He glanced at me.
"Ouch," I said. "I think I just got frostbite from that look."
"I am hardly foolish enough to fall for seduction in the first place."
"Hey, I never said you fell for anything. It's a freebie. No reason not to take advantage."
"Not unless I have a shred of dignity. I'm not that desperate, Olivia."
"And again, I didn't say that. But okay, so you didn't sleep with her, and she still claimed paternity. I'm guessing it didn't get far."
"It did not. It was merely an attempt to embarrass me professionally. I spoke to my opponent--the one who sent the girl--and suggested it would be very embarrassing if I persuaded his wife to have the baby's DNA tested against his. He convinced the young woman to withdraw the suit."
"I'm amused by the fact you were more offended by that accusation than the murder one."
"I'm not disallowing the possibility that I could commit murder, under extreme circumstances. But falling into a honey trap? Unknowingly fathering a child? Absolutely not."
"Noted. That's it, then. All your sins laid bare." I leaned back. "I can reciprocate if you like. I stole a Dr Pepper when I was twelve."
His brows shot up in mock horror.
"It was an accident," I said. "I was distracted and thought I'd paid. I still felt bad."
He shook his head. "I suppose you smoked a cigarette once, too."
"Twice. I had a wild youth, but I've overcome it. The only things I've done recently are lying to witnesses, trespassing, breaking and entering, and shooting people. All in the last six weeks, roughly coinciding with when I met you."
"A coincidence."
"Indeed."
He reached for his now-cold coffee. He was still calm, at ease, the wall down, blue eyes as warm as they'd been earlier. James's stunt hadn't changed his mood. If anything, he seemed happier to have cleared the air.
Lydia buzzed, and Gabriel wrinkled his nose, not exactly resenting the intrusion but not appreciating it, either.
"That would be my ten o'clock appointment," he said.
"Do you want me to move into the--?"
"Stay. Keep working on Cainsville. I'll check in when I'm done."
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
Last night before bed, I'd jotted down notes from my chat with Patrick. Now I wrote them out, adding questions as I went.
The first question: What is he?
It was hard to even acknowledge the need to ask that. What was Patrick? A young writer who lived in Cainsville and made the diner his office. Yet I knew that wasn't the whole truth. I was also damned sure I couldn't find my answers by plugging search terms into a browser.
I thought Patrick was the man Gabriel had spoken to as a child. More significantly, I thought I knew why he'd sought out Gabriel, and why that had upset Seanna. To confirm my suspicion, I'd need to confront him. Once I had ammunition.
If Patrick was the man Gabriel had spoken to twenty years ago, then he could not be human. And so the questions circled in on themselves, threatening to tangle me in impossibilities. I had to pluck out this single thread and follow it to the end.
I knew Patrick's pen name. Patricia Rees. Yes, he used a woman's name, not surprising considering he wrote paranormal romances. Given what I suspected about him, his chosen genre was all kinds of ironic. I'm sure he was well aware of that. Even his pseudonymous surname came with a nudge and a wink. It's Welsh, derived from ris, meaning "ardor."
Patrick told me he'd published six books. That was not entirely true. Patricia Rees was credited with six in paranormal romance--and another four in gothic romance before that.
Gabriel remembered Patrick being a young man when Gabriel returned to Cainsville before college. I had assumed he was misremembering. Seeing Patrick's publication history, I knew he was at least as old as Gabriel thought. Yet that still meant he could not have been the man Gabriel remembered speaking to as a boy. It was noon before I had my answer.