It had no effect on Gabriel. He watched the pout attempt to firm, and he thought what it would be like to kiss the rich curve of her lips. “What? you ask. Well, I remembered your hand.”

“My hand?” she repeated involuntarily.

He looked down at her hand, the slender bones, the flawless skin. “This afternoon, when you let me trace your lifeline, I could feel the pulse beating in your wrist. It got faster and faster. And when I let your hand go, for a second, you hesitated. Like you wanted to hold on. Then you made yourself let go.”

At that moment, the Thai Palace deliveryman rounded the corner. Smiling at his familiar patron, he greeted her by name. Erin responded shakily and made her habitual exchange of cash for the plastic sack. As the young man descended the stairs, she met Gabriel’s eyes again.

“You aren’t wrong about my attraction to you.” She reached out a hand to capture his, and he met her halfway. Brown eyes bored into gray, and she curled her hand around his wrist. “I may want to hold on sometimes, Gabriel, to wish for things I shouldn’t.”

Then, she dropped his hand, entered the apartment. “But I’ve learned to let go. Sometimes holding on can kill you.”

Chapter 7

Erin stood outside the address listed as Julian Harris’s. His townhome was nestled in the Lower Garden District, a neighborhood celebrated for its quaint cottages and stylish town houses. The home she identified as his jibed with the brief profile she had in her bag. Thinking about the outline she’d made at dawn, Erin rummaged in her bag for a steno pad. She uncapped a pen and wrote, “Refined. Elegant. Precise. Compassionate.”

Articles about successful auction bids and civic awards drew a portrait of a young architect who’d left the private sector to serve the city he loved. And the devotion showed, she thought.

Julian had obviously refurbished the narrow building, choosing golds and greens to complement the stucco façade. Stained-glass panels graced the asymmetrical windows of the three-story American townhome. On the second floor, wrought iron had been polished to a high gleam, catching the afternoon sun. In contrast, the houses on either side showed their age.

“He was meticulous about historical accuracy,” she noted aloud, jotting the phrase down in her notebook. “I could swear I was in Paris.”

Why would the killer have chosen Julian as his first victim?

Architect, accountant, archaeologist, anthropologist. Language offered dozens of occupations for a killer to start with as a first target. But either horrible luck or terrible design had selected Julian Harris. Erin hoped that by sneaking into the house and poking around, she could find some clue that would show her which one it had been.