Fallen (Seven Deadly Sins #2)(7)
Author: Erin McCarthy

That feeling of weakness was something she couldn’t stand. She should just quit, give up this ridiculous quest right here and now, forget all about the past and concentrate on the present. The future, for God’s sake. But she wouldn’t. She knew that even before she had the cap off of her bottled iced tea. She had to have answers. Had to know who killed Anne Donovan. Had to know who killed her mother. Had to know if in some bizarre, insane, utterly unbelievable way they were connected to each other.

Her cell phone rang in her purse and she retrieved it, taking a seat in the back of the coffee shop so she wouldn’t disturb anyone. It was past prime lunchtime, so the shop was quiet, only a few customers working alone on laptop computers and sipping their drinks. Her Caller ID showed a Florida phone number, but not one that she recognized.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Sara, how are you?”

Her stomach dropped. Just hearing his voice made her feel guilty. “Rafe?”

“Yeah, it’s me. I’m back at my place since my release. I want to see you . . . I’ve been worried about you. Are you at home? I’ll stop over with some dinner.” His voice was filled with concern.

“Thanks, but I’m fine. You don’t need to worry about me.” Maybe that was an exaggeration, because God knows she could use someone to worry about her, but that wasn’t his burden.

And she felt horrible that she had been such a wreck, so completely incapable of supporting him in any way during the trial. Even when she had tried to defend Rafe on the witness stand, the prosecutor had shredded her. Every word out of her mouth had been manipulated, twisted to make it look like she and Rafe were the true lovers, that his relationship with her mother was a front, a con, until she had been so afraid they were creating a case against her as well as Rafe, she had shut down entirely.

She’d abandoned him essentially. Left him hung out to dry for a crime he didn’t commit, to protect herself, and now he wanted to feed her. He was definitely the better person than her.

“How are you, Rafe? Is the press leaving you alone?” Sara sipped her tea and rubbed at her temples. There was no running away. She needed to regroup, process, deal with all of her emotions, her guilt, her fear.

“Today hasn’t been too bad. Nobody camped out on my front lawn. The last three weeks I could have done without though.”

He spoke lightly, and while that should have made her feel better, it only drove home how much stronger a person he was than her. The last year had been hell for both of them in different ways, yet he had survived with his kindness, charm, and humor intact. He planned to move to the West Coast and revive his medical practice away from the media circus of Southwestern Florida, and didn’t seem to harbor any residual bitterness that he had spent six months sitting in prison while his character was dragged through the mud.

She had collapsed under the weight of her mother’s death, gotten hooked on tranquilizers, and now was sitting in New Orleans trying to feel some elusive connection to her mother’s youth. That familiar guilt, self-doubt, pressed down on her, but she fought it. This was a fresh start.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there,” she said. “I really am.”

“I understand.”

And she knew he did. “I left town.”

“You left Naples? Why? Where are you?”

“I just needed to get away. I’ll be back soon. You can reach me on my cell if you need to talk.” She didn’t want to admit to anyone what she was doing. Going to the city her mother had grown up in smacked of the need for counseling. And if she told him about the book, he’d think she had totally lost it, grasping at forensic straws to solve a murder the police considered unsolvable at this point.

“Sara . . . where are you?” He sounded worried.

Maybe he should be.

“Don’t worry about it. I’m fine. I’ll be back soon.” Maybe. But they’d cross that bridge when she got to it. “Take care of yourself, and be sure to let me know when you’re leaving Naples. I want to see you before you head west.”

“Okay.” He paused, then just sighed. “Be well, Sara.”

“Yeah, you too.”

“I’m going to take Jessie some flowers. Can I take something for you?”

That gesture hit her like a smack. Tears popped into her eyes and Sara fought for control, to not lose it in the coffee shop. “Sure. Take my mom some carnations, will you? In a crazy, wild color.” It had been a source of contention between them. Sara had always told her mother carnations weren’t classy, they were a cheap filler flower, but her mother had liked them. Maybe for that very reason. And she had always wanted them in bright blues, greens, and hot pinks, hues achieved through dye, not nature.

“Okay, I can do that. Promise me you’ll stay in touch.”

“Yep. I’ll talk to you soon. Bye.” Sara hung up the phone before Rafe could hear the waver in her voice.

And found herself digging in her bag and pulling out her manila folder. She flipped through the papers inside rapidly, stopping when she got to a copied newspaper article.

STABBED TO DEATH!

The headline was glaring and to the point. It was interesting to Sara that she had assumed media coverage of murder and other crimes had grown more sensationalist in the TV and Internet era, but from what she’d seen of the Anne Donovan case, nineteenth-century journalists had been just as salacious.October 7, 1849—Anne Donovan, age 23, a lewd and unfortunate woman, was found MURDERED in her bed at the House of Rest For Weary Men, Dauphine Street, a den of gambling, drink, and other unsavory activities. Stabbed seventeen times with a bowie knife, her facial features obliterated, and her br**sts mutilated, the violent nature of the crime has shocked even the hardened Madame Conti, who sent a girl for the coroner after being alerted of the victim’s state. Miss Donovan was last seen alive by Mr. Jonathon Thiroux, her LOVER, who maintains he heard or saw nothing of her death, even though he was in her room at the time. There have been no arrests, and we must ask, Ladies and Gentlemen, if this is what our fine city has fallen to. Are murders so commonplace and the reach of wealth so deep into our city officials that our police do not even bother to investigate such a horrific death? If Miss Donovan were murdered in a better address would justice be sought in her case?

That is perhaps a question for the mayor.

So obviously the journalist had used Anne Donovan’s murder as a platform for airing political grievances, but Sara figured any attention given the case was a positive. It meant more articles, more court papers, more documents, and more physical evidence had been gathered and had survived through the decades, which meant a higher probability that together with Gabriel St. John she could solve the crime. Which mattered to her, because if she would never see her mother’s killer behind bars, which, despite Gabriel’s opinion, seemed likely, it would give her a certain sense of satisfaction to know she had solved her great-great-grandmother’s murder.