L.L. Foster - The Awakening

"They took some tests, yeah."

Eyes dark with worry, she caught her lush bottom lip in sharp white teeth. Her voice lowered in commiseration. "Does it hurt?"

His voice lowered, too—from awareness. "Yeah, like a son of a bitch." Ignoring Mort's fascinated presence, Luther added, "Wanna kiss it and make it better?"

Just that easily, Gaby shook off her tenderness. "Hell no. But Mort might." She turned to her landlord. "What about it, Mort? You feel like puckering up?"

"Uh… No. That's okay."

"Worried about diseases, huh? Not that I blame you. He's mean enough to be rabid."

Luther chuckled—and paid for it with a lightning shaft of pain.

Gaby lifted off the bed. "We should go and let you rest."

"Wait." This time he went ahead and took her hand and if she didn't like it, tough shit. That's when he noticed the bandage around her arm. More suspicions crowded in, adding to the strain in his cranium. "What happened to you?"

"A broken pipe bit me. But don't worry about that now."

"What broken pipe?"

Expression aggrieved, she said, "How about I share the whole sordid story with you when you're up and about?"

"I'll be up as soon as the docs get back in here."

"Tomorrow then."

It'd be an excuse to see her. "You promise?"

Her head tilted; mystifying emotion shone in her light blue eyes. "Yeah, cop. I promise."

Luther couldn't put a name on it, but he felt that something monumental had just occurred between them. Gaby had committed to him somehow. She'd decided to trust him in some indefinable way.

He felt like a newly appointed king. Like a triumphant warrior. He had to tamp down those bizarre emotions to deal with her here and now. "You said the streets talk."

"Chatter, chatter, chatter. It's nonstop."

He looked from Gaby to Mort and back again. "So what did you hear?"

Hedging, Mort shifted from foot to foot. "Um…"

Gaby's manner became impassive. "Give us a minute, Mort, okay?"

"Sure." With grateful haste, Mort darted back around the curtain.

Putting a hand on either side of his pillow, Gaby leaned down and loomed over him. She looked deadly serious, and so sweet that Luther wished he were up to snuff so he could haul her down and kiss her.

He waited.

She looked at his injury, at his mouth, and then finally into his eyes. "Just between us, okay?"

Now that piqued his interest. "Okay."

"Your word, Luther?"

God, he loved it when she broke down and said his name. He couldn't define what it was about her, but each concession felt like a precious gift.

Giving his word before he knew the details was risky, but curiosity got the better of him. "All right, Gaby. You have it."

"I think you were attacked by another of those cancerous things. Like the thing you were first investigating."

Thing ? "You mean the filleted man from the other side of town?"

"Yeah." She nodded. "The cops didn't find anyone there with you?"

"No. They say I was alone."

"But you didn't hit yourself in the head."

"No."

She considered that. "There was blood around the area, right?"

"My own, yes. And there were scraps from the butcher that a stray dog had gotten into. Besides that, I don't know. Blood darkens pretty quickly." Luther watched her scowl and wondered why she didn't have frown wrinkles, given all the stewing she did.

"I guess if the cops found you alone, they figured you were just mugged or something, right? No reason to go over the area in detail, checking for forensics."

"That's the assumption. Except nothing was taken off me. Not my wallet, my gun, my radio."

"Right." As she pieced things together, her mouth pinched in displeasure at what she obviously considered a sign of ignorance. "So the next assumption is that backup came too quickly and the crime was thwarted."

Fascinating. "Something like that."

Her gaze locked on his. "The lock was broken on a window in Mort's basement. It faces the back alley. I found it wide open. That's probably how someone got in to hang that carcass, and again to dump the blood."

"I see." He hadn't even thought about windows in the basement. What the hell kind of detective was he?

The kind thrown off-kilter by Gabrielle Cody, apparently.

"It's also how someone likely knew you'd be near the butcher's. They could have overheard us talking."

She looked as simply dressed as ever in her loose dark T-shirt and worn jeans. But this close, Luther could see the blue striations in her irises and the way her long lashes left feathery shadows on her smooth cheeks. "Let me guess. You don't want me to investigate the break-in?"

"It'd be safer for Mort if you stop coming around his place so often."

As Luther studied her, he noted something in her expression, something close to honesty that proved she did worry for Mort. But something more, too, something vague and mysterious. "If I don't come around, how will I get in touch with you?"

The blue of her eyes darkened to midnight. "Why would you want to?"

Luther said nothing.

She already knew why.

Ill grace accompanied her surrender. "All right, fine. Be a jerk. You can come one more time, and we'll figure out how to stay in touch. But after that, you'll have to stay away. You got me?"

Instead of agreeing, he asked a question of his own. "Who do you think attacked me, Gaby?"

"I don't know."

Liar . "Take a guess."

"All right." She leaned closer and her cool hair, even cut so short, brushed against his forehead in a teasing caress. "When I first met you, you said there weren't any bogeymen."

"I remember."

Shocking Luther, her mouth touched his forehead, so gentle, barely there.

A kiss of healing.

To make it better.

She sat up and away. "The bogeymen gotcha, Luther." She stood, and nodded at his head. "You've got the proof on your noggin. It's time to admit you're wrong. That's the only way you'll ever be able to defeat them."

She started out of the room.

"Gaby?"

Pausing, she said, "Yeah?"

"If you had to start looking for the bogeymen in one place, where would you start?"

Keeping her back to him, her shoulders straight and proud, she said, "Where I'd start is my business, cop." Over her shoulder, her blue-eyed gaze struck with laser accuracy. "But you should start in the hospital."

"This hospital?"

"Yeah." Her gaze never faltered. "Try the cancer ward and go from there."

Letting that go for now, he asked, "If bogeymen got me, then why aren't I dead?"

"That's an easy one, cop. Someone saved you."

With that niggling memory of Gaby's voice at the scene, Luther pushed up to one elbow. " You ? "

Pain marred her features before her countenance turned sardonic. "Yeah, right. That knock on the head really rattled what little brains you had, didn't it?"

Luther would not let her throw him off with insults. "I was the only one there when backup arrived." He watched her closely. "Where did the bogeymen go?"

Wearing no expression at all, she shrugged. "Where they all go, Luther." She turned away, and he barely heard her whisper, "Straight to hell."

Before he could call her back, she was gone.

Luther shoved the sheet aside. The pain in his head mushroomed, but he couldn't stay idle in the bed while Gaby stuck her stubborn little nose into dangerous police business.

If he didn't find the bogeymen, she would. He knew it down deep in the pit of his soul.

Five minutes later, when the doc walked in, Luther was dressed and anxious to be on his way. The attending physician tried to insist he couldn't drive and shouldn't be alone. Luther didn't need to do either one. He had another officer who could pick him up, but in the meantime, trolling the halls of the hospital would keep him in plain view of plenty of people.