She wondered how long it would be until he got tired of his idiot wife and she got her turn with the carving knife.
***
Jesse checked the address for the third time. According to his GPS, this was where Gabrielle now lived with her husband of 6 months, Nicholas Yakiv. It was better than he’d expected. Much better. Jesse had expected a one-bedroom, tiny house in a rough part of town. Instead, he was looking at a two-story McMansion with a Lexus in the driveway.
Gabrielle had done very well for herself, indeed.
He slid out of the driver’s seat and walked up the cobblestone path lined by pristine flowerbeds. Gabrielle’s home was located in an exclusive gated community. Luckily for him, the elderly security guard had mistaken him for the pool cleaner and let him in without question. He had been afraid to give his name at the gate. He was afraid that Gabrielle would hear it and refuse to see him.
Jesse took a deep breath as he raised the brass door knocker and rapped on the door. He had barely knocked once when the door was pulled open and a short, middle aged, heavyset woman was smiling at him.
“Gabrielle?” Jesse stared at her in shock. He’d expected her to age poorly, but not at twice the rate of a normal person. Her hair was still deep auburn, but it was streaked with grey. Her eyes were hidden behind heavy bifocals. Before he could get another word out, the woman turned away.
“Mrs. Yakiv, you have a visitor.” The woman had a Spanish accent and Jesse felt a little stupid for mistaking her for Gabrielle. His nerves were getting the better of him.
“Who is it?” He heard the sound of approaching footsteps; the soft soprano voice.
Then she was there.
If it wasn’t for her unique grey eyes, he would have never recognized her. She had lost the weight; that was clear. The chubby pear-shaped body and ugly, bulky clothes were gone. She was wearing a form-fitting yellow halter top and a pair of tight low rise jeans. She had the body of a 50’s centerfold. Tiny waist, rounded hips and full breasts. Her auburn hair was cut short, in a chin length, layered bob that exposed high cheekbones, full lips and a tiny button nose.
The nose was definitely the result of a very skilled plastic surgeon. The Gabrielle he’d known had a beak like a toucan. “Gabrielle?”
She crossed her arms over her chest and watched him cautiously. “Yeah?”
The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. “My God, you look amazing!”
She rolled her eyes. “Tell me something I don’t know.” A hand dropped on a curvy hip. “Look, if you’re trying to flatter me to get me to buy something, it won’t work.”
Jesse shook his head, surprised she hadn’t recognized him. “No, Gabby; it’s me, Jesse.” Gabby’s grey eyes gave no hint of remembering who he was. “Jesse Turnblatt?” Still, nothing chimed in Gabby’s memory. “From high school?” He was starting to feel like an idiot.
“High school?” Gabby shook her head. “I didn’t go to high school here; I went in …”
“Massachusetts,” he finished for her. “I know.” Jesse raked his hand through his hair in frustration. “That’s why I’m here – to apologize.”
“Apologize?” Gabby tilted her head in confusion. “Are you the guy who hit our mailbox and drove away?” She put up a hand as he started to speak again. “Look, it’s fine. But let’s just forget it happened, ok? My husband was kind of obsessed about that and if he finds out who did it, he’ll probably flip out.”
“No, I…” This meeting was not going as Jesse had planned. Gabrielle seemed to have no memory at all. If anything, she seemed distracted and anxious. She also seemed to be in a big hurry to get him off her doorstep. “Are you ok?”
Gabrielle nearly laughed at the stranger’s question. Ok? She would never be ok again! Her husband was a murderer and she was a terrible actress.
All night, she had struggled to pretend she was fine and nothing was wrong, but Nick was starting to catch on. He’d been shooting her odd looks and the odd looks were making her even more nervous, which made her act even more strangely.
It was a vicious circle that was going to get her killed. She still had no idea what to do. She couldn’t go to the police. He husband wasn’t just a killer, he was a Kingpin. She had seen how that movie ended and she had no desire to wind up a bag of body parts floating in Biscayne Bay.
She could run. The idea had come and gone a few times. She originally planned to pretend nothing had happened, but she knew now that she’d never be able to pull it off. Even a stranger standing on her doorstep could tell there was something wrong with her. She had to run.
Gabby was vaguely aware she had been silent for an awkward amount of time, but she didn’t care. She wasn’t upset about the mailbox and she hoped James or whoever he was would just take her forgiveness and move on. He was the last thing she needed now.
She would run, she finally decided. She would run and she wouldn’t take anything with her that belonged to Nick. She still had her savings account from before her marriage. She could get by on that until she found out what she was going to do. She’d leave his credit cards, his car, even the purse he’d gotten her for her last birthday.
If he saw that she wasn’t going to take anything of his and that she wasn’t going to cause any trouble for him, maybe he’d let her be. It was a long shot, but it was the only shot she had. Now, she just had to figure out how to get to town.
