A Raging Dawn (34 page)

The front door of the apartment had a gaping hole where the lock should have been, so Ryder walked on in. Littleton’s place was on the third floor, and there was no elevator. He started up the steps, weapon at the ready, senses on full alert.

He was pretty certain Holden was right about Kravitz being Manny’s shooter. Timing fit. Probably sent her brother after Rossi while she took care of Manny herself.

No real reason for them to go after either Rossi or Manny—except sheer spite. That and the fact Littleton had set up Manny as the leader of his fictitious Brotherhood. Which meant they had to silence Manny before the ADA could defend himself.

The attack on Rossi? He gritted his teeth at the thought of just how badly that could have gone. He had no doubt at all that Littleton would have killed her the same way Tymara had been murdered. And then he would have epinned it on the mysterious Brotherhood while his lawyer gave him an alibi.

Too bad for them, Rossi fought back. He felt a hint of pride that, despite her illness, she’d been able to get the best of Littleton.

Breathing just a bit heavy, his side aching, he reached Littleton’s floor. Littleton’s apartment was in the rear. He braced himself on the far side of the door, gun drawn, and listened for any movement inside. The building was old enough that the doors were solid, thick enough to provide some soundproofing. He considered. Glanced down the empty corridor behind him. It was a long shot that Kravitz would come here. After all, the police had searched the place yesterday after her brother’s body had been found.

Gingerly, he twisted the knob.

To his surprise, it opened. The door swung noiselessly on its hinges as Ryder stayed to the far side of the entrance. He kept his weapon aimed, remembering the scene at Manny’s apartment two nights ago.

A lamp was on, its soft glow illuminating Littleton’s scantily furnished living room. Brown tweed sofa, wide-screen TV, frayed braided rug.

No signs of anyone. He stepped inside. Quickly moved through the one-bedroom apartment, clearing it of any hidden dangers. At first he thought he’d been wrong. There was no sign of Kravitz. Until he arrived at the bedroom.

The mattress had been stripped. Scattered on top of it were torn and partially burned photos. He stepped closer, turned on the bedside lamp, and examined the photos without touching them. Close-ups of Rossi playing at Jimmy’s Place, fiddle tucked under her chin. Photos of Rossi and Jacob together. Photos of Rossi’s entire family, including her mother and Eve. All taken at Jimmy’s Place.

Kravitz had been watching Rossi for a while, several weeks at least. Trial prep, knowing she’d be Manny’s star witness once they killed Tymara? Or something more?

A cold, curdling feeling grabbed at his gut. Ryder holstered his weapon and turned around. On the back of the bedroom door, scrawled in red lipstick, he found Kravitz’s message to him, as if what she’d left on the bed hadn’t been enough to get her point across.

YOU SHOULD HAVE LEFT US ALONE.

NOW YOU’LL PAY
.

ENTERING SOMEONE’S MIND
was effortless—in the literal sense of the word, as in once I touched their skin, I was totally out of control, powerless. And yet I also required all my focus and concentration to avoid being sucked into the vortex of a lifetime of memories. Every other time I’d done it—except with Littleton, but I wasn’t even sure if I’d been inside his mind or if I had simply dreamed the whole horrible experience—it was painful yet heart-wrenchingly beautiful, like the way hearing a Schubert sonata played with exquisite grace could bring me to tears.

As soon as I touched Jacob’s hand, my entire being was suffused with music. Paganini’s
Caprice
. A difficult piece, one he’d been trying to master his entire life. The music swirled in rich colors around me, silken strands creating a dream world in which only Jacob and I existed for all of eternity.

He stood at the center of waves of jewel tones, wearing a tuxedo with the bowtie undone, hanging free, his chin bent into his violin, his entire body performing the music. More than pitch-perfect—the least important part of any composition—the notes he coaxed and set free created an emotional harmony that felt as if it would resonate into the stars and across the universe, never dying, forever inspiring.

