L.L. Foster - The Kindred

She closed her eyes, but nodded. As if in pain, she whispered, “Yes.”

So sad, Gaby thought. So damned wounded and alone. No child should ever be put in such a situation. “Well, I trust Bliss. I don’t have many friends. Only three actually.”

“And Luther,” Bliss said.

True, but Luther counted as something very different, she just wasn’t sure what. “My point is that I only get close to really special people.”

“And I’m special?” Bliss asked, looking very pleased.

“Yeah, you are.” What did Bliss think? That Gaby got chummy with just anyone? “She wants you to have her bed. She’s not going to hold it against you. She won’t expect anything in return. And if during the middle of the night, you need her for something, even if it’s just to talk . . . ” Gaby had to stop because that damn melon in her throat felt like it was swelling. “Bliss would want you to wake her.”

“Yeah,” Bliss said. “We could do a girl talk or something until you felt better. Like, we could eat ice cream, or watch TV. Wouldn’t that be fun?”

The girls looked flummoxed by such a proposition.

Bliss sighed. “Back when I was on the streets, I used to want someone to talk to so bad. But there wasn’t anyone.”

“You cannot trust others,” Dacia said.

“True enough—when you’re on the street. But you’re here with me now, and Gaby is watching out for you, so you can always talk to us. Okay?”

Dacia took her sister’s hand again. “I will . . . try.”

Bliss reached across the table and took the girl’s hand. “We’ll get everything worked out. But until then, how about pie and ice cream for dessert?”

Dacia looked ready to faint at the offer, and Mali actually gasped.

Gaby didn’t know what she’d do with the girls, but she did know that she’d protect them with her life.

And Luther would just have to get over it.

Luther stood behind Ann at her desk, reading over her shoulder as they perused the findings from the arson squad. Because of the circumstances, the team had been great, giving them the go-ahead on their own investigation with agreement that they each keep the other apprised of findings.

So far they hadn’t found much.

A scuffle sounded in the hall, and someone crashed into a wall; nothing unusual in that. Muffled voices reached them. Someone shouted a protest, and then protested louder again.

The squad room door opened with a crash.

Luther tuned out the extraneous noise. This time of day the station always buzzed with activity.

A hooker loudly complained as she waited processing. Two young men kept trying to get to each other to finish a fight they’d started in the streets. The officer who’d brought them in bellowed for them to shut up.

Gary Webb, the mail clerk, came and went as he not only delivered mail, but coffee and the occasional sandwich or donut, too.

“Hey, Detective. Got a minute?”

While Luther continued to read, Ann looked up.

She went unnaturally still, and then brought her elbow back into Luther’s ribs. “Uh, Luther.”

“Yeah?” He lifted another paper, engrossed in the detailing of what sounded like heavy shackles found in the rubble.

“Luther,” Ann said again.

He lifted a finger, asking for her patience. Frowning, he read about an old freezer found at the house. An appliance to keep dissected body parts? Probably—but it had been empty when the fire took the place.

“Luther.”

He lowered the paper. “What?”

Ann nodded toward the door with a distinct, “Ahem.”

Luther followed the direction of her gaze, and there stood Gaby with a very flustered sergeant beside her.

Oh shit.

A hundred emotions shot through him: worry, fear, and that confounding elation Gaby always elicited, no matter what tragedies happened in their small part of the world.

She had the hood of her dark sweatshirt pulled up over her head, and she’d shoved her hands into the pockets. Slouched against the doorframe, she ignored the poor cop who tried to give her rules about barging in without a proper escort. She looked antagonistic and ready to strike out.

Beneath that concealing hood, her pale blue eyes glowed with a strange intensity.

She looked only at Luther, and explained her presence with a simple, “I need you.”

Dumbfounded, Luther looked around, but so far, there was enough noise and confusion going on that only a few seemed to notice her.

Those who saw her were definitely intrigued. Their gazes bounced from Gaby to Luther and back again.

Trying to decide the best way to handle things, Luther met her gaze—and felt her urgency.

He pushed away from the desk.

Ann caught his arm before he got far. “She looks upset.”

Not to Luther. If anything, Gaby looked ready to take the world apart. She wasn’t upset; she was furious.

But Ann didn’t understand Gaby the way he did, so she didn’t recognize the nuances of Gaby’s various moods.

“It’ll be fine.” He hoped.

Ann puzzled at that, and then said, “The conference room on the third floor is empty. I’ll make sure no one interrupts you if you want to go there to talk privately with her.”

Third-floor conference room. God help him. He nodded at Ann. “Thanks.”

Avoiding the cop’s grousing, Luther strode up to Gaby, and when she started to say something, he took her arm to shush her.

“Thank you, Sergeant.” His smile felt cold and brittle. “I’ve got this.”

“This?” Gaby bristled.

Luther kept smiling.

“God help you,” the sergeant said, and he stalked away.

Feeling all eyes on his back, Luther hustled Gaby across the hall, through a heavy door, and into the stairwell.

Starting up the steps, he said, “You’ll get the tongues wagging coming here.”

With no idea where he led her, Gaby nonetheless took the steps with him, two at a time. “What do you mean?”

“You have a way of making an entrance, Gaby.” Luther hoped that Ann would squelch most speculation, but it’d be tricky, even for her. “Everyone’s going to be curious now.”

“Too bad.” She pushed him to go faster. “I wouldn’t have come into a police station otherwise.”

He’d already realized that. “You could have called, you know.”

“Not likely. Not for this.”

Luther’s apprehension grew. “You look like you’ve wrangled a tornado. Did you know your eyes are blood-shot? And your face is flushed?”

“So fucking what?” She jerked her arm free on the third-floor landing. “Where are we going?”

“Someplace private.”

“Good.” Silent now, she fumed beside him until he stopped before a door.

Luther got her into the room, shut the door, and asked without preamble, “Did you kill anyone?”

“No!”

Hands on his hips, he studied her. “Cripple? Maim?”

“No and no, damn it. That’s not why I’m here.”

She started to pace away from him, and he brought her right back. “I’m not following.”

Grabbing the front of his shirt, Gaby shoved him back into the door and went on tiptoes. “I wanted to do all of that—maim, cripple, even slay—but you asked me not to. You asked me to keep it together. And besides, it might have complicated Dacia’s life if I had started ripping people apart. So I didn’t.”

“Whoa.” She was so enraged that she wasn’t making sense. “Start over. Who’s Dacia?”

Gaby pressed into him. “Later. The point is, I brutally stomped down my natural inclination, and . . . I can’t stand it, Luther.”

Luther smoothed back her silky, tangled hair. “You’re holding it all in?”

“Yes, and I’m ready to implode . You have to do something.”