Behind me, pavement scraped underfoot. I turned to see Gabriel rising.

“Olivia?” he said, his voice perfectly calm, his gaze fixed on a stand of trees. “Your purse?”

I threw the trash into the bin with one hand and pulled my gun from my purse with the other. My attention—like his—never left those trees. Then Gabriel’s swung to a brick pavilion. He started toward it at a slow lope. I covered him, breaking into a jog when he disappeared around the wall.

At a thump and a gasp, I was running, ignoring the pain shooting through my side. I saw Gabriel swing at a dark figure. Movement flickered behind him, but before I could call a warning, he’d knocked his target aside and was turning to the new threat. By the time I arrived, he had the second assailant pinned to the pavilion wall. The first was still on the ground, struggling for breath and holding his stomach.

The man on the ground wobbled to his feet. Gabriel let him. Then, without releasing his grip on the other assailant, he clocked the first guy, dropping him again.

The figure pinned to the wall was the man from Monday night, the one who’d pursued Aunika and me.

“If you have your switchblade, you might want to use it on that one.” Gabriel nodded toward the man on the ground. “Preferably in his right side.”

“He’s the one who stabbed me?”

“Yes.”

“You can’t intimidate me, Walsh,” the man said, rubbing his jaw.

“Intimidation suggests no intention of follow-through. I’d be quite happy to see Olivia stab you in retaliation. In fact, if I thought she’d do it, I’d insist. However, barring that …” Gabriel turned as the man rose again, and then kicked him in the gut so hard the man howled as he fell back.

“You—you bastard. I think you broke something.”

“The correct term would be ‘ruptured.’ I’d strongly suggest you seek medical attention when you leave.” He turned to the man he had pinned to the wall. “Who hired you?”

“Hired us? No one—”

“You are a gun for hire. Or muscle for hire, given that you don’t actually seem to have a gun. Which is odd, suggesting that’s a stipulation by the man who hired you. Who is also, presumably, the one who tried to stop your colleague here from attacking Olivia.”

“I don’t know what—”

“Let me go slower, then. You are hired muscle. A mercenary, to use the proper term. Former military, judging by that tattoo and your bearing. You’ve slipped a little in your grooming and your mannerisms, which tells me you’ve been out of the service for a while yet still try to maintain the lifestyle to project a military image for your clients. Ergo, mercenary.”

“Who the fuck are you? Sherlock Holmes?”

Gabriel’s lips twitched at that. He nodded to me, letting the actual detective take over.

“As for the gun stipulation,” I said. “You’re clearly more accustomed to using weapons than brute force, given how easily you were both rousted. That suggests the absence of a gun isn’t your choice. Which also suggests you weren’t hired to hurt Aunika. Just scare her. That goes for anyone else you encounter in executing those duties. Like me. You seemed to think Aunika knew why you were after her. But when she asked, you wouldn’t tell her. What was the point of that?”

“You’re the clever one. I’m sure you have an answer.”

“You don’t know why you’re targeting her. Men like you don’t need reasons. Even if your boss told you, I don’t think you’re bright enough to remember it.”

“I’m sure my IQ is higher than yours, blondie. I don’t want details for security reasons. The less we know, the better. The client told us that Madole knows exactly what’s going on. She’s just playing dumb. We’re supposed to scare her until she breaks and does what the client wants.”

“Which is?”

He fixed me with cool gray eyes. “That’s not our concern.”

“And your client thinks I’m connected? Is that why you’re following me?”

The guy on the ground—clearly feeling left out of this confessional moment—said, “No, he wanted us to make sure you’re okay.”

His partner shot him a shut-the-fuck-up look, but his partner was tired of playing stoic paramilitary dude and continued. “We followed you from the hospital, but we couldn’t get good-enough photographs. That’s what he wants: pictures to prove you’re up and around, no harm done.”

“Shut—” the other man began … and Gabriel hit him. A punch to the jaw as effortless and casual as if he’d reached up to scratch his nose.

“You needed pictures of Ms. Taylor-Jones as proof she was not seriously injured,” Gabriel said to the man on the ground. “You may tell your employer that she was injured—seriously—and when I find him, he will pay for that. Preferably through a civil suit, but other methods may be substituted as needed. Now, your client asked for proof that she survived her ordeal. Specifically her?”

“You, too, though he was more concerned with her.”

Gabriel nodded, processing. “Do you have anything to add?”

“No.”

“All right. Before I release you, I’d like the name of your client.”

The man against the wall managed to laugh, wincing from his injured jaw. “Address, e-mail, and social security number, too?”