The Acceptance Read online

  Rage simmered inside Luther. He detested men like Jimbo, men who abused those smaller or weaker than himself. “Just so you know,” Luther told him, “I wouldn’t have let you touch her.”

  They stared at each other until Jimbo grinned.

  “Don’t need to knock Betty around much. She knows her place.” He examined the knife blade. “The bitch you’re talking about don’t, though. She’s fucking psychotic.”

  The rage threatened to boil over, but Luther kept his tone calm. “Why do you say that?”

  “She bought a shitload of stuff to barricade her room. Got reinforced locks on everything—and that was before I said shit to her.”

  “Before?” If Jimbo had given Gaby one second of grief, Luther would take him apart. Oozing menace, disregarding the knife, he crowded into Jimbo’s space. “What exactly did you say to her?”

  Jimbo sized him up, and saw more than Luther meant to share. “I only asked her what she was thinking, moving into a whorehouse. But she don’t say much. And when she does, she wants to talk with her fists.”

  “She fought you?” God almighty, Luther would kill her himself.

  Jimbo laughed. “Nah, man, I don’t fight with the bitches. Besides, she doesn’t work for me.”

  “If I thought she did,” Luther said quietly, “I’d kill you.”

  Jimbo paused, rethought his position, and went back to his nails. “She moved in, took over, and turned that piss-hole she calls a room into a fortress.” He folded the knife and slid it back into his pocket. “Makes me wonder what kind of trouble she’s expecting—and how it might affect my working girls if it shows up.”

  “Did you ask her about it?”

  Scoffing, Jimbo said, “Prickly bitch don’t talk to me. She just looks at me like she’d like to skin me alive. But I know why she did it. She figures Carver will be after her, on account of the way she cut him up and all.”

  Worse and worse. Just how much trouble had Gaby gotten into since Luther last saw her? With growing exasperation, he asked, “Carver?”

  “Yeah. Raggedy-ass hillbilly punk used to work this corner.” He eyed Luther, looked around. “I don’t want trouble with Carver.”

  “You should worry more about me, and less about him.”

  “My man.” Jimbo grinned with amusement. “I’m not worried ’bout either of yas, but I’d sooner make money than have a hassle. And with you, I think we can work out a deal.”

  “I don’t deal with the likes of you.”

  “If you want to keep the bitch alive, you’re going to have to. Because it’s a fact, Carver will come looking for her. If we can work in harmony, then hey, I’ll drop you a line when I hear word of the plan. After that . . .” He shrugged. “It’ll be up to you if you wanna play her white knight.”

  There was a plan. Jesus. “I’m listening.”

  “I want Carver and the woman out of my hair. When he comes after her, you can catch him in the act and put him away for good.”

  “Not a problem.” Anyone planning to hurt Gaby made his shit list real quick. “Anything else?”

  “Yeah. You’ll get the woman off my corner for good.”

  Luther asked, “What does it matter to you if she’s here or not?”

  “She interferes with business and gives the whores uppity ideas. Right now, she’s only an annoyance, nothing more. I want her gone before she really starts to piss me off. Deal?”

  Taking the time to breathe deep and long, Luther looked up at the sky, breathed in the humid night air and released it slowly. When he knew he could speak without ripping off Jimbo’s head, he faced him.

  At six three and two hundred pounds, Luther was bigger than many men. His weight was all muscle; he stayed in shape and kept up with his defense training.

  Against him, a jerk-off like Jimbo didn’t stand a chance.

  The urge to destroy the psychopathic little cretin trickled ice through Luther’s veins, but he was a man of law, not a vigilante—and not a one-man defense for Gaby Cody’s twisted lifestyle.

  The lecture of reason helped Luther to rein in the urge for destruction—but it didn’t stop him from planting a single vicious punch to Jimbo’s solar plexus.

  As the smaller man doubled over, wheezing and heaving, Luther caught the front of his shirt and turned to slam him into the wall of the building. “Do I have your attention, Jimbo?”

  When Jimbo only coughed and choked, Luther rattled him. “You miserable little bully, suck it up and listen to me.”

