Page 108 of A Fearless Heart
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Gabe didn’t know how many days had passed since he took the drink offered to him. He’d drifted in and out of dreams and nightmares. He’d been back in France, battling soldiers who turned into long, whipping vines of dark green that curled around his wrists and ankles until he couldn’t run. He tripped and fell on his face, only to hear his older brother Gerald laughing.Bad penny, Gabe. But you’re not even worth that much.
He spun about, finding Cady standing there, smiling at him. She held a glass in her hands and offered it to him.Drink it down. I made it just for you.
So he drank it down, and it burned. And Cady’s voice changed, lowering into another.What were you thinking, getting close to her? You don’t deserve her.
“You don’t deserve to even look at her, understand?”
“Just a job,” Gabe mumbled, his words malformed by the thickness of his tongue.
“She’s family, you miserable bastard. What did you do to her? Why are you hounding her?”
“Not…hounding…” Gabe got no further before losing his voice to a dry cough.
“Drink,” his captor ordered, grabbing Gabe’s hair to tip his head up enough to pour some liquid into his mouth. Gabe tried to spit it out, but the survival instinct was too strong. His stomach was clenching with the need to have something, anything, and his thirst was even stronger.
“You’re pathetic.” The voice sounded like Gerald.
Gabe could barely open his eyes. “Happy birthday,” he got out, before losing consciousness.
The next round of dreams were worse, twisting him into a dead tree with no bark and only crows for company. Gabe kept calling out for help but the crows drowned his calls in raucous squawking. Then a man walked toward him, a stranger.
You learned nothing, did you, the man said.I gave my life and all the clues I gathered and you just left it all to rot. Because you forgot what you were. A Sign.
Gabe realized this was Lewellyn Parrish, the previous agent. The man looked at him and shook his head.Pathetic, he muttered.A failure. The Zodiac is well rid of you.
Parrish began piling up loose twigs and branches near what remained of Gabe’s feet. Gabe pleaded for release, but Parrish only sighed in disappointment. It was then that Gabe noticed Parrish’s hands were bones.
Parrish lit the pyre, and flames leapt around Gabe, growing higher and hotter. Gabe screamed in pain, but there was no relief. Just heat and more heat, him burning in hell, forever.
Chapter 35
Despite racking her brains forhours and hours, Cady was no closer to learning what happened to Gabe, but she was much closer to losing her mind, because whenever she dozed or tried to sleep, she had dreams of Gabe trapped somewhere, calling for her, his voice full of pain.
By late in the afternoon on Thursday, the Disreputables had split up and regathered, bearing a few more pieces of information each time, chief of which was on the day of Gabe’s disappearance, a man of Gabe’s description had been seen leaving a tavern close to his own home. Though the barmaid swore he’d been nursing one drink for an hour, he moved like a dead drunk in the street, only to be picked up by a well-dressed gentleman who hauled him into a waiting carriage.
“What does well-dressed mean?” Trevor demanded.
“A gentleman,” Jem clarified. “Not one of the working class but also not higher.”
“Perfect—he could be anyone.” Trevor slumped back in his seat.
“So we’ve got our kidnapper, who’s probably also the killer,” Jem said. “My lady, any further thoughts on that phrase, or what it might mean as a message on the card?”
“No. I’m sorry. I’ve tried to think, but I’m barely sleeping and it’s all just unreal.”
There was a knock at the door. Rook stood, but Trevor put a hand out. “I’ll answer it. I need to stretch my legs.”
Her brother left the room, but returned a few minutes later, his expression excited. “That was a messenger, but he couldn’t say who paid for the message. He just got a name and street direction, plus the fee. Cady, this is for you.”
She took the folded message and opened it. “It’s unsigned, but I think…I think it’s the kidnapper.”
“What’s it say?” Jem asked.
“Close to your heart, burning in hell.”
“Now that’s a clue! What’s close to your heart, my lady?”
