Finding Isadora (38 page)

I thought about that.
“She went to school, got herself a good job, works overtime.”

“
And maybe she’s tired of working so hard when there’s an easier way.”

“
Have you met her?”

He shook his head.
“Hard to do that without making her suspicious. It could just make the bad guys more clever about covering their tracks.”

“
If
she’s involved in the arson.”

“
Yes. If. Believe me, Isadora, I do have an open mind on this. Anyhow, I’m still collecting data. Once I have a better idea where things stand, I’ll talk to her.”

Ever since Jimmy Lee had been charged, I
’d felt powerless, wishing I could help him. Now, finally, I could see a way. “I’m not working the morning shift tomorrow. Maybe I’ll drop by the hospital and visit Cassie. Perhaps I could talk to her about the company. About management, morale, business practices, that kind of thing.”

“
Hmm. I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

“
Don’t you want to know that kind of stuff?”

“
Yes, and Jimmy Lee suggested the same thing. But I’m afraid that…”

“
You think we’ll botch it,” I said wryly.

“
Well…”

“
Jimmy Lee might. He’s not noted for subtlety. But I think I could do it. Just a few casual questions about her job, about how she liked it, if she’d seen any of her co-workers since the accident, if she knew what the company’s plans were. She has to be worried about whether she’ll have a job to go back to. I could throw out a few things and see if she picks up on them. If not, I won’t push it.”

“
Hmm. That sounds good, but…”

He was driving beside the beach now, and slowed to pass a couple of cyclists. Dozens of people drifted around, at least half of them eating ice cream or other snacks. Gabriel drove past the first parking lot
. Soon he’d park and we’d get out. Somehow, perhaps because it was less familiar than English Bay, Spanish Banks seemed more intimate. More romantic.

“
But?” I said absently, thinking I should have suggested we head back to the West End, pick up Pogo, and take our walk in my own neighborhood.

“
There’s a lot at stake here for whoever burned down the factory. Investigating this kind of thing is dangerous. Don’t want you becoming a target.”

“
Oh, gosh, I didn’t think of that.” The only danger I’d contemplated related to my feelings for Gabriel. At least his comment distracted me from thinking about kisses on the beach.

Danger. If Cassie
was
involved—or even happened to talk casually to someone who was involved—I could be putting myself in danger. “But, Gabriel, I was going to visit anyhow. Alyssa’s spending time at the clinic under my supervision, and her mother should meet me. So, obviously we’ll talk about Alyssa and the animals, Grace and Jimmy Lee. And of course I’ll ask how she’s feeling, and about her rehabilitation, and so on. It would be odd if I
didn’t
ask about Cosmystiques and her job prospects.”

He shook his head.
“If you ever decide to go to law school, I’ll hire you when you come out.”

Though I knew he was teasing, I was flattered.
“Not me. I’d rather work with animals than people. They’re nicer.”

“
But not as challenging.”

I studied his profile.
“And you like a challenge?”

He sent me one of those smoldering Gabriel-glances.
“I suppose I must.” And, that quickly, we were back on dangerous ground.

He turned into the last parking lot and pulled into a vacant spot.
“Let’s walk.”

Trying to stumble back to safe ground, I said,
“You’re not telling me not to visit Cassie.”

He swung out the driver
’s side and I eased out the passenger side. It was cooler here by the ocean, and the breeze had a fresh tang. I breathed in gratefully as Gabriel came around the car.

“
Would I dare tell you what you can and can’t do?” he said. “But, Isadora, be careful.”

I nodded.
“I will.”

“
Good.” He touched my shoulder briefly, then thrust both hands into the pockets of his jeans.

As I took my first step away from the car, I knew I was walking not just to the beach, but into unfamiliar territory. Tonight, in some way I couldn
’t predict, things were going to change between Gabriel and me.

We had to talk. I couldn
’t carry on the way I had been, all confused and conflicted.

Maybe Gabriel felt the same need to clarify where we stood. Perhaps that
’s why he’d suggested this walk. Except, right now he was striding across the parking lot at a great pace with both hands jammed in his pockets. I hurried to catch up.

When we reached the sand, he stopped to yank off his sandals and I did the same, then we started walking, heading east.
The beach was wilder than the neatly groomed one at English Bay: coarse sand, rocks and pebbles, logs tossed up by stormy waters and situated perfectly for watching the sunset.

And yes, t
he sun was starting to set, the sky above us a lush blend of peach and pink. Across the water, sun glinted gold off the windows of high apartment towers in the West End, dazzling my eyes. The ocean-scented breeze twirled my floaty skirt around my legs like the unfurling petals of a giant red poppy. The tangy odor tingled in my nostrils and I sucked it in greedily.

We didn
’t take advantage of one of the strategically placed logs. Instead, beside me, Gabriel plowed through the sand with one hand in his pocket, his sandals dangling from the other, as hurried and preoccupied as if he were on his way to court. I glanced at him from under my lashes. He wasn’t even watching the sunset, he was staring down at the beach in front of his feet.

The golden city deserved appreciation, I thought, and so I focused on it and tried to calm the anxiety that quivered through my body. But Gabriel
’s presence, his tension, made it impossible for me to relax.

I needed to talk to him about our relationship, but in this mood he seemed unapproachable.
“Sometimes I think I don’t know you at all.” The words burst out of me. Oh god, I sounded petulant and childish.

