I think Gabriel was more offended by the stupidity of that scenario than by the actual charge of murder.

The security tapes from his condo building showed him leaving and returning over an hour later. He would say that was proof he hadn’t gone out with criminal intent—he knew the cameras were there and how to avoid them. Besides, the ones in the garage showed his rental car had never left. Even if he’d found an alternate vehicle, an hour wasn’t enough time to kill James, take his body to the Villa, and return home.

“This is where I come in,” Ricky said. “Because I know where you were during that hour and what you were doing.”

“Which remains between the three of us.”

“Unless it looks as if you’re in danger of—”

“I won’t be. Even if I was, I hardly see the point in being set free only to have your father kill me for getting you locked up in my place.”

Ricky’s lips twitched in a smile. “Then you’d need to give me a really good defense.”

“I’ll give it to myself and save the trouble. The point is, the charges against me are false, and I can prove that.” He met Ricky’s gaze. “Even if I have difficulty, which I do not expect, no confession will be forthcoming. Under any circumstances. Is that clear?”

“It is.”

Which only meant that Ricky understood Gabriel’s stance on the issue, not that he planned to go along with it.

“What were you doing out that night?” I asked Gabriel.

“Walking.”

He seemed prepared to leave it at that, but when I kept watching him, he said, “I rearmed the security system and locked the doors, and I didn’t intend to be gone as long as I was—”

“I’m not asking why you left me alone, Gabriel. So you went for a walk. That’s it?”

“Yes.”

“While I understand that simple answers are best on the witness stand, if you say you randomly decided to go out for a walk at one A.M.—”

“I do that,” he said abruptly, as if blurting out some embarrassing confession. “If I can’t sleep, I walk. That night, I was going to speak to James, but decided a walk was safer.”

“So you’ve walked like that before?”

Gabriel turned a cool look on me. “I wasn’t aware I was on the stand now.”

“More than once a month?”

“Yes.”

“Good, then the security cameras will show it’s an established pattern. There’s nothing unusual about getting fresh air and exercise when you can’t sleep. If you can get access to any street cameras to prove—”

“—that I was indeed walking . . . with Ricky?”

“Right. Okay. Well, the building cameras should do, then, establishing that you regularly walk at night.”

“Thank you, counselor. Anything more?”

“You had motive and opportunity. The third part is means. You’re big enough to overpower James, and you only needed your hands to strangle him. Finding the knife used to inflict the postmortem wounds isn’t necessary, is it?”

“No,” Ricky said. “But some form of evidence is. That’s the wild card.”

As they continued talking, I withdrew into my thoughts. I’d still hoped this was just a trumped-up case that would shatter on impact. But this wasn’t some small town where the sheriff could throw you in the drunk tank for being a smart-ass. This was Chicago, and the guy being charged was a crackerjack defense attorney. The SA’s office would never have accused him without concrete evidence. Which meant someone was framing Gabriel.

I now believed that James had been compelled to stalk me. Compulsion meant Tylwyth Teg or Cwn Annwn. In other words, whoever set James on Gabriel was very much determined to separate us . . . and might have the ability to conjure up evidence.

No matter how determined I might be to stay away from the fae and the Huntsmen, others were equally determined to pull me in. At any cost. Including getting rid of anyone who stood in their way. In the end, maybe all that would really protect them was to do exactly what Pamela said.

“Maybe if I go somewhere, this will stop,” I said.

Gabriel turned those cool blue eyes on me and said, “It’s a little late for that.”

I blanched.

“He doesn’t mean—” Ricky began.

“Of course I do,” Gabriel said. “What good would it do her to leave now? This isn’t a civil suit. The charges can’t be withdrawn.”

“I—I’m going to step out,” I said, getting to my feet. “I need some air.”

“I’ll go with you,” Ricky said.

“No. Please. I’ll just be a few minutes.”

Gabriel said, “You shouldn’t be wandering about on your own.”

“Why not?” I said. “No one’s stalking me now. James is dead.”

I shoved my chair aside and made my escape.

—

I sat in the coffee shop with an untouched black coffee, lost in my thoughts.

“You said a few minutes. I gave you twenty.” Ricky leaned forward to look in my mug as he sat. “They don’t have mocha?”

“I didn’t feel like one.”

He nodded and left and returned with a coffee and a cookie. He put the cookie in the middle of the table. “For whenever you do feel like it.”

I looked at him, at the smile on his lips belying the worry in his eyes, and I thought, How did I get so lucky? Also, How the hell can I keep screwing up the life of a guy like this?