Gabriel

by Naima Simone

  He knew it was cowardly, blaming Leah for his own weakness and his body’s betrayal. And on stronger days, he convinced himself his reaction was purely biological, a side effect of a two-year period of abstinence. Mentally and emotionally, he still belonged to Maura.

  Panic flared in his chest.

  So much had been snatched from him in the past couple of years. All he had left was the fidelity and love he’d pledged to his wife seven years ago. If he surrendered his body and heart to another, nothing would remain of Maura. She would truly be gone. And this shell of a man he’d been reduced to would crumble to dust.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked, picking up a sandwich and biting into the thick bread and meat. He barely smothered a greedy moan.

  “Besides making sure you don’t waste away from starvation?” She tilted her head before leaning against the wall and crossing her arms and ankles.

  The sharp retort on his lips died a quick death as the manners his mother had drummed into him since he was a kid reared their stubborn head. Belatedly, he rose from his office chair. The only seat in the barren room.

  “No.” Leah waved toward his plate. “Eat. I can’t stay that long anyway.”

  Reluctantly, he lowered back into the chair. He didn’t need much encouragement to resume consuming the meal she’d brought him. Until the sweet and tart flavor of meat and cheese hit his taste buds, he hadn’t realized how hungry he was. He usually didn’t until Leah barged into his cave, braving—and ignoring—his bared teeth and snarls to shove food down his throat.

  There’d been many times he’d glanced up from his computer to find a steaming cup of coffee at his elbow, a bowl of some kind of soup beside it, and the lemony smell of a cleaning product she used to scrub his home free of dust. An image of her, wrists deep in sudsy water, washing dishes, or bending over the washing machine pouring detergent into a load of dirty clothes stole through his mind. She cared for him when he didn’t give a damn about himself.

  “What time is it?” he mumbled around a mouthful of ham and cheese.

  “Twelve thirty.”

  Gabriel grunted. He’d been writing for about three hours. Not bad. If he could get in at least four thousand more words before the end of the day, he could e-mail the partial manuscript to his agent.

  “He saw Catherine Pierce.”

  His head jerked up. Thoughts of murder and suspense splintered like shattered glass. Pierce.

  “What did you say?” he demanded, dropping the sandwich to the plate. The delicious ham turned to sand in his mouth.

  “I spoke with Dad this morning, and he told me he’d seen Catherine Pierce at a charity event this weekend.” Leah sighed, loosened her arms, and shoved off the wall. “Catherine is Richard’s mother, remember?”

  No shit. Gabriel swiveled around to face the computer.

  “Uncle Richard,” she murmured. “God, Gabe. Do you realize what today is?” She didn’t wait for his reply, not that he had one for her. “October twenty-third. Twenty years ago today, Richard vanished. I hadn’t thought of his disappearance in so long,” she whispered.

  “Why would you?” he asked, voice harsher than he’d intended. He briefly closed his eyes. Relaxed and stretched his fingers before turning around. “It’s been two decades, Leah.”

  She frowned. “I know how long it’s been. Does it mean you forget someone who was important to you? Someone you loved?”

  “Damn.” He tunneled his fingers through his hair and blew out a hard breath. “Look, I appreciate you stopping by and bringing lunch. But I don’t need you to baby me any longer, Leah.”

  Silence met his abrupt declaration. “I can’t stop worrying about you, Gabe,” she said softly.

  “I didn’t ask for your concern. I’m fine,” he bit out. In this moment, he just wanted her gone out of the room so he couldn’t witness her eyes darken with pain or breathe in her vanilla-and-peppermint scent. So he didn’t have to fucking feel. Not sorrow. Not fear. Not desire. “What I am asking for is peace and space. Thanks for the food—now I need to get back to work.”

  Another weighty silence filled the room. She didn’t flinch, but the I’ll-be-damned-if-you-know-how-much-you-hurt-me mask dropped over her features like a curtain. He was familiar with the closed expression; he’d witnessed it too many times to count during her childhood when her father had rejected her. Witnessed it too many times to count in the past two years when he’d rejected her acts of kindness.

