But he felt a kinship to Sara, an intense longing and lust that superseded any and all common sense, and he suspected that he was succumbing to the very angelic emotion of love. He had thought that since his fall, since his plunge into selfishness, he was incapable of stepping outside of himself and caring about another person, but maybe he had been wrong, because his desire for Sara was complex. It wasn’t just lust, but a need to connect, to feel her, to touch, to please, to protect, to make her happy.

Gabriel pushed D above middle C with his thumb. The note rang out, then faded. It had felt good to play again. He had heard the music once he had touched the instrument. But it had made him lose control.

Or maybe he had never been in control.

He didn’t know what he was doing. Who he was. Why it mattered to solve Anne’s murder.

He didn’t know how to prevent Sara from falling victim to his sins.

And he didn’t know how to move beyond his purgatory into a better life, one where he could have a positive impact on the world, humanity. One where he didn’t stand around motionless in the muck of his sins, but took action.

Gabriel played Bach idly. He didn’t know any contemporary music, or anything twentieth-century, for that matter, since he hadn’t played in a hundred years. But he liked the traditional intricacy of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century composers.

He needed to stay away from Sara.

But he knew he wasn’t going to.

“Gabriel?” she called from down the hall. “I forgot a towel. Can you bring me one?”

Without hesitation, he got up and went down the hall.

He was fallen, after all.

No one expected him to have a halo anymore.

Chapter Thirteen

DONOVAN WITNESS DEAD!

January 11, 1850—In a shocking twist to the willful murder trial of Anne Donovan that has the city riveted, witness Molly Faye, former lover of elusive and charming defendant Jonathon Thiroux, is dead, by her own hand.

After engaging in a heated and illustrious argument with another witness, also a lewd and unfortunate woman, just two days past, in which Miss Faye learned she was not the only object of the defendant’s affection, Miss Faye took her life in the decisive manner of slicing open her own throat.