“Sorry. Old building. Things have shifted.” Watching her visibly pull herself together, calm herself, had Gabriel feeling that spark of interest again. He didn’t want to feel that. Couldn’t have it. Yet Sara had dark circles under her eyes, and had traveled all the way from Florida to work with him on an obscure true crime book that attempted to solve a century-and-a-half-old case with modern forensics. She had a story, and despite his wariness, he couldn’t help but want to hear it. If he was honest with himself, he’d been curious about her since discovering her mother’s brutal murder in his standard trolling for intriguing cases that could be potential book material. While Sara was the daughter of the murder victim, Jessie Michaels, she was also a forensic scientist, which lent a gruesome irony to the case. Poking around on the Internet and through the newspaper articles had revealed she hadn’t worked in almost a year. She also hadn’t hesitated at all to leave Florida at his request. He wanted to know why.

“How long have you lived here?” she asked.

A hundred and fifty years, give or take fifty years here and there when he’d had to move to alleviate suspicion, but she wasn’t likely to believe that. She started walking again, so he did too. “Ten years.”

“Do you like it?”

Gabriel opened the door at the landing on the third floor and shrugged. “Sure.” He hadn’t thought much about whether he actually liked his apartment or not. He guessed he did. He was bound to New Orleans in exchange for shortening his punishment, and this place was as good as any other to live. He never had any particular desire to move, but whether that was from actual pleasure he took in his surroundings, or a lack of ambition, he didn’t know.

“Who lives on the second floor?”

“A guy.”

She gave him a funny look, staring up at him from two steps below the landing. “I mean, who is he? What does he do? How old is he?”