  A razor-sharp dagger of remorse stabbed him in the gut. He detested causing that blank facade…and the pain he knew damned well lay behind it.

  “Hell. Leah—”

  “I’ll leave you to your work then,” she said in a voice as smooth as glass. Without another word, she turned and exited the room.

  He stared for several long seconds at the door she’d pulled shut behind her.

  “Fuck.”

  Chapter Two

  TGIF.

  Or better yet, Leah grimaced as she climbed the steps of a stately brownstone in Boston’s historic Beacon Hill neighborhood, TGIFBIATGP. Thank God It’s Friday Because I’m About To Go Postal.

  She should be thankful for a job—and she was thankful. Nathan Whelan, owner of Whelan Investigations and friend of the family, had taken a chance on hiring an ex-police officer who had left the force due to a career-ending injury, so Leah was immensely grateful. But there were times like this afternoon when she wondered why she hadn’t chosen a less tedious job. Such as scraping gum off the sidewalk. Or fitting those little plastic sleeves on the ends of shoelaces.

  The day had started out crappy. And not just because she’d realized with eight days left before Halloween she risked a rolling of her house if she didn’t hit the stores for candy for the hoards of cute—but demanding—trick-or-treaters.

  It was October twenty-third. The anniversary of Richard Pierce’s disappearance.

  It had been twenty years since her father’s best friend and her honorary “uncle” had vanished without a trace. Two full decades. Yet, the sense of loss still struck a chord so deep within her soul, that today she waged a World of Warcraft battle against the melancholy.

  But the crappiness of the day hadn’t ended there. Oh, no.

  Maybe it had been the need to beat back the sadness and loneliness. Maybe it had been the desire to shove aside dark memories. Whatever the reason, she’d swung by Gabriel’s condo during her lunch hour. Checking in on him had become a habit. Besides, he’d known Richard, too. If anyone would be capable of understanding her sorrow, it was Gabriel, who had suffered so much loss himself. But she could’ve saved her gas with that trip. He’d been his usual bear-with-a-thorn-in-its-paw self. Not exactly free with sympathy. Or words, for that matter. Well, except for “I’m working.” Those were his favorite…about the only ones she heard from him lately.

  Leah snorted. That visit had set the tone for the rest of the afternoon. Shitty.

  Next to the recessed doorway, a small, discreet plaque announced the offices of Whelan Investigations. She pushed open the wide, black door, entering the cool interior. Her heels tapped out a cadence on the steps as she scaled the staircase to the second level. Cool elegance welcomed her. Boston’s moneyed elite comprised a large percentage of Nathan’s clientele, and the understated, sophisticated decor exuded a sedate classiness that alleviated their anxiety over having to resort to something as unseemly as—gasp—hiring a private investigator.

  Leah smiled wryly as she stopped by the receptionist’s antique, but serviceable, desk.

  “Good afternoon, Shelly.”

  The pretty brunette returned her smile, blue eyes crinkling at the corners behind fashionable tortoise-shell glasses. “Hi, Leah. I have some mail for you.”

  “Thanks.” She accepted the small, tidy stack of long, white envelopes and flyers Shelly extended to her. “Don’t work too hard,” Leah whispered with a conspiratorial wink before heading down the hall to her office. She entered the postage-stamp-sized room and snapped on
the light. Skirting the two chairs and small desk, she flipped through the mail.

  Credit-card application. Notary expiration notification. Hmm, Wal-Mart had a pretty good sale this week, she mused, scanning the bright advertisement. Bill.

  “Hey, no one should think so hard this late in the afternoon.”

  She snapped out of her junk-mail contemplation, arrowing her gaze toward the office door. Nathan Whelan stood in the narrow entrance, a smile curving his mouth.

  “Hey, Nathan.” She waved her boss inside, returning his smile. “Come on in.”

  The private investigator moved into the room, appearing more like a successful business tycoon than a PI, in his perfectly tailored, gray Armani suit, white shirt, and conservative, striped tie. Yet the closely cropped dark gold hair, sharp green eyes, and fit physique betrayed the years he’d spent as one of Boston’s finest.

