Delia's Shadow by Jaime Lee Moyer Read Free Book Online

mirrored Shadow’s waiting pose and the sorrow in her eyes. They all had secrets or obligations from life left undone, wrongs they needed set right before they could rest.
    The weight of their need pinned me in place and I couldn’t speak, or turn away. All these lost souls wanted my help, as Shadow did, and left me with just as little idea of what they expected me to do.
    The bell on the shop door jingled, announcing another customer, and the chipper voice of the dressmaker’s assistant greeted two older women. One by one the ghosts faded, releasing me and letting me breathe. I sat on one of the small chairs to wait for Sadie, fighting the need to curl over my knees and cry.
    Shadow stood in her place by the window again, the shawl draped around her shoulders and one hand clutching the cross at her throat. She waited, patience personified.

 
    CHAPTER 4
    Gabe
    Gabe leaned back in his creaky swivel chair, rocking and staring at the piece of blue stationery centered on his desk blotter. Imagining the letter taunting him to decipher what the killer’s message really meant wasn’t hard.
    The precise handwriting in black ink matched the three letters sent to the newspaper. This letter was longer, two double-sided pages, but Gabe never questioned that it was written by the same man. The symbols on the bottom of the last page convinced him if nothing else.
    Not knowing what the symbols meant bothered him. They might be nonsense, the meaningless creation of a deranged mind. That was the conclusion his father came to when he’d worked the letter murders case years ago, but Gabe wasn’t so sure. More than a hunch prodded him toward thinking he’d seen similar pictures before. Trying to remember when and where he’d encountered the symbols kept him awake at night.
    The killer had repeated his demands to reprint all his letters on the front page of The Examiner and escalated his threat to hunt people on the Pan Pacific grounds. That was a sure way to start panic if word got out. The murderer had to know the mayor and the chief would never agree to publish any part of the letters. Gabe had a sick bet with himself that the killer was counting on that.
    No trace of fingerprints appeared on either page or the inside of the envelope, but he hadn’t really expected to get that lucky. He’d found what he thought he’d find: raving that made little sense, threats and bragging, right down to the methodical detail of how the couple left in the Presidio cemetery were murdered.
    All that set this letter apart was his name on the envelope, and that the killer laid the responsibility for the couple’s death, and any future victims, at Gabe’s feet.
    That he wasn’t really to blame didn’t stop him from brooding.
    Jack rapped on the half-open door to get Gabe’s attention. He held up a brown paper grocer’s sack. “Baxter and Henderson found something after we left. A lady’s handbag and a pair of shoes.”
    “Come in and shut the door.” Gabe slipped the letter and envelope under the desk blotter. “Did they touch anything?”
    “No, Henderson knows better. He looked inside the bag to see what was there and didn’t go any further. Baxter follows his lead.” Jack set the sack on the corner of the desk. “If we’re not careful the kid will have our jobs soon.”
    “Marshall Henderson’s too smart to want our jobs.”
    Gabe pulled two pairs of cotton gloves out of his desk and tossed a pair to Jack. The paper sack had been used before, worn and soft at the top from being rolled and creased. Oily stains that smelled faintly of sausage soaked one corner and partway up the side. The bag looked like trash, a discarded sack used to carry lunch once too often.
    A black grease pencil had been used to draw the same symbol carved into the victim’s foreheads on one side. The killer’s calling card.
    He pulled up the roller-shade on the window behind his desk. The sun would set soon, but the sunlight that remained brightened the