“That’s not an answer, Miss McQueen.”
“No, Detective. Gabriel broke up with me on a note stuck to my fridge. I woke up one night to find all of his stuff moved out of our apartment, and I can’t say I had much interest in talking to him again after that.”
“So if you and the suspect aren’t close, why would he call you?” Hearing Gabriel called a suspect rankled me a bit. I may not have the warm fuzzies for the guy, but he was my first love. Even if he was an asshole, that still meant something to me.
“You know what I do for a living.”
“Yes.”
“Who would you rather call if you got arrested? Your mom, or someone who might actually be able to help you?” I didn’t mention that Gabriel’s mom had run off with a carnie when Gabriel was seven, and he’d been raised by his ultraconservative grandmother. I wondered if Ellen was still alive.
“That doesn’t answer the question.”
“How the hell should I know why he called me, Tyler?” I shrugged. “I haven’t talked to the guy in years.”
“Do you want to talk to him now?”
My back stiffened, and I focused on the wall behind his desk. There was a corkboard with a map of the area around the precinct and several arrest reports pinned next to it, along with mug shots of some of NYC’s most wanted. I couldn’t picture Gabriel’s face as a mug shot.
“Not really,” I admitted. “But I came anyway, didn’t I?”
Tyler’s expression softened. He might have his problems trusting me, but I think deep down he still liked me. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s go.”
The holding cells were all located in the basement, and Tyler led me down a long, dimly lit gray hall. Most of the cells were empty, a few had grim-looking drunks waiting to be bailed out, but a beige door at the end of the hall led to a different annex. When he unlocked the door, there was a desk inside with an officer seated at it watching a closed-circuit monitor of the four cells beyond. A door behind him marked Restricted Access Only had a little picture of stairs under it. Guess it was a more direct route for the cops upstairs to get to the serious offenders. I’d been taken on the scenic public-access tour.
The desk officer had a clipboard and a pen in front of him. “Sign in and check your weapons,” the officer instructed, like Tyler was too stupid to know the rules.
Tyler signed the sheet and left his gun with the officer. I played innocent and was about to follow him to the door when the officer coughed loudly and tapped the clipboard.
“Sign in and check your weapons,” he repeated.
Well, it had been worth a shot. I signed my name on the next empty line, then unzipped my boot and placed a sheathed dagger on the desk. I took off my jacket and put my SIG next to the blade. The officer eyed me suspiciously.
“I’m licensed,” I told him, daring him with my eyes to doubt me.
He put my weapons in the top drawer of his desk along with Tyler’s and buzzed us in.
“Nice collection,” Tyler said as we passed through the door.
“A girl can never be too safe.”
“Something tells me that’s not really an issue for you.”
We stood in a short hallway with two cells on either side. The one closest to us on the right held a man who was fast asleep on his cot, snoring lightly. The one on the near left was empty, but I caught a familiar smell from the cell next to that, and I knew where Gabriel was. It wasn’t like sensing Desmond or Lucas, but the scent of Lacoste Essential and Tide blended with his personal pheromones was distinctly Gabriel.
I moved ahead of Tyler, and the detective didn’t stop me.
Gabriel was sitting on his cot with his fingers threaded through his dark blond hair. His stubble was coming in, and his clothes were rumpled. He’d obviously been here through the day. When I stopped outside his cell I said nothing, but he must have heard us coming because he looked up. There were dark circles under his eyes, and he appeared older than he had the last time I’d seen him. Unfortunately, the moment he smiled his hazel eyes lit up exactly the way I remembered.
My heart skipped, and I wanted to rip it out and throw it against a wall. He’d destroyed me, broken my heart into a thousand pieces, and still I was excited to see him. It was all the proof I needed to know you could never be objective when it came to people you’d once loved.
“You came.” He got to his feet and stepped up to the metal bars, looping his fingers around them. Instinctively I took a step backwards. Not because I was afraid of him, but I couldn’t handle the thought of him touching me.
“Yeah, well. I wanted to see what you looked like behind bars. It suits you.”
He grimaced. “I deserved that.”
“No, Gabriel. What you deserve would be for me to have left you here to rot. Pretend I’d never gotten your message. Or better yet, called back and have them deliver my own message. A big old fuck you from yours truly.”