“Gabby?”
She looked up at the stranger. Then she looked behind him, to the jeep parked in the street in front of her house. Her words came out in a rush. “If I forgive you for the mailbox, will you give me a ride to town?”
“Mailbox?” He shook his head again. “Gabby, this isn’t about your mailbox.”
She nearly screamed in frustration. What was with this guy? “Fine, whatever it’s about. Will you give me a ride to town?”
“Look, I don’t know what’s going on,” he finally seemed to notice the desperation in her eyes, because he relented. “Fine, I’ll bring you to town. I’ll bring you anywhere you want to go.”
Gabby let out a sigh of relief. “Thanks,” She turned towards the stairs. “Just wait right there; please don’t leave ok? I’ll only be a few minutes.”
He nodded and Gabby raced up the stairs, worried that he would leave before she returned. He was her only hope. She had no idea when Nick would be back and cabs left a trail. She needed him. With her heart thundering in her chest, she raced into the bedroom she and Nick shared. She started stripping off the clothes she’d bought with his money. She took everything off and began rummaging through the drawers for clothes that had been hers since before they got married. After a few minutes, she was lucky enough to find an old Green Day t-shirt, a pair of poorly-fitting jeans and a sweatshirt.
She had no underwear. Nick had insisted on only high-end lingerie after they were married, and had tossed all her old cotton briefs. None of her prior undergarments had made the cut.
She yanked open her purse, found her driver’s license and the picture of her mother that she always carried. She stuffed them in the back pocket of her jeans. Finally, she found the bank book from her old savings account and grabbed that, too.
She had nothing on her that didn’t belong to her, except for her wedding ring. With eyes that were surprisingly teary, she yanked at the wedding band set. She had a moment of panic when they refused to budge. It would all be for nothing if he thought she had stolen the ring. The gaudy diamond was easily worth six figures. She pulled again and the ring mercifully came loose.
With hands shaking so hard they hurt, she dropped the ring on their dresser and made her way back downstairs. She could only pray he was still waiting for her.
***
Jesse stood in the doorway of Gabrielle’s home, waiting for her return. She came racing down the stairs, dressed differently than she had been before. The sexy clothes were gone and, instead, she was wearing a pair of jeans that were too big for her, a faded t-shirt and, if
he wasn’t mistaken from the jiggle he was seeing when she walked, she was no longer wearing a bra.
“You ready?”
She nodded happily and started to march out the door in front of him.
“You don’t need a purse or anything?”
She slapped the back pocket of her ill-fitting jeans. “Got everything I need right here.”
Jesse shook his head and followed her out the door. His apology was definitely not going as planned.
Chapter 2
Jesse’s passenger was staring at him. He could feel her eyes on his face, studying him. Finally, she spoke.
“Hey!” Her pretty grey eyes were wide. “I went to high school with you!”
Jesse let out a laugh at her statement. “As I’ve been trying to tell you.”
“Hmph,” She plopped back in her seat, her pretty face scrunched up in thought. “What a weird coincidence.”
“Coincidence?”
“Yeah,” She gestured towards him. “The guy who flattened our mailbox was someone I went to high school with. Small world.”
Jesse let out a snort of frustration. Her looks had changed, but Gabrielle was just as flakey as she’d been in high school. “I didn’t run over your mailbox!”
“Oh,” she shot him a hurt look. “Well you don’t have to yell at me over it. You were the one who was apologizing for running it over.”
Jesse took a deep breath and let it out again. “I wasn’t apologizing for running over your mailbox. I was apologizing for the way I treated you in high school.”
“Really?” Gabrielle thought back to high school. Vague memories of being a chubby subject of ridicule, going home alone every day after school to listen to music, to take care of her various pets, and hold her mother’s hand when the pain got bad played in her mind like a carousel. “That was like a million years ago.”
“It was ten. Ten years ago. You just had your high school reunion.” Jesse’s frustration was coming out in his voice, even though he was trying to hide it.
Gabrielle didn’t miss it. “For someone trying to apologize, you’re kind of being a dick about the whole thing.”
He gestured to the road. “I’m giving you a ride.”
“True,” Gabrielle pressed her forehead to the passenger side window and watched the scenery fly past. “Well, once you drop me off, you can consider all forgiven and all your sins absolved.”
Jesse considered her statement, wondering what his newfound karma god would think of that. Finally, he shook his head negatively. “You can’t forgive me for something you don’t remember.”
Gabby rolled her eyes and shot him a look. “Look, I’m deeply sorry I don’t remember your taunts in high school. I had a large list of tormentors and honestly, all their faces have kind of blurred together. So you can either accept the forgiveness or you could go on feeling guilty for the rest of your life. I don’t care either way.” Her eyes fell onto the open road again. “I have bigger problems right now than high school. If I could, I would go back to high school a million times over, if it would get me out of the situation I’m in right now.”