  “Yeah, man,” Jimbo gasped. “Yeah. I hear ya.”

  “I’ll gladly take care of Carver. In return, there better not be a single hair on Gaby’s head disturbed. If anyone touches her, if you let anyone get close enough to hurt her without telling me, I’ll make you the sorriest little shit this city has ever seen. Do I make myself clear?”

  Arms folded around himself, Jimbo turned his head to the side and puked. Luther released him with alacrity. “Fuck.” Stepping back out of range, Luther fulminated against the injustice of abuse. “For a man who likes to threaten women, you sure can’t take a punch yourself.”

  Jimbo dropped to his knees. He gagged again, but kept down the putrid remains of his gut. After a couple of seconds, he wiped a sleeve over his mouth, spat, and swallowed. “You didn’t need to do that.”

  “No, probably not. But I wanted to.” Catching him by the shoulder, Luther pulled him back to his feet. “Now tell me about Carver and why he’d want to hurt Gaby.”

  Jimbo nodded a little too quickly.

  “Lie to me, and that last blow will seem like a lover’s tap.” Even as Luther hated himself for indulging a bully’s mentality, he gave a grim promise: “I’ll be sure to break no less than three ribs. Believe it, Jimbo.”

  Shrugging off Luther’s hold, Jimbo said, “Yeah, got it, dude. Just give me a second.”

  Checking his watch, Luther saw that Gaby should have reached Mort already. How long she’d remain there, he couldn’t guess. Her less favorable qualities included unpredictability.

  Why he felt so drawn to her, Luther couldn’t say. But he’d laid eyes on her, and it had all been downhill since. There was some ethereal, elusive quality to Gaby that had him in a stranglehold. “I’m about out of time. Spit it out.”

  Jimbo wiped his mouth again, looked around to ensure they hadn’t drawn notice, and stared up at Luther. “One of Carver’s whores gave him some lip, and he smacked her around some.”

  “Gaby saw this?”

  “Yeah.” Grinding pain strangled Jimbo’s laugh. “That psycho cunt didn’t like it one bit, I can tell you that. But she kept her trap shut, so Carver ignored her.”

  Lingering on the periphery of an insane rage, Luther whispered, “You are dumber than you look, Jimbo, do you know that?”

  “What? It’s the truth, I swear.”

  Shaking his head, as much at himself and his absurd code of chivalry as Jimbo’s obtuse sense of propriety, Luther said, “Call her one more name, make one more slur, and I’ll—”

  “God damn it, man, I can’t think with you threatening me!”

  Luther fought for control. “Carver hurt the girl?”

  “Broke her jaw, I think. It wasn’t real bad. I’ve seen worse beatings.”

  “I take it you didn’t offer to help her?”

  “Hell no, man. You don’t get between that shit. And I figured my girls could learn some from it, ya know? But sometime later that night, Carver was attacked.”

  “By whom?”

  Jimbo shook his head. “Carver ain’t sayin’, and the whore he was with didn’t see nothin’ before he kicked her out of his bed. Word on the street is that Carver was lying there, taking a snooze after a good plow, and boom!”

  “Boom?”

  Jimbo shrugged. “His girls found him tied to the bed, sliced up all over. Not deep cuts, but a pool of his own blood had soaked into the mattress. His face, his body, hell, even his dick was worked over.” As Jimbo spoke, an oily, nervous sweat showed on his brow.
“That was some fucked-up shit, man.”

  Luther had a hard time containing himself. He knew it was Gaby, had heard her practically admit as much. “He’s lucky that whoever it was didn’t kill him.”

  Digging out a smoke, Jimbo said, “Lucky hell. It was a damn threat to everyone. I ain’t seen him, but I hear that Carver is still shook up. He’s lying low until he gets healed, and then he’ll want revenge.”

  Against Gaby.

  Grit scratched at Luther’s tired eyes and acid burned his stomach. Hoping for a convincing bluff, Luther asked, “What’s this have to do with Gabrielle Cody?”

