Dark Secrets: A Paranormal Romance Anthology

by Colleen Gleason

  Instead he just occasionally smiled at her and told her anecdotes about people long dead, and while it was entertaining, intriguing, it struck Sara that everything she and Gabriel did and talked about was driven by the dead.

  It was an eerie thought.

  When they sat down on the steps in front of the Mississippi river, the sun beating down on their backs, Sara knew they needed to finish their business with the dead, and move forward as the living. There were no answers. There had never been answers. There never would be definitive answers. It only was speculation and isolated facts.

  “What do you want to do about the case?” she asked, leaning forward onto her knees. “I can give you a DNA sample for comparison to Anne Donovan’s. If we want rush results, I can overnight everything to my friend Jocelyn. She can do it in the lab after hours in a day or two.”

  Maybe she should even go back to Florida herself for a few days. She did want to see Rafe before he left for the west coast.

  Strangely enough, she wasn’t feeling the fear any more. The pictures, the newspaper article her mother had received, the absinthe bottle, it was all disturbing, and not her imagination. Someone was watching her. Someone who knew something. Possibly a murderer. Yet she felt like she had reached the bottom of the depths of her fear, had seen the worst, had lived with fear for so long that it no longer had the power to paralyze her.

  Instead she felt a strange sort of calm, an acceptance.

  Maybe it was getting a full night’s sleep.

  Maybe it was looking at the horrific possibilities of all that could happen and realizing she couldn’t control the future, only her now.

  Maybe it was the serenity of being with Gabriel, the magic of meeting someone who was a mirror, a reflection of all her pain and sorrow and yet, hope. Sara glanced over at his profile, at his sharp nose, his beautiful cheekbones, his hair dancing in the small breeze.

  Maybe it was falling in love.

  Everything seemed easier to face when you had a man standing behind you with his hand on the small of your back.

  She could be and was independent. Had been since the age of thirteen. But it was pleasant to have someone understand her, anticipate her, offer such a subtle support. Gabriel wasn’t the type for overblown gestures like flowers or public displays of affection, but she liked his quiet style better.

  It was sexier to have him sketch her in private than hold her hand in public.

  No question about it, she was in love with him, and she had the conviction that they would be together. They were together. Sex, some sort of permanency, would come later, when they were both ready for it. But they were together.

  “I need to tell you something,” he said, interrupting her dreamy sun-soaked musings.

  “Yeah? What’s that?” Wary of his tone, she glanced over at him. He looked uncomfortable with whatever he was about to say.

  “Doing a comparison in your lab is a good idea. And the thing is, we can take it a step further. Because now we know you’re Anne Donovan’s descendent.” He cleared his throat. “And I’m Jonathon Thiroux’s. So if your DNA and my DNA don’t have markers that match the blood found on the knife, than there was a third person in the room who nicked themselves when they stabbed Anne.”

  Sara sat up straighter and gaped at him. “You’re Jonathon Thiroux’s descendent?”

  He nodded, staring straight ahead at the river, fingers drumming on his knees.

  “Were you planning on telling me?” And how dare he express indignation the day before that she had kept her biology a secret when he had been withholding the same information and still had, even after her confession?

  “Probably. Eventually. But I didn’t want you to think I was biased. I actually don’t think Jonathon Thiroux did it, but I suspect you do.”

  “I do think he did it. I think he was a psychopath.” It was the only thing that made sense to her. There hadn’t been anyone else in the vicinity that they could tell from the distance of a hundred and fifty years. The evidence was lousy, the facts all open for dispute. But no one had doubted that Jonathon Thiroux had been in the room. And it seemed the most logical explanation to Sara. In 1849 they hadn’t known what a psychopath was, nor had they access to forensic analysis. But the whole point of Gabriel’s book was that both were irrelevant when a conviction was at the mercy of a judge and jury influenced by the media.

  Yet she thought he did it.

  She added, “I think it’s natural to be biased if he’s an ancestor of yours. But I don’t think you have any reason to conclude that anyone other than him did it.” For some reason, she felt irritated with him. The whole case took on a different perspective knowing that he did in fact have some sort of personal stake in it. Not that she was any different. She’d withheld her own history from him too.

  Yet she was still irritated, irrationally or not.

  “And I think Rafe Marino killed your mother.”

  “What?” Sara went from irritated to furious. “Why would you even say that? I told you it’s not Rafe.”

  “Why are you so sure? Is it because you have feelings for him?”

  Sara’s face went hot and her hand flew up. “Oh, you did not just say that.”

  That Gabriel of all people would accuse her of pining for her mother’s lover made her furious. “Why can’t a man and a woman like each other without people assuming that they’re harboring secret love?”

  “I don’t mean that you had a relationship, I just mean that if you care about him, it would be really hard to accept that he could do something so horrible. You said yourself that you didn’t want to believe he could be capable of that kind of violence because it called into question your judgment.”

  “He didn’t do it.” Maybe that was just her being stubborn. But damn it, she had seen the way Rafe had looked at her mom. “My mom wasn’t easy to love, and he loved her.”

