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  The look of abject horror on Julia’s face must have convinced the detectives that she had no idea what they were talking about, since they both stopped talking and Julia was pretty sure that Cole actually kicked her partner under the table. It was a relief. If he said “post mortem” one more time, Julia thought she might lose it.

  “There is one other thing,” Cole started after a moment of awkward silence.

  “It’s about the man that killed your boyfriend,” Detective Salter cut in. He set a thick file folder down on the table, pulled out a picture, and slid it across the table to Julia. “This man. Clyde Warner. Do you recognize him?”

  Julia looked at the photo and barely held back her rage. “Of course I recognize him. He shot Alex. He tried to kill me.”

  The woman on the other side of the table reached one plump hand across and gave Julia’s hand a sympathetic squeeze. “We understand that, ma’am. May I call you Julia?”

  Julia nodded, her eyes never straying from the picture of Alex’s murderer.

  “Julia,” Cole began, “what we are asking is if you have seen him somewhere before yesterday’s attack.”

  “He was a waiter at my restaurant. His first day was yesterday.” Julia picked up the picture with a trembling hand. “He served us lunch. Alex and me. I told you all of this yesterday.”

  Julia’s grip started to crumple the picture. Cole gently took it out of her hand and set it on the table. “Before that? Do you remember seeing him anywhere at all?”

  Julia shook her head. She tried to be patient.

  Salter took another picture out of the folder and slid it to Julia. “How about this man?”

  A picture of a man with receding red hair and blue eyes slid toward her. She shook her head. “I’ve never seen him before.”

  “Ray Bridges. Does the name ring a bell?”

  “Not at all,” Julia said. “Wait. Ray Bridges. I think Sandra was going to interview a man named Bridges a couple days ago.”

  The detectives nodded.

  “What about this woman?” Salter slid a photo of a pretty Hispanic girl across the table.

  “I’ve never seen her before,” Julia said, furrowing her brow. “What’s this all about?”

  “The woman is Alishia Menendez,” Salter said. “She was also supposed to have an interview at your restaurant two days ago.”

  “Sandra told me there were three prospective employees who didn’t show up.” Julia didn’t like the feeling in the pit of her stomach.

  “Three?” Cole exchanged a surprised look with her partner. “Julia, we are going to need the name of the third person.”

  “Will you please tell me what this is about?” Julia swept her hair from her face.

  “The bodies of the first two have been found,” Cole said, searching Julia’s eyes.

  “In the Dumpster behind your restaurant,” Salter added.

  “Oh my God.” Julia dropped her head into her hands and took a deep breath. “What happened to them?”

  “That’s what we’re trying to find out.” Salter seemed to soften a bit. “Could you get us the details on that third person, ma’am?”

  Julia’s trembling hands picked up her cell phone and dialed Sandra’s number. “Sandra, I need the names of the people you were scheduled to interview the day before yesterday.”

  Cole passed Julia a pen and one of her business cards to write on.

  “Yes, as okay as can be expected,” Julia said into the phone. She jotted notes as she spoke. “Good. No, that’s fine. Thank you. I’ll call you later.”

  Julia slid the paper back to Cole, who picked it up and showed it to her partner. “Janice Clark.”

  “That’s all the information Sandra had with her at home, but she should still have a copy of the résumé on file at the restaurant.” Julia wiped away a stray tear. “I can have her call it in tomorrow. I won’t be going there for a while…”

  “We need that information now, Julia,” Cole said.

  Julia shifted her tired eyes to the world outside the living room window, dread filling her. She looked back at Detective Cole with a pleading look. She did not want to go out there. Her lower lip started to tremble. “Now?”

  “Please,” Cole said with a nod. “Time matters in a case like this.”

  “I’ll get ready,” Julia said, deflated. She pushed her chair back from the table.

  “There is one more thing,” Salter added, stopping Julia before she rose from her seat. He pulled several pictures from the over-stuffed folder and spread them across the table. Every one of the new photos was of Julia. There were pictures of her shopping, driving, walking down the street. Some were taken from right inside the restaurant.

  Julia gasped, looking from one picture to the next. Her lips quivered as she battled to keep back another flood of tears.

  “Are you certain you haven’t seen Clyde Warner before? It seems like he’s seen an awful lot of you. We found these in his home.”

  “I don’t understand. Why me? I don’t even know him.”

  “We’d like you to think back,” Cole said gently. “Try to remember where you were when these pictures were taken, who you were with. Maybe you made him feel slighted somehow?”

  Julia recognized the forest-green placemats on the table in one of the pictures of her in the restaurant.

  “This was taken almost five years ago,” she said, pointing at the picture. “Those are the faulty linens. We only had them on the tables for a month. We swapped them out for the burgundy shortly after this.”

  She looked from picture to picture, studying the scene each depicted, trying to recall exactly where and when each one was taken. The longer she looked at them, the more she realized she had seen Clyde every time, but dismissed him.

  “Why me?”

  Cole shook her head.

  “That’s what we’re trying to find out.” Salter tipped his coffee up, downing what was left in one gulp. He set it on the table, gathered the pictures back into the folder, and pushed his chair back. “We’ll take you out to the restaurant to pick up that information, if you don’t mind.”

