"It must look very stupid to you."
"No, it's wonderful." A pause. "If only it were me."
The silence in the car was suddenly tense.
"Frankie…"
"It's OK, Gabriel. I've accepted that I'm not the one you love anymore."
"I do love you."
"And you always will. But I can't compete with a woman like Morrighan Monk. I'm slippers and hot cocoa by the fire. Morrighan is an adrenaline rush." She smiled again; a smile full of sorrow. "But I want you to know that when you get tired of always being on a high, I'll be waiting. Adrenaline rushes are hard on the body."
Gabriel put out his arms and drew her close to him. For a long time they sat like that simply hugging, not speaking. What was wrong with him? He and Frankie were meant for each other. When she returned to his life, it had seemed to him as though they had been given a second chance. But that was before he read the diary. The diary had bewitched him.
Frankie stirred against his chest. "What are you going to do now?"
"Get some sleep. I don't know why Minnaloushe is laying off, but I should probably grab sleep while I can. But first-there is one thing I need to check out."
"What?"
"It may not be important. But if it is, I promise I'll call you." He stroked her hair. "Whatever happens, Frankie, I want you to know I am so grateful to you."
"I know." She smiled lopsidedly. "So get out of here.- Get some rest."
Watching her drive away, he started to walk toward his apartment building. There was indeed something he should have checked out long ago. He was surprised that he hadn't followed up earlier. He prided himself on being meticulous: his success as an information thief depended on it. In his defense, it was probably fair to say that he had had rather a lot on his mind over the past few days. Like brain bleeds. Like death.
As he stepped into the elevator and punched the button for the top floor, Gabriel removed his cell phone from his trouser pocket. Pressing the call log button, he scrolled down to the last message he had received from Isidore and pressed playback.
He brought the cell phone up to his ear. The sound of Isidore's voice, so immediate, so alive, caused his heart to contract painfully.
"Gabe. Call me. 1 have interesting news. No, I have stupendous news." A sepulchral laugh. "Beware the crow…"
The elevator shuddered to a halt. Gabriel shoved the cell phone back into his pocket and took out the keys to his front door. A strange urgency had taken possession of him.
The apartment was in darkness, but the neon glow outside his windows was strong enough to allow him to walk to his desk without switching on any of the lights. Without even pausing to take off his coat, he slid into his work chair and tapped the keyboard.
The screen saver disappeared. He logged on to the search engine and typed in one word only:
Crow
Results one to ten of 3,920,000 filled his screen.
3,920,000? Good grief.
He tapped the New Search button again.
"Crow" AND "Magic"
The first ten entries of a mere 514,000 possibilities came up.
This was not going to be easy. Absentmindedly, he stared at the objects on his desk, bathed in the computer screen's lunar light. The damaged African mask was lying in his out tray. He couldn't remember placing it there. But then his memory was pretty shot these days. The face seemed oddly rakish with its grinning mouth and the wide crack running like a battle scar through one eye socket.
He placed his fingers on the keyboard.
"Minnaloushe" AND "crow"
0 results found.
For a moment he hesitated.
"Morrighan" AND "crow" The screen flipped over.
Morrighan: Irish mythology. Derived from the Irish Mhor Rioghain meaning "Great Queen." In Irish myth she was the goddess of war and death. She offered herself to those warriors she had chosen and if they accepted her they were victorious in battle. Those who refused her died. A shape-shifter, she often took the form of a crow.
For a moment he felt as though all the breath had left his body.
Morrighan. Not Minnaloushe.
Morrighan was the woman he had encountered in the house of a million doors, a black crow her constant companion.
Morrighan was the killer.
"I've been waiting for you." The whispered words came from directly behind him.
He swung around. From within the deep armchair scarcely three feet away, a figure lifted her hand and the tall swing lamp next to the chair blazed to life. The light fell on the woman's hair.
Red hair.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
The hair fell down her shoulders like a burning waterfall. Her face was pale.
Minnaloushe. The voice in the diary.
His love.
And it suddenly made immediate sense. No wonder he had had such a difficult time coming to terms with the idea that Minnaloushe was the killer. It had never felt right. His internal compass had tried to tell him he was looking in the wrong direction.
She stepped closer and glanced at the screen. "So you figured it out. I knew you would."
"Morrighan killed Robert Whittington."
"Yes."
"And his father. And Isidore."
"I'm sorry, Gabriel. I'm sorry for everything. Your friend-" She brought her hand up to her mouth. "I'm so sorry about him."
"Morrighan is the remote viewer."
Minnaloushe nodded. Her eyes seemed haunted.
"Who is the architect of the memory palace?"
"I am."
"Then I don't understand."
"I'll explain it all. But first, just hold me. 1 need you to hold me." She stepped forward until she was standing right in front of him. This close he could see the texture of her skin and the delicate laughter lines at the corners of her eyes.
She placed her hands hesitantly on his chest. He did not respond.
Like a young girl she stood on tiptoe and kissed him chastely on the cheek.
His breath caught. But still his arms hung like lead at his sides, as though he were caught in a spell.
She stepped back and brought a trembling hand to her lips.
Silence. Then she said one word only and he heard her voice break: "Please."
The spell broke. He reached out and pulled her roughly toward him.
He made love to her-the two of them wrapped in a cocoon of light, the edges bleeding into the dark shadows of the room.
He ran his thumb over her feathered eyebrows, across the sweep of her cheekbone and down to her chin.
She was his.
He touched her body, in awe. She was his to touch and feel and enter. The idea of it was almost too much for him to grasp. He had read her diary and he had fantasized. But the woman of his imagination had been as insubstantial as air. And now, when he had least expected it, here she was-glorious flesh and blood-her pulse racing beneath his fingers. Her eyes were languid. Her mouth was slack. As he touched her mouth, she opened it slightly and against his finger he felt the moist inside of her lower lip.
He picked up the spill of hair and kissed the nape of her neck. She smelled of attar of rose. He flicked his tongue across her breastbone and pressed his lips to the pampered skin in the hollow of her throat.
Everything about her body was amazing. The pale half moons of her nails. The underside of her arm gleaming like mother-of-pearl. The subtle slope of her shoulders with the skin so soft when he touched it he wondered if his hands were not too rough. At the base of her spine the Monas embraced by a red rose. Drops of blood beading on its spiked thorns. Pleasure. Pain.
Lifting her arms above her head, he licked the exposed hollows. His mouth traveled slowly down the entire length of her body: tracing the sculptured outline of ribs, the lovely rounded hip and long, smooth thigh. Around her ankle she wore a delicately linked anklet made of gold. It flicked bright in the gloom. He took her foot in his hand, kissed the raised arch, the pink rounded toes.