The cop looked down at Gabriella’s hand in mine for a few seconds and then, much to my surprise, about ninety-five percent of the suspicion in his eyes evaporated. He even gave me something of a rueful smile. Held out his hand toward me.

“Detective Lindsey,” he said. “Sorry if I came off a little hostile there. We have to be careful when men turn up in situations like this.”

“Situations like this?” I asked.

My mind was whirling. Could they already know that George was dead? How?

“Abuse,” he said, giving me an odd look.

“Oh! Right. That makes more sense,” I said, buying myself a second to think.

“What did you think I meant?” He asked.

“Guys making sure their girlfriends are okay. I was really confused.”

The detective actually laughed at that. “No, no. A lot of abusers show up at the hospital to scare their victims into keeping quiet.”

“Fuckers,” I muttered.

“Not the official language we use for it,” said the detective with a thoughtful look, “but accurate. I don’t suppose you can shed any light on all of this?”

“No. I didn’t hear about it until, well, after.”

The detective sighed. “Yeah. I don’t suppose you have any idea where George Gibson is right now?”

He said it nonchalantly enough, but I could almost feel his cop antenna focusing on me. This was the real moment of truth. I had to sell it. I had to sell it hard. I also needed to keep everything as close to the truth as possible. I shook my head.

“Getting hit by a bus somewhere if the gods are kind. He didn’t like me, and the feeling was mutual. I avoided talking to him except when absolutely necessary. I have no idea where he’d go after something like,” I looked over at Gabriella and gave her hand a squeeze, “this.”

The detective made a noncommittal noise and jotted down a few notes on a pad that he’d pulled out from somewhere. I tried to imagine how an angry boyfriend would react to all of this. I couldn’t stay too calm or that would look suspicious all on its own. I fixed the detective with an angry look.

“Are you all going to do something about it this time?” I demanded. “Look at Gabriella! I heard that Elena was on death’s door and that even Mateo got hurt. Gabby kept saying that I shouldn’t do anything about it, so I didn’t. Now, look at what happened! Are you finally going to arrest that piece of shit?”

Gabriella put a restraining hand on my arm. “Jericho.”

Apparently, I struck the right note, because the detective became sympathetic. “I understand that you’re angry. You should be, but you were right not to take things into your own hands. If you had, it probably would have ended with you in jail and him still out on the street. But, yes, this time, we’re going to do something about it. We need to find him, but he’s going straight to jail when we do. This wasn’t domestic abuse. This was attempted murder. I know it’s not right, but this will get a higher priority.”

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I made myself take a couple of long, deep breaths to feign trying to reign in my frustrations and anger. “Can I at least take Gabriella and Mateo home?”

The cop looked uncomfortable. “I’m afraid not. They can go and get the necessities, but it’s still a crime scene. Gabriella’s of age, so she can go where she wants, but Mateo’s a minor.”

“They can stay with me,” I interrupted. “The last thing that poor kid needs is getting handed off to complete strangers. It’s not perfect, but it’ll be good enough until Elena is ready to go home.”

The cop thought for a couple of moments. “It’s usually preferable if they stay with family. Gabriella, do you have any other family in the area?”

“No,” she said. “It was just us. Mom said she didn’t have any other family.”

Detective Lindsey frowned for a bit before he shrugged. “You’ll need to talk with the social services people, but I don’t expect they’ll make too much of a fuss.”

“Just let us know who to talk to,” I said, letting some fatigue bleed into my voice. “Is there anything else you need from us?”

The detective shook his head. Gabriella started to lead me somewhere when the detective called out from behind us.

“Jericho.”

I stopped and turned back. “Yes?”

He pointed at us. “How did you two meet?”

It was another of those nonchalant questions that were anything but nonchalant.

“Gabby works at my grandmother’s diner.”

“Thanks,” said the cop.

I took my time turning back around, but it seemed the detective really was done with us. The cop didn’t even bother writing down my answer, which I wasn’t sure how to interpret. Either that meant he’d more or less dismissed me, or something else. I sighed to myself. Given that George was the obvious culprit of this particular crime, I expected that they’d be spending most of their time on him. They wouldn’t start worrying about other people until it became obvious that he’d well and truly vanished. As Gabriella pulled me along behind her, I gave her a considering look.

“That was pretty quick thinking,” I said.

Gabriella sighed. “I know how cops are. My boyfriend showing up to check on me makes sense to them. You getting bent out of shape was smart.”

I noticed that Gabriella hadn’t let go of my hand. I thought about saying something and then shrugged it off. “Why’s that?”

“It’s normal.”

“Heh. Been a while since anyone accused me of that. Where are we going anyway?”

“I need to check on Mateo.”

“How is he? How’s your mom?”

Gabriella’s hand clenched down so hard on my own that it hurt. “That bastard broke Mateo’s arm. Mom is, she’s in bad shape.”

“I’m sorry.”

Gabriella stopped and wiped at her eyes. “Dios. I’m so tired of crying. I don’t know where we’ll end up if we can’t go home.”

“You’ll stay at my place.”

She turned to stare at me. “What?”

“It’s pretty small, but I’m not there half the time anyway. I’ll just crash on the couch until things get sorted out with your mom,” I said.

“We couldn’t do that,” said Gabriella, her eyes suddenly very wide. “Impose like that.”

A thought struck me about what Gabriella might think I’d expect from her. “You can stay with Gran if you aren’t comfortable staying with me. It wasn’t an ultimatum.”

Gabriella looked at me for a moment with her head cocked to one side before comprehension dawned.

“No, it’s not, that is, you don’t make me uncomfortable.”

Her cheeks went scarlet. I became much more aware of the fact that she still had a death grip on my hand. Oh god, this is going to be trouble for me. I very firmly put that out of my head.

“Then, what is it?” I asked.

“We can’t take charity,” she whispered.

“Charity,” I snorted. “It’s not charity. We take care of our own.”

“But I’m nobody to you.”

“Gran hired you, which in our world means she adopted you. You’re family. Now, let’s go check on Mateo.”