  Jimbo moved a few cautious steps away from Luther. “I don’t know what it is, but that girl has everyone spooked. She goes around like a fucking ghost, unafraid, silent in that damned eerie way of hers, and everyone assumes she had something to do with Carver’s attack. Some think she put a hex, or some shit, on him, and others think she hired someone to cut him up. All I know is, if you care about her, you ought to get her away from here before Carver does a number on her.”

  If Luther tried to take Gaby away, what would she do? For certain she’d fight him. Independence was the strong-hold of her nature. “I told you what would happen to you, Jimbo, if anyone hurts her.”

  “Hell, man, I’m leaving psycho chick alone.” With trembling hands, he lit the cigarette and sucked hard, making the tip glow hot. He relaxed on the tangible effects of smoke filling his lungs, nicotine polluting his system. “Look, cop, the woman . . . Gaby—”

  “No,” Luther warned. “Don’t say her name. I like hearing it from your mouth even less than the insults.”

  “What the fuck, man!” Jimbo exploded. “Do you want to hear this or not?”

  “Finish.”

  “She—that woman—keeps the johns from hurting my girls so they can keep working. Far as I’m concerned, if she hadn’t pissed off the wrong people, she could’ve hung around. But she’s made enemies and that means I have to look after things.”

  A group of thugs came around the corner. They were still too far away to see much when Jimbo threw down the cigarette. “That’s my posse. I gotta split.”

  Luther pulled out a business card and held it out to him. “Don’t forget what I said, Jimbo. If you hear anything at all about Carver, I want to know.”

  “Yeah, right.” He snatched the card and slid it into his pocket. “If you want to check her room, it’s all the way at the top, in the attic.”

  That prickly animosity resurfaced. “How is it you know that?”

  “Fuck no, man, don’t make wrong assumptions. The bitches knock on her door sometimes, but I keep my distance.” Jimbo started away. “That attic wasn’t livable before she moved in. It sure as hell ain’t a place to visit now that she’s in there.”

  Dismissing Jimbo from his thoughts, Luther turned and went into the building. Dim lighting left long shadows in the foyer. Two metal-legged chairs with cracked plastic seats sat at the bottom of a tall staircase. Under the front window sat a loveseat, and on that was a woman curled into the corner, sleeping soundly, her clothes as much off as on.

  A wooden desk, rotted with age, carved with graffiti and sticky with unknown substances served as a check-in point. Behind it, keys on plastic rings hung from a pegboard on the wall. All but three keys were missing from their hooks.

  No one sat at the front desk, and Luther didn’t bother ringing the bell. Taking the dark stairs two at a time, he went up. He heard coarse laughter, a few squeals, some crying. Bedsprings squeaked. The sound of a slap rang out.

  His stomach cramped.

  He didn’t want Gaby here.

  But where else did she belong? He didn’t know her well enough to say.

  At the top of three stories, only a narrow staircase remained. It led to the attic.

  Gaby had chosen to be here. There had to be a reason.

  This time, before she escaped him again, Luther would get some answers—one way or another.

  Chapter 3

  As she traversed through dreary shadows, avoiding streetlamps and caustic denizens, Gaby festered on her damning misconceptions. So much wasted time, so many spent emotions that she didn’t have to spare.

  After seeing Morty die—or thinking he had died—she’d given up writing her popular graphic novels. Because Mort had served as her contact to the publishing world, writing and illustrating the novels seemed pointless. Sending the completed novels to an unknown source could initiate unwanted exposure.

  It was too risky.

  But without an outlet for her pain and despair, a yawning, caliginous wasteland had split open inside her. At times it had felt alive, devouring her one painful bite at a time.

  Knowing that Morty lived opened up endless possibilities. Stories ripe with both fabrication and fact winged through her beleaguered consciousness. An extant drive to put pen to paper conflicted with the urgent need to see Mort, to have his survival as a visual fact, not just a repeated truth.

  A loud voice shattered her ruminations.

  Up ahead, uncaring of who might see, an obese woman snatched up a stocky kid and shook him hard, berating him for following her.

  The boy looked about ten.

  He wanted his mamma; she wanted a john, possibly to pay for food, more likely because she was no more than a base whore lacking emotion for the well-being of her child.

