Delia's Shadow (36 page)

“I don’t want them back.” New lines in Gabe’s face aged him. “Burn them. Burn everything.”

The door swung closed behind them, hinges squeaking softly. Water dripped from the tap and plinked into a dish, sound echoing hollowly in the iron and porcelain sink. Floorboards creaked upstairs, a trail of footsteps that told me others were awake and moving about, and the timbers of the porch roof groaned, releasing the heat of the day. The house shifted and settled, eager for sleep.

Someone set off a string of firecrackers, the sound of sharp pops, snaps, and sizzling crackles carrying from down the block. The scent of gunpowder and scorched paper drifted in the kitchen window. A skyrocket shrieked and raced heavenward, burst in a flash of dazzling white. Laughter, expressions of glee and appreciation followed, and excited voices called for more.

I slid off the chair to the floor and curled over my knees, rocking and breathing too fast, fighting the urge to throw open the backdoor and scream at the neighbors to stop celebrating, they should mourn the death of a good man instead. That was vastly unfair and unkind, but the desolation in Gabe’s face haunted me. The careless joy of others was more than I could bear.

Sadie found me half under the table and huddled in on myself. She ignored that the floor was cold and damp, sat next to me and draped an arm over my shoulders. “Annie sent me to keep you company. She didn’t think you should be alone. From the looks of things, she was right. Not that Annie is ever wrong, but I feel honor bound to check once in a while. Let’s go to my room, Dee. You can wash your face and wait for Gabe in a nice warm chair.”

A familiar pressure in my chest warned that Aileen and the remaining ghosts were near. I was never truly alone, no matter how I longed for solitude.

I leaned against Sadie, needing the warmth of the living and a reminder the dead weren’t my only companions. “Did Jack say anything? Tell you what happened?”

“No, he couldn’t talk about it.” The cheerful, bright lilt to her voice, so much a part of Sadie, was muted and subdued. She hugged my shoulders and sighed, weary and sad. We’d all grown older tonight. “All Jack could do was hold me and shake. He’s coming back once—once the coroner removes the bodies.”

“Bodies.” Ethan had carried out his threat, choosing and taking his victims right from under Gabe’s nose. I brushed at my eyes. “Matt didn’t die alone.”

Sadie stood and helped me to my feet. “Marshall told me they found Captain Parker with Gabe’s father. Parker was still alive and managed to talk, and gave a good description of Ethan. He’s changed his appearance from the photograph they have. The captain died before they could summon an ambulance or get him to a hospital.”

“May he rest in peace.” Chance or bad luck had nothing to do with who Ethan had chosen as his victims. The letter to Gabe was a ploy—bait. He’d lured the only two people who’d known him at seventeen to the fairgrounds and hunted them at his leisure. Rage vied with grief for which would hold sway. “Maybe Gabe and Jack can catch that monster now.”

Sadie held the door for me, her face grim and determined. “They will. Then that bastard can hang.”

CHAPTER 19

Gabe

Gabe returned to work once he’d broken the news to his mother and the funeral arrangements were made. Jack tried to talk him out of going back to the case so soon, mustering all the right arguments, but accepted Gabe’s decision gracefully.

Working gave him a chance to do something other than brooding or sitting alone in the guestroom in the Larkin house and breaking down. Neither Delia nor Annie wanted him to go back to his rooming house alone, and he didn’t argue too hard. The truth was he couldn’t stand the silence or that his father’s suitcase still sat open on the chair near the chest of drawers, spare shirts and socks stacked neatly inside. He needed companionship and the noise of others moving inside the house.

Most of all, he needed Delia. He didn’t have to pretend with her.

The quiet sympathy of his men was hard to take, at least at first. No one pushed, no one cornered Gabe to say how sorry they were or share memories of Matt Ryan with his son, but they arrived at his office door with coffee and grease-stained bakery bags, or takeaway food from the café down the street. He thought at first Jack put them up to playing nanny, but his partner denied any culpability. No one person was behind the conspiracy to keep him fed and functional, the whole squad was involved.

Boxes of his father’s files, as well as old records retrieved from Sam Parker’s house, filled Gabe’s office. Most he’d read a hundred times or more, but he was determined to hunt through them all again. Now that they knew the killer’s identity, details that once seemed unimportant might lead them straight to Ethan. He couldn’t afford to miss anything.

