To Take Up the Sword Read Free Page A

began to realize Serena’s feelings. Married to a man she both loved and respected for most of her life, but at the same time in love with another man she couldn’t forget.
    “She must have been in love with you.”
    And that love had killed her.
    He bristled. “No, we worked together.”
    “You forget I was on the receiving end of your welcome, but we’re getting off the subject here. I need your help.”
    Gabe studied the woman in his kitchen. His body still wasn’t willing to believe she wasn’t Serena. He ached, and by the smile on her face, Ms. O’Neil knew it.
    “Why do you need my help, Ms. O’Neil?”
    Leannan pulled a bundle out of her large bag.
    “I’ve been getting hang-up calls, death threats demanding some kind of diamonds. Frankly, I didn’t want to give them the leverage of fear, so I ignored them thinking they’d get tired of harassing me. Yesterday, I came back to the house after my morning donut run. I don’t normally go home once I’ve left for work, but I’d forgotten my graded papers. I’m a schoolteacher, sixth grade. My house was trashed and there was a severed mannequin’s head on my pillow covered in blood. I know it’s a little cheesy, but whoever left it there tore my place apart. I think they were looking for this. Serena’s parting gift.”
    Gabriel unwrapped the offered bundle and groaned, remembering Gueraldi’s calling card. Another of those damned Madonna statues. The profiler assigned to the case had told him they were a sort of irony to Gueraldi, considering his Catholic background. When Ryan Corrigan held smuggled or stolen diamonds, they’d been concealed inside a statue like this one. Could Serena have hidden the diamonds inside?
    * * * *
    “Where did you get this?”
    “Serena gave it to me before she was murdered. She said if she didn’t or couldn’t come back for it, I was to give it to you and only you. Otherwise, mum’s the word.”
    She watched as Gabriel laid the statue on the kitchen table and got the meat mallet out of a drawer by the sink. The garishly painted face was in pieces before Lea realized what he was going to do.
    “You broke it! I know it was ugly, but…”
    He pulled a velvet pouch through an opening at the bottom and shook the contents out on the table.
    “My God.” She hissed in a breath. “Are those…”
    “Yes, the missing diamonds.” He turned toward her. “The last of Gueraldi’s men went free because of these. You had them all along. I could charge you with withholding evidence.”
    “Not if I didn’t know about them, and I can promise you I didn’t.”
    “Ms. O’Neil.” Gabe cocked his eyebrow. “You’ve got to be kidding me. She had to have told you.”
    “Leannan, but you should probably call me Lea, seeing we’ve become so well acquainted. And no. She didn’t. I knew something was bothering her, but she wouldn’t talk about it. Just that she couldn’t involve Jack. I never guessed she’d hidden something inside the statue. How could she have done that anyway?”
    “Ever seen Romancing the Stone? ”
    “Only a million times. It was Serena’s favorite… Oh.”
    “Exactly.”
    A loud crack interrupted the conversation. Glass shattered from the window behind him. Lea screamed. They’d found her. “Did I forget to mention them?”
     

 
    Chapter 3
     
    Gabriel shoved her under the table and covered her with his body as a hailstorm of bullets pounded into the side of the cabin. Her head hit the floor with a thunk . She shuddered. The solid weight of him pressed her into the hardwood, covering her with his heat and leaving no room for the imagination. No doubt about it, Gabe Spiller was a walking fantasy.
    “What the hell?”
    “Those goons must have found me. I don’t know how. I cut through the woods after they ran me off the road. They’ve been after me since yesterday at lunch. I got away from them at a truck stop in Birmingham by hitching a ride with a truck driver.”
    “Do you have any idea