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.

Sara smiled at her, prepared to walk right past her, assuming she was waiting for the guy who lived on the second floor, who Sara had yet to encounter.

But the girl jumped up when Sara started walking up the stairs. “Hey, wait, is that your apartment?” She pointed up to Gabriel’s front door.

“Yes.” No point in getting into lengthy descriptions of the truth.

“What happened to Gabriel? Did he move?” She was nibbling her nails again, even as she spoke, her eyes anxious.

“No, he still lives here,” Sara said cautiously, not sure where this was headed.

“You live with him?” The nail-bitten finger came out and pointed at Sara.

The rudeness irritated Sara. “Yes. Can I help you?”

“I’m Rochelle,” the girl said.

Okay. That told her a whole lot of nothing. “Would you like me to tell Gabriel you stopped by?”

Rochelle seemed to think about that for a second. “When will he be home?”

“Later.”

“And you really live with him?”

Sara could have told the truth, that she was just staying with him temporarily, but she didn’t feel inclined to point that out. She just held up her apartment key. “Yes.”

To which Rochelle burst into tears. “How could he do this to me? I’m . . . I’m in love with him . . . and he stopped coming in to the shop, and now you’re here, and I . . . God, I just want to die!”

Rochelle turned and ran down the stairs, her sandals pounding on the courtyard bricks.

“Wait!” Sara called, running down the stairs after her. She needed to be honest and tell Rochelle that she wasn’t really living with Gabriel, not in the truest sense. What if Rochelle really was his girlfriend and she’d just screwed up their relationship? Part of her couldn’t help but think, Oh, well, but the better part of her knew it was wrong to mislead Rochelle.