I didn’t bother trying to hold back my tears. What I’d told Devon was true. There was no deception possible here in the meeting of minds. But what would have been more accurate—and what made these intrusions more painful and frightening—was that there was no hiding. I was stripped bare, everything I was and was not, my soul exposed.

To stand like that before the man I’d loved and failed…it was maybe the most humbling and terrifying experience of my life.

He finished the Paganini and lowered his violin and bow, a contented smile sharing its radiance with me. He saw me, all of me, for the first time ever, yet did not judge. Instead, he nodded to his violin. “Play with me, Angela. We were always at our best when we made music together.”

My fiddle—battered and cheap compared to the gleaming instrument he held—appeared in my hand. I stepped closer, the colors swirling around my ankles.

“Remember our wedding night?” he asked.

“The wedding no one attended?”

“My father, well, he had his own way of doing things. But your family—”

“Hypocrites.” The word surprised me. I’d never dare to think it, much less speak it, in the real world. But here only truth was spoken. “As soon as they heard you play, they accepted you as one of their own.”

His smile grew sad.

Unable to stop the truth from flowing, I continued, “They wanted a fiddle player who worked a job with regular hours instead of my crazy shifts.” It was the truth, as blunt as it was. “But they grew to love you.” Also true.

“You were saving lives,” he said. “It made their own seem small and inconsequential. That’s why they treat you the way they do.”

“That and the fact I killed my father.” It was the truth as I saw it. Or had been taught my entire life to see it. Even now, knowing Dad had fatal insomnia, it still felt true. That’s how deeply my guilt was etched into my soul.

His sigh was so sad the colors shifted from ruby to indigo. “You did not.” His truth. “Your mother needed someone to blame. Someone other than herself. You might be the reason why your father was out on the road that night, but she’s the one who sent him. Her guilt has twisted her heart, and instead of healing what was left of your family, she’s been feasting on your pain.”

True, all true. But a truth I’d denied for twenty-two years. The price I’d paid to keep the only family I had left. If I walked away from them, after they’d judged me unworthy of their love, I’d risk proving them right, that I was unlovable.

“I loved you,” he whispered, his violin gone. The music continued as his arms wrapped around me, embracing me in a golden warmth. “I loved you with all my heart.”

“Thank you.” I held back, skirting my own truth.

No matter. He saw it anyway. “You loved me. I know you did. But you always guarded your heart. Afraid I’d break what was left. Scared. The bravest woman I’ve ever met, yet always a frightened little girl crying in the darkness.”

I swiped at my tears, not that they were real, but it gave me a reason to hide my face from him. But I couldn’t hide my heart. Not here.

“You need to let her go, Angela. Set that frightened child free.” His words were a murmur, a counterpoint to the tones that wrapped us in rich hues. The music was unlike any I’d heard before. It burrowed into my marrow, and I hoped I could take it with me when I left.

Except, leaving Jacob—I couldn’t bear to even think it. I turned to face him, anguish flooding through me as I remembered why I was here.

“You must.” His voice was strong, certain. “When you return to your life, you will set that terrified girl free, and you will go to Ryder.” Our faces were touching as he whispered in my ear, his tears sliding warm down my cheek. “He loves you and you love him. You need him. Like you never needed me.”

The truth hit hard. But the music continued its soothing healing.

“He’s a good man. Stronger than I ever was. You can trust him.”

I couldn’t answer. He spoke the truth, I know he did, but it wasn’t that easy. I had to force myself to look up, meet his eyes. They were stricken with grief. He knew. Of course he knew. No lies could exist here. My entire life was stripped bare here. Not just my soul.

“I’m dying.” My words were a sharp counterpoint to his rich, vibrant music. They created a dissonance, leaden gray against the pure tones he’d created.

He nodded. “The men who did this to me. They had a message for you. They knew you’d be able to talk to me. They did this to me in order to reach you. It was a test.”

