Gates of Paradise (Blue Bloods 7)

Mimi jumped out of the cab and moved through the crowd congregated on the sidewalk. There was a woman off to the side, crying softly. Mimi approached her carefully. “Are you all right?”

The woman sniffed and blew her nose into a handkerchief. “I’m fine,” she said. “Just out of a job.” She looked at the smoking wreckage of the house and then started crying again.

“Did you work here?” Mimi asked.

The woman nodded. “I was a maid. It was a good job, it was. Lots to clean with all of those parties, but it was honest work.”

Sounded like Kingsley, all right.

“I knew the people who were staying here,” Mimi said. “They weren’t in there, were they, when this happened?”

The woman shook her head. “The young lady and her friend left days ago. Everyone else left last night. Like they knew something bad was going to happen.”

“Did they know?”

“Not so’s they told the staff. Though I heard they gave everyone the night off, so perhaps there was something afoot. Didn’t tell those of us on the schedule for today, though. We all showed up this morning to find this.”

“And you’re sure all of them left,” Mimi said. “Do you have any idea where they went?”

“None at all,” the maid said. “But if you find them, tell them they owe us a week’s pay.”

Mimi wanted to hug her. They were alive! Her friends were alive! Thank God. Kingsley was alive. She gave the woman a few bills from her purse. “Here. They’d want you to have this.”

Who had done this? Had Lucifer sent another convoy without Jack’s and Mimi’s knowledge? She walked around the perimeter, slipping through the Red Blood barriers easily. In the back of the house, behind the rubble, she found the answer.

Jack was holding the torch.

“You did this?” she asked, shocked.

“It was too late. They were gone.”

Thank God. Thank God. You knew they were gone, didn’t you? Thank God.

But Jack did not reply.

“Jack? Are you okay?”

“What is the point of this?” he said, kicking a rock on the ground.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, what are we doing here?”

“Jack, again, I don’t know what you’re saying,” she said.

“All this that we’ve done—for centuries, Mimi. We fought on the wrong side during the War, and even when we turned to the Light we were punished for it. Centuries we lived on earth, cycling through our lives. Rome. France. Plymouth. Hoping for salvation. Seeking redemption for our sins. For what? For this?”

“What are you saying?” Mimi asked, horrified. She had never heard him speak like this, or look so murderous and frustrated at the same time. She put a hand on the stone around her neck to warn him, but he didn’t notice.

“Maybe we’re trying too hard. Maybe we should just…”

“Give up?”

“Exactly. Why fight it? Why are we here? So that we can leave each other? Why?” He pulled her to him. “Why did I ever want to do that?” he whispered, putting his nose in her hair and breathing in her scent.

She found she was responding to him, to his touch, that familiar way he held her—had always held her. It had been so long since he’d held her that way. But why now? Why did he have to say these things now? Then she realized, even if he meant it, she didn’t want to hear it. Even if he wanted her back, she didn’t want him back.

She pushed him away from her. “You don’t mean it—you don’t mean what you’re saying.” She could feel the tears in her eyes. She loved him, she realized now, because he was always fighting the dark that was in him, that was part of him. He wanted so hard to be good, even though he was made for this. He was made for evil. He was the reason Lucifer had almost triumphed. If Jack had not turned at the last moment, Heaven would have been theirs so long ago.