“Not yet,” he acknowledged. “Which is why we have to work down here. The captain doesn’t buy the story, either, and she’s under orders to not be cooperative.”

“Why is she taking the chance of getting caught?” The idea of such a sacrifice seemed alien to Erin. “What changed?”

Gabriel’s sly grin, which she was fast learning to distrust, cut through the badly lit space. “You have to know how to sell a story, darling,” he drawled. “And I do.”

Erin snapped the folder shut and moved on to the next cabinet.

Swigging from the can of Coke resting atop the black steel, Gabriel studied Erin. She worked hard. In seconds, she skimmed reports and moved ahead. He might have suspected she wasn’t really reading, but for the tiny wrinkle that appeared on the smooth forehead when something struck her as odd. Then the quick, lustrous eyes would narrow in concentration.

While he watched, she propped a negligent hip on the conference table, which dominated the center of the cramped, airless room. Black pants bagged at the waist and revealed a strip of creamy skin. Angling for better light, she flipped through the pages of the police report, and the black cotton top rode higher as the waistband dipped lower. The slow striptease of inches of flesh mesmerized Gabriel like he was a randy kid. Passion flared in silver heat, so blistering it would have shocked Erin had she turned.

When she absently yanked the shirt down, he grasped slickly at control and forced his attention to the report in his hands. Hands that were not quite steady. Desire hummed over his skin, punched his gut, scrambled his brain whenever he was within arm’s length of her.

Not since his return to New Orleans had a woman called to him, blood to blood.

“Oh, no.” Erin dropped the blue-tabbed file to the table between them and buried her face in her hands.

Gabriel picked up the file. “Officer Rose Young.”

“She audited one of my classes. When she dropped out, I assumed she didn’t have time to attend.” Remorse rubbed her conscience raw. “I didn’t call to check on her. All this time, and I didn’t bother to ask.”

“She was a grown woman, Erin.” Seeing the glaze of pain, Gabriel tried to focus her attention. “Why did he choose her? What’s the connection?”

Erin forced herself to read the file. “She was assigned to intake. Murdered on March twenty-fifth,” Erin murmured, a theory spinning. “The police report says she was mugged.”

“Stabbed,” Gabriel read aloud. “With a short, serrated blade left at the scene.”

Erin pointed to the photo of the weapon taped inside the jacket. “A dagger. Ceremonial. Late twelfth-century China.” Nathan had loved Chinese artifacts.

“What’s the connection?”

She lifted her troubled gaze to meet his. “Intake at a jail, that includes fingerprinting, right?”

“Yes.” He waited a beat. “And?”