  “People kill those they claim to love.”

  “Like Jonathon Thiroux killed Anne Donovan?”

  Gabriel’s jaw tightened. “I don’t believe he ever claimed to love her. Or she him. But he doesn’t seem like a man capable of murder.”

  Sara threw up her hands in exasperation. “Neither does Rafe! You’re not using the same argument, the same standard for both cases.”

  “Neither are you. You said Jonathon Thiroux was a sociopath, that he charmed everyone and fooled them into thinking he was just a quiet artist. So why can’t Rafe Marino have done the same thing?”

  He had a point, which was irritating in the extreme. “Well, why do you think he did it? The prosecutor couldn’t prove it.”

  “Did you hear that Bible quote? There’s something off about that.”

  “Maybe he was bored in prison and took to reading the Bible. I would think being accused of murder would make you search for a higher power.”

  “Or maybe he enjoys that his crime is known only to him and God.”

  Sara just stared at Gabriel. “I guess you’re right. Only God and the murderer know irrefutably who killed my mother. The same for Anne Donovan. But I don’t think it was Rafe and I’m going back to Florida to say goodbye to him and run the DNA.” What had just been an idea five minutes earlier now suddenly seemed absolutely essential. “We can fly since it’s faster.”

  “We?” Gabriel frowned at her. “I’m not going to Florida.”

  “Why not? I need your blood.” And she wanted to be with him. On a consistent and regular basis. She wanted her and he to be a we.

  “I’m not giving you my blood.”

  “Why not?” Now that just flat out astonished her. “You just said you’re Thiroux’s descendent and that we could run the DNA. You and I are the key to isolating Anne and Jonathon from someone else.”

  “But there’s no way I’m going to put in the book that either of us are descendents of them, because neither one of us needs or wants that kind of notoriety or scrutiny, so really there’s no point in running the data.”

  “But don’t you want to know?
Isn’t that the whole point?”

  “Maybe we’re not meant to know.”

  She could only gape at him. It was like he’d done a complete one-eighty. And he was just staring out at the river, eyes narrowed, fingers tapping, tapping, tapping a restless rhythm on his knees.

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Nope.”

  “Okay.” Not really. She wanted to smack some sense into him, but knew that wasn’t the method of reasoning to use with Gabriel. He would only withdraw if she started shouting at him. “You can still come to Florida with me.”

  “I don’t like to travel.”

  “It’s just to Florida, not China. It’s a two hour flight.” Maybe he was afraid of flying. That was a common enough fear. “We can drive if you want.”

  But he just shook his head. “No, I don’t want to go.”

  Gabriel was well aware that Sara was staring at him like he had entirely lost his mind, but he didn’t have a choice. He was bound to New Orleans and couldn’t leave. There was no way around it. And he couldn’t give her his blood because she would discover he wasn’t Jonathon Thiroux’s descendent, but the same man.

  But he didn’t like the way she reached for him, hooking her arm around his elbow, her chin resting on his shoulder. It made the ache in his heart all that much deeper.

  “Gabriel,” she said, her voice coaxing, close to his ear. “I’d really like you to go with me.”

  “No, I really can’t.” It felt terrible to say, and he knew he was hurting her, but he didn’t have any other options. The truth wasn’t possible and he didn’t want to spin a lie.

  She made a sound of frustration and pulled back. “You just told me you think Rafe killed my mother.”

  He turned, not sure where she was headed with that statement. “Yeah, and you said you don’t believe me.”

  “But if you believe Rafe is capable of violence–murder–why would you let me go to Florida to meet with him alone? Aren’t you at all worried that he might hurt me?” She twisted her hair on the side of face and held the coil on her shoulder. “Not that he would, but you seem to think he could. So don’t you care about me at all?”

  Her lip had started to quiver and he could see how that angered her. It was slicing him, the burning guilt and regret tearing through him, and he wanted to just pull her into his arms, to tell her that he loved her, that if he had his way, he would never let her leave him. But they were sitting in public, a dozen people around them, the lap of the water on the dock a reminder that this wasn’t the time or the place for revelations. In fact, there would never be an appropriate time to tell her that he was a demon, immortal, bound to the city of his shame for an indefinite period of time.

  He didn’t want her to go to Florida, because he didn’t want to be without her. But he wasn’t worried about her safety. Because Gabriel was ninety-nine percent sure that Raphael, or Rafe as he called himself now, was back in New Orleans. He was the face in the window of the house on Dauphine that Sara had seen. He had dropped the bottle of absinthe off as a mocking gift.

  “Of course I care about you, Sara. I care about you tremendously. But if you want to go to Florida, I can’t stop you.”

  And truthfully, there was a benefit to her being gone. Gabriel had to confront Raphael, and that could get ugly. Because Gabriel was going to get a confession from him, for both murders, and maybe all the murders on down the line of Sara’s family, regardless of what it took. Gabriel was no longer an angel, but he could vanquish another fallen one if he had justification, and he did.

  Anne hadn’t deserved to die. And she had because of her association with Raphael, with him.

