Reunion (12 page)

A couple of blocks over, a policeman in a cruiser briefly hit his siren and lights before pulling over a speeding car. It was nothing unusual for this time of night in this part of town. Several stories above the alley where the old woman lay, the angry sound of a couple fighting could be heard spilling out an open window. But the sounds of the train were long since gone, just like the man who had ended Bella Cruz’s life.

Laura reached Gabriel’s door just as another crash sounded inside the room.

Her hands were shaking as she jammed the key into the lock and gave it a quick turn. When the padlock came loose in her hands, she let it fall to the floor as she darted inside.

He was standing at the windows with both arms raised. Within the seconds it took for her brain to comprehend what he was about to do, she had dashed across the room and grabbed at his wrists, swinging on them with all her weight. Panic flooded her body, along with a surge of badly needed adrenaline, and still it was barely enough to keep Gabriel from flinging himself through the window.

She kept screaming his name in desperation, trying without success to wake him. He struggled against the weight of her body and Laura knew it was only a matter of time before his superior strength put them both in danger. With only seconds of her own strength left, she gave it one last try. Wrapping her arms around his waist and then locking her hands together, she fell backward. The unexpected move caught Gabriel off balance. Together, they fell to the floor with a thud.

Lost between what he’d been dreaming and the fact that he’d woken up on the floor, Gabriel’s reaction was instinctive. He rolled, pinning Laura beneath him. It wasn’t until he heard her soft groan that he realized what he’d just done. He bolted up within seconds of cognizance, pulling her up with him.

“My God!” he muttered. “What the hell just happened?” He turned on a lamp and dragged her closer toward the light. “Are you all right?” Just the thought that he could have caused her harm made him sick. He cupped her cheek with the palm of his hand. “Talk to me, Laura! Did I hurt you? Are you all right?”

She splayed a hand across the middle of her belly and drew a slow, painful breath.

“I’m fine…I think.”

Gabriel dropped to the side of the bed, taking her with him.

“Sweet Jesus,” he muttered, and buried his face in the curve of her neck. “Don’t ever do that again.”

His breath was ragged against her skin, his pulse hammering beneath her fingertips. She laid her cheek against the springy texture of his thick black hair and closed her eyes. That had been close—too close.

A minute passed. Sixty seconds of time for Gabriel to contemplate the scent of her shampoo, the thrust of her breasts against his chest and the erratic beat of her heart. Again, he’d watched someone die. He was so very, very sick of death. The need to feel life—and to feel alive—was overwhelming. He wanted to experience the inescapable surge of passion between man and woman and then lie replete in her arms.

He lifted his head.

Laura sensed his change of mood. It had gone from panic to passion so swiftly that it scared her. There was no escaping what she saw in his eyes. She’d seen it before, in a vision, on the day they’d met.

She sighed, and it was a gesture of relief and also of acceptance. Acceptance of what he offered. Acceptance of her fate.

He put a hand on her shoulder.

She cupped the side of his cheek.

He traced the shape of her with his gaze, from the tousled curls framing her face to the imprint of her body beneath the thin fabric of her gown.

She whispered his name.

He pushed her backward onto the bed and hooked his finger in the top of her gown.

She heard it rip and closed her eyes as a surge of longing hit her deep in the belly.

He straddled her legs and leaned down, bracing himself above her with a hand on either side of her head. His voice was ragged, thick with an emotion he couldn’t control.

“Look at me.”

Calmed by the inevitability of this moment, she did as he asked.

His manhood was thick and hard, surging against the inside of her leg as he struggled with the words that had to be said.

“All you have to do is say no.”

“I can’t,” she whispered. “It’s too late.”

His arms were shaking as he lowered himself upon her. “I don’t want to know what that means,” he said. And he kissed her.

After that, reason blurred. There were moments of sanity when she could feel his hands in her hair and on her body, when she could think to savor the wild tenderness of his kisses. And then it would fade into an all-consuming emotion as she was swept away by this man’s passion.

For as long as Gabriel could remember, there had been an emptiness within him that he couldn’t identify. But no more. When he’d taken her, a belonging had filled his heart. The sensation of being one with this woman was blinding in its intensity. He didn’t want it to end. Yet with each stroke of his body, the inevitability of that happening became more and more impossible to deny.

