Spectrum (Stone Society #14) - Faith Gibson Page 0,91
didn’t. He made his way home, and that’s the Gabriel you saw the last time you came over. After what was done to him, he wasn’t the same.”
“I hung around, just in case he wanted to see me, but eventually I moved out here. I gave up.”
“I understand. We all did. Gabriel disappeared until last year. When he showed back up, he was someone different. It’s not a happy story.”
“Tell me anyway.” Rebekah’s head was spinning, but she needed to know all about her first love.
“What Flanagan did to Gabriel, it messed with his mind. Gabriel went to work for Flanagan. Changed his name. He basically became Flanagan’s flunky because he didn’t feel like he belonged anywhere else. Not with you. Not with his family. Anyway, he killed people. A lot of people, and then he kidnapped the chief of police who happens to be our King’s mate. Dante’s and Gregor’s brother, Rafael, is the leader of the Gargoyles here in the States. Kaya is his mate, and when Gabriel, a.k.a. Vincent Alexander, took her, it was like this epic showdown. They managed to rescue Kaya and put Gabriel behind bars. I work as the penitentiary’s doctor, and when he and I were in the same room, I recognized him. It’s been a rough year and a half, and he’s shown only slight improvement.”
“Why are you telling me this? Why trust me with your secrets? I assume the truth of Gargoyles is a secret since I would have heard if there were shifters out in the world.”
“It is a secret. My son, Connor, is special. He has an amazing gift of seeing the future, but he communicates what he sees in drawings. Everything he’s created in pictures has come to pass. He drew your picture standing on the Moon Bridge. It was how we knew to look for you in New Portland. Here, let me show you.” Isabelle pulled her phone out of her purse, and after a few seconds, handed it over.
“That’s…” Amazing. Incredible. Eerie. The picture on the phone was so realistic it could have been a photograph. “How old is your son?”
“He just turned seven. Before Dante and I got together, Connor was kidnapped. Somehow, he and Dante, whom he had never met, had a bond. Dante could speak to Connor in his mind, and Connor was able to draw pictures of the area where he was being kept. Dante could see what Connor showed him, and that led us to him. In Greece.”
“This is all too much. I’m a psychologist, for God’s sake. I study the mind, and I’ve never come across anything of this nature in all the years I practiced.” Rebekah handed the phone back. “So why did you come here?”
“I’m hoping since you’re Gabriel’s mate, you can help him. Help heal his mind and heart. He won’t be getting out of prison anytime soon because his sins are too great, but as his sister, I want him to stop hurting. And Rebekah, he’s hurting badly.”
“But if he’s in prison, how am I supposed to do that through a plexiglass window?”
“Gregor’s the warden there, and he can get you in to see Gabriel. Not through a barrier but in his actual room. I know it’s asking a lot, but I really think you can help him.”
“What do you mean I’m his mate? We were only dating when he disappeared. We didn’t…” Rebekah wrapped her fingers around her neck, embarrassed. “We weren’t intimate,” she lied for some reason.
Tessa laughed and slapped Gregor’s thigh. “You don’t have to be. I ran into this one” — she nudged Gregor’s shoulder with her own — “in a convenience store. I had dropped some cash, and when I bent over to grab it, I bumped into the male standing behind me. That was all it took. I transitioned for the first time after that brief encounter.”
Rebekah chugged the rest of her whiskey. Was she willing to leave her life in New Portland and travel back to New Atlanta to see Gabriel who was a murderer? “What if he tries to hurt me?”
Dante was the one who answered. “He wouldn’t. He would rather die than harm you. You were married?”
“Yes.”
“I assume you loved your husband. Would you have harmed him?”
“Ours wasn’t a typical marriage. He was a colleague. He lost his wife, and the two of us became good friends afterward. We were married, yes, but it was purely platonic. Two people easing the pain and loneliness in the other.