Page 71 of Ace of Spades
What? She couldn’t even look at him now? He wanted to turn the clock back to when they were best friends without this awkwardness between them, while at the same time, he wanted to drag her onto his lap and not stop kissing her until those blue eyes saw nothing but him.
Damn her. He was off his game because of her. And if Alex didn’t stop smirking, as if he knew a woman had brought his big brother to his knees, Nate was going to assign Alex dishwashing duties at Aces & Eights for the next month. Because that was how he felt—cut off at the knees by a woman half his weight with twice his brains who was his equal on the mat. A woman he wanted to handcuff to his bed and never let go.
Suddenly angry with her for making his chest hurt, he said, “You should have told me all this at the hospital so I could call Rothmire, have the scene preserved.”
Icy blue eyes finally met his. “I called him as soon as Delaney told me about the hotel. He already knew where she’d been found, the cops preserved the room, and our crime scene techs are there now.”
And he felt like an idiot. Of course she was on top of things. She always was. “Good. Anything else?”
“Yes. He said, ‘My angels are making me angry today,’ and then he tried to choke her.”
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know, Nate. When I find him, I’ll be sure and ask.”
Alex tapped Court on the shoulder. “You feeling the chill in here, too?”
Nate scowled. His baby brother had a habit of poking his nose into things that weren’t any of his business.
“Stop glaring at me,” Alex said. “That was just a general observation.”
“Shut up, Alex.” He wondered if Court had any duct tape in his doomsday supplies that he could use to slap over his baby brother’s mouth.
Court laughed. “You’re asking the impossible from him.” He glanced at Taylor. “Did he tell her his name?”
“Oh, right. Forgot to mention that. He told her she could call him Gabriel. She doesn’t believe that was his real name, though.”
“You think his reference is to the angel Gabriel?” Court said.
She shrugged. “Could be. Any of you know what his role as an angel was?”
“Let’s look him up.” Court swiveled his chair around and in seconds had a page on the archangel Gabriel up on the monitor.
Nate leaned over Court’s shoulder, reading the screen. “‘Archangel of resurrection, mercy, revelation, and death.’” He blew out a breath. “I hate these nut jobs.”
When he straightened, he accidently brushed against Taylor’s arm, his skin rippling where they touched. She jerked away as if he’d burnedher. He put his back to the wall, crossed his arms over his chest, and scowled. She was making him crazy.
Which was why it took longer than it should have to remember the angel she’d found near her car. “Hell.” At his outburst, all eyes turned to him, but his focused on Taylor. “What’d you do with that plastic angel?”
“You don’t think ...” She trailed off, her face losing its color.
“After hearing what Delaney said, I think it’s entirely possible he left that for you.”
“I put it in the lost-and-found box.”
“Is it still there?”
“I have no idea.”
He pulled his phone out and called Rand. “Are you headed this way?” At getting an affirmative, Nate instructed him to stop by the office at Taylor’s apartment building and check the lost-and-found box for a small plastic angel.
Court eyed him for a moment, and then said, “While we’re waiting to hear back from him, I might have something. Not sure. A few years ago, someone from the police department of Glade, a town near the Everglades, entered an unsolved murder in a Florida cold-case database, although the case isn’t so much unsolved as the suspect was never arrested.”
He lifted a few sheets of paper. “You can read the report, but I’ll give you a quick summary. Thirty-one years ago, Gretchen Tompkins and her eleven-year-old son, Wayne, lived in Glade. Back then, the town had two cops, Bert Archer and Doug Emmitt. Gretchen was a prostitute who caught the eye of Doug Emmitt. He asked her to marry him. The wedding never happened because she was strangled on her wedding day.”
“What makes you think this might be related?” Nate asked.
“Ah, good question. Because she was wearing a white dress and had a gold band on her finger even though the wedding hadn’t taken place yet.”
