Not many would have understood. Absently, she slid her glass to him, taking the one he’d just emptied. “Words are vital, yet we treat them so cavalierly.”

“Language is malleable. Fluid.”

Erin disagreed. “There’s a precision to language that we’ve forgotten. Words have precise meanings. They’re not interchangeable.”

“Semantics,” Gabriel countered, enjoying the fight.

“Absolutely,” she agreed. “I’d think a writer would appreciate that it’s all about semantics. Words have particular meanings—otherwise, we wouldn’t have quite so many of them, would we?”

“Like passion? What is its precise meaning?”

Her voice, when she answered, reminded him of smoke. “Passion. Emotions as distinguished from reason. An intense, driving, or overmastering feeling or conviction.”

“And desire?” Gabriel stroked a long finger down the center of her palm, in imitation of the palm reader. “Can you see its heart?”

“To have a longing for.”

“Come home with me, Erin.” With eyes dark and intense, he stood and held out his hand to her. “Say yes.”

She met his eyes. Thought of her fate and took his hand. “Yes.”

Gabriel pulled her from the booth, tossed some bills onto the table, led her outside to hail a cab. Soon they were at the station where Genevieve had left his Jeep. Tension stretched taut between them, but neither wanted it to end. Not until they could begin.

They hurried to the lot. Suddenly a scream rent the air.

“The street.” Gabriel took off, still firmly holding Erin’s hand. A second scream joined the first, and he veered. The next street, he realized. The third scream pierced the air and abruptly faded, as though cut off.

They reached the entrance to the alleyway at a dead run, too late. The crumpled body lay sprawled along the asphalt, a parody of sleep. In the distance, an engine roared to life and headlights flashed briefly when the vehicle turned the corner. Beyond them, the night blared welcome to the all-hours party, the muffled lyrics of James Brown proclaiming that he felt good. Not so for the broken body of the woman at Gabriel’s feet.

He spun around and shoved Erin into the alley. By God, he thought, she would not end her night with an image of death. The angle of the young girl’s head told the story, but he would check for a pulse.

“Wait here,” he told her.