“Okay, so back to the real world,” I said. “I need to—Shit! Work. My shift starts at—”

“I’ve called in sick for you,” Gabriel said.

“Thanks.” I paused. “I’m sure you have work to do, though.”

He fixed me with a cool look. “If I wanted to leave, I would. If you want me to leave, I should hope you would tell me to go. I do not feel obligated to stay. Nor do I require false niceties if you’d prefer I didn’t.”

“Nothing’s ever simple with you, is it?”

“I don’t see how it could be simpler. If I want—”

“Enough,” Rose cut in. “Don’t dissect the question, Gabriel. Just answer it.”

A pause. Then, “It’s Saturday. I do not need to work. However, my laptop is in the car, and I was going to retrieve it to do some work, but I drifted off.” He rose. “I’ll go get that, if it will make you feel less like you are imposing on my time.”

“It would.”

—

“He’s right,” Rose said as we heard Gabriel’s footsteps going down the stairs. “He didn’t stay because he felt obligated. If Gabriel does something, it’s because he wants to.”

“I know.”

“Do you also know what he would have done if anyone else had passed out at his feet? Called an ambulance. Oh, he’d stay until it came, but only because he might be sued for negligence otherwise. Then he’d be gone. He carried you back here. Running the entire way, I’m sure. You feel like you aren’t making progress—”

“Before he comes back, we need to talk about something.”

I pushed myself from the bed and joined her at the window. Gabriel was talking to Grace.

“Patrick is Gabriel’s father,” I said.

Her mouth opened, and I braced for the expected responses. Was I crazy? How could that be possible?

“Did Patrick say that?”

“He didn’t admit it outright, but he didn’t deny it, and I get the feeling that’s as much as he can do. As much as he’s allowed to do.”

She lowered herself to the bed, her fair skin paling. “Did you tell him?”

“Gabriel? God, no.” I glanced out the window again. Gabriel seemed to be talking to some guy getting out of a van. “Patrick screwed around with Seanna and fucked up her life. Then he fucked off on Gabriel. Abandoned him. He saw what was happening. Hell, all the elders apparently knew, because they wanted to do their changeling trick with Gabriel, but Patrick wouldn’t let them. He left Gabriel in that situation, with no support. And do you know why? To toughen him up. That’s what he said.” I realized how harsh my voice had gotten and stepped from the window. “No, I’d never tell him.”

A long silence, as Rose stared at the wall, her expression blank but her eyes moving, as if seeing something there. Footsteps sounded on the stairs. Rose stood quickly, maybe worrying he’d overheard, but his steps kept coming at his normal pace, steady and deliberate.

A single rap on the almost-closed door.

“Come in.”

He pushed it open and stepped through, holding . . . daisies. He was clutching a bouquet of daisies with sprigs of small purple flowers. The stems were short, his hand dwarfing them, and he held them awkwardly, as if they were something he’d found on the road and didn’t quite know what to do with.

“Yours,” he said, thrusting the bouquet at me as Rose stepped out. “Ricky.”

“Ricky?”

“He called your cell this morning. I answered and told him you weren’t feeling well. Mild food poisoning. That seemed the simplest way to explain the situation in a way that wouldn’t bring him on the next plane.”

I took my flowers to the bed. “He’d know better than to hop a plane unless I was in critical condition, but yes, that’ll keep him from worrying. Thanks.”

The card with the flowers said only, “Check your e-mail when you’re up to it.” He’d left a longer message there:

Hope you’re feeling better. I told you I’m not good at flowers, but these reminded me of the ones at the cabin. I just hope they aren’t actually weeds. If they are . . . um, sorry. Either way, I’ll make it up to you with an actual trip to the cabin when I get back. Call me, but only when you feel better. I mean that, too. Rest up. All is fine here. Talk soon.

I fired off a Love the daisies. Call in an hour? and then laid my phone aside and said, “Okay, so where are we on everything?”

CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

Macy called me yesterday, and . . .”

“And?” Gabriel prodded when I didn’t continue.

I gave my head a sharp shake. “Sorry, just . . . there was something about Macy from my dreams, when I had the fever. Not surprisingly, considering she’s on my mind as much as the rest of it.”

“What did you dream?”

A short laugh. “Believe me, mine are not prophetic. I’ll leave that to Rose. I don’t even remember what it was. Probably some mixed-up nonsense like the rest of it. Did I mention I dreamed that James threw me off your balcony?”

“I don’t have a balcony.”

“Whew.”

“I wouldn’t say that’s without meaning. Your subconscious is acknowledging the threat that James poses and—”

“And did I say Macy called? I think she suspects something’s up with her and Ciara. Maybe it’s a gut feeling. Anyway, we need to discuss how we’re going to handle that. We can’t show up on her doorstep and announce . . .” A memory niggling at me again.

“I will refrain from telling you to take a minute,” Gabriel said. “But I think you should. There’s something there.”

“I know,” I muttered. “Follow the signs. Macy. Something about visiting her—Thanatochemistry. That book was on Macy’s shelf, with her nursing texts.” I did a quick search on my phone. “Thanatochemistry is mortuary science. I dreamed that Macy was going to embalm me, and Tristan was going to cut off my head.”

“Your subconscious was linking the textbook to Ciara’s embalming.”

“But I’m sure they don’t teach that in nursing school. Macy’s records indicate she went straight from high school to college. Maybe she’d been interested in mortuary science? If so, I might find it online.”