A few guys approached Gabe, who bucked up to twice his size at their approach.
“You got some cash?” the first guy asked.
“No.”
“What, you’re too good for us?” the second guy asked.
“How about your little girly, then?” The last guy took a step toward Reyna. She sidestepped closer to Gabe.
Gabe shot them a menacing glare and then pulled back the front of his jacket. The handguns he’d secured there earlier were clearly visible. “You’re making a terrible mistake. Just keep walking.”
One guy showed off his own gun, but his friends looked warier.
“Promise I’m faster on the draw,” Gabe snarled.
“Come on, Dom.”
“Yeah, Dom,” Gabe spat. “Listen to your buddies.”
Dom offered some choice expletives before being dragged away by his friends. Reyna only took a breath when they were a block away from them. She sure hoped that they didn’t run into themagain. That encounter wouldn’t go as well.
“Fucking cocky bastards. Thinking only with their dicks,” Gabe growled relentlessly as they walked the last few blocks. “Think they’re so bad. They wouldn’t survive a night on my fucking streets.”
Reyna smiled at him. She liked seeing Gabe be all big bad tough guy. No wonder Meghan was into him.
“Well, here we are,” Gabe said.
They stared up at the dilapidated apartment building. Most of the windows were boarded up. A group of kids played with a kickball in the street, and a few elderly men played backgammon on the stoop. It didn’t seem as bad, until she spotted a drug deal happening on the corner.
“Great place,” Reyna muttered.
They approached the entrance, which had an electric gate that had long been deactivated. One of the elderly men called out to them, but they both ignored him and hurried up the steps. They checked the registry for Jodie’s cousin’s name, June Gardner. There was no one by that name, but they’d been expecting that. They buzzed the apartment number. No one answered.
Gabe shrugged and took to the stairs. They went up five flights before finding the apartment off the landing. Gabe knocked on the front door long enough for someone to finally crack it open. It was a large woman in nothing on but a bra and underwear. Her hair was in curlers, and she wore a permanent sneer.
“What?” she spat. “I don’t need nothing. Don’t need you banging on my door. Fuck off.”
Reyna jumped forward. “So sorry to bother you, ma’am. We were wondering if June Gardner lived here.”
“Don’t know no one by that name.”
“Or Jodie. Tall, Black woman, curly hair?”
“Yeah, she came by. So what?”
Reyna’s heart leaped. “When?”
“Don’t fucking know. But I sent her on her way like I’m about to send you on yours.”
“Do you know where she went?” Gabe interjected.
“Do I look like someone’s fucking keeper?” the woman said and then slammed the door in their faces.
Gabe looked like he wanted to barrel through the door. She put her hand on his arm and shook her head.
“She’s not going to be any more help. I think if she was this nice to us then she wouldn’t have been any kinder to Jodie.”
“True.”