He spent hours hunched over his desk studying piles of crime-scene photos, read all the reports and interviews gathered by his father’s men years before, and nursed the rage simmering deep inside. Rage was new, unfamiliar, and Gabe couldn’t find his way back to being detached and professional. Catching Ethan had always been imperative, but this case had become personal in a way he’d never imagined. The depth of his anger frightened him.

Good cops didn’t dream of revenge or of making a suspect suffer the torments inflicted on victims. Gabe began to worry about how good of a cop he really was. He extracted a promise from Jack to make sure he was never given a chance to find out.

Five days passed in a blur. The morning of the funeral dawned clear and warm, a blessing. Saying good-bye in a damp, dreary fog would add more misery to a miserable day.

Matt Ryan’s old friends in the department turned out in dress uniforms for the services and the department gave his father full honors. That his father was still so well liked and remembered after all these years made Gabe proud. He had a lot to live up to in order to come close to his father’s reputation, but he’d always known that.

Staying strong through the eulogy had been difficult, holding his mother up at the graveside even more so. Dressed in widow’s weeds, she looked smaller, frail, and old in a way he’d hoped never to see.

Gabe put his mother on a train the morning after the funeral, relieved his Aunt Bess waited in Boston to comfort and coddle her sister. Two officers from the department went along to act as bodyguards on the long, cross-country trip. Neighbors, all good friends of Matt Ryan, were tending the farm in her absence. He’d breathe a little easier with his mother on the other side of the country. Even Ethan couldn’t reach her there.

His mother never looked at Gabe with anything but love in her eyes, but that didn’t stanch his guilt or stop the churning in his gut. He couldn’t escape the unalterable fact that he’d been in command and all the decisions—all the losses—were his responsibility. Realizations of how he and Jack had been played and how eagerly they’d walked into the trap came too late.

The letter warning of the Fourth of July killings was a ploy to lure the police, and Matt Ryan, to the fairgrounds. Ethan had hunted at his leisure, killing the only two people in the city of San Francisco who might know him on sight.

That wasn’t by chance. Ethan would have found a way to kill Sam Parker and Matt Ryan whether they’d been at the fairgrounds or not. When he could think clearly, Gabe recognized the truth of that. He was damn lucky he hadn’t lost his mother, too.

She was still in danger, as well as Isadora, Delia, and Sadie. The certainty that no one he cared about was safe fueled his anger. He’d search every boardinghouse and hotel in San Francisco to find Ethan, and if necessary, roust every cabbie and hack driver within the city limits.

And once he’d laid hands on Ethan, he’d do everything in his power to make sure the man who killed his father was convicted. Gabe dreamed of the day he’d watch Ethan Brennan hang, hate growing alongside rage and the need for revenge. He’d never hated anyone before or wished them dead. He didn’t much like the feeling.

A sharp rap on the glass of his office door startled him. He opened the folder in front of him, sheepish at being caught wool-gathering, and cleared his throat. “Come in.”

Jack breezed through the door, whistling and holding another white bakery bag. “Henderson brought in scones and crullers. He was on his way to Sadie’s for his shift, so he asked me to deliver them. Marshall didn’t want to miss Annie’s pancakes.”

Gabe flipped the folder closed and cleared off the desktop. “The men get Annie’s pancakes and we eat doughnuts in my office. That doesn’t seem right. And when did you suddenly start knocking?”

“Just this morning, Lieutenant. In two days I’ll be a married man. Time to stop acting like a carefree bachelor and get serious about promotion. Setting a good example for the men is important if I want to make detective grade.”

Jack’s good humor was infectious and Gabe’s spirits rose in response. For one day he could put aside work and mourning, and forget everything but celebrating Sadie and Jack’s happiness. He owed his best friend and partner that much and more.

“It’s about time Sadie made an honest man out of you.” The scone was full of chopped almonds that crunched as he chewed and overly sweet. His coffee was lukewarm, but Gabe drained the mug nonetheless. “Is there anything the best man needs to do on Saturday?”

