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There was one more thing I wanted to try, and doing it in front of a bunch of cops, especially Tyler, was risky as hell. But I’d never get to be alone with Gabriel, and if there was a snowball’s chance this might work, I had to do it. I’d been able to enthrall the fae guard at Caligula, but I was worried Gabriel might be a tougher nut to crack, mentally.
I squeezed Gabriel’s wrist a little harder and he winced, but when I pulled him closer he didn’t fight me. Resting my elbows on the table, I made sure our gazes were locked before I started to speak.
“You want to tell me the truth,” I commanded.
Gabriel looked puzzled, tilting his head to the side. “I am telling you the truth.”
Fuck, this wasn’t going to be as easy as saying, These are not the droids you are looking for.
“You want to tell me everything. Everything you know about the dead girls.”
Behind the mirror someone asked, “What the fuck is she doing?” Tyler shushed him.
Gabriel’s eyes took on a cloudy, distant look. “Okay,” he said and nodded.
“Was there any other connection between them?”
“Yes.”
“What was the other connection?” You had to be frustratingly specific when it came to the thrall. The mind was as malleable as Silly Putty, but once you had it in your hands, you had to show it where to go.
He grunted and tried to pull his hand back. With his teeth grinding together and a sheen of fresh sweat wetting his forehead, it was obvious he was fighting against something. But he hadn’t resisted me up until now, so why with this question?
Something in Gabriel’s mind was trying to stop him from answering me.
“Tell me,” I demanded.
A small moan escaped his throat, and then he said, “Mayhew.”
“They were all in Mayhew’s class. We know that.” Why would he struggle against telling me that?
“No.” He shook his head. “They were all Mayhew’s.”
My fingers twitched, and I almost dropped his wrist. Holding it normally wasn’t necessary to keep him under the thrall, but he was being tough. I also liked to know his pulse was still steady.
“What do you mean they were all his?”
“His favorites. His lovers.”
I remembered my time in Oliver Mayhew’s small office. The easy, casual way he’d spoken to me. The underlying intimacy of his proximity. How beguiling the presence of such an unusual man had been. Was he really having affairs with his students? It wasn’t that hard to believe.
“How do you know?”
“Because we shared.”
Then I did drop his hand, disgusted, and broke eye contact. He shook, as if awakening from a bad dream. “Sorry, did you ask something?”
My repulsion faded, replaced by a cold trickle of dread. Gabriel’s reaction to coming out of the thrall was so like my own when I had lost an hour of my night I was shocked I hadn’t made the connection before. Because I was immune to the vampire thrall, I never considered it as a possible reason for my lapse, but what if there was something else like it, something non-vampiric, with the same impact?
There was a knock on the door, and he and I both turned as Tyler stepped in. “Are you finished here, Miss McQueen?”
“I sure as hell hope so.”
Chapter Eighteen
I knew all too well I would have to go visit Oliver Mayhew again, but the night was still in its juvenile phase, and I expected the good professor would be keeping late office hours. He did have all those young, nubile minds to nurture, after all.
My queasiness over the knowledge that Gabriel and Mayhew had shared the women in their class hadn’t abated. This was not the Gabriel Holbrook I’d known. And what did it mean, they shared the girls? Did Gabriel test their willingness and then direct Mayhew towards the easy pickings, or did Mayhew pass his sloppy seconds on to Gabriel?