He broke stride, took one slow step forward, then stopped. I stopped too, watching his rigid back. After a moment he turned and tilted his head.
“What do you want to know?” His voice was rough, his gaze piercing.

I want to know how you feel about me.
The words choked in my throat and I couldn’t answer him.

He tilted his head.
“I can guess. And you’re scared to ask, aren’t you? You know you won’t like the answer.”

What did he mean? Was the answer that he was attracted to me, or that he wasn
’t? Which would I prefer? It didn’t matter; I had to know. “Tell me,” I demanded.

He gave a ragged chuckle.
“You stuck your shoulders back and your chin out. Did you know that?”

I tried to laugh, too.
“Preparing myself. You made it sound kind of … scary.”

“
It is. But you already know that. When you asked the question back at the apartment, your read the answer on my face.”

At the apartment? Now he
’d lost me completely.

And then, in a rush, I remembered. When my parents had confessed to arson, I
’d asked Gabriel if he’d ever done something so bad. And he had. He was right, he’d told me the answer without saying a word.

While I
’d been obsessing over whether we had the hots for each other, he’d been wondering whether I’d push him to confess his past crimes.

I wanted to laugh, or cry, or hit him. Damn, but the man was frustrating. Then I refocused. Was he going to tell me what he
’d done?

In a silky, dangerous tone, he said,
“You’re always after me to open up, to share things. I’ll tell you about this if you really want to know. And if you promise never to tell Richard, or anyone else.”

He was making me complicit. Maybe asking me to conceal a crime.
A shiver trembled across my skin, making me aware that I’d left my cardigan in the car and wore only a tan-colored tank top above my breeze-tossed skirt.

This wasn
’t the conversation I’d imagined us having out here as the sun flamed the sky and lovers strolled by. And yet, I did want to know. I wanted to know everything about him, everything that mattered to him, everything that had made him the incredible man he was today. I hugged my arms around myself and slowly nodded.

“
You may never want to speak to me again.”

Was that possible? No, I couldn
’t imagine Gabriel doing anything so horrible. “Try me.”

A shadow of a grin flickered on his lips. He gestured to a big log and we sat, side by side but not touching. An elderly couple walked down the beach toward us, their arms around each other
’s waists. We sat in silence as they passed, listening to the crunch of their footsteps and the ocean breathing in indigo sighs against the pebbly beach.

When the couple had moved on, and Gabriel
’s words finally came, they were so quiet I barely heard them. “I killed my father.”

The air whooshed out of my body and for a moment I thought
I would faint. But he was going on, and I had to hear the words. I gripped the log on either side of my hips, hanging on fiercely. Gabriel still faced the ocean, but I stared intently at the taut lines of his profile.

“
Came home from hanging around with some kids one night, and he was hitting my mother.” His voice was tight, higher than I’d ever heard it. “I always tried to stop him, and I was getting big enough I could put up a good fight, though she always told me not to. She’d been making tomato sauce and he’d pulled the pot off the stove. The kitchen was orange with sauce and red with her blood. He’d broken her nose and was punching her, kicking her; every time I pulled him off her, he went back.” Gabriel’s speech got faster and faster, the words running into each other.

Under my clenched fingers I was dimly aware of rough wood, the retained warmth from sunshine.

“The big knife she’d used to chop the vegetables was on the table.” He paused, then said flatly, “I grabbed it and stuck it in his chest.”

I closed my eyes, then, as an image formed of Gabriel and his father, hurriedly opened them again.

“Only once,” he said, still not looking at me, his voice a husky breath in the night. “I stabbed him once, backed away, and he came at me. Then it was like the air went out of him and he collapsed. But it was too late for my mom. She was unconscious and died later that night.” He paused, then added, even more softly, “She never knew I’d killed him. Never knew she was finally safe.”

I
sat frozen, unable to speak. I’d heard his words, but my brain was only slowly allowing me to comprehend them.

“
Isadora.”

My lips
were numb. Somehow I managed to force out words. “You didn’t mean to kill him. You had to protect her.”

Now, finally, he turned to me. The lines of his face were grim and he looked older than I
’d ever seen him. “I think I did mean to.”

Oh, god. I still felt stunned, couldn
’t come to terms with what he’d said.

When we
’d been at his apartment, he’d told me he was fifteen when his father died. I tried to imagine an abused boy coming home, finding what Gabriel had found. “You reacted,” I told him. “You needed to stop him.”

“
I killed him.”

He wasn
’t going to let either of us take the easy road, escape the harsh reality. Suddenly, I realized what he needed from me, the thing he’d never been able to give himself. Absolution. But did I have it in me to give?

With trembling fingers, I touched his bare forearm.
“You had to help your mother. He was killing her. How else could you stop him?”

His gaze held mine, and in his eyes I read a plea for understanding.
“I didn’t stop him. Not in time. I’d tried before, should have found a way. Fuck, Isadora, I didn’t know how else to do it, I was such a dumb kid.” He took a breath then let it out. “That’s why I chose law. I wanted to learn how to help people. People like me and my mom, people who don’t have power in society, who don’t know how the system works.”

I squeezed his arm.
“And you’ve done it, Gabriel. You do it every day. She’d be so proud of you.”

He hadn
’t responded to my touch and now I moved closer, taking his right hand, cradling it between my palms, trying to thrust away the image of that kitchen, spattered with tomato sauce and blood. “When I asked you what happened after your parents died, you said you went into the system. Foster care?”