Her breath scattered against his face; sometimes sweet sighs, sometimes short gasps, always urgent. Her hands were soft against his back. Her legs were wrapped around his waist. And still it was not enough. He needed more. He wanted to be deeper inside. He wanted her—

Suddenly she dug her fingers into his back and arched. At that point, thought ended. Her climax shattered around him, and he lost control, spilling himself into her depths in one blinding wave after another until there was nothing left but the aftershock of what had been a true and frightening passion.

Afraid to let go for fear one of them—maybe her, maybe him—might disappear, he collapsed with a groan, then rolled with her still in his arms, pulling up the covers and sheltering her with his body.

He could feel her shaking, even heard the catch in her breath. And when he brushed a kiss across the crest of her brow, he tasted the salt-sweat of her body.

Before he’d known only her name.

Laura.

Now he knew the woman she was.

His.

Startled by the ferocity of that feeling, he tightened his grip, and a quiet silence came upon them.

She doesn’t belong.

The voice came out of nowhere. Gabriel felt Laura start, which told him that she’d heard it, too.

“Shh,” he whispered, gentling her with a sweep of his hand across her brow.

Only after he felt her relaxing did he let himself answer the voice, and for once, he reacted with reason, not fear.

You’re wrong. She does belong. She belongs to me.

Just before morning, Laura started to dream. At first it was nothing more than a replay of the lovemaking that she and Gabriel had shared, beginning with the instant when she’d pulled him away from the window. She shuddered. Unbeknownst to her, Gabriel sensed her unrest. Thinking she was chilled, he pulled the covers up over her shoulders, then held her close, cradling her against the warmth of his body. When it seemed as if she had settled, he relaxed. A few minutes later, he’d fallen back to sleep with Laura still in his arms—still lost in her dream.

A short while later her breathing pattern changed, and a frown furrowed her forehead. The dream was shifting, changing from what had really happened to something different—something ugly and deadly.

Gabriel was coming toward her with arms outstretched. There was a terrible fear on his face, and she sensed it was for her. He was saying something to her that she couldn’t understand, but she sensed it was a warning. She tried to run, but her legs wouldn’t move. And then, right before her eyes, he began to change. The love in his eyes disappeared, and the warning he’d been trying to give turned to rage. She felt herself falling, falling, deeper and deeper into the eternal silence of death.

She sat up with a jerk, dislodging Gabriel’s arm from around her waist and sending the covers onto the floor as she turned to stare at him in disbelief. That wasn’t real. It couldn’t be real. She wouldn’t let it be a portent of things to come.

Gabriel woke suddenly.

“Laura, what’s wrong?” he asked.

When she covered her face, a knot began to form in the pit of his stomach. From the way she was behaving, it had to do with him. This wasn’t the morning after that he’d imagined. He began rubbing her back, then her shoulder, hoping to ease her fears.

“Can you talk about it?”

She shook her head.

He almost smiled. This morning, without makeup and with the tousled curls, she looked far younger than her years. But all he had to do was remember the passion with which they’d made love and he knew good and well Laura Dane was old enough for anything he wanted to give. He frowned, tossing her own words back in her face.

“I can’t help you if you aren’t willing to let me.”

A low moan slid out between her teeth as she turned and threw her arms around his neck.

“Oh, God,” she whispered, savoring the feel of his arms as they settled around her, taking courage from his strength, as well as his gentleness.

“Laura…baby, please talk to me.”

She took her hands and placed them on his face, feeling each feature as a blind person might
see
another, telling herself that she knew this man, that he would never do to her what she’d seen in her dream. And even as she was doing so, her mind was racing, trying to map out a plan that would stop the inevitable from happening.

When he turned his head and kissed the palm of her hand, her heart dropped.

She was wrong. Dear God, she had to be wrong.

“Make love to me,” she whispered.

His eyes glittered darkly as he rolled, pinning her beneath him on the bed with his great strength.

“It would be my everlasting pleasure,” he said softly, and began to do as she’d asked.

For a while, time stopped. There was nothing in her world but this man and the way he could make her feel. The climax came suddenly, breaking what was left of her apart in tiny pieces and then scattering the pieces within her heart for sanity to reassemble.

