Oh my God. Sara suddenly remembered where she had seen the name Marguerite Charles. In the court records of the trial of Jonathon Thiroux. Marguerite was the congressman’s wife who had posed nude for him.

“Since when does Rafe have a girlfriend?” Jocelyn looked as offended as Sara had felt. “It’s a little soon to be moving in with another woman. It’s been three weeks since his acquittal. God, that’s tacky.”

“Thank you.” Sara couldn’t agree more. “That is exactly what I thought, but I figured I was totally biased.” She either had to be wrong or it was some kind of monstrous and weird coincidence that a woman arrested for prostitution in Louisiana could be the same woman Rafe was dating. And it was flat-out impossible that she could be the same Marguerite in the court records, or that she could have been physically present at the scene of Anne Donovan’s death.

But now she was curious to know if Gabriel knew a Marguerite, and how.

“Well, I guess that’s typical for a man,” Jocelyn said. “But it’s still rude.”

“She invited me to dinner with the two of them.”

“Eew.” Jocelyn wrinkled her nose. “I hope you told her to go fuck herself.”

Sara laughed. God, she loved Jocelyn, and she had missed her. “Not exactly, but I doubt she was serious. She was just trying to be territorial and prove a point.” And in light of everything else, Sara no longer really gave a damn that Rafe had a girlfriend. What concerned her was who the girlfriend was, and what relevance she had to Gabriel or herself.

Everything was too strange, too circular, too oddly familiar and overlapping, and it was disturbing, unnerving.

“I think I’d like that glass of wine. And if you don’t mind, I’d like to give Gabriel a quick call.”

Jocelyn’s eyebrows went up. “Who the hell is Gabriel and why did your eyes go soft when you said his name?”

“Oh. Didn’t I mention him?” Sara felt a burn race up her neck to her cheeks. “Let me call him really quick and then I swear, I’ll tell you everything.”

But first she had to find out what he knew about a curvy and seemingly wealthy brunette named Marguerite.

Raphael just shook his head at him. “I don’t think so. If I’m going to die, it will be my own hand.” He frowned. “Besides, I thought we were friends. We used to go to dinner at the club together. I did my best to steer the jury to a not guilty verdict in your trial. Why would you want to kill me?”

Gabriel couldn’t imagine what was so hard to grasp about the concept. “You’ve killed what . . . four women? The first of whom was under my protection. It’s my responsibility, fallen or not, to vanquish you.”