John watched him leave, then looked back to me. “Catch Worley,” he said, eyes serious.
“And find answers?” Knives scraped across my skin, saying it aloud. “Or condemn a crazy but innocent man?”
“Innocent? Are you sure?” John asked, his gaze penetrating.
Worley couldn’t have gotten by my men. But someone whoknewthem...
“Is heinnocent, Gabriel?”
I stared at the scattered papers. “A net and noose, tighter they grow.”
“Gabriel—”
“There is one place left to search for answers.”Twoplaces. Vomit lifted. “Rasen also keptnotes.”
John’s eyes shut. “You are going to have to make a decision. Will justice, protection, or revenge be your guide?”
“Justice has always been my guide.” I could barely get the words out. I could have done more than set a watch rotation on Anastasia Rasen’s house. Especially if the killer knew me, knew my men.
“I’ve never seen you sacrifice the nobility you’ve always prized. But sometimes revengeisjustice, Gabriel.”
“I’ve taken my revenge. I did it without bloodshed.”
“But another choice is upon you now. One thing you value will need to be sacrificed. If you could just let go of your damn nobility—”
I smacked the table. “It is all I have. All I’ve ever had.” And yet nobility was a comfortable excuse. I had known she was next and hadn’t told Dresden or anyone else. I had put some men on it, and let dark nature take its course.
I hadn’t saved the devil’s apprentice. I had let her get murdered.
John leaned closer. “You havejustice. This doesn’t have to end the way you think.”
I stared at him. John was sympathetic—he knew what was happening—but he had led an easy life of privilege and respect. He would never be able tounderstand.
Lucian too had lived a life of privilege after those first years in hiding. I’d given him everything, tried to keep him innocent—to protect him as no one had protected me.
“It doesn’t have to end the way you are thinking,” John repeated.
I had blamed our father for his blindness—for not seeing what was taking place beneath his nose. To his own son. Father had never argued the blame—his passive, upright control keeping him still as I railed. Our relationship, always formal and somewhat strained, had never recovered. But Lucian didn’t have that same strain. They visited often. He could have discovered any number of things during those visits.
“It is going to end just as I think. Unpleasantly.”
~*~
The house on Wisteria Lane was just as expected. Frilly, pink, and gilded—like a dying bird fluttering in a cage. I hated anything frilly and pink because of Anastasia Rasen, and here I stood in the middle of her dollish kingdom.
The servants had been called to present themselves to their new master to see whether they would stay or go, but their absence wouldn’t last long. Curious callers were already a problem. There had been two knocks on the door since we’d arrived. We had to hurry.
“Why didn’t Alcroft and Lucian come?” Marietta asked, poking through a drawer.
“I sent them on another task. We’ll meet with them later.”
I could barely look at Lucian. I had never felt more of a coward. All it would take was one question—did he do it? I would know the answer by the look on his face.
I’d never wanted to know an answer less. Lucian’s whereabouts were unaccounted for during the last two murders. I had declined to check the rest. The taste of real fear had been absent from my tongue for years, and yet here it was like an old friend come to call and bringing a suitcase.
My brother had kept me going. He had always been the one I was trying to save. To lose him now was unacceptable.
“She always wore pink, but I didn’t realize it was quite this level of obsession,” Marietta said as she sorted through Anastasia’s things.
