Fallen (Seven Deadly Sins #2)(19)
Author: Erin McCarthy

“Someone she knew? A stranger? I don’t know. But I imagine it wasn’t all that hard for someone to come and go undetected. The neighbors were used to seeing various men in and out of the house. No one would have paid attention.”

“But none of the women in the house said they saw anyone.”

He gave her a rueful smile. “Didn’t most of them also claim to be occupied at the time?”

Sara felt an inexplicable blush creep up her face, which irritated her. They were prostitutes, of course they had been having sex. That wasn’t news, nor was it anything to be embarrassed about, since it wasn’t like she was talking about sex in relation to herself. Yet for some reason, there was heat in her cheeks as Gabriel smiled at her. “Yes, I think all but two of them were supposed to be occupied with men.”

“And people living in that kind of area, in that hand-to-mouth, vicious lifestyle tend to keep their nose to the ground and mind their own business. They don’t want to be involved in anything that might negatively impact them. We see that today too. You can have a gang shooting with seventy-five witnesses and they’ll all claim they didn’t see a thing.”

“I’m sure.” Sara shifted back to let the server set her salad down on the table in front of her. When he retreated, she asked Gabriel, “So what is the ultimate question here?”

“Did John Thiroux kill Anne Donovan? That’s the ultimate question. How intoxicated was he and could a man in that state of inebriation kill with that kind of fury? If he didn’t do it, who could have? If he did do it, how was it possible that he got away with it? And if forensic science had existed in the nineteenth century, could they have solved the crime? Or is the human factor of the jury always the deciding factor in a criminal case in court regardless of the forensic evidence?”

“Can we really answer any of those?” The task seemed daunting. The records were sparse. The evidence, for the most part, was unavailable to them. Sara considered herself a lab technician, not an investigator. She conducted serological and DNA analysis of unknown substances and evidentiary material from crime scenes and then wrote a report about it. Even though she was determining questions like whether a dried rust-colored liquid was blood or not, and if blood, whether or not it was human, she wasn’t involved in actually connecting that information to the criminal investigation. Wasn’t sure she knew where to start.

But Gabriel raised his water glass to her in a cocky toast. “We’re going to try.” Then he glanced over at her salad as she stabbed a cranberry, and his mouth curved up. “The Degas Salad, huh?”

“It’s very good,” she said, not sure how to read the expression on his face. He looked like something had amused him, a private joke. “Have you ever had it?”

Gabriel didn’t answer, his fork sitting unused next to his own chopped salad. “I haven’t been here in a long time.” He glanced around the restaurant. “It hasn’t changed much.”

“It’s very nice.” It was. A quiet, elegant restaurant with well-trained staff. She had been surprised that it had been his choice for a spontaneous dinner, having for some reason expected him to suggest sandwiches or burgers. “I guess the salad is named for the artist Degas. Didn’t he live here for awhile?”

“For about a year. So he gets a salad named after him.”

“Maybe it’s not named after him. Maybe it’s a coincidence.”

“I don’t believe in coincidences.”

Sara swallowed her mouthful of lettuce and pecans and stared across the table, past the candlelight dancing off the votive, at Gabriel. He was an attractive man, his skin flawless, his cheekbones graceful, chin proud, hair unexplainably long, yet perfect for him. Overall it was a pleasant package of a man. Worth glancing twice at it, but nothing so extraordinary you should remember five minutes after walking past. Just another reasonably good-looking male. It seemed that should be the case. Until she met his gaze, and was reminded every time of how she couldn’t dismiss him, couldn’t push him from her thoughts. When she met those brown eyes, whether by intention or accident, they arrested her. Just absolutely stopped her, drew her in, held her. And she could see depth there, sorrow, a silent, desperate plea.

It had to be her. She was seeing what she wanted to see. Reflecting her own emotions onto him. Wanting to not be alone in her confusion, her grief, her search for a future that she could understand, embrace.

“What do you believe in?” she asked.

That sent his gaze skittering over her left shoulder. Then he picked up his fork. “I don’t know. I’ve forgotten.”

Definite secrets there. A story. “Like you don’t hear music anymore?”

“Yeah, something like that.” He stabbed his salad. “So how long have you been a forensic scientist?”

Not very subtle, but she’d let him change the subject if he needed to. “Seven years. I got my degree eight years ago, but since I haven’t been working this year I guess I can’t call it being a forensic scientist for eight years.”

“Don’t beat yourself up for taking some time off.”

Easier said than done. “I can’t help it. It makes me feel useless.”

He shrugged. “So be useless for awhile. Who cares? You’re entitled to be useless in your grief for a bit.”

Sara was so shocked by his response that she actually let out a brief laugh. She had expected a pep talk, a variation of the same one she’d heard from friends repeatedly over the past year about how she needed to forge ahead, work through it. No one had ever given her permission to be useless before.

“Who the hell said you had to spend every minute doing something meaningful? You can’t busywork your emotions away.”

God, that was the truth. She had tried to do that for two months after her mother’s death, and had discovered that when she ignored her feelings, they just reared up and bit her in the ass when she was least expecting it. “You’re absolutely right.”

Finishing her wine, she stared at him in wonderment. It was odd, surreal, weird, yet so completely right that she was sitting across from him, at that particular moment. And with one casual sentence, he had banished a year’s worth of guilt she had been carrying around. She had been through something brutal and debilitating, and while some people could brazen their way through, she couldn’t. And that was okay.

“So you’re a writer, a pianist, a photographer, and a philosopher. What other hidden talents do you have? Tell me about yourself.”