Drawers opened. Closed. The scrape of furniture being moved.
"Nothing here."
"Keep looking."
Gabe's free hand shifted instinctively toward his Glock at the small of his back. He could draw it. Two seconds, maybe three with Cara in the way. But then what? Shoot his way through two unknowns in a confined space with a civilian pressed against him?
Bad situation. Worse odds.
He kept his hand away from the weapon. For now.
Cara's breath came shallow and fast against his palm. Her fingers had found his wrist, gripping hard. Not fighting. Just anchoring herself.
She knew how to handle high-stress situations. Knew when to freeze, when to fight, when to wait.
His jaw tightened. Whoever these men were, they weren't cops. They were searching for evidence the same way he'd planned to.
Either they worked for whoever killed Ruiz, or they were the ones who'd done it.
A shadow fell across the gap beneath the closet door.
Cara went absolutely still.
Gabe's hand moved back toward his weapon. If that door opened, he had a quarter of a second. He had no provocation to shoot. Brute force was his only play. Slam his palm into the first guy’s solar plexus, then pivot to the second before?—
The doorknob started to turn.
Car doors slammed outside. Loud voices. Laughter. The kind of drunken shouting that said someone's night was just getting started.
"Where'd you put the beer?"
"In the car, genius. Where else?"
"Turn that music up!"
A woman's voice cut through the chaos from somewhere nearby. "Keep it down! People are trying to sleep!"
The shadow at the closet door retreated.
"Not worth it." The smoker's voice was tight with frustration. "Too many eyes. We'll come back."
Footsteps moved toward the door. It opened. Closed. The lock clicked from the outside.
Silence.
Gabe counted to thirty before slowly removing his hand from Cara's mouth.
She shoved him. Hard. Burst out of the closet and rounded on him, her eyes blazing in the dim light filtering through the curtains.
"Don't ever grab me like that." Her whisper was harsh. Shaking with barely contained fury.
Gabe stepped out of the closet, his own anger surging. "You would've screamed. They would have killed you."
"I didn't ask you to help me."
He moved closer, voice low and sharp. "What are you doing here? How did you even know about this place?"
"I could ask you the same thing."