  Gaby’s heart wrenched, and she fought the urge to intercede. Only the truth that she couldn’t change the woman kept her away.

  Sinking back against a wall, Gaby watched as the boy turned and, with a broken expression, ran away.

  Just as she, at that age, had so many times run—even when there’d been nowhere to run to. Not until she’d been almost grown. Not until . . . Father.

  For one awful, desperate moment, their initial meeting crept into her memories. If only she’d known him when she was that young and needy. If only he’d been there to help her deal with the duties heaped on an adolescent paladin.

  But it wasn’t until she’d turned seventeen and was on the streets alone that Father found her. Whenever she thought of those desperate times, she again tasted the fear that filmed her throat and left its burning scum on her teeth and tongue. She felt the rippling agony of demand for action, and the incomprehension of what to do about it.

  Father had stumbled upon her in her weakened state, and to his credit, he’d tried to help.

  No one else had approached her, asked or listened. No one else had encroached at a time when her defenses were lost to her.

  “What’s in your mind, child?”

  The voice came from far away, biting into her agony. “Death. Death.”

  “For yourself?”

  The torment twisted her, bowed her body like a soul possessed. “No,” she whimpered. “For another.”

  A cool hand touched her brow. She shied from the aberrant act of comfort.

  “And that would be . . . ?”

  “I don’t know his name.” Speaking of her sins, her darkest cravings, should have cast her straight to hell. Instead, it freed her. “He’s there. At the end of the alley.” She curled tighter, squeezing her arms around herself, begging herself to be silent, but the words erupted. “I don’t know why, but I need to destroy him.”

  After a thoughtful pause, he said, “Wait here.”

  The priest left her, as was right and proper. But within minutes, he returned. Without a word, he sat beside her in the abominable alley, uncaring of his robes or the refuse that surrounded her, that was her.

  Finally, after a long time, he said, “You would truly kill him?”

  “Yes. Oh God, yes.”

  “I don’t see how.” He lifted her hair back, put his hand around her upper arm. “You’re so young, a small child . . .”

  “I would rip him to shreds with my bare hands!” The demonic voice sounded like someone else, but just saying it sent a fire raging through her, making the pain wan beneath a surge of pernicious strength. She panted hard, looked at the priest
and saw his shock, his fear, and his curiosity, perhaps even understanding.

  Sickened, expecting the worst, she tried to turn away.

  He held her face. “Look at me.”

  And when she did, he said, “Do it.”

  Permission energized her. The strength amassed, so powerful that she felt inhuman. Superhuman.

  “If you can destroy him,” Father said with a calm that soothed her, “then you should, because my dear, no one else will.” He smiled, patted her cheek, and said without judgment, “I’ll wait here.”

  “Gaby?”

  She jerked. Still held by the bellicose nostalgia, she reacted on instinct. Grabbing her confronter, she put him in a deadly hold—and heard a choking laugh.

  “God, Gaby, I’ve missed you,” the strangled voice said.

  Mort. “You idiot!” She loosed him with a shove of temper. “Don’t you know better than to sneak up on me?”

  “Sneak?” Even in the darkness, she could see his grin. “I almost walked into you, you’re standing there so still.” He threw his arms around her, and she was stunned by his strength.

  Morty Vance, landlord and wannabe friend, had always been just shy of a complete wimp and a spineless worm.

  Now he had muscle tone; Gaby could feel the new strength in his limbs. And he exuded . . . confidence.

  What the hell? “Mort? Is that really you?”

  Using the back of his hand, he swiped away a tear. Of happiness? Shit.

  “Of course it’s me,” he said around a robust laugh, and he didn’t look the least bit self-conscious about weeping like an infant. “Luther called to say you were finally coming over, so I hurried out to meet you.”

  “Luther called you?”

  Ignoring her question, he let his gaze roam all over her. “I almost didn’t recognize you, Gaby, you look so different!” He held her at arm’s length. “Look at you!”

  Feeling like a freak with the way he gawked, she shook him off. “Stop it.” Two gangly youths walking by tried to mean mug them, but one vengeful glance from her and they kept on going.

  Mort beamed. “Same old Gaby where it counts, I see.”