Her features were now sharper, distorting the way he’d seen before, but amplified beyond anything familiar. This, he realized, was Gaby in the zone. She’d warned him against seeing her like this, tried to prepare him, but the surreal qualities gripping her had no explanation other than supernatural.
Or pietistic.
Vibrating with repressed strength and dynamic force, she paid no attention to the scenery or the direction he took. Perched at the edge of her seat, one of her small hands gripped the dash and the other squeezed the side of her seat, near her hip.
Her pale lips barely moved when she intoned, “Left.”
Luther had to cut across traffic to make the turn, but he didn’t argue with her. Warring with the need to show his trust, to give her reason to trust in return, was the image of her bare body, there for him.
Never had he wanted anything or anyone as much as he wanted, needed, Gabrielle Cody. And that in itself felt influenced by a higher power. From the first day he’d met her, he’d felt a draw to Gaby unlike anything an experienced, educated adult would recognize.
As a man of faith, Luther gave himself over to the desire, to Gaby.
But as a man of law, a man who enjoyed controlling his own fate, he prayed for guidance and understanding. In his guts, he knew he belonged with Gaby. But his mind balked at the idea of playing a role in her self-devised fight against evil.
He’d chosen a balancing act—one that left him on the precarious edge of disaster.
When they reached their destination, how would he stop Gaby from issuing her own form of punishment? He’d seen her secure her knife at her back; she never went anywhere without the deadly blade.
He knew what she could do with that knife, what she’d likely done in the past.
The rapid turn of his car, the squealing tires and angry horns from other drivers made no impact on Gaby’s expressionless void. Knowing he had to get a grip, had to formulate a plan, Luther drew a breath to steady himself against her unearthly mien.
They’d traveled out of his neighborhood and into another. Occasionally Gaby twitched or jerked, then stilled herself with obvious pain, accepting it all as any martyr would.
Already they’d gone quite a distance, surprising Luther and piquing his curiosity. He glanced at her finely drawn profile. Her damp hair hung loose, a few tendrils sticking to her cheek. “Would you have come here on foot?”
She didn’t answer, didn’t even acknowledge his presence.
Her pallor worried him, but not so much as her fast, panting breaths and the racing pulse he noticed in her slender throat. Every muscle in her thin body twitched with fervent edginess. He’d seen that body naked now, knew the frailty of it, the feminine curves and hollows.
More than anything, more than he feared the consequences of what she intended to do, Luther wanted to haul her close and protect her, soothe her however he could.
But accepting Gaby meant taking part in her dysfunctions, trusting her aberrant province and inverted moral code, being there for her wherever her mind or body ventured.
A juggling act, for certain, but somehow he’d make it happen.
The early hour of the day and the inclement weather accounted for the hush in the neighborhoods they traveled through. They drove along a street of houses converted to small privately owned businesses. Two black men stood in quiet conversation at a bus stop. A gray-haired white woman pushed a rickety cart out of a mom-and-pop grocery. A dog jumped against a fence, barking as crows dined on indistinguishable roadkill.
The damp day began to sputter from the dark clouds hanging above. The humidity thickened, and the temperature dropped.
Gaby turned to stare out the window as they passed a dress shop, a pony keg, a bar—
“Turn.”
Scouring the crowded street, Luther finally noticed the narrow alley barely visible between two parked cars occupying the curb. It ran alongside a ramshackle brick dry cleaner. Over the front door a faded wooden sign offered alterations and fast service. Prices were hand-painted in the dingy picture window.
Having only one option, he turned right into the alley.
Gaby opened her car door with the car still moving. Luther slammed on his brakes but not before she leaped out, landing on her feet like a cat. Her abrupt departure left him no choice but to park with haste and little discretion. He blocked the alley, but that was too damn bad.
Already Gaby had strode straight to the warped, unsecured back door of the establishment. Rain dripped off the leaf-clogged gutters. An overturned garbage can sent soggy refuse fleeing with the wind. Drying weeds punctured the ground of the small yard.
Luther watched Gaby’s hands fist, open, fist again. As she stood poised over something to the side of the stoop, she didn’t reach for her knife. Expression rigid, she stepped over a rumpled heap, opened the door, and went inside while scanning the area.
Trailing a few feet behind her, Luther rushed forward and almost fell over a . . . body.
A body that Gaby had barely registered.
He took in the dead eyes, the white, shriveled flesh and the signs of dissipation. Rivulets of mud trailed along a sunken cheek to drip into a gaping mouth. Death had contorted the features in gruesome display.
Judging by the skin abscesses and fresher track marks on the exposed upper arms, the dead woman had been a druggie. Probably not the owner, but then who?
“Fuck.” Drawing out his gun, Luther dogged Gaby’s heels and found her standing in the front of a crowded dry cleaner lobby with a half dozen people looking at her with rank fear.
Not that she cared about her audience. She gave them no more attention than she’d given the dead body. With keen perception, she cut her gaze over everything, the exits, the windows, the people inside.
No better ideas came to mind, so Luther stowed the gun and withdrew his badge. “Detective Luther Cross. I need all of you to stay put.” He put one hand on Gaby—not that he had any delusion of restraining her if she decided to bolt—and with the other he withdrew his radio to call for backup.
With that done, he told the woman who appeared to be in charge, “Come out from behind the counter and take a seat. All of you, get comfortable. No one’s leaving, and this might take a while.”
A dozen questions erupted from the now hostile and confused customers.
Forgoing any further explanations, Luther drew Gaby aside and turned her to face him. Color had leached back into her face, but he wasn’t reassured. “Talk to me.”
“We missed him.” Her eyes narrowed. “You slowed me down.”
How the hell could he have slowed her down when he was the one who’d supplied the transportation? “You think you’d have gotten here quicker on foot?”
“Yes.”
For now, Luther stowed his disbelief to leave room for more questions. “He who?”
Since knowing Gaby, he’d learned one thing with absolute certainty: trusting her instincts could very well mean the difference between catching a killer and letting a psychopath go free.
She shoved away his hand with disgust. “The guy who sucked that body dry and then dumped it out there. Who else?”
“Sucked dry?” The anxious customers mirrored his incredulity. Their murmurs, this time tinged with panic, filled the air. Luther concentrated on blocking them from his mind. “You want to explain that?”
“Yeah, Luther. Your new guy is a vintage bloodsucker, kicking it new school.” Her blue eyes narrowed and she turned with a purpose, heading back to the corpse.
“Gaby, wait.”
Of course she ignored him.
“Shit.” A patrol car chose that auspicious moment to pull up out front, lights flashing, sirens screaming. Luther jerked the door open. “There’s a dead body around back. I need you to keep everyone inside here until I’ve had a chance to talk to them. Got it?”
One startled patrolman nodded and headed inside while another started around back, gun drawn.