right after those silent strangers paid a visit.
The bar was finally restored to a semblance of its usual squalor, and Vitaly growled at the waitresses to go on home. She took off her apron, hung it in the storeroom and slung her purse over her shoulder. Wearily she headed outside with the other girls. They traded good-nights and went their various ways. As for her, she trudged deeper into the bowels of the Warehouse District’s worst section.
The darkness at this time of night was thick and impenetrable, shrouding her in heavy menace. Ever since the car accident, she’d been terrified of being alone in the dark. She walked fast and tried to project a badassery she was far from feeling as she hurried home. If she could call it a home. Her apartment was, at best, a dive. But it had a bed, a sofa, a tiny kitchen and a tinier bathroom. And she could afford it on her meager pay.
She’d graduated from college the previous June with a degree in art history and restoration, just before Max went AWOL. She could probably land a decent job given her family connections in the art business, and there was the cash she’d inherited when her father had died. It had covered the cost of her college with enough left over to start her own art restoration business if she wanted. Instead, she was living in a slum as part of her cover and waiting tables in a cesspool while she searched for her brother.
Her humble abode was on the second floor of a hundred-year-old building situated over an Oriental rug showroom. The rug merchant downstairs had stashed a girlfriend in the apartment until his wife caught him and forced him to ditch the mistress and rent the place out. Hank suspected the only reason she was allowed to be here was because the wife didn’t realize that Hank the Renter was a girl. A young, single, reasonably good-looking one at that. The rug merchant had made a few overtures to her to take up with him where the former tenant had left off, but she’d turned him down firmly and nailed the door shut that led from her living room downstairs to the old lecher’s office.
She turned into a puddle-strewn alley running alongside the rug store and started up the rickety wood stairs that led to her place. A sound behind her made her whip around, hand plunging into her purse to grip her can of pepper spray.
A man-sized shadow rushed toward her from the alley entrance, and she froze. What to do? How to react? Hank’s heart lurched in her throat. She had to do something, but what? The back of the alley was a dead end. Nobody would hear her scream, and even if someone did hear her, no one in this neighborhood would call the police. Oh, God. She was in huge trouble.
But as quickly as that thought rushed through her brain and panic crashed through her body, a second, taller shadow raced out of the darkness from behind the first one. The fight—if she could call it that—was quick and brutal. Shadow Number Two chopped her would-be assailant in the back of the head with a vicious backhand blow that dropped Shadow Number One like a brick.
The violent second shadow took off running straight at her. Crap. The set of the big man’s shoulders was grim. Determined. She didn’t need to see his face to know she was his next target.
She turned and raced up the stairs, half-sobbing in terror. She stumbled, grabbed the rail and hauled herself upright. Splinters from the aged and cracked wood railing stabbed her palm, but she ignored them. She was going to die if she didn’t get inside and behind a locked door now.
Footsteps closed in too damned fast from behind. Oh, God. A half dozen steps to go. The stairs shook as the shadow’s weight crashed onto them. She fled across the tiny landing. Keys. Dammit. Where were her keys?
She fumbled desperately in her purse as her attacker took the steps behind her in great leaps that devoured the long staircase all too fast.
There. Her fingers found the jumble of keys. She snatched them out of her purse and found the familiar shape of her door key. Oh, God. He was almost on her. She whirled, threw her purse at him with all her strength and turned to unlock the door.
Not fast enough.
Big, strong hands grabbed her upper arms. Yanked her around.
Pepper spray. She still had the pepper spray in her left hand. She lifted the small canister and mashed down the button.
“Oww. Bloody hell!” her attacker grunted.
He ducked away from the worst of the spray, barreled into her, and propelled both her and himself against her door. His weight knocked the breath out of her for a moment, during which he released her with one hand, just long enough to turn the doorknob. Which, of course, she’d managed to unlock right before he jumped her.
She opened her mouth to scream, but her attacker shoved her inside and slammed the door shut behind them before she could let it rip.
“Jeez, Hank. It’s me. Ashe.”
Her scream cut off just as it got started. “Ashe? What the heck?” She flipped on the light switch and stared at him in disbelief.
“Christ. Where’s a sink? I gotta rinse that pepper spray out of my eyes.” His eyes were, indeed, watering copiously, and he took a half-blind step toward her kitchenette.
“Are you going to attack me?” she asked suspiciously, backing away from him.
“Hell, no. I just took out the bastard who was about to jump you.”
Her jaw dropped. “Who was he?”
“No idea. Sink?”
“Oh. Over here.” Taking him by the arm, she guided him to her kitchen sink and turned on the spigot. It coughed then began to emit a sluggish stream of smelly New Orleans tap water.
He splashed great handfuls of it over his face again and again, rinsing away the pepper spray from around his eyes. His back muscles flexed under his taut T-shirt as he bent over the sink. Yowza. The guy was ripped. She hovered nearby, feeling helpless and guilty that she was the cause of his hissing breaths of pain and watering eyes. Eventually he stood upright. He was easily six foot two. And freaking built like an Olympic athlete.
She opened her mouth to speak, but he held up a hand to forestall her. “Stay here.” She watched as he cautiously opened her front door. Stepped out onto the landing. Looked around. Came back inside and announced, “He’s gone.” She sagged in relief and realized abruptly that her knees felt weak.
Meanwhile, Ashe pulled out his cell phone and dialed a number.
She eavesdropped shamelessly as he asked, “Is Bastien LeBlanc by any chance on duty tonight...? Perfect. Could you ask him to cruise by Malouf’s Oriental Rug Shop in the Warehouse District when he gets a chance? There was a minor scuffle in the alley beside the store, and a black-and-white drive-by would help ensure that no more trouble flares up. Tell him Asher Konig will owe him one...thanks.”
“What was that all about?” she demanded. “Who’s Bastien LeBlanc?”
“NOPD patrol officer. And an old friend. He’ll cruise by and make sure your would-be assailant doesn’t stick around for seconds.”
Wow. It must be nice to have one’s very own cop on call to do favors. If only she had the same. Maybe then she would know where her brother was by now. “You should have told me who you were instead of chasing me up the stairs,” she said accusingly.
“I didn’t know if I had knocked the bastard out fully or not,” he retorted. “Unlike on television, people can pop up pretty fast after getting walloped