  Unlike Leah, Nathan had left the force voluntarily to enter the more lucrative private sector. No career- and dream-ending shooting and injury for him. It had surprised her when he’d called out of the blue a year ago and offered her—a former cop with a bum hip and in grave need of an attitudinal adjustment—a position with his company. Though they were close friends now, growing up they’d been familiar but not BFFs. As adults, the five-year age difference wasn’t a big deal. But as children, his sixteen to her eleven had seemed like a generation gap. Their families had belonged to the same elite social circle, attended the same events and parties. And Leah suspected the family connection and no small amount of pity had prompted the employment proposition.

  She’d never asked; she was too afraid of the answer.

  “How was your afternoon?” he asked, settling his tall frame into the wingback chair in front of her desk. With its sedate cross-stitch pattern, the piece of furniture wouldn’t have been out of place in a psychiatrist’s office. Kind of apropos, considering clients came in and aired some of their dirtiest laundry.

  Leah groaned at the question. With a flick of her wrist, she tossed the stack of mail onto her desk and shrugged out of her jacket and holster with her secured SIG Sauer. She hung both on the back of her office chair and plopped into the seat. “Awful. Just giving you a heads-up. Expect a call from Celeste Barrow. She’s not happy.” Now there was an understatement. The woman had still been screeching like a wet hen when Leah had left her home.

  A corner of Nathan’s mouth twitched. “I take it she didn’t receive the news well about her future daughter-in-law’s fidelity?”

  “Uh, no.” Leah plucked up the colorful flyers and tossed them in the trash can under her desk. The older socialite had contracted Whelan Investigations to follow her son’s fiancée and gather proof of her infidelity. Leah had tailed the young woman for three weeks and discovered no hint of cheating. But Mrs. Barrow had been enraged at Leah’s findings, calling the firm a “half-rate, incompetent outfit” and demanding her retainer back.

  In a nutshell, the woman had thrown a feet-kicking-fist-waving hissy fit.

  Good thing Leah hadn’t told her the whole truth: not only did her son’s fiancée appear loyal and loving, but she was also a beard. Yup. Little Randall Barrow was gay and firmly entrenched in the closet, thanks to his mother’s high demands and smothering overprotectiveness.

  Celeste would’ve probably blackened Leah’s eye if she’d revealed that bit of news.

  “She wanted the truth.” Nathan shrugged a wide shoulder. “That’s what we gave her.” He paused. “Did you tell her about Randall?”

  “Are you kidding me?” Leah loosed a bark of laughter. “God, no.”

  Nathan nodded and propped his ankle on top of his knee, flashing gray socks that matched his suit perfectly. “Good. She didn’t pay us for that information.”

  Leah snorted. “According to Celeste, she’s not paying us at all.”

  Steel glinted in emerald eyes several shades darker than her own, revealing the sharp edges of the man beneath the civilized clothes. “I wouldn’t worry about that,” he murmured smoothly. “So what’re your plans for this fine Friday evening?”

  “Well, the new season of Real Housewives of Orange County premieres tonight.”

  He rolled his eyes and somehow made the gesture urbane instead of adolescent. “I can’t believe you watch that trash TV.”

  “Hey.” She held up an admonishing finger. “We all have our vices. Some people like British boy bands…” She paused and arched an eyebrow high, picturing the CD with five fresh-faced boys on the cover in Nathan’s car console. From the smirk curving his lips, she assumed he remembered the incriminating evidence, too. “And some people like reality TV,” she continued smugly.

  He dipped his chin in acknowledgment—or concession. “Point taken.”

  She picked up the last envelope from the small stack of mail. “Y’know, you should never underestimate the entertainment value of a good catfight,” she added, studying the front of the envelope. She frowned. No return address. Just her name and the firm’s address. Typed. Mentally, she shrugged and slid a fingertip beneath the sealed flap.

  “I’ll take your word for it,” he drawled before lowering his foot to the floor and propping his elbows on the arms of the chair. He steepled his fingers under his chin. “I reviewed your schedule for the next week. I noticed it’s clear.”

  “So far, yes,” she murmured. She lifted the flap to reveal two folded sheets of paper inside. An unbidden sense of unease crept down her spine and wormed its way into her gut. Withdrawing the contents, she had an eerie foreboding as she unfolded the two innocuous looking sheets.

