time and little purpose.
“Is anything wrong, Gab?” Megan asked from beside
her on the taxi’s bench seat. “You seem quiet.”
Gabrielle shrugged. “I’m sorry. I’m just . . . I don’t
know. Tired, I guess.”
“Somebody get this woman a drink—stat!” Kendra,
the dark-haired nurse, joked.
“Nah,” Jamie countered, sly and catlike. “What our
Gab really needs is a man. You’re too serious, sweetie. It’s
not healthy to let your work consume you like you do.
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Have some fun! When’s the last time you got laid, any-
way?”
Too long ago but Gabrielle wasn’t really keeping track.
She’d never suffered from a shortage of dates when she
wanted them, and sex—on those rare occasions she had
it—wasn’t something she obsessed over like some of her
friends. As out of practice as she was right now in that de-
partment, she didn’t think an orgasm was going to cure
whatever was causing her current state of restlessness.
“Jamie is right, you know,” Kendra was saying. “You
need to loosen up, get a little wild.”
“No time like the present,” Jamie added.
“Oh, I don’t think so,” Gabrielle said, shaking her
head. “I’m really not up for a late night, you guys. Gallery
showings always take a lot out of me and I—”
“Driver?” Ignoring her, Jamie slid to the edge of the
seat and rapped on the Plexiglas that separated the cabbie
from his passengers. “Change of plans. We decided we’re
in the mood for celebrating, so ixnay on the restaurant. We
wanna go where all the hot people are.”
“If you like dance clubs, there’s a new one just opened
in the north end,” the cabbie said, his spearmint chewing
gum cracking as he spoke. “I been takin’ fares over there all
week. Fact, took two already tonight—fancy after-hours
place called La Notte.”
“Ooh, La No-tay,” Jamie purred, tossing a playful look
over his shoulder and arching an elegant brow. “Sounds
perfectly wicked to me, girls. Let’s go!”
The club, La Notte, was housed in a High Victorian
Gothic building that had long been known as St. John’s
Trinity Parish church, until recent Archdiocese of Boston
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payouts on priest sex scandals forced the closings of dozens
of such places around the city. Now, as Gabrielle and her
friends made their way inside the crowded club, synthe-
sized trance and techno music rang in the rafters, blasting
out of enormous speakers that framed the DJ pit in the
balcony above the altar. Strobe lights flashed against a trio
of arched stained-glass windows. The pulsing beams cut
through the thin cloud of smoke that hung in the air,
pounding to the frenetic beat of a seemingly endless song.
On the dance floor—and in nearly every square foot of La
Notte’s main floor and the gallery above—people moved
against one another in writhing, mindless sensuality.
“Holy shit,” Kendra shouted over the music, raising
her arms and dancing her way through the thick crowd.
“What a place, huh? This is crazy!”
They hadn’t even cleared the first knot of clubbers be-
fore a tall, lean guy swooped in on the spunky brunette and
bent to say something in her ear. Kendra gave a throaty
laugh and nodded enthusiastically at him.
“Boy wants to dance,” she giggled, passing her hand-
bag to Gabrielle. “Who am I to refuse!”
“This way,” Jamie said, pointing to a small, empty table
near the bar as their friend trotted off with her partner.
The three of them got seated and Jamie ordered a
round of drinks. Gabrielle scanned the dance floor for
Kendra, but she’d been devoured in the midst of the
crowded space. Despite the crush of people all around,
Gabrielle could not dismiss the sudden sensation that she
and her friends were sitting in a spotlight. Like they were
somehow under scrutiny simply for being in the club. It
was nuts to think it. Maybe she had been working too
much, spending too much time alone at home, if being
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out in public could make her feel so self-conscious. So
paranoid.
“Here’s to Gab!” Jamie exclaimed over the roar of the
music, raising his martini glass in salute.
Megan lifted hers, too, and clinked it against
Gabrielle’s. “Congratulations on a great exhibit tonight!”
“Thanks, you guys.”
As she sipped the neon yellow concoction, Gabrielle’s
feeling of being observed returned. Or rather, increased.
She felt a stare reach out to her from across the darkened
distance. Over the rim of her martini glass, she glanced up
and caught the glint of a strobe light nicking off a pair of
dark sunglasses.
Sunglasses hiding a gaze that was unmistakably fixed
on her through the crowd.
The quick flashes from the strobes cast his stark features
in hard shadow, but Gabrielle’s eyes took him in at once.