  Julia nodded, her mind still sifting through the images in the photographs. “Okay.”

  “Whenever you’re ready,” Salter said, his tone indicating that now would be a good time to be ready.

  Julia let go of a trembling sigh and went to get dressed, careful to carry her seraphinite stone with her. When she came back out, she saw that the detectives had let themselves out and were sitting in their car, waiting. She ignored her difficulty breathing and climbed into the back seat.

  When they pulled into the parking lot at the restaurant and saw the half-mast flag, tears Julia had thought had long since run out sprang to her eyes, rolling freely down her cheeks. She sat watching the flag ripple in the breeze. The cops tapped on her window, breaking her trance, and she fumbled for the non-existent door handle just as they opened it for her.

  The corner of the Dumpster behind the building was visible from where she parked, and she could see the crime scene tape all around it. She wondered where they would put their garbage now. The thought of permanently closing down the restaurant for that reason did not bother her at all.

  She stepped out of the car and trudged toward the restaurant. She could barely keep her hand still long enough to fit the key into the lock, and the detectives followed her inside, hands on their sidearms. They stepped over the mail in the front entryway, piled under the slot in the door. Julia uncharacteristically left it on the floor and walked down the hallway to the left of the hostess station. She flipped the light switch, and the place came to life with ambient lights and soft jazz drifting through the air.

  All the tables were perfectly set, ready for the next day. The office door was open, and she flicked the overhead light on. Both detectives stayed close behind her.

  Rummaging through the filing cabinet, Julia found it difficult to focus on the papers. Sales figures, food costs, electric bills—all went flipping through
her fingers until she came across the file labeled “Interviews.”

  Inside, there were four resumés, each with a sheet of standard interview questions stapled to it. Three of those sheets were crossed off with a bright red “N/S” written across each.

  “No shows,” Julia said, half to herself as she pulled out the whole file and passed it to Detective Cole.

  When Julia saw the confused look on Cole’s face, she said, “No show. That’s what the N/S stands for.” Cole nodded and passed the file to her partner, who immediately began thumbing through it.

  Julia caught a glimpse of her table on her way back out the door. The table she shared with Alex every time they had eaten there. Her lungs felt as though someone were clenching them, squeezing the air out. She hurried out the door and leaned against the front of the building, gasping for air. The detectives followed shortly.

  They left her on the curb in front of her townhouse. Salter held one of his business cards out to Julia. “If you think of anything else, ma’am, please give us a call.”

  Julia took the card with a trembling hand. “I will.”

  “Thank you,” Cole said. “We’ll be in touch.”

  “For the record, leaving a message inside the mind of a holy person is not any easier than leaving one with a non-believer.” Gabriel ruffled his wings in frustration.

  Michael looked up from the scene on which he was focused. “Did you think ‘holy’ meant any less thick-headed, Brother?”

  “I suppose not,” Gabriel said, his voice flat and humorless. He nodded toward the room into which Michael had been peering. “What is that?”

  “The murderer’s room. All of the evidence he left behind seems to indicate that he was simply a deranged stalker, a random human, obsessed with the girl for years.”

  “And you think otherwise.” Gabriel scanned the remnants of the killer’s life. He saw the wall of photos, the paper trail that followed him from one job to another, all planned carefully around being able to run into Julia.

  Michael glanced at Gabriel, raised an eyebrow and stepped through the viewing portal, physically entering the room. He picked up a large scrapbook that was left open on a small, wooden desk, and leafed through it.

  “What is that?” Gabriel asked from the other side of the clouds.

  “It is the stalker’s record of his stalking. Start to finish.” Michael closed the book and held it flat between his palms. “We’re missing something here. This is staged.”

  “I feel that, too.” Gabriel stepped through to join Michael, and continued to scan the room. His eyes fell on the pages between Michael’s hands. “The answer is in that book.”

  Michael scratched at the paper on the inside of the front cover of the scrapbook, and it tore away from the cover, revealing a greeting card with a photo tucked inside. When Michael spoke, his wings began to unfurl. He passed the card to Gabriel and his voice boomed. “We need to find out where this came from, Gabriel.”

  Gabriel looked down at the card in his hand. It was a picture of Julia from six or seven years ago. The only thing written on the note card was an address. Julia’s address. Gabriel trembled with rage. “He was not a random human. He was directed to her.”

  XVII

  A despondent Julia sat in the foyer at the Williamses’ manor, nodding from time to time at the people stopping to offer their condolences. She wore a simple black dress, black nylons, and sensible black pumps—the attire of a grieving widow. She cringed inwardly every time someone patted her on the shoulder. On the rare occasion she made eye contact with someone, her hollow, grief-stricken eyes would chase them away.

  She noticed Mrs. Williams studying her from across the room, skillfully hiding her stares behind the handkerchief she used to dab away the tears. Julia wondered if Mrs. Williams held her responsible for her son’s death. She wouldn’t blame her if she did.

