But he hadn’t touched any drugs or alcohol in seventy-five years, and he wasn’t about to fall for the faulty logic that tried to trip him and drag him back down into the depths of addiction yet again.

“Let me print out the projected schedule I created for this project,” he said, needing to lock and focus on something to halt his wandering mind, clamp down on the craving. “You can take a look at it and we can meet tomorrow. Why don’t you have a seat and I’ll go grab that.”

Gabriel moved into his office quickly, wanting to get away from Sara. Only she followed him. He realized it immediately, heard her sandals, the rustle of her dress, felt the air move behind him, aware of the scent of her perfume, a strange olfactory combination that he thought included cinnamon. Ignoring her, he bent over his computer and opened up his documents. He searched for his work schedule, then clicked print. While he impatiently waited for the paper to spit out of his printer, he chanced a glance at Sara.

She was spinning around on one foot, looking at his white boards, scanning over his bulletin boards jammed with newspaper clippings and timelines he’d printed out, of pivotal dates. Then she saw the sketch of Anne and she walked straight up to it, hand raised like she might touch, but stopping herself.

“Is this her? Anne Donovan?”

“Yes.” Gabriel forced the admission out, the familiar and ever-present guilt rising up in his throat and squeezing. He didn’t look at the sketch. He knew every line, every nuance, every smudge of charcoal.

“She’s lovely. There’s something . . . I don’t know . . . hopeful in her eyes.”

It was a cruel irony to him that Sara of all people would recognize that. Anne had been hopeful in the months before she died, and Gabriel had obviously been aware of it on some level since he had captured it in various sketches and paintings he had done of her. But he had not been consciously aware of it at the time. He had only been aware of the satisfaction and pleasure he gained from taking his opium and absinthe in her presence.

“Amazing, if you think about it, considering the life she led.”

Sara glanced over at him. “As a prostitute, you mean?”

“Yes. It must have been an achievement to still feel hope.” It wasn’t like he had been any sort of consolation or source of hope for Anne. He often struggled to understand what the hell she had seen in him.

“God, I understand that,” she said in a soft whisper, then quickly turned, her cheeks pinking, like she realized she had just revealed too much. She cleared her throat. “So where do you start with a book like this? It’s a hundred-and-fifty-year-old murder mystery. Where do you even begin?”