In the midst of the joy—in the midst of the beauty of their love—the thought returned.

And when it came to her visions, she was never wrong.

Kirby Summers sat at his desk, staring at the pictures before him, trying to find a connection between the discovery of Prince Charming’s latest victim and the others he’d left in his wake. Bella Cruz, his latest victim, had been a sixty-eight-year-old homeless woman. His first victim, a twenty-seven-year-old prostitute, had lived on skid row. There was the fact that they were both females who’d ended up on the wrong side of the tracks. But the difference in their ages was drastic.

Then there was the second victim. He didn’t fit into any category. A middle-aged married man out looking for his wife’s lost dog, who had died with his own dog whistle in the back of his throat. The third victim, a gay male, had died in the doorway of Sadie Husser’s home with the carcass of the family pet beside him.

As far as he could see, the only connections between any of the victims were those damned roses the killer left behind. The only clues they had to his identity were blood and tissue samples, and until they had a suspect to match them to, they weren’t going to help. Nothing made sense. Why had the victims died? What was it that set the killer off?

Finally Kirby tossed his pen on the desk and laid the file on top of the others. Pressure was mounting on all sides. They needed a break in this case, and they needed it now. Four deaths in less than two weeks. Four random acts of violence, with four acts of contrition left behind as penance. He kicked back in his chair and closed his eyes. Roses without thorns. What the hell did that mean?

Mike Travers rang the doorbell, then stood on the doorstep, waiting for Matty to let him in. The call he’d gotten from Laura this morning had been brief but revealing. According to the news, Prince Charming had left another victim in his wake, but it could not have been Gabriel. She knew because she’d been at his side through the entire night.

She hadn’t elaborated further, and he didn’t intend to ask. What mattered most was getting Gabriel back up to par, and if Mike gained a niece along the way, then better yet.

T
he elation Gabriel felt in knowing he was innocent of murder was only slightly less startling to him than the realization that he’d fallen in love with Laura Dane. It didn’t make much sense.

He’d known her for less than two weeks.

Her touch made him weak.

Her claim to be psychic was still foreign to his beliefs.

Her kisses made him whole.

She lived in New Mexico.

Her laughter was a balm to his crippled heart.

His home was in Oklahoma.

And last night he had lost his mind in her arms in a way he would never have believed possible. They had connected on a level beyond passion. It was only after she’d come apart in his arms that he’d regained any sense of himself. In a way it had been frightening, but on another level, it had been the most overwhelming bond he’d ever known.

At least one good thing had come out of this hell. He’d found Laura Dane—or she’d found him. Either way, he was no longer alone.

As far as dealing with the voice, he was learning how to cope. It was simply a matter of tuning it out. But he didn’t know how to tune out the dreams. Watching murder in progress was a hell he wouldn’t wish on anyone. And, if he was truly experiencing psychic phenomena as Laura and Uncle Mike believed, then he felt obligated to tell the police. He didn’t know how or if it would help their investigation, but he was sure it would help him, if for no other reason than to alleviate the distant guilt of being a voyeur to death.

They were all going out to dinner tonight. He would bring up the subject of contacting the police again. But right now, if he didn’t hurry, he was going to be late for a consultation with a new client, and he was taking Laura with him.

“Last week I get robbed. Second time in three months. Windows old. Walls thin. I want first-rate security system. Silent alarm. Whole thing. You can do?”

Gabriel listened as the tiny Oriental man continued to pace back and forth behind the counter of his restaurant, Wok on Inn. He sympathized with the owner, but the restaurant’s problem wasn’t in the design of the building. It was in the location.

“I’ll do what I can, Mr. Loo, but you have to realize that your location is a large part of the problem.”

“I know. I know. Soon I get enough money to relocate. You help me?”

Gabriel nodded. “I can help you.”

“Good, good. You come back to my office. We talk.”

Gabriel glanced at Laura, who had remained silent ever since their arrival. “Laura?”

Startled by the sound of her own name, she blinked. “What?”

Gabriel frowned as he touched the side of her face. “We’re going back to his office to sign some papers. Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” she said quickly.

But she wasn’t. From the moment she’d set foot in the restaurant, she’d sensed a feeling of impending danger.

“We won’t be long,” Gabriel said.

