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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 - "
"No time," Lucan said, discarding the option. "Go to the door. Let your friends come in."
"What are you going to do?" She saw that his hand had just slipped back out of his trenchcoat, easing off the weapon concealed behind him. Panic flooded into her expression. "Do you have a gun back there? Lucan, they won't do anything to you. I'll make sure they don't say anything."
"I won't have to use the weapon on them."
"Then what will you do?" After so deliberately avoiding any physical contact with him, now she finally did touch him, her small hands clutching at his arm. "God, please tell me you won't hurt them - "
