Fallen (Seven Deadly Sins #2)(5)
Author: Erin McCarthy

“Why don’t you come in for a minute?” Gabriel stepped back from the gate. “I apologize for mixing up the days.”

She gave him a brief smile of amusement at that, and Gabriel knew she realized how difficult admitting he was wrong was for him. Pride was yet another flaw of his. It was no secret he had many.

“Thanks.”

It was also apparent to Gabriel as he walked up the curved staircase to his third-floor apartment that he had very little experience with normal one-on-one social and business interactions. He did the vast majority of his communicating online now, and he wrote in solitude. Avoided people. Which was probably why he was so uncomfortable walking ahead of Sara Michaels, why he was so hyperaware of the sound of her breathing, the scent of her perfume, the glimpse of her arm behind him, fingers stroking along the banister as they ascended.

But he was so determined, maybe even desperate, to solve Anne’s murder that he would suffer social discomfort to extract the information Sara Michaels could provide.

He turned back when she gave a startled cry. “Are you okay?” She had stopped walking and was gripping the banister with white knuckles.

She nodded, taking in a deep breath. “I missed a step. It’s slanted, and my foot slipped.” Her hand came up and demonstrated the angle.

“Sorry. Old building. Things have shifted.” Watching her visibly pull herself together, calm herself, had Gabriel feeling that spark of interest again. He didn’t want to feel that. Couldn’t have it. Yet Sara had dark circles under her eyes, and had traveled all the way from Florida to work with him on an obscure true crime book that attempted to solve a century-and-a-half-old case with modern forensics. She had a story, and despite his wariness, he couldn’t help but want to hear it. If he was honest with himself, he’d been curious about her since discovering her mother’s brutal murder in his standard trolling for intriguing cases that could be potential book material. While Sara was the daughter of the murder victim, Jessie Michaels, she was also a forensic scientist, which lent a gruesome irony to the case. Poking around on the Internet and through the newspaper articles had revealed she hadn’t worked in almost a year. She also hadn’t hesitated at all to leave Florida at his request. He wanted to know why.

“How long have you lived here?” she asked.

A hundred and fifty years, give or take fifty years here and there when he’d had to move to alleviate suspicion, but she wasn’t likely to believe that. She started walking again, so he did too. “Ten years.”

“Do you like it?”

Gabriel opened the door at the landing on the third floor and shrugged. “Sure.” He hadn’t thought much about whether he actually liked his apartment or not. He guessed he did. He was bound to New Orleans in exchange for shortening his punishment, and this place was as good as any other to live. He never had any particular desire to move, but whether that was from actual pleasure he took in his surroundings, or a lack of ambition, he didn’t know.

“Who lives on the second floor?”

“A guy.”

She gave him a funny look, staring up at him from two steps below the landing. “I mean, who is he? What does he do? How old is he?”

“I don’t know. He’s in his forties, I guess, but I’ve never really met him.” And he liked it that way. The other tenants left him alone, and he did the same. But his answer obviously bothered Sara, given her frown, and he was acutely aware of how bad he was at polite conversation designed to get to know someone better. Straightforward business, interviewing, fact-gathering, he was perfectly capable of. This type of dynamic, this innocent idle nothing sort of chatter was a challenge. In all personal honesty, he’d never been good at it, even back in the early nineteenth century before the alcohol, the drugs, had gotten the majority of his attention. He had always been more comfortable pursuing his solitary pursuits of music, painting, writing. But he had tried then. Now he almost never even needed to expend the energy to attempt to be normal.

It was hard as hell at the moment, and he was seriously regretting his initial desire to work with Sara Michaels. It had been a definite lapse in judgment, an attempted shortcut he shouldn’t have taken.

“This is a beautiful color.” She gestured to the walls of his living room as she followed him in. Her fingers came up and brushed over the brilliance of his green paint. “It’s so alive.”

It had taken him two weeks and six shades of paint, mixing yellows and greens until he had achieved the perfect eye-popping lime he had wanted. It was ironic that she would notice, because it had been the first time in a century he had allowed himself to touch a paintbrush, to explore color combinations, to bring joy and satisfaction into his life from the act of creating. It had been a celebration of sorts, of hope, that maybe if he solved Anne’s murder, he could pay the debt he owed her soul. This color had appealed to him as loud and vibrant, allowing the light from the two large windows to bounce around all four walls, reflect off the floor and ceiling, and allow his furniture to bask in a warm glow.

“Thank you. I like it.” He did.

“Do you work here in your apartment?” She was glancing around, casual but curious.

“Yes.” The way she turned, ran her eyes over his possessions, assessing and measuring, made him uncomfortable.

No one came inside his apartment except for him. It felt invasive, disturbing. He should have offered to meet her at her hotel, or at a café. That he didn’t know how to act, what to do with his hands, how to lead and direct the conversation, angered him, and he felt the unmistakable desire for a drink. The dryness in his mouth, the tightness in his chest demanded attention, and it was like an insidious whisper in his soul, the promise that everything would be easier, smoother, with a shot of whiskey sitting in his gut.

But he hadn’t touched any drugs or alcohol in seventy-five years, and he wasn’t about to fall for the faulty logic that tried to trip him and drag him back down into the depths of addiction yet again.

“Let me print out the projected schedule I created for this project,” he said, needing to lock and focus on something to halt his wandering mind, clamp down on the craving. “You can take a look at it and we can meet tomorrow. Why don’t you have a seat and I’ll go grab that.”

Gabriel moved into his office quickly, wanting to get away from Sara. Only she followed him. He realized it immediately, heard her sandals, the rustle of her dress, felt the air move behind him, aware of the scent of her perfume, a strange olfactory combination that he thought included cinnamon. Ignoring her, he bent over his computer and opened up his documents. He searched for his work schedule, then clicked print. While he impatiently waited for the paper to spit out of his printer, he chanced a glance at Sara.