“She have tea. Maybe egg flower soup. I order. My treat,” Henry Loo said, but Laura stopped him.

“No, please,” she said, intending to thank him. But the longer her fingers stayed on his arm, the more his face began to blur.

Unaware that her gaze had gone blank, or that her grip was tightening with every passing second, she continued to stare past him into the scene in her mind.

Piercing screams…no, not screams…the intermittent shriek of a car alarm.

A dark figure moved out of the shadows…the glow of the streetlight slashed across a face—a very dear, very familiar face.

Laura froze, unaware that Gabriel was talking to her, or that he was trying to free her hand from the little man’s arm.

Another figure appeared, a small Oriental man, moving toward the car and the constantly sounding alarm. It was Henry Loo.

Laura whimpered, “No, Gabriel, no,” and fell to the floor in a faint.

The drive home was silent. Gabriel had managed to calm Henry Loo and revive Laura without causing much fuss. But he’d known from the moment she’d come to that something had scared her to death. She was pale and shaky and wouldn’t look him in the eyes. Add the fact that she’d called out his name as she’d fainted, and he was pretty damn sure whatever she had to tell him wouldn’t be good.

He waited for her to start talking, but she remained mute. And every time he touched her, she flinched. This whole business was beginning to scare him. Her eyes were red-rimmed and brimming with unshed tears. Her chin was trembling, and every so often he saw her biting her lower lip to keep from crying.

“Damn it, Laura, either tell me what happened or let it go.”

She turned in the seat until she was facing him. “I saw Henry Loo die.”

It was the last thing he’d expected to hear. “The hell you say!”

He glanced at her quickly, trying to judge her state of mind. But it was impossible. Was this how real psychics worked? His stomach turned as he returned his attention to the streets and the traffic through which he was driving. Now what?

And then, right in the middle of a turn, he remembered.

“But if it was Henry Loo you saw die, then why did you call out my name?”

Tears brimmed and spilled, rolling unchecked down her cheeks. At that moment she wished she’d never set foot in Oklahoma or met and made love to this man, because this was breaking her heart.

“Because it was you, Gabriel.” Then she covered her face with her hands and started to sob. “I saw you kill Henry.”

Oh, Jesus.

Everything faded around him except the sight of his own hands curled around the steering wheel. The scent of his own fear was strong within his nostrils, and the hammer of his heartbeat loud inside his ears. He kept hearing that damned dog of Sadie Husser’s, barking and barking. He kept seeing the look on her houseman’s face when he’d opened the door. Gabriel. He’d called him Gabriel.

Somehow he managed to get the car to the curb. He shoved the gear in park and then got out, his legs shaking and his stomach muscles jerking. Nausea hit him belly high. The urge to throw up was strong. He inhaled sharply and started walking, drawing in huge, refreshing draughts of air, trying to flush away the horror of what she’d just said.

This didn’t make sense. A woman had died last night, and he’d been locked in his room. Laura could verify that. That had been all the proof he’d needed to convince himself that he was innocent. So, what the hell did her vision mean? Who had he been fooling? Himself—or her?

The moment the car stopped, Laura knew she’d done the wrong thing by blurting it out like that. And when he got out of the car, she began to panic. It was evident by the expression on his face that he was in shock. Her hands were trembling as she grabbed for her seat belt, trying without success to set herself free. By the time she got out of the car, Gabriel was more than half a block away, and from the way he was moving, she was going to have to run to catch up.

“Gabriel! Wait!” she cried, and she started to run.

He didn’t so much as pause. She shouted louder.

“Gabriel, please!”

By this time she doubted he was even hearing her. He was walking like a man in a trance—and he was almost at the street corner. Traffic was swift and heavy. She wasn’t sure he would stop, and if she didn’t reach him in time…

Fear clawed at her conscience as she screamed his name and then broke into an all-out sprint.

The long blast of a car horn pierced the shroud around Gabriel’s senses. He jerked and then paused in midstride just as Laura grabbed his arm.

The yank she gave him sent them both staggering backward, and once again she found herself flat on her back, pinned by the weight of Gabriel’s body. Still fearing for his safety, she wrapped her arms around his upper body and held on for dear life while saying his name aloud, over and over.

“Gabriel, oh, Gabriel, you scared me to death.”

