“I have to. I won’t let him hurt you, Gabriel.” She stood, facing them both. “First Maggie, then Harmony. I won’t let him have you.”

Sebastian leaped to his feet. “San Cabes is a trap, Erin. You go and he’ll kill you.”

Her face was impassive. “I don’t and more will die.” She shook her head. “This ends tonight.”

Finally, Gabriel accepted what he’d seen in her eyes this morning. What she’d been unable to say to him last night. Because he loved, he would do the same. “I’m going with you.”

“Erin’s my responsibility,” Sebastian argued, but without any real heat. He realized Gabriel would be going with her, but he needed to make it look good. Whether Erin accepted it or not, the reporter planned to stick close to her for the rest of her life.

Gabriel heard the concession. “I need you to go over to the Ledger. Tell them what’s going on.” And that I might not be back. He wasn’t sure he would let Erin come back and face a possible prison term. But he’d argue with her about that later.

“Don’t do anything foolish,” Sebastian warned Erin. “You’ve got nothing to atone for.”

She met his look steadily. “I want a life, Sebastian. My life.”

“Be careful.”

ERIN DOZED FITFULLY as they crossed the continent. The plane angled for descent, cutting through summer storms that battered the mass of metal and glass. In concert with the storm, the night of Nathan’s death churned in her restless mind. The crash of wood against stone as he barreled inside. Wind whipping trees into a frenzy of sound. Rain exploding like bullets against the cabin. Her pleas, his demands. A struggle for the gun. Then darkness and a slow awakening to find the gun in her hand.

Ripping herself from the nightmare, she turned to Gabriel. “He was at the cabin that night.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.” Erin clasped her hands to her mouth. As though a veil had lifted, she remembered. “The door opened when the gun went off. I’d always thought of it as an echo. But it opened.”

“Do you know who it is, Erin?”

She clenched the armrest. “I can’t figure it out. The clues keep spinning in my head, but I can’t find the pattern.”

“I can’t, either.” Gabriel took a deep breath. “We’ll do this together. Tell me what you see.”

Erin scrubbed at her weary eyes and tried to marshal her thoughts. “He knew me in California. Or knew Nathan.”

“He lured you into the position at Burkeen. May have convinced Bernard to hire you. Could follow you around and learn everything about your life. Do you have any idea?”