Spiky black hair falling loosely around a broad, intelligent
brow and lean, angular cheeks. A strong, stern jaw. And his
mouth . . . his mouth was generous and sensual, even when
quirked in that cynical, almost cruel line.
Gabrielle looked away, unnerved, a rush of warmth
skittering along her limbs. His face lingered in her head,
burned there in an instant, like an image set to film. She
put down her drink and braved another quick glance to
where he stood. But he was gone.
A loud crash sounded at the other end of the bar, jerk-
ing Gabrielle’s attention over her shoulder. At one of the
crowded tables, liquor seeped onto the floor, spilled from
several broken glasses that littered the black-lacquered sur-
face. Five guys in dark leather and shades were having
words with another guy wearing a Dead Kennedys wife-
beater tank and torn, faded blue jeans. One of the thugs in
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leather had his arm slung around a drunk-looking plat-
inum blond, who seemed to know the punker. Boyfriend,
apparently. He made a grab for the girl’s arm, but she
slapped him away and bent her head to let one of the
thugs put his mouth on her neck. She stared defiantly at
her furious boyfriend, all the while playing with the long
brown hair of the guy fastened to her throat.
“That’s messed up,” Megan said, turning back around
as the situation escalated.
“Sure is,” Jamie added as he finished off his martini
and flagged a server to bring another round. “Evidently
that chick’s mama forgot to tell her it’s bad news not to
leave with the guy who brought you.”
Gabrielle watched for another moment, long enough
to see a second biker move in on the girl and descend on
her slackened mouth. She accepted both of them together,
her hands coming up to caress the dark head at her neck
and the pale one that was sucking her face like he meant to
eat her alive. The punker boyfriend shouted a string of ob-
scenities at the girl, then turned around and shoved his
way into the spectating crowd.
“This place is creeping me out,” Gabrielle confided,
just now noticing some clubbers openly doing lines of co-
caine off the far end of the long marble bar.
Her friends didn’t seem to hear her over the driving
pound of the music. They also didn’t seem to share
Gabrielle’s unease. Something wasn’t quite right here and
Gabrielle could not shake the feeling that eventually the
night was going to get ugly. Jamie and Megan began talk-
ing between themselves about local bands, leaving
Gabrielle to sip what was left of her martini and wait on
the other side of the small table for an opportunity to
break in and make her excuses to leave.
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Essentially alone at the moment, her gaze drifted over
the sea of bobbing heads and swaying bodies, as she sur-
reptitiously searched for the sunglass-shaded eyes that had
been watching her before. Was he with the other thugs—
one of that gang of bikers still stirring up trouble? He was
dressed like them, certainly carried the same dark air of
danger about him.
Whoever he was, Gabrielle saw no trace of him now.
She leaned back in her chair, then nearly jumped out of
her skin when a pair of hands came to rest on her shoul-
ders from behind.
“Here you are! I’ve been looking all over for you guys!”
Kendra said, sounding breathless and animated at the
same time, as she leaned over the table. “Come on. I’ve got
a table for us on the other side of the club. Brent and some
of his friends want to party with us!”
“Cool!”
Jamie was already on his feet, ready to go. Megan took
her fresh martini in one hand, Kendra’s and her pocket-
books in the other. When Gabrielle didn’t rush to join
them, Megan paused.
“You coming?”
“No.” Gabrielle stood up and looped the strap of her
handbag over her shoulder. “You go on, have fun. I’m
beat. I think I’m just going to catch a cab and head back
home.”
Kendra gave her a little-girl pout. “Gab, you can’t go!”
“You want some company for the ride home?” Megan
offered, even though Gabrielle could tell she wanted to
stay with the others.
“I’ll be fine. Enjoy yourselves, but be careful, right?”
“You’re sure you won’t stay? Just one more drink?”
“Nah. I really need to take off and get some air.”
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“Suit yourself, then,” Kendra chided with mock
venom. She stepped in and planted a quick peck on
Gabrielle’s cheek. As she withdrew, Gabrielle caught a
whiff of vodka, and, beneath that, something less obvious.
Something musky, queerly metallic. “You’re a buzzkill,
Gab, but I still love you.”
With a wink, Kendra looped her arms with Jamie’s and
Megan’s, then playfully tugged them toward the churning
mass of people.
“Call me tomorrow,” Jamie mouthed over his shoulder
as the trio were slowly engulfed by the crowd.
