“You have to hit Bourbon with the expectation that you can see pretty much anything at any given moment.” Gabriel gestured to the street to the right. “This is our turn.”
Sara glanced over and lost all her good humor. The street looked pitch black and empty, the few storefronts on it closed up and locked for the night. “This doesn’t look safe.”
“It’s fine. I walk here all the time.”
It went against every dictate of common sense to stroll down what amounted to a wide alley at one-thirty in the morning. “I don’t think this is a good idea.”
“There’s no other way to get home,” Gabriel told her. “We have to walk down one of these streets, and it makes sense to walk down the street we actually need to be on. We stayed on Bourbon as long as we could.” He gave her a reassuring smile and started down the sidewalk, shadows covering him. “Come on. It’s just a block and a half. We’ll be there in three minutes.”
Sara rushed after him, not because she was convinced they weren’t going to die, but because she sure in the hell didn’t want to be left alone.
“Nothing has ever happened to me,” he added.
As far as she was concerned, that meant he was statistically due to get attacked. But she wasn’t sure how much of her concern was based on good, solid common sense, and how much on the fear she grappled with from her mother’s murder. Maybe it was both, but the end result was she had clammy skin and a sick churning in the pit of her stomach. Shoving her hands in the pockets of her denim skirt, Sara glanced back and forth, back and forth. Checking every doorway, every dark nook and cranny, and ensuring she was close enough to Gabriel to grab him for assistance if necessary. His shirt was in touching distance in front of her, and she found that immensely reassuring.
Especially when she heard a shuffling sound to her right. Reaching out, she wrapped her fingers around Gabriel’s forearm to halt his progress and whispered, “Did you hear that?”
“What?” He stopped walking and glanced back at her, looking only mildly curious. Not at all concerned.
Sara’s fear was so solid and palpable she could have served it on a platter and eaten it. And she could hear the sound again.
“To the right. I hear a shuffling. Someone’s in that doorway two feet in front of you.” She was trying to pull him backward, but Gabriel was resisting. He was actually trying to move forward to see where the noise was generating from.
Which was ridiculous. Suicidal. There was probably some guy with a gun just waiting to rob and murder them. The logical thing to do was to turn tail and run. They could hail a cab on Bourbon Street to take them back to Gabriel’s.
Obviously Gabriel had a different plan. His involved pulling away from her and just strolling straight up to the doorway. What kind of stupid idea was that? Sara opened her mouth to scream, just in case she was going to need to alert the masses that they needed help, as he peered around the storefront window.
She held her breath as his head tipped downward and his shoulders relaxed. “It’s just a cat, Sara.”
Oh, shit, thank God. Sara grabbed her chest and expelled a huge burst of breath. “Are you sure?” she asked.
“Sure that it’s a cat? Uh, yeah.” He sounded amused as he went down on his haunches and held his fingers out.
Okay, so that was a stupid question. Sara forced herself to move forward and see for herself that this was absolutely nothing to worry about. It was a cat, just as Gabriel had claimed. It was a kitten really, a small gray ball of fur, thin and scrawny and blinking up at them with brilliant green eyes.
It gave a small, pitiful meow as it locked gazes with her, and Sara forgot her fear. “Oh, look how sweet.” She squatted down beside Gabriel to get a better look. The kitten was emaciated, its fur dirty and matted. “Oh, my gosh, this poor thing.”
When the cat refused to sniff his fingers, Gabriel pulled his hand back. “It’s obviously a stray. No collar. Probably just a few months old, and from the looks of her ribs, she’s been on the street awhile.”
Sara reached out and stroked the top of the kitten’s head. The cat didn’t balk at the touch, and actually tilted her head and rubbed against Sara’s wrist. “I’m going to take her. I can’t leave her here like this.” The doorway was filthy, covered with cigarette butts and blobs of old chewing gum. Reaching forward, she scooped up the kitten, who didn’t squirm or try to slip away at all.
Sara expected Gabriel to protest, to make a comment about the cat’s lack of cleanliness, possible state of disease, or question where she was going to keep a cat, but Gabriel didn’t say anything. He just put his hand on the small of her back, urging her to continue walking down the street.
“She weighs nothing at all,” Sara commented as she snuggled the kitten closer in her arms, not wanting the cat to make a leap for freedom. Not that the kitten seemed inclined to go anywhere. She was collapsed against Sara’s chest and purring loud enough to be heard.
“We can feed her at my place.” Gabriel moved his hand from Sara’s back to her elbow, pausing her so he could glance past the parked cars and make sure no cars were driving down Royal Street before they crossed it.
It was a nice protective gesture, one Sara liked. One that surprised her, frankly. Gabriel seemed so internal, so focused on his own thoughts, that she wasn’t expecting that level of solicitude. But then again, he had been that way all night. Maybe when he turned off work, when he focused on the world around him, she saw his true character. It was strange that she thought of him as an introvert, even though he talked to her, sometimes quite a bit, like he had at dinner. Yet it always seemed like there was a barrier between him and everything around him, a distance. A reserve.
She didn’t feel that as he pushed open his courtyard gate. She just felt safe and protected in the dark and gloom of the poorly lit street, and she was grateful when he shut the gate behind her and clicked the lock shut. The dark, the looming buildings, the corners and shadows, had terrified her. Gabriel didn’t, even though she knew she had no concrete reason to trust him.
After all, maybe his preoccupation with murder was to quiet his own murderous intentions. Maybe he enjoyed writing true crime books the same way Ted Bundy had gotten a sick thrill from working at a crisis hotline center. He could be a killer. Anyone could. Yet, with nothing more to go on than her gut instinct and the look of sorrow, of longing, in Gabriel’s eyes, she didn’t believe that he was capable of violence. He was as damaged as she was, and it drew her to him.