  “Would you like to join me on a case I’m—”

  “Oh, my God.” Shock dug its icy talons into her brain and chest. Harsh pants escaped her lips, each breath like tiny shards of glass pricking her throat.

  What did this mean? Her brain fought to compute what her eyes processed.

  Even twenty years later, she recognized the flyer her family and friends had circulated the week before Halloween and during the months that followed. Yellowed with age and brittle to the touch, the paper appeared to be one of the original sheets from two decades earlier.

  MISSING. Richard Michael Pierce. October 23, 1992.

  Uncle Richard.

  Memories of Richard bombarded her. Richard comforting her after her mother’s death, Richard taking her to the park and cheering her on as she rode her bicycle, Richard teaching her to read… She’d loved him so much. Tall, handsome, with dark hair and laughing blue eyes. Kind, and always, always loving. To a girl who’d lost her mother and grown distant from her father, he’d been necessary—her lifeboat in the Titanic of her childhood.

  “Leah.” Nathan’s voice, sharp with concern, came to her as if through a cotton-padded tunnel. She couldn’t move as he rose from his chair and circled the desk to stand next to her, his hands on her shoulders.

  He stiffened. “Jesus Christ,” he whispered.

  The numbness started to wane, and part of her wished for its return. Sorrow waited, eager to rush in. She closed her eyes. Twenty years—twenty years—had passed, and the thought of Richard’s disappearance still stung.

  He had been her father James’s best friend and, for Leah, a loving uncle. More than an uncle, really. When her mother died, her father had checked out emotionally. She’d lost him the day her mother had dropped to her bedroom floor as the victim of a sudden, freak brain aneurysm. From that moment, the loving, laughing man who had been the center of Leah’s universe had transformed into a depressed, aloof stranger.

  Her Uncle Richard had stepped into the void and became the father figure the lonely, five-year-old, grief-stricken girl so desperately needed. Richard’s disappearance six years later had devastated her.

  “What could it mean?” She lifted her stricken gaze from the paper to Nathan. His customary composure had vanished, replaced by a tight strain to his face that vacillated between astonishment and anger. He would’ve been sixteen when Richard vanished. And while girls and school would’ve probably
been the top priorities in his teenage existence, as a family friend, he would have been aware of Richard’s highly publicized case. The sudden disappearance of a successful, wealthy, Caucasian businessman from Boston’s elite circles had been the lead story on the evening news for a long while.

  “I don’t know,” he said, his eyes shifting from the missing-person flyer to her. “A damn sick joke.”

  Her fingers trembled as she removed the second paper. Dread sat in her stomach, a heavy weight anchoring her to the chair. Fear of what it might contain skittered over her skin like a spider scrabbling for purchase as she unfolded it.

  Her instincts, it seemed, were as razor sharp as ever.

  The letter-sized, plain copy paper contained two simple typed lines:

  Richard Pierce was murdered. Bring him justice.

  The paper fluttered to the desk.

  Richard. Murdered?

  The two words whirled in her head like a cat chasing its tail. Of course the idea he might be dead had crossed her mind in the last twenty years, but she hadn’t dwelled on it. Hadn’t wanted to accept a thought so brutal and final. After all, who would have wanted to kill Richard? He’d been one of the kindest, most selfless men she’d known, with plenty of friends and a loving family. What would have been the motive to take his life?

  She fell back in her chair, staring at the clear yet ambiguous note. Obviously the sender believed someone had killed Richard and the guilty person had gone unpunished for two decades. And he—or she—wanted Leah to uncover the crime and the murderer.

  She gripped the arms of her chair. On one hand, it seemed as if she’d been dropped into the middle of some gigantic chessboard and had the word pawn slapped to her back. Whoever had mailed her the flyer and letter had their ulterior motives and agenda, and she hated not being in on what those reasons and schemes entailed. Yet…how could she walk away? Whether Richard was truly dead or not, if even a tiny chance existed to discover what had actually happened to him, didn’t she owe it to him for all he’d done and been to her?