Gabrielle immediately started her trek for the door,
anxious to be out of the club. The longer she had stayed,
the louder the music seemed to get, drumming in her
head, making it hard to think. Hard to focus on her sur-
roundings. People pushed at her from all sides as she tried
to pass through them, squeezing her into the press of
dancing, flailing, gyrating bodies. She was jostled and
nudged, pawed at and groped by unseen hands in the dark,
until, finally, she stumbled into the vestibule near the club’s
entrance, then out the heavy double doors.
The night was cool and dark. She drew in a deep
breath, clearing her head of the noise and smoke and
the unsettling atmosphere of La Notte. The music still
throbbed out here, the strobe lights still flashed like small
explosions behind the tall stained-glass windows above, but
Gabrielle relaxed a bit now that she was free.
No one paid her any mind as she hurried down to the
curb and waited to hail a ride home. Only a few people
were outside, some passing by on the sidewalk below, oth-
ers filing up the concrete steps and into the club. She spot-
ted a yellow cab coming her way, and thrust out her hand
to call it over.
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“Taxi!”
As the empty cab navigated across the lanes of night-
time traffic and roared up beside her, the doors of the
nightclub burst open with the force of a hurricane.
steps, a male voice rose to an octave just north of fear.
“Touch me again, and I’ll fuckin’—”
“You’ll fuckin’ what?” taunted another voice, this one
low and deadly, and flanked by several others that were
chuckling in amusement.
“Yeah, tell us, you little asswipe punker piece of shit.
What’re ya gonna do?”
Her fingers gripping the door handle of the cab,
Gabrielle swiveled her head, half in alarm, half in know-
ing dread of what she would see. It was the gang from the
bar, the bikers or whatever they were, in black leather and
shades. The six of them circled the punker boyfriend like a
pack of wolves, taking turns jabbing at him, toying with
him like prey.
The kid threw a swing at one of them—missed—and
the situation went from bad to worse in the blink of an eye.
All at once, the scuffle came crashing toward Gabrielle.
The gang of thugs threw the punker up against the hood
of the cab, slamming their fists into the kid’s face. Blood
splattered like raindrops from his nose and mouth, some of
it hitting Gabrielle. She took a step back, stunned and hor-
rified. The kid scrabbled to get away but his attackers
stayed on him, beating him with a fury Gabrielle could
hardly fathom.
“Get off my goddamn car!” the cabbie shouted out his
open window. “Jesus Christ! Take it somewhere else
, you
hear me!”
One of the assailants turned his head toward the cab-
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bie, smiled a terrible smile, then brought his large fist down
on the windshield, shattering the glass into a spiderweb of
cracks. Gabrielle saw the cabbie cross himself, his mouth
working soundlessly within the car. There was a grinding
of gears, then a piercing screech of tires as the taxi jerked
into reverse, dislodging the burden from its hood.
“Wait!” Gabrielle screamed, too late.
Her ride home—her escape from this brutal scene—
was gone. With a cold lump of fear lodged in her throat,
she watched the cab speed off, careering into the street and
its taillights disappearing into the dark.
And on the curb, the six bikers were showing their vic-
tim no mercy, too preoccupied with beating the punker
senseless to give Gabrielle more than a passing thought.
She turned and bolted up the steps to La Notte’s en-
trance, all the while fishing in her pocketbook for her cell
phone. She found the slim device, flipped it open. Punched
in 911 as she threw open the doors of the club and skidded
into the vestibule, panic rising in her breast. Above the din
of music and voices, and the thundering pulse of her own
heart, Gabrielle heard only static on the other end of her
cell. She pulled the phone away from her ear—
Signal faded.
“Shit!”
She tried 911 again. No luck.
Gabrielle ran for the main area of the club, shouting
into the noise in desperation.
“Someone, please help! I need help!”
No one seemed to hear her. She tapped people’s shoul-
ders, tugged on sleeves, practically shook the arm of a tat-
tooed military-looking guy, but no one paid any attention.
They didn’t even look at her, merely continued dancing
and talking as if she wasn’t even there.
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Was this a dream? Some twisted nightmare where only
she was aware of the violence taking place outside?
Gabrielle gave up on strangers and decided to search
out her friends. As she wended through the dark club, she
kept hitting Redial, praying for a decent signal. She
couldn’t get one, and she soon realized she would never
find Jamie and the others in the thick crowd.