That was the same vibe Gabriel had been getting. The charm, the poise, the perfect grieving boyfriend, the care and concern he showed Sara—it had all set off alarms for him. He had thought maybe it was just jealousy on his part, or the fact that he didn’t know Rafe so it was easy enough to judge him, but Dan Fieldhouse was confirming his own gut reaction.

“So you think it was premeditated?”

“No, I think something set him off on that particular day. But I suspect she’s not the first woman he killed. But I have no facts to back that up. Just a feeling.”

“Did he ever say anything incriminating in your interviews with him?”

“Well, his lawyer was always there, so he was pretty much giving me the party line every time I talked to him, you know what I mean? But one day I dropped by the prison without advance warning figuring he’d say no without his lawyer around, but he actually agreed to talk to me. And he was chatty that day. Full of himself. Talked about his plans to go west and start over as soon as he was acquitted, which he was sure he would be. Then he dropped a quote on me, which was weird as hell.”

Gabriel sat up straighter in his booth, phone propped on his shoulder, laptop open, and fingers ready to type. “Was it a Bible quote?”

“No. Hang on, let me look it up.” There was a pause, then Dan came back on. “He said to me, ‘My soul can find no staircase to Heaven unless it be through Earth’s loveliness.’ It’s a quote by—”

“Michelangelo,” Gabriel said before Dan could finish. He knew the quote. Knew it well because the artist had seen angels in his work. He had found heaven through his painting, sculpting. Through earth’s loveliness . . .

“Yeah. Michelangelo. The artist. There was no lead up, no reason for it, he just rips that off in the middle of a conversation where I’m digging at him, trying to get a motive for the crime, trying to ask if they had problems, if he hated women, you know, and he just drops this line on me. What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

Gabriel was just about certain it meant Rafe Marino was a killer.

Sara was trying to hang tough and not put in a panicked call to Gabriel as she got out of the cab, walked the two steps across the sidewalk, and unlocked the gate to the courtyard. It wasn’t a big deal. It was no big deal. No one was in the courtyard, no one was in the apartment.

Only there was someone sitting on the steps. It was a young woman in her early twenties, her hair dyed dark black, her bare shoulders and arms tattooed with a swarm of butterflies. She was sitting with her satchel purse in her lap, biting her black fingernails.