Salacious heat set his blood to boiling. His dick twitched, but then, around Gaby, twitchy was a way of life.
But more than that, more than anything carnal, he felt Gaby’s isolation, and he hated it.
Unfortunately, he couldn’t give in to it. Not yet. Not now, with a murder to be solved.
Standing over her helped Luther keep the emotional distance he needed to think with clarity. “Tell me what happened, Gaby.”
“Fine.” She scratched at a bug bite on her shoulder. “Carver hurt one of the women.” She shrugged. “So I hurt him.”
Luther had known the facts, but still, the dispassionate, almost flippant way Gaby retold the story bothered him. He wanted to see her care. About something. About him. “Which woman? Give me a name.”
“Winnie.”
Luther searched his mind, but couldn’t dredge up a resemblance to go with the name. “You know her well?”
“No, but what does that matter?” Elbows on her knees, Gaby dropped her forehead down and crossed her wrists at the back of her skull. Voice muffled, she intoned, “No man has a right to hurt a woman.”
“I agree.” Abuse of any kind enraged him. “Unfortunately—”
“Yeah, they’re prostitutes. I know. And I accept their life choices, I really do. They let men knock them around as a routine part of their day. It’s as commonplace for them as eating is for other women.” Her hands curled into fists. “But there are always limits, and Carver took it too far. He hurt her.”
Aching to touch her, Luther whispered, “It wasn’t the first time.”
“No.” Her shoulders tightened. “But then Bliss was under his control.”
Ah. He’d realized early on that she and Bliss had an affinity, a bond of sorts.
And that meant . . . what? That Gaby had to get Carver in line? “You take responsibility for Bliss?”
“She’d lived on the streets for a long time.”
Another child society had ignored, and forgotten. Luther softened more. “Until you moved her in near you.”
“Something like that. I thought it’d be better, but with Carver still around . . . I won’t let anyone hurt her, Luther.” She made a small, choking sound, and Luther could tell it hurt her to admit, “She’s so young, and so sad, that I can’t help but care for her.”
Her distress proved more than Luther could take. Giving up, he sat down on the mucky, debris-covered concrete beside her. Being closer to Gaby, shoulders touching, helped.
A little.
“Let’s try this from another angle.” Staring at the moon-glow on her smooth skin, Luther asked, “Does Carver know for sure it was you who attacked him?”
Her shoulders twitched with a grunt. “How should I know? He’s dumber than a rock.” She lifted her face, showing Luther red eyes and total dejection. “But even if he does, so what?”
Gaby’s lip curled with disdain. “Carver can’t hurt me.” Not seriously. She was too strong, and healed too quickly.
But others . . .
Her insistence of indomitability kept Luther awake on too many nights. “If Carver was involved with the murder of that woman—”
“I’ll find out,” Gaby said as a matter of course. “I doubt if he was, but he won’t be able to lie to me.”
Gaby didn’t look at him. She picked through the gravel on the sidewalk beside her until she found a pebble that appealed to her. She rolled it between her fingers, pitched it away.
He could practically see her thoughts churning.
Finally, she looked at him, her gaze so exigent that he couldn’t look away. “I know this will be tough for you, but you’re going to have to trust me.”
He shook his head.
“Yes.”
Given her past behavior, how she’d disappeared on him without a word, she asked too much. Luther meant to remonstrate with her and instead, his voice raw, he asked, “Why the hell would I trust you when you don’t trust me?”
For long moments, their gazes clashed. “There is that.”
Damn it.
“So you need some reasons. Well, let me see.” Gaby stared at her hands as she dusted them off, then propped her elbows on her knees. “How about, because you care for me and you don’t want me hurt, and letting me do this my way is the best possible insurance you can get that I won’t be hurt.”
Seeking control, knowing it to be well out of reach, Luther closed his eyes. “Just tell me where I can find Carver.” He opened his eyes, willing her to try things his way for a change.
“Sorry, no.” Her eyes darkened with regret. “There’s no point. He won’t tell you anything. You and I both know that.”
Obstinate to the bitter end. “But you think you can make him talk?”
“If he knows anything worth telling, yeah, I can.” Her affect revealed no modesty in her ability. “For sure when I finish with him, he won’t want revenge on me. He’ll just want to stay the hell out of my way.”
Putting his head back against the rough bricks, Luther laughed. “Jesus, Gaby. You leave me no choices.”
Lacking concern for his dilemma, she said, “Yeah? Meaning what?”
Did he, and his circumstance, truly not matter to her? Could she be that indifferent to him? “If you’ll recall, I’m an officer of the law.”
“No shit. Trust me, you being a cop isn’t something I’m likely to forget.”
“Right.” She’d infused as much insult in that statement as she could. Luther glowered. “So you have to know that I can’t condone willful acts of violence.”
“Didn’t ask you to condone it.”
Throttle her or kiss her—it was a toss-up which one Luther wanted to do the most. “Now that you’ve told me, I can’t sit here twiddling my thumbs while you . . . you . . .” He trailed off, unsure how to phrase what she might have planned, when she was so capricious he couldn’t guess what she’d do.
He only knew it wouldn’t be good.
“What?” Gaby prodded, half-turning toward him, her skirt still hiked too high, her antagonism a live thing. “What did you think I was talking about doing?”
Her posture finally proved more than Luther could take. Curving his hand around her slender upper thigh, he said, “That’s just it, honey. With you, I never know.”
Gaby looked at his hand on the inside of her thigh, covered his fingers with her own, and—a shock of pain punctured her burgeoning concupiscence.
Luther felt the withdrawal, a commutation of combative-ness over sexual awareness. Gaby stiffened on a gasp of breath and her light blue eyes went first unseeing, then sharp with an insight that was strangely empyreal.
“Gaby?”
Clumsy with pain, she hurried to her feet and stared at nothingness as her chest heaved in an effort to draw in breath.
Luther tried to clasp her arms, but she brushed him off as easily as she’d shoo a fly. She took a step forward, then another.
“Damn it, Gabrielle Cody, don’t you dare—”
In the next instant, a bloodcurdling cry erupted from deep inside her, a shout of purest agony and harshest denial.
The fine hairs on Luther’s nape stood on end. He whispered, “Gaby?”
And she was off, running full out, her muscles fluid with grace and speed. Luther gave chase, shouting her