  Mourners came in and out of the house, most bringing food or flowers. Every now and then, someone would bring Julia something cold to sip on and take away her old, untouched drink. She heard people discussing her as if she weren’t there, openly wondering if she was going to be able to survive the loss. She felt as though something had reached into her very core and torn away her essence. The temptation to slip into her memories and curl up with Alex pulled at her, and she thought if she went there again she would never come back.

  “How do you survive something like this?” Julia said aloud, startling an elderly couple as they walked by. She slipped back into her near-catatonic silence immediately, but not before several mourners shot concerned looks her way. Did she even want to survive, though? She didn’t have to think long about that one. Yes, she did. Despite the cavernous hole in her heart that Alex’s death had left, she wasn’t finished with this life. Ironic, she thought.

  Michael’s words came back to her. They needed her. She carefully packaged up her grief, her rage, and her desire for revenge, tying it off and shoving it to a dark recess in her mind. She would open it and deal with it later, when the wounds weren’t so fresh. Right now she needed to remember, and to pay attention.

  She allowed her mind to drift back to the forest. She could still smell that acrid odor of decay. She needed to find out what that thing out there was and what it was after. She had the distinct feeling Alex had known it was there. She wished again for a moment when she could see Alex the way she could see Michael and Gabriel, and felt her strength waver when she remembered that she never would. She purposefully pushed memories of Alex away. She had to avoid the sweet seduction of being able to see him again.

  She turned her thoughts to the waiter, recalling all the photographs he had taken of her—at the grocery store checkout, at the theater, at her restaurant. So many more places, it boggled her mind. Each memory came with a strong sense of danger. A feeling she had either ignored at the time or mistaken for something else entirely.

  She had been so absorbed in her own life that she had completely missed all the signs. When the police told her about his apartment, and all the pictures of her on his walls, she cursed herself. How could she have been so blind?

  She felt responsible for the two people whose bodies had been discarded like trash as he hunted for her. If she had only paid more attention, those people—and Alex—would still be alive.

  I missed the warning signs. I missed the gifts and opportunities. It is definitely time to start paying attention. Everything has meaning. Everything represents a choice. I have to see them, listen to my instincts, and act.

  She gave a start when Mrs. Williams spoke.

  “Let’s take a stroll through the gardens, my dear. I think you could use some fresh air.” Mrs. Williams looked stunning in her black dress and shoes, matching lace gloves and veiled hat. She reminded Julia of the newsreel footage of Jackie Kennedy at JFK’s funeral. Heartbroken, yet elegant.

  It struck Julia how selfish she was being. This woman had lost her only child, and here Julia sat, wallowing in her own self-pity. Compassion filled her as she looked up at the woman who, at her own son’s memorial service, had come over to give consolation.

  Julia reached up and squeezed Mrs. Williams’s hand, trying to send her some love and comfort through the touch. Their red-rimmed eyes met, each bearing her own unbearable grief. Julia stood and accompanied Mrs. Williams outside.

  As they walked in silence along the stone path, Mrs. Williams held out her hand, opening it and revealing a small box.

  Julia stopped dead in her tracks, staring at the small ring box. She thought she could hear her heart scream. She didn’t dare ask what it was.

  “He was going to give this to you. He said it was an anniversary present. He thought you would be ready then.” Mrs. Williams continued to hold the box in her flat palm, her last statement sounding more like a question than a statement.

  “Ready then,” Julia echoed hollowly, her eyes locked on the box.

  “Please take it, Julia. He loved you so much. He would have given anything for you.” Mrs. Williams some
how managed to sound regal despite the waver in her voice.

  He did give everything for me, Julia thought as the guilt threatened to consume her completely. Mrs. Williams couldn’t possibly understand just how much he had given.

  “It has been in our family for a very long time,” Mrs. Williams continued, pressing the box into Julia’s hand.

  A tear spilled down Julia’s cheek as she held it as though it were a thing that might easily be broken. Julia looked from the box to Alex’s mother and back again, unable to speak.

  I told him not to ask me to marry him, she thought. I told him.

  Her hand trembled as she opened the box and she gasped when she found it held only a key. In her surprise and confusion, the tears stopped and she looked back up at Mrs. Williams. “What?”

  “It is the key to our summer home in the lakes. It was his legacy. You always told him you had no family, Julia. He wanted you to know that you did. That you do.” Mrs. Williams’s voice wavered as she dabbed away her tears. “Please take it. I am your family now.”

  Julia stood frozen, holding the key in her hand, absorbing the full meaning of what Mrs. Williams was saying.

  I can’t accept this. I can’t…

  Michael’s recent lesson about gifts given and refused flashed through Julia’s mind, breaking her free from her immobilized state. She flung her arms around Mrs. Williams’s neck and sobbed on her shoulder, whispering over and over: “Thank you. I don’t deserve this. Thank you.”

  Mrs. Williams patted Julia’s back lightly. “There, there.”

  Julia let go and backed away a step, sure she must be radiating guilt. “It’s my fault, Mrs. Williams. It’s all my fault. The man who shot Alex was after me. I had seen him before. I should have…”

  “That’s how you feel, dear. That man’s action doesn’t make it your fault. How could you have known? You couldn’t. It isn’t humanly possible to know the mind of another.” Mrs. Williams brushed the hair from Julia’s face. “Enough of that, Julia.”