The computer beeped to indicate the memory stick was full. Gabrielle turned back to continue with the next copying function, and she stayed there, giving him her back. Lucan put his hands down gently on her shoulders and brought the swivel chair back around.
"What was your mother charged with?"
For a long moment, Gabrielle didn't say anything. Lucan saw her throat working. There was a great deal of hurt in her soft brown eyes. "She was charged with abandoning her child."
"How old were you?"
She shrugged, shook her head. "Young. An infant. She stuffed me in a trash bin outside an apartment building. It was only about a block from where the police picked her up. Fortunately for me, one of the cops decided to check the surrounding area. He heard my crying, I guess, and took me out of there."
Holy Christ.
A jolt of recollection flashed hard in Lucan's mind as she spoke. He saw a dark street, wet pavement gleaming in the moonlight, a wide-eyed female standing in transfixed horror as a Rogue vampire sucked at her throat. He heard the shrill wailing of the tiny baby nestled in the young mother's arms.
"When did this happen?"
"A long time ago. Twenty-seven years ago this summer, to be exact."
To one of Lucan's age, twenty-seven years ago was a blink of time. He clearly remembered interrupting the attack at the bus station. Recalled stepping between the Rogue and its prey, sending the terrified female off with a stern mental command. She'd been bleeding profusely, some of it raining down on her baby.
After he'd killed the Rogue and cleared the scene, he had gone to look for the woman and her child. He hadn't found them. He'd often wondered what had happened to the both of them, and cursed himself for not having been able to at least remove the horrific memories of the assault from the victim's mind.
"She committed suicide in the mental facility not long afterward," Gabrielle said. "I was already a ward of the state."
He couldn't stop himself from touching her. Gently sweeping aside her long hair, he cupped the delicate line of her jaw, stroked the proud lift of her chin. Her eyes were moist, but she didn't crack. She was a tough one, all right. Tough and beautiful and so incredibly special.
In that moment, he wanted nothing more than to pull her into his arms and tell her as much.
"I'm sorry," he said, meaning it with utmost sincerity. And regret, something he wasn't used to feeling. But, then, since he'd first laid eyes on her, Gabrielle made him feel a lot of things that were entirely new to him. "I'm sorry for both of you."
The computer beeped again.
"That's all of them," she said, reaching up as if she might stroke his hand, but couldn't quite bring herself to touch him yet.
He let her back out of his caress and felt a sharp pang of remorse for the way she silently turned away.
Shutting him out like the new stranger he was.
He watched her remove the last memory stick and place it with the other. When she began to close the application, Lucan said, "Not yet. I need you to delete the image files from the computer and from any backups you might have. The copies we take out of here have to be the only ones remaining."
"What about print copies? The ones on the table there, the ones I have downstairs in my darkroom?"
"You wrap up here. I'll get the prints."
"Okay."
She got right to work, and Lucan made a quick sweep of the rest of the apartment. He gathered all the loose snapshots and took down her framed images as well, wanting to leave nothing behind that could be of use to the Rogues. He found a large duffel bag in Gabrielle's bedroom closet and brought it downstairs to load it up.
As he finished packing and zipping the bag closed, he heard the low rumble of a muscle car coming to a stop outside the townhouse. Two doors opened, then slammed shut, followed by urgent footsteps coming toward the apartment.
"Someone's here," Gabrielle said, sending him a stark look as she shut down her computer.
Lucan's hand was already inside his trenchcoat and snaked around to the base of his spine, where a custom Beretta 9mm was tucked into the back waistband of his pants. The gun was loaded with maximum blast, Rogue-smoking, titanium rounds - one of Niko's latest innovations. If a Rogue stood outside that door, the Bloodlusting son of a bitch was about to get a belly full of hurt.
But it wasn't Rogues, he realized at once. Not even Minions, which also would have given Lucan a bit of satisfaction in blowing away.
There were humans on the front stoop. A man and a woman.
"Gabrielle?" The doorbell rang several times in rapid succession. "Hello? Gabby! Are you in there?"
"Oh, no. It's my friend Megan."
"The one you went to last night?"
"Yes. She's been calling here most of the day, leaving messages. She's worried about me."
"What did you tell her?"
"She knows about the assault in the park. I told her how I was attacked, but I didn't tell her anything about you... what you did."
"Why not?"
Gabrielle shrugged. "I didn't want her involved. I don't want her to be put in any danger because of me. Because of all this." She sighed, shaking her head. "Maybe I didn't want to say anything about you until I had some answers for myself."
The doorbell rang again. "Gabby, open up! Ray and I need to talk to you. We need to know that you're okay."
"Her boyfriend's a cop," Gabrielle said softly. "They want me to file a report about what happened last night."
"Is there a back way out of here?"
She nodded, then seemed to change her mind and shook her head. "The slider opens onto a shared backyard, but there's a tall fence - "