“So have I. On the absinthe bottle. Where is that bottle? The one I found on the doorstep.”

“I don’t know. I think I put it in the kitchen.” He couldn’t even remember what he had done with it, and his mind was distracted, shocked by the knowledge of where he had seen that same quote. He should have known. He should have pursued it.

She was already in the kitchen, opening cabinets. A second later she reemerged with the green bottle in her hand. Yanking the label off the neck, she handed it to him. “See? It’s the same damn quote.”

Gabriel read the paper tag, obviously printed on a computer. He couldn’t believe he had shoved the bottle into a cabinet without even looking at the stupid label. “Sara, I saw this quote too. On Raphael’s will.”

Raphael had done it after all. The fucking bastard. Gabriel took deep breaths, trying to control the swell of anger, the disgust, the recrimination.

Sara shook her head, face pale, eyes wide. “Oh no . . . you’re not saying . . .”

Nodding his head once, he said quietly, “That’s exactly what I’m saying. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“Why? Why would he do that?”

The pain, the betrayal in her voice sliced through his heart. “I don’t know, babe, I just don’t know.” Gabriel wanted to soften the blow, wanted to take her suffering away, wanted to make everything okay for Sara forever and always, but he couldn’t do that. Sara surprised him though. She reached out, touched his arm briefly, and nodded.

“I know you don’t know. It was a rhetorical question, really. I’m sure we’ll never know, or understand, and that’s okay. Well, not exactly okay, but we’ll deal with it.”

Gabriel was impressed all over again. Sara had been dealt a bad hand most of her life, and yet she was an amazing, strong, and giving woman, and he loved her all the more for it.

“I still have that will.” He had shoved it in his back pocket, then tossed it in the backseat of his car. “It’s in my car.”

She followed him as he jogged down the steps, two at a time. He should have known not to trust Raphael, should have known that a killer was capable of lying.

He yanked open the back door to his car and found the papers on the floor. What he saw made his heart nearly stop. “Holy shit.”

“What?”

“He told me this was his will . . . It’s not his, it’s yours.” It had Sara’s name on the top, and it glared up at him, taunting and macabre.

“What?” She tried to yank it away from him, but he held on to it. “Gabriel . . . I didn’t make this will.”

“I know.” And he was going to kill Raphael for being sick enough to do such a thing.