“But that’s part of the charm of the Quarter. And I’ve seen women negotiate Bourbon Street in high heels after kicking back shots, and it’s amazing to me that they don’t break their ankles.”

“I’ve never been to Bourbon Street. This is my first time here.”

“Maybe we can go tonight. You need to at least say you’ve been to Bourbon Street.” Gabriel had no idea why he made the offer. Well, actually he did. It was because he was trying to make conversation with Sara, trying to make her comfortable around him, and he liked the idea of showing her around. That small, nagging attraction was driving him too, and he knew it, should stop it, but wasn’t.

“Sure,” she said. “That would be fun.”

Though she looked like she thought it would be anything but.

“You’ll see that certain things in New Orleans haven’t changed in the past one hundred and fifty years. Still plenty of drinking and sex.” The very things that had sucked him in, the sins he still missed. He had learned nothing, knew he should condemn the licentious, knew he should want the purity of life as he was trying to lead it now, but he didn’t. He still wanted to taste a woman’s flesh and to float off into the haze, removed from the indelicate rude details of mortality. Those were his vices, and he knew that.

He stopped and stared at the light blue house across Dauphine Street.

But he needed to know, needed to believe, that while he did most certainly have flaws, and deep ones, he was not capable of violence. Anger. That he could not have picked up a knife and sliced through Anne’s ivory skin, drawing blood over and over.

He didn’t think he could. Didn’t think he’d done that. But he needed to know. Or he would never let it go, never forgive himself, and the doubt would eat through the center of his already rotting soul.

October 9, 1849

Report taken by William Davidson, second district

The women of twenty-five Dauphine Street were cooperative in discussing the night in question, but none have any helpful insight to offer. No one saw or heard anyone entering or leaving Miss Donovan’s room, other than Mr. Thiroux, and no one heard anything out of the ordinary, aside from a single cry from Miss Donovan overheard by Molly Faye. Approximate time thought to be one a.m., given that Miss Faye insists her client was still in her room at the time, and that he left at a quarter past the hour when he realized he was late returning home.