“Maybe we shouldn’t wake him up,” Mom whispered, nervously clasping and unclasping her hands against her chest. “He didn’t sleep well last night. He’s still having nightmares.”
“It’s important,” Derek said.
“I’m awake,” Gabriel mumbled. His eyes remained closed, but his mouth was set in a scowl.
“I’m so sorry,” I said softly.
His eyes blinked open. “Hey, babe.”
Derek frowned.
I smiled. “Gabriel. How are you feeling?”
“Like I got hit by a bus.”
“Poor baby,” I murmured.
He tapped his left cheek. “It hurts right here. Maybe you’d like to...”
“Easy, tiger,” I said with a grin. “I don’t think you’ve met Derek Stone.”
Gabriel stared up at Derek with one eye open. He blinked once, then held his gaze steadily. After a long moment, he said, “Haven’t had the pleasure.”
“Nor I,” Derek replied.
“Derek Stone,” I said, “this is Gabriel . . . uh, Gabriel.” I still had no clue what his last name was.
“Gabriel’s good enough,” he muttered, and with what seemed like superhuman strength, given his current condition, he whipped the blanket off and sat up. I figured he wasn’t about to remain in bed when another alpha dog stepped into the room.
Gabriel shoved his hand forward and Derek gripped it in a tight handshake. “Nice to meet you.”
“Pleasure’s mine,” Derek said.
“Well, isn’t this lovely?” Mom said, as she gazed affectionately at both Derek and Gabriel. “Everyone’s friends now.”
She really needed to find a hobby.
“Gabriel,” I said, sitting on the small chair Mom had placed by his bed, “Derek has something we’d like you to take a look at.”
“Yeah?” he said slowly and gazed up at Derek, his forehead furrowed in suspicion.
Derek tapped his smart phone until he found the best shot of Alice, then handed the phone to Gabriel.
Gabriel blinked to clear his vision, then stared at the screen. He shook his head, blinked again. “Mary Grace?”
“Mary Grace?” I frowned at Gabriel, then at Derek, then back at Gabriel. “Who’s Mary Grace?”
He glared at me, then Derek, then back at the phone. “What the hell is Mary Grace Flanagan doing on your phone?”
“Who’s Mary Grace?” I persisted.
He ignored me and looked straight at Derek. “What’s she done now?”
“She may be implicated in a double murder,” Derek said straight out. “And she may have been the one who shot you. Can you tell us how you know her?”
Gabriel blew out a heavy breath. “I married her.”
“What?!” I might’ve shrieked it because he winced, while Derek stroked my shoulder as if I were a spooked horse.
“When?” Derek asked.
“Why?” I demanded.
Gabriel shook his head, then laughed without humor. “She was running a scam. We needed to appear married. It’s not important, but you should know that Mary Grace is very, very good at what she does.”
“Which is what, exactly?” Derek asked.
Gabriel told an amazing story. Mary Grace Flanagan had indeed been raised by nuns in a Catholic orphanage and she was a bad seed from the start. Gabriel had met her more than ten years earlier in Bahrain, when he was involved in a Tylos pearl scam and she was smuggling Russian iconic antiquities through the Middle East and into Western Europe. He was twenty-two years old and she was ten years older. They became lovers, but never trusted each other. The thrill wore off quickly as it turned out that there was, after all, no honor among thieves. Gabriel stuck close to her, though, as she geared up to move a shipment of forged Dead Sea Scrolls into France. She hoped to pass them off as newly discovered Qumran cave scrolls, but the shipment never went through and Mary Grace disappeared off the face of the earth.
I couldn’t get a clear picture of Gabriel and Mary Grace together. Gabriel refused to elaborate. What did she mean to him? Had he been trying to set her up or had he been in on the deal?
“I’m not surprised to hear it’s Mary Grace who shot me,” Gabriel said darkly. “It wouldn’t be the first time.”
“She shot you before?” I asked, fascinated.
“She tried,” he said. Then he cast a look at Derek. “If you’re setting a trap, I want in.”
“I’m not sure you’re up to it,” Derek said mildly.
Gabriel stood. “I’m up to it.”
“I’ve made sandwiches,” Mom announced from the doorway. “There are chips and cookies, too.”
“Let’s do this,” Gabriel said, then took one step and wobbled. Derek and I both grabbed him, but he held up his hands. “I’ve got this.”
He led the way, slowly, to the spacious dining room and sat down at the large, dark wood Craftsman-style table where my family had eaten together for years.
My dad joined us, insisting that we try sips of a new batch of chardonnay he’d extracted from the barrel for the occasion. As we ate sandwiches, Derek and I brought Gabriel up to speed on the attacks at BABA. Mom and Dad listened, occasionally adding bits of insight I found remarkably useful. I guess they’d had some experience with some unsavory elements in their lives. Not all Deadheads were about peace and love, it seemed.
After lunch, Dad went back to work in the barrel room and Gabriel and Derek discussed logistics while I joined Mom in the big sunny kitchen.
“Tell me more about the gray aura you saw around Alice,” I said.
Mom set her sponge on the rack near the sink. “I was so bothered by it, I had to look it up to be sure.” She walked me back to my parents’ office off the kitchen, where she pulled a thick old book from the wall of bookshelves. Laying it open on the desk, she flipped to a bookmarked page. “See? Look at this.”
I began to read about auras and their meanings, skimming through all the colors of the rainbow until I reached the various shades of gray and black.
Gray auras were indeed often a sign of disease. Usually the grayness would appear spotty and clustered around those parts of the body most affected by tumors or cellular abnormalities. But the book also warned that a gray aura could indicate dark thoughts, or the dark side of a personality.
“That’s why her aura was so dark,” Mom said. “I thought it was disease but it was just plain old evil. If I’d been more aware, I might’ve prevented Gabriel’s . . .”
“It’s not your fault,” I said, gripping her arm. “She fooled us all.”
“Sweetie,” she said gently, “it’s not your fault, either.”
“Mom, I invited her into my home, introduced her to my friends. Then I brought her here. I brought that evil to Dharma.” Tears stung my eyes. “I’m not sure I can ever forgive myself for that.”
She rubbed my back and gripped me in a hug. “Well, I for one am glad you didn’t recognize her dark side.”
“What do you mean?” I pushed away from her and tossed my hands up in dismay. “If I’d known—”
“No.” She gripped my arms and forced me to look her in the eye. “You must never become so cynical that the first thing you see is the negative rather than the positive.”
“But I could’ve—”
She shook me. “Promise me.”
“Okay, okay,” I said, giving in to the inevitable. “I promise I’ll be a naive twit for the rest of my life.”
“That’s my good girl,” she said, smiling. “My little twit.”
“Yeah, thanks.”
“Come on, sing with me,” she teased. “You know the words, ‘Look for the silver lining . . .’”
I laughed. “Oh, my dear God.”
After Derek and Gabriel worked out the scenario they would follow to trap Alice (or whatever her name was), we settled in my parents’ quiet office. Gabriel collected his thoughts, then called Alice from his cell phone.
“Hey, babe,” he drawled.
It seemed Alice recognized his voice immediately.
“Of course I knew it was you,” he said a moment later. “I hate to mention it, but you’re still missing your target.”
She responded, and he chuckled. “Yeah, you always were a good shot. If you really wanted me dead, you wouldn’t have missed.”