street and mail it overnight to Jocelyn with the other samples so she could have the results sooner. Maybe Gabriel wasn’t curious to see what a comparison would show, but she was.
It wouldn’t change the past or the future, but she wanted to know if Jonathon Thiroux was a killer.
From the Court Records of
the Willful Murder Trial of Anne Donovan,
State of Louisiana v. Jonathon Thiroux
January 23, 1850
FOREMAN: We the jury find the defendant, Jonathon Thiroux, not guilty of murder in the first degree.
From the Court Records of
the State of Florida v. Dr. Rafe Marino
July 31, 2007
FOREMAN: We the jury find the defendant, Rafe Marino, not guilty of murder in the first degree.
Gabriel pulled up to the terminal at the airport the next morning and put his car into park. When he glanced over to ask Sara what time her flight was supposed to arrive in Naples, she was already opening the passenger door and climbing out. Great. She was just going to grab her suitcase and leave without saying a word.
Turning his car off, he jumped out and beat her to the trunk of the car, pulling out her suitcase before she could. He set it on the ground and pulled the handle up, facing her. It had been a cold, quiet day and night, with her avoiding speaking to him more than was absolutely necessary, and he was frustrated. He missed her. Wanted to see her smile.
“Call me when you get in,” he said.
She just nodded. “Thanks for watching Angel.”
“Sure, no problem.”
The longing to touch her, to reassure, to make everything right again, was almost overwhelming. Gabriel clenched his fists and studied her, wanting her to see in his eyes what he couldn’t say in words. Wanting her to know that there were a million things he wanted to tell her but couldn’t. That she had stepped into his lonely life and made it better. Made him better. That he had met and known a lot of women, but that she was the only one who had ever made him feel such an acute longing, such true, deep love.