  So he was going to punish Raphael, for what he had done to Anne, and to Sara. And possibly to all the other women in Sara’s family who had suffered the same horrific fate.

  “You can’t stop me?” she said flatly.

  “No. You’re a grown woman. You can do what you want.”

  “You could say, ‘I don’t want you to go. It’s dangerous.’ You could say, ‘I’ll go with you to make sure you’re safe.’ You could say, ‘Stay here and just overnight the lab work to your friend.’ But you’re not. You’re just sitting there.” Her voice was getting high and shrill and she was jerking on his arm to emphasis each point she made.

  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

  From the Court Records of the Willful Murder Trial of Anne Donovan, State of Louisiana vs. Jonathon Thiroux

  January 21, 1850

  Prosecutor: Gentlemen of the jury, you have been discharged with a serious duty before God and this court. Justice for the deceased, young Anne Donovan, and the future safety of our city, both reside in your esteemed hands. There is no doubt in my mind that Jonathon Thiroux is guilty of this vicious crime. He took a woman who due to the degradation of poverty was dependent upon him, violated her trust, and slashed her from life to death. He did this, an act of utter violence and fury, without remorse or hesitation.

  No one else could have committed this crime. Witnesses swear that no one else was seen entering or exiting Anne Donovan’s room, or the house itself for that matter. The window was shut and locked. Anne and Jonathon were alone, as they frequently were. What went on behind closed doors in the privacy of their relationship as master and mistress, one can only speculate. Had he shown her a violent side prior to October the eighth of last year? We don’t know. What we do know is that Jonathon Thiroux was a man of two faces– one, a quiet, charming artist. Another, a hot-tempered womanizer dependent on pharmaceuticals. Miss Faye, Miss Swanson, Mrs. Charles, and Mrs. Gallier all succumbed to Mr. Thiroux’s unquestionable charm, only to live to feel the sting of his rejection, his disdain, his temper. Some violent criminals can never hide their true nature, but others wear a mask for the world, a deceptive face of upstanding citizen, and move among us with the vast majority of the people they encounter unaware of their evil hearts.

  Jonathon Thiroux is such a man. Only rarely does he peel off his mask. But when he does, the face beneath is a hideous beast, selfish, brutal, ruled solely by his need for yet one more drink, one more pipe.

  No one else was in that room. Jonathon Thiroux was covered in Anne Donovan’s blood. He sketched her after death.

  Was he angry that Anne slept peacefully while he fought the rage of the demons of drink? Did he resent that she reposed instead of opening his second bottle for him? We shall never know, gentlemen. But it is your responsibility to see that this man is punished for his crime, and that with his conviction you send the clear message that regardless of a person’s station in society, they are entitled to life, to justice, and for the right to live free from molestation.

  Jonathon Thiroux is a clear and brutal example of the effects of over-consumption of alcohol and opium, but we leave that debate, and the moral questions that arise, for a different day. Where there is alcohol, there is crime, and our city has seen an increase in both, but that is not your dilemma to solve with the discharging of a guilty verdict in this case. Your burden is to bear the weight of justice, to show that our judicial system works with fairness and alacrity and punishes men for the crimes they commit, without bias or prejudice.

  Jonathon Thiro
ux stood up, knife in hand, and stabbed Anne Donovan seventeen times, flaying her to the bone in places. I urge you to consider whether you can live with yourself if this man is allowed to walk our streets unimpeded. He is a murderer, and as such belongs behind bars for the rest of his natural life.

  Attorney for the Defense: Gentlemen of the jury, I first commend you for your rational and attentive tolerance of this case. I fully appreciate the burden and inconvenience serving on a trial of this length and notoriety has caused all of you. You may be comforted in the fact that without men such as yourself, the very foundation of democracy would shift and crumble. I happen to believe that Jonathon Thiroux did not commit this murder, but my personal feelings on this are irrelevant, as should be yours. Though it may be difficult to accept or understand, I am not here to defend Mr. Thiroux. My duty first and foremost is to defend the Constitution of the United States of America in all its brilliance and fairness. A man is innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. It is the sound foundation of a fair judicial system, and if destroyed, violates our right to freedom, and renders all of us unsafe from arbitrary arrest and conviction.

  It is not the defendant’s burden to prove his innocent, but rather the duty of the prosecution to prove his guilt. The prosecution has not proven beyond a reasonable doubt that Jonathon Thiroux committed this crime. Mr. Thiroux has no history of violence, and as you saw for yourself, is regarded as a man of quiet charm and artistic talent. He had no motivation to kill Anne Donovan, never displayed any temper with her, and was in fact the person who ran for help when she was discovered. He sketched her because he loved to sketch, appreciated Anne’s beauty, and didn’t yet realize the horrible truth of her death.

  This is a man who spends the majority of his time under the influence of alcohol and debilitating opium and as a result is incapable of the methodical and consistent violence required to commit this crime. The coroner himself said he is absolutely convinced that a man in the state of inebriation that Mr. Thiroux was in could not have committed a murder of such repeated violence and strength. I do not see how we can dispute the judgment of a man medically trained to determine cause of death.