about her.”
“I know she’s very beautiful.” Then I added meaningfully, “And apparently good with her hands.”
“Hardly an undesirable trait,” he said.
I was glad that he could find humor in the situation, because I saw none. “How did you cut your arm?”
He sobered instantly. “I got careless.”
He was still staring down at me, and despite my momentary irritation, I knew those eyes might yet be my undoing.
And just like that, I found myself once again swimming in very dangerous waters, craving desperately what could never be mine.
“The kind of carelessness that comes from breaking the glass in a second-story window?” I asked.
He lifted a brow in surprise. “How did you know?”
I pulled out the silver medallion and placed it in his palm.
His fingers curled around the chain, as he said in disbelief, “You’ve had it the whole time?”
“I found it in Gerrity’s office. Is that why you were in the building? Did you return to look for the medallion?”
An emotion flashed in his eyes.
“Yes.”
“So you really didn’t get my message.” I glanced away, rattled by his confession. “Why did you break into Gerrity’s office?”
“He had something of mine and I wanted it back.”
“You don’t mean the necklace, I take it.”
“No. Something far more dangerous.”
My pulse accelerated at the hard glitter in his eyes. He was usually so stoic, but now I sensed a recklessness in him that wasn’t altogether unappealing. “So you broke in. Just like that.”
“I had no choice. I’d already searched his house.”
I shook my head. Reckless, indeed.
“Now I have a question for you,” he said. “Why didn’t you tell me earlier that you’d found my medallion?”
“I was afraid to.”
“Because you thought I killed Gerrity?”
“It crossed my mind,” I admitted. “But only for a moment. All of your vague warnings about keeping our distance and remaining silent should you disappear and now this clandestine meeting at Isabel’s house…” I spread my hands helplessly. “You must understand how confusing all this is to me.”
He turned to glance restlessly around the room. “I didn’t want to get you involved. I wanted to keep you safe.”
“It’s too late for that, I think. I burned that bridge when I didn’t report Gerrity’s murder.”
“But you did report it. You told me. So your hands are clean.”
“I’m not even worried about that,” I said with my own careless abandon. “I just want to know that you’re all right. Please tell me I shouldn’t worry.”
He seemed to consider the pros and cons of a confession, and then said tensely, “We should sit.”
We moved to a small sofa positioned in front of the windows and he drew me down beside him. He put an arm around my shoulders, pulling me close, and I settled in against him. Even after everything he’d been through that night, he still smelled so good. I closed my eyes and took a depth breath, committing that scent to memory so that I could savor it later in my dreams.
“You asked if I’d gone to see Darius after the accident,” he said.
“And you said that you didn’t remember anything about that night. Just vague memories that didn’t make sense.”
“That is what I said,” he agreed. “But the truth is, I did go see him.”
I pulled back so that I could study his face. “For gray dust?”
“Yes.”
“You must have been very desperate.” I mentally kicked myself. What a stupid observation. He’d lost his wife and daughter only hours earlier. Of course he’d been desperate. Desperate enough to demand that Dr. Shaw help him contact their ghosts. Desperate enough to take a drug that stopped his heart in the hopes of entering the spirit world to find them. This was a side of Devlin that I’d only ever glimpsed before, but it made me think that perhaps we had more in common than I knew.
“What happened?”
“I woke up sometime later in Chedathy Cemetery,” he said, watching the flicker of the candles with a brooding frown.
I wanted to ask him about his gray dust journey, but instead, I said, “And Robert Fremont. Did you see him as well that night?”
“Not alive. He was already dead when I came to. He’d been shot in the back.”
“But you didn’t report it. The papers said the body was found the next day.”
“No, I didn’t report it.” He glanced at me. “I’m not trying to excuse my actions. I did a lot of things back then that I’m not proud of. But I was still under the influence of the drug, operating in a dream state. None of what I saw or did seemed real.”
“Did you see…ghosts?”
He ran a hand over his eyes. “I’m not sure what I saw. It was all very disjointed. Surreal. Even so, some part of me must have had the presence of mind to realize that after a public argument with Robert Fremont, I shouldn’t be found in the cemetery with his dead body.”
“So you just left?”
“I don’t remember leaving. I don’t even remember driving home. But I woke up the next evening in my own bed, and my car was parked in the driveway. The previous twelve hours were completely lost to me. Ethan told me later that the police had been by that afternoon. They already knew about the argument with Robert. Someone had overheard me threaten him.”
“
He stared grimly into the candle flame. “Mariama let it slip one day that she might be going away. Since I knew about the affair, it wasn’t hard to put two and two together. She mostly said it to goad me, but I lost my temper, which I’m sure was her intent. I told her, and later Robert, that I didn’t give a damn what they did, but if they ever tried to take Shani away from me, I would kill them both.”
“Oh, John.”
He didn’t try to excuse or soften. He merely shrugged. “You can see why the Beaufort County detectives were interested in me.”
It was a sordid tale, and I really didn’t want to hear any more. It was like peeking through the keyhole of Devlin’s past, and I didn’t feel right about picking apart his most painful and private memories. But I also couldn’t help him if I didn’t know the complete truth.
“They had no proof against you. And Ethan gave you an alibi.”
“Actually, there was proof. A smoking gun,” Devlin said. “They just weren’t able to find it.”
“What do you mean?”
“The ballistics report revealed that Robert had been shot with a .38. My service weapon was a 9mm Glock. But I also had a .38 registered in my father’s name. I kept the gun locked in a drawer in my office at home. After I heard about the report, I went to check. The gun was missing from the case.”
“You think it was the one used in the shooting?”
“I’m almost certain of it.”
“Who had access? Or even knew about it?”
“My grandfather knew about it. And Mariama.”
“But she died before Robert was murdered,” I said. “And, anyway, if she planned to go away with him, why would she kill him?”
“She could have told someone else about the gun.”
“Like who?”