Only after she felt the tension flowing out of his body did she dare to relax. Moments later, he rolled off her and stood, then reached down and pulled her to her feet. His eyes were glittering, and there was a muscle jerking at the side of his jaw. His voice was low, his lips drawn tightly, as if stifling unwanted emotion.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

She brushed at a stain on the elbow of his jacket, needing to hold him, telling herself not to cry.

“I should be asking you that.”

His eyes narrowed. “You’re asking
me
if I’m all right?” He looked past her into the distance. “I haven’t got a clue.”

The absence of emotion in his voice frightened her.

“Gabriel.”

“What?”

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have blurted it out like that.”

He shrugged. “If it’s the truth, it makes no difference how it’s said.”

Laura felt lost. Never in her entire life had she thought to question herself as she was doing now. But this didn’t make sense. She knew this man. Or at least she thought she did. She’d seen how gentle and caring he was with Matty, as well as with Mike Travers. She’d witnessed firsthand the devastation he still suffered from the loss of his parents.

She’d known from the first that they would make love. But she hadn’t known until now how deeply she had fallen in love. Surely to God she couldn’t love a man who was capable of murder.

Surely.

“Maybe I was wrong,” she said softly. “Maybe I misinterpreted what I saw.”

“And maybe we’re both just plain crazy,” Gabriel snapped. “However, this is the first time there’s been any warning about who’s the intended victim, and I’m going to the police.”

Laura’s heart sank as he swung around and started back toward the car. A few yards away, he paused and turned.

“Come on,” he said sharply. “You’re coming with me, and you’re going to tell them what you saw. And then someone needs to warn Henry Loo to hire a bodyguard.”

Kirby Summers’ car skidded as he turned off the street into the OCPD parking lot. He got out on the run, praying all the way into the building that the call he’d gotten from Ray Bush was the break they’d been waiting for. The message he’d received was that someone had walked into police headquarters claiming to have information on the Prince Charming murders. All he could think was, Please, God, don’t let this be a scam.

Laura’s mood alternated between panic and the inevitability of this moment, while Gabriel seemed resigned. The longer they waited, the calmer he became. She didn’t understand that it was relief he was feeling. By coming here and telling his story, Gabriel was giving the responsibility of saving Prince Charming’s victims to someone else.

When they’d arrived at headquarters, the detective they’d been directed to was quite obviously busy. But it hadn’t taken long to get Ray Bush’s attention. Three little words,
Prince Charming murders,
and they had his undivided attention—until Laura said the word
psychic
and Gabriel said something about dreams. After that, Ray’s enthusiasm had waned noticeably. He’d asked them to wait, telling them that an OSBI agent named Kirby Summers was officially in charge and that they needed to tell their story to him.

Gabriel shifted in his chair, glancing at Laura and trying to gauge her apprehension. He knew she was worried for him, and in a way, he knew he should be worried about himself. But he wasn’t. Whatever happened after this, it had been the right thing to do.

He’d seen the skepticism on the detective’s face, but he didn’t give a damn whether the man believed him or not. He needed to tell what he knew. After that, it would be out of his hands.

And then there was Laura. He couldn’t quit thinking about the timing of her appearance in his life. It was almost as if fate were trying to slap him back down by showing him a new kind of love and then yanking it away. He’d survived a deadly car crash, even survived the loss of his parents, although there had been days when he’d wished for the opposite. But he
had
survived, while battling a loneliness he could never have envisioned.

Then Laura Dane had entered his life, daring him to accept not only who she was, but
what.
When he thought back to how reluctant he’d been for her to come, he almost laughed. Now he couldn’t imagine life without her. He didn’t know what his future held, but he would never regret loving her. Her presence alone had done more toward healing him than any medicine could ever have done.

A telephone rang on a nearby desk. Gabriel watched as Ray Bush got up to answer it. As soon as the man was out of earshot, Gabriel looked at Laura and then took her hand. She was trembling, and her skin was cold…ice-cold.

“Laura, look at me,” he demanded.

She did as he asked, telling herself that, under the circumstances, this was the right thing to do. But she was afraid, so afraid for Gabriel that she could hardly think.

“It’s going to be all right,” he said softly. “Either they believe me or they don’t.”