Claim the Night

Easy. “Chloe will take you to the police. File a complaint against him for sexual assault. They’ll run him down.”

“But I don’t have any proof he did anything. And if I go to the police …” Again she stopped, as if unwilling to say more. “I don’t want to make him madder,” she said finally.

“More likely he’ll cool down and decide he made a big mistake. Maybe he just had too much to drink.”

The woman shook her head, biting her lip harder.

Jude smothered a sigh. “What aren’t you telling me?”

The woman hesitated, then the words came out of her in a rush. “I kicked him in the groin. And he got so mad he started to swing at me and that’s when I stabbed him.”

“Stabbed him?” Had Jude been mortal he was sure that by this point he’d be looking for a double whiskey and a chair.

“With a pen,” she said quickly. “It’s not like I had a knife or anything.”

Jude decided on the chair after all. And maybe a whiskey later, though it would have little effect on him. He sat.

“How badly did you stab him?”

“Not too badly. I got him in the shoulder and I’m pretty sure the pen couldn’t have gone in more than two inches, max. I’m fairly certain I didn’t hit anything but muscle. Then I got out of the car and started running, and he chased me for maybe half a block screaming he was going to kill me.”

“Oh.” He wondered how he had missed that part of the night’s activity. Probably too focused on what he was there to do, or maybe he’d arrived shortly after this altercation. Either way … So the guy had threatened to kill her. Even on his most sanguine day he couldn’t dismiss such a threat out of hand.

He looked at Chloe, then looked at the woman. “What’s your name?”

“Terri. Theresa Black.”

“Okay, Theresa Black, are you absolutely certain you’re telling me the truth?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“Because there could have been other reasons to stab this guy.”

He smelled the indignation as much as he saw it. All right, she was telling the truth. She’d defended herself from an attacker.

Chloe spoke. “You don’t have time.”

“You’re always worried about my time,” he grumped at her.

“Maybe because I don’t want to look for another job? You don’t have time tonight. There’s Garner. And other things.”

Like he needed her to remind him.

“Don’t have time for what?” Theresa asked.

“Never mind,” he answered shortly. His inner clock was starting to tick more loudly, warning of dawn’s approach. He glanced at the clock on Chloe’s desk and saw he had less than two hours. Not enough to hunt down a man he knew nothing about.

He looked at Chloe. “I want all the information on the guy who attacked her. Every detail. Right away.”

“Yes, boss.”

“Then you and I are taking her to the cops.”

“Maybe Garner could …”

He interrupted her with a look. “Garner? You’ve got to be kidding.”

“Well, it was a thought. He’s got to learn sometime.”

“Not today. Garner can turn the smallest task into an earth-shattering catastrophe. I don’t have time to clean up after him. No Garner.”

“I don’t want to go to the cops,” Theresa said firmly. “That’ll just make things worse with Sam. And if they keep me too long, I’ll be late to work. I can’t afford that.”

“Call in sick.” Jude had had enough. Another minute in the same room with this woman and he might revert. He rose. “If you don’t go to the police, if you go home or go to work instead, then I take no responsibility for anything that happens to you.”

Turning, he walked into his office. Before he closed the door he heard Theresa say, “Is he always so harsh?”

“Only when his night gets messed up.”

Then he closed the door, leaving the problem of Theresa in the capable hands of Chloe, so he could face the much less capable hands of Garner.

Garner lounged in the client chair facing Jude’s desk, one leg thrown over the arm. The instant Jude entered, however, he straightened up, putting both feet on the floor.

Jude said nothing as he rounded the desk and took his own seat. Only then did he speak. “What the hell are you doing here, Garner?”

The younger man shrugged. “I smelled the, ah, target.”

“And?”

“I smelled that same odor somewhere else, earlier today. On someone else.”

At that Jude straightened a bit. “Victim?”

Garner shook his head. He might still be new at all this, but he was sure of his innate instincts. “The oppression involves more than the one guy you found.”

“Hell.”

Garner leaned forward, a little too eagerly. “Look, I know you think I’m too untrained to help at all. I still haven’t figured out how you think I’m going to get trained if you keep me out of all the action. But even you know how good my gift is. And I’m telling you, this is no minor infestation. I bet if I keep moving around town, I’ll find others.”

It was possible, entirely too possible. Such things had happened before, and when they did they invariably signaled a huge problem right around the corner.

“We need to stop it before there are five of them,” Garner said. As if Jude didn’t already know. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a scrap of paper. “I followed the guy home. We can find him here.”

Jude caved, just a little. Reaching into his desk he pulled out a container of pushpins. “Put it on the map.” The map of the city that was tacked to one wall. The red pin already there indicated the target he’d been after tonight.

Garner seemed pleased to be allowed to do even this much. Jude, remembering other times when Garner’s attempts to help had proved more problematic than anything, wondered once again what he was going to do with this young man before the kid got himself into serious trouble. The dead kind of trouble.

Garner marked the spot with a blue pin and returned to his seat. “I can help,” he said again.