I stepped back, stunned. His hands fell from my body, and a chill wind scattered the colors and notes. His music died. Leaving a silence deeper and darker than the coldest winter night.

“The men who killed Tymara did this to you.” Even as I spoke the words, words I’d believed were true, I knew I was wrong. So very wrong.

“No. The men who did this to me were watching you. Searching for your weakness.” He paused, placing his palms on my shoulders. “They found me.”

I shook my head, not wanting to believe. “No. It can’t be. That’s impossible.”

“They called you Patient Zero. Said when you came, I should tell you. There’s a cure. If you cooperate, they’ll give it to you.” He spoke as if reciting a foreign language.

“Then there’s hope. I can still save you.”

He shook his head. Not sad, more like resigned. I’d seen that same expression in the others I’d visited. Right before they died.

“No!” My scream shredded the black that had crept up, surrounding us. The void. There was no return from there. “No, damn you. Jacob, you hang on. Don’t you give up on me.”

He cocked his head, a strange half smile playing across his lips. “I’m not. And don’t you dare blame yourself. You need to go now. You need to find out who’s behind this, save those children.” He bent forward, kissing my forehead. “You can do it. You’re the only one who can.”

The void drew closer, a noose of inky black nothingness tightening around us. We were out of time.

I clung to Jacob. “I don’t want to lose you.”

“You haven’t. But you need to go. Now. Before it’s too late.”

Then I realized what he’d figured out that I’d been too distracted to notice. “Devon. He’s gone after the men who did this to you.”

If the man in black and his cohorts truly had a cure for the fatal insomnia affecting the children… “I have to stop him.”

“Go now.”

But I couldn’t. Black, inky sludge roiled around my feet, trapping me in its grasp. The void was Death. Not hot, not cold, not pain, just…nothing. I looked past Jacob. The void had swallowed everything except the two of us.

“Jacob, I can’t find my way back.”

He frowned, then nodded as if setting a tempo. Light and warm, a rich scent of springtime grass and a sound that could have been a heavenly choir—if either of us believed in Heaven—mixed with the chime of children’s laughter. All emanating from Jacob. Stabbing through the blackness, revealing a path.

“Go, and remember,” he commanded, his voice stronger and more powerful than I’d ever heard it before. He shoved me away from him and onto the path of shimmering light. “Love, Angela. Fear is useless. Love is everything.”

His beauty shattered into a blinding cascade of music, color, perfume as he poured all that he was into holding back the void. He became life even as he faced death.

A wind, fierce yet gentle, caught me in its grip, carrying me away from him. Jacob’s light, painful to look at, it was so heart-achingly pure, flared, then died.

I was falling, plummeting out of control, blackness surrounding me, grabbing for me as I twisted and careened through the void. My hand hit cold metal.

I opened my eyes as a cacophony of alarms blared, an agony of defeat. I was awake, back in my body. How long? I wondered, blinking to clear my vision, my eyes scratchy and dry from not blinking. I touched my face, felt tears dried to salt.

It had felt as if I’d spent a lifetime in Jacob’s arms. But the clock said it had been only thirty-eight minutes.

A nurse ran in and silenced the alarms as she assessed Jacob. “I know he’s DNR, but—” Her question hung in the air.

I pushed to my feet, still wobbly. I hung on to the bed rail, unable to wrench my gaze away from Jacob’s face. He looked peaceful. More than peaceful. Radiant.

He’d chosen death in order to give me a chance at life. So typical of him, a grand gesture, impossible for me to reciprocate.

“No,” I told the nurse, my words shaky yet certain. “He’s gone.”

I COULDN’T BEAR
to watch the routine as they prepared Jacob’s corpse. He was gone; the flesh was truly empty. I asked the nurse to call his rabbi, more for Jacob’s father than for him, and I left the ICU.

Devon didn’t answer his phone, so I texted him, telling him the men he was after might have the key to the fatal insomnia outbreak. If he was down in the tunnels, there was no telling if he’d get the text any time soon.