“Your job is pretty simple. Make sure I get to the church early and keep me from panicking. Delia remains convinced I’ll faint as soon as I see Sadie in her wedding gown. She could be right.” Jack set his half-eaten doughnut aside. He flattened crumbs with a finger, methodically moving from one to another. “I booked a suite at an inn in Sausalito for the wedding night. I’m hoping the ferry ride will be romantic. Sadie deserves a bit of romance. The owner wasn’t exactly overjoyed that a group of armed policemen would arrive with the bride and groom, but I finally won him over. The extra twenty dollars I gave him for the night probably helped.”

The coffee soured in Gabe’s stomach. He added another entry to his list of Ethan’s sins. “The two of you deserve a honeymoon. I’m sorry you won’t get one.”

“I promised Sadie we’d have a honeymoon and we will. She understands why we have to delay the trip.” Jack tossed what was left of his doughnut into the wastebasket. “Ethan Brennan and this case aside, going away later is probably for the best. Sadie would spend all her time worrying about Esther. I don’t think we can have a real honeymoon until her mother passes on. If something happened while we were gone, Sadie would never forgive herself.”

Gabe cleared away the remains of their makeshift breakfast, uncertain of what to say or if he should say anything at all. His life was as much in limbo as Jack’s. He loved Delia and wanted to spend the rest of his life with her, but couldn’t bring himself to take the next step. Not until Ethan was in custody.

“Don’t look so glum, Gabe. He can’t stay ahead of us forever.” Jack stared at the pin-studded map on the office wall, his expression impossible to read. That he wasn’t joking said much. “Sadie and I will be together, and that’s what I care about most. She’s the most important person in my life. I’d do almost anything to make her happy, but both of us want a future where Ethan Brennan is nothing more than a horrible memory. The honeymoon can wait.”

He didn’t know what to say to that, either. Discussions about the future left him shaky. Gabe recognized the fear and uncertainty for what it was, a reaction to his father’s death and how easily Ethan could take Delia from him, too. Loving someone wasn’t enough to keep that person safe. He turned the conversation to practical matters. “Do you need help getting your things out of Katherine’s house?”

“Katherine had one of the servants move them a few days ago. I have a few clothes in her house and my wedding suit. Nothing else.” Jack divided the pile of reports between them and flipped open a folder. “If I didn’t know my dear stepmother so well, I’d swear she was eager to be rid of me.”

Gabe sorted through his own stack of folders, choosing one of Captain Parker’s files at random. He couldn’t abandon the hope that some hidden nugget of information lurked in Parker’s files. “Has Katherine decided if she’s coming to the wedding?”

“No, she won’t be there. We quarreled over my father lying to me. Katherine swears she didn’t know, but I don’t believe her. I learned to tell when my stepmother was lying by the time I was nine.” Jack shrugged, pretending a nonchalance Gabe didn’t believe. “Sadie told me last night that Katherine formally sent her apologies. A conflict with another engagement or some such rot. I’d warned Sadie she’d find an excuse not to come, but I think Katherine’s refusal was still a shock. We have a bet going now about whether the gossip will be about her or us. My money’s on us.”

“I’m sorry, Jack.”

“Don’t be. I’m not.” Anger and bitterness flared in Jack’s eyes. “Ethan took my mother from me before I had a chance to know her. If I was going to be sorry about anything, I’d regret all the things my mother and I never got to say to each other. Katherine isn’t my mother. I won’t miss her at my wedding.”

Gabe couldn’t disagree. He went back to burying himself in thirty-year-old files, making notes of things he wanted to know more about or follow up. But as the morning wore on, he found himself thinking more and more of things unsaid, and regrets over never having said them.

He had things to say to Delia. Fear of the future was a poor excuse for silence.

Delia

I woke late on Friday morning. The night had been full of dreams, frantic and unsettling, and memories of what I’d dreamed vanished as soon as I opened my eyes. That added to my restlessness. I’d forgotten something important, I was sure of that.

Jumping at small sounds was unlike me: the creak of floorboards in another room, sun-heated roof timbers moaning, a tradesman slamming the rear gate of his wagon. None were out of the ordinary. Yet each noise from outside my room startled me. I couldn’t decide if the nervous drumming of my heart was a gift from the ghosts still occupying the house, or if the pressure of completing wedding preparations on time was the culprit.

Placing the blame on the need to finish a thousand and one tasks before the ceremony was reasonable. I dressed, going over lists in my head, and tried not to acknowledge how wrong the simple, reasonable explanation felt.