L.L. Foster - The Acceptance

“Guilty.” Not the least bit ashamed or hesitant, Luther said, “I always want you. I’ve told you that. But now’s not the time, so back to Bliss . . .”

Wow. He did know how to keep her off-kilter. “My theory is that fear naturally heightens sensory perception, so even someone unfamiliar with reading auras could pick up on them when scared witless. Bliss said the woman who took her giggled. That sounds pretty fucking sick to me, so I figure she was giving off some glaring vibes on her intent.”

“And the room?”

“If there is a room, and the demented bitch was thinking about taking Bliss there, she might have picked up on that.”

He chewed his upper lip before saying, “Okay, I can buy that, I suppose.”

“Yeah, right. People like you are the reason that the abstract prospects of the human mind and the intangible realm behind matter are treated as hocus-pocus.”

Luther whistled. “All that, huh?”

Her temper sparked. “Don’t poke fun at me, Luther.”

“Actually, I was thinking there are many depths to you. Some of them are a little loony, but somehow you make it all sound reasonable, and believable.”

She stayed silent, but Gaby felt the nearly tactile sensation of his narrow-eyed attention on her face.

“So, let’s try this another way.”

Oh shit. Why couldn’t he just give it up?

“How did you know Bliss was in trouble?”

Gaby’s heart tripped. She walked faster, harder. Questions on Bliss she could handle. Questions on her own preternatural acuity were hitting too close to home. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“When she was being attacked, somehow you knew it.” Stewing over his own memories, Luther thought it out without Gaby’s help. “You couldn’t see her, and you couldn’t hear her. But somehow you knew what was happening all the same. And that isn’t the first time it’s happened with you.”

“Don’t be—”

“We were talking,” Luther reminded her, “then you suddenly went on alert. I saw it in your face that something was wrong. I didn’t know what—but you did.”

Gaby kept walking.

Luther kept pace with her. “At first, your movements were a little jerky, as if you hurt all over. But then you were facile, and so fast, I could barely keep up.”

“You’re a slowpoke wimp, what can I say?”

“No, Gaby. I’m in good shape, and you know it. My legs are longer and stronger than yours. I have more power. But you outran me.”

Gaby snorted. “If this is about wounded ego, Luther, I don’t have time.”

“It’s about you, Gaby.”

“A boring subject.”

But Luther wouldn’t let it go. “You somehow knew Bliss was being threatened, didn’t you?”

No, no, no . “No.”

Luther snagged her arm and they both stopped.

“Tell me another truth, Gaby. Did you know that evil had her?”

Tonight, one way or another, Luther knew he had to get some answers. Women’s lives were on the line, and somehow Gaby was involved.

He didn’t know how, but he knew he had to keep her safe—whether she wanted his help or not.

Gaby kept her back to him, but she paused.

Luther didn’t push her. He just waited, and after a moment of visibly churning thoughts, she said, “I’ve heard that most cops have intuition. Do you?”

It wasn’t what he’d expected, but the answer was easy enough. “Sometimes.”

Rubbing the back of her neck and flexing her shoulders, Gaby considered his response. “Sometimes, huh?”

“It’s not the same as what you’re saying, Gaby. I get a bad feeling, but I don’t see things clearly. They aren’t spelled out for me.”

“No, of course not.” Glancing over her shoulder at him, Gaby said, “But do you get that kick in your gut, that churning sensation in your blood when you just know something is wrong?”

Damn it, he did. But not the way it seemed she had.

Her light blue eyes pinned him. “Do you trust your instincts?”

No need to hesitate on that one. “Yes.” Luther had never ignored his own instincts. They were sharper than most, which is why he made a damn good cop.

His instincts insisted that Gaby was up to something. If only he knew what.

“Well, so do I,” she told him. “You want the truth, Luther? Fine. I knew something was wrong.” She emphasized, “ Something. Not that it involved Bliss, and not what it might be.”

Luther could usually spot a liar, but with Gaby . . . he just didn’t know. She appeared truthful, sincere.

Believable.

A small part of his subconscious insisted that the mentally insane often used sound logic as well.

No. He wouldn’t think that. Gaby was, despite her upbringing and lack of formal education, more intelligent and lucid than almost anyone he knew. It was her astute perception of her surroundings that colored everything.

“My stomach cramped and my muscles burned and everything that’s a part of me screamed that I had to hurry.” Gaby didn’t blink. “So I did.”

What she described matched the way she’d looked. And that scared him. For her. “Does that happen to you often?”

“Often enough that I hate it.” She started walking again, but the burst of energy was gone, leaving her to plod along tiredly. “But not often enough for me to make a real difference in anything.”

What the hell did that mean? Why would Gaby, an orphan, an eccentric loner, want to make a difference to the society she so openly scorned?

Seeing the droop to her normally proud shoulders, Luther decided not to ask her, not right now. He’d pushed enough for one night. Although he knew she’d deny it, she looked exhausted enough to keel over.

“We both need sleep.” Luther slipped an arm around her supple waist. “Come on. Stewing over this won’t help Bliss. The hospital staff will keep her safe tonight, and tomorrow, we’ll come back to see her to Mort’s together. She’ll be fine.”

“I hope you’re right.”

Gaby said nothing on the way out of the hospital. That worried Luther. He was used to her mouthy ways, her caustic wit, and her never-ending harassment.

She was likely plotting, maybe not against him, specifically, but for certain she wasn’t including him, as per their agreement.

“Listen up, Gaby.” When she turned tired eyes toward him, Luther almost softened. Only the need to know she’d be unharmed kept him from retrenching. “I’m going to drop you off at your apartment, and I damn well expect you to stay there.”

She looked away. “I don’t have any plans to leave.”

“Then how about making plans to stay?”

She shrugged. “I watch over the women, Luther. Some of them work throughout the night. If something happens—”

“You’d know it?”

“Maybe. But not necessarily.”

Luther still wasn’t sure about her supposed exceptional intuition, but he wouldn’t discount it. Throughout his career as a cop, he’d seen a lot of inexplicable things, and too many times his instincts had saved his ass. If Gaby had those same instincts, only amplified to an extreme level, then that would explain a lot.

And maybe he was just grasping at straws, wanting to trust her, to believe in her, in any way possible.

While heading across the parking lot, she moved closer. Her hand bumped Luther’s, so he laced his fingers with hers.

The lot was quiet, dark. A fat silvery moon was poised low in the sky, surrounded by a million illumined stars.

It could have been a romantic night. From Luther’s perspective, any time alone with Gaby lent itself to sexual thoughts tempered by emotional need.

She brought out the extremes in him. He couldn’t understand it, and he couldn’t fight it.