Her voice was so sad, Jesse turned to look at her. “Anything I can help with?”
She shook her head. “The only thing you can help with is bringing me where I need to go and dropping me off.”
Jesse shook his head and focused on the road again. “Where are we going?”
“Liberty City.”
***
Nick Yakiv arrived home to a strangely silent house. “Gabby?” His voice echoed off the quiet walls. It was 7 pm and Lucia was long gone, leaving him and his wife alone for the evening. “Gabby, kitten. I’m home early.” He tossed his keys on the table. “Let’s work on that baby you owe me.”
Nick raised his eyebrow as the silence of the room mocked him. It was unusual for Gabby to not come bounding down the stairs as soon as he opened the door, ready to hop into his arms. It was especially unusual of Gabby to not respond to him when he called for her.
He started to wonder if she was sick. She’d been acting strangely the night before. He headed up the stairs to investigate, sure she was lying in their bed asleep. He pushed open the door to the master suite. “Gabby, kitten, you ok?”
It was deserted. The lights were out and their king sized bed was still made. It hadn’t been slept in.
“Gabby?” Nick was starting to get nervous. Gabby never stayed out late on a Sunday and she’d never left the house without leaving him a note. His eyes dropped to the floor. The clothes Gabby had been wearing when he’d left were in a pile on the floor. More unusual behavior. Gabby never left anything lying around. She was almost obsessively neat. His eyes fell on the dresser they shared. Antique, polished oak. It had cost him more then ten thousand dollars. But Gabby had wanted it, had given him those big, grey kitten eyes that made him melt every time.
And he’d broken out his American Express.
It wasn’t just the dresser he was staring at, though. It was the object sitting on top of it. A platinum gold, princess cut 4.5 carat pink diamond wedding ring. It had cost him a fortune and he’d picked it out himself. The second he saw it, he thought of her. She’d loved it. She never took it off.
Until today.
He marched towards the dresser and picked the ring up, marveling at how tiny it looked in his large hand. When Gabby wore it, it looked gigantic. He liked the way it looked on her, liked the way anyone could see from a mile away that she was taken. She was his.
He pulled out his cell phone and pressed 3 on his speed dial. Grigor picked up before the first ring was over. “I need you here now.” He glared at the ring in his hand, determined to glue it on to his beautiful wife’s finger the second he found her, so she could never take it off again. “It seems my wife has decided to leave me.”
***
Jesse leaned forward and read the peeling paint on the door. “Strangely Sober?”
They were parked outside a bar in one of the roughest neighborhoods in Miami. Jesse was actually pretty surprised that Gabrielle would want to come here. He had been expecting to drop his pampered princess off at a Four Seasons, where she could run up her husband’s credit card in revenge for whatever fight they were having. Instead, they were idling in front of a dilapidated bar, on a deserted street filled with empty businesses and bums loitering in the alleyway.
“Yes,” Gabrielle reached for her door handle and shot him a nervous smile. “Thanks so much for driving me here. And like I said, whatever you did, you’re totally forgiven now.”
Jesse watched Gabby pensively, wondering if what he’d done was enough to satisfy the karma gods and make his life normal again. He watched her push her way out of the jeep and march to the sidewalk in front of the bar, with a determined air. Shaking his head, he put his hand to the key in the ignition, planning on gunning the engine and getting the hell out of dodge. Just as he was turning the key, a blue flame of static electricity attacked his hand so bad that his index finger went numb. “Ok, fine, we’re not done yet.” Jesse muttered as he flicked off the engine and pushed open his door. He took a brief look around and could kind of understand where karma was coming from. He was inclined to agree. There was no way in hell he was leaving the sheltered Gabrielle in an area of town like this. Even in her cheaper clothes, everything about her screamed money, from her perfectly styled hair to her perfectly manicured hands. She would be raped and murdered in a matter of hours.
Gabby looked back as she realized Jesse was following her. “I’m fine,” Gabrielle shot a nervous look to the bar. “I have friends here.”
He walked around to her side of the car and caught her by the elbow. “You have friends here?”
Gabby cleared her throat. “Well, I have a friend here.” She pulled out of his grip and headed towards the door. Jesse flinched as she pushed it open. The hinges hadn’t been oiled in years and the door screamed in protest over being moved out of its slightly open/slightly closed state.
“Gabb
y…” Jesse started to speak, but she was already shoving herself into the bar. He followed her in. The inside matched the outside. It was broken down; the smell of rotting wood, cigarette smoke and old vomit hung heavy in the air. In the center of the bar, two men sat at a creaky, shaking table, playing a game of chess. One was middle-aged, Italian, with black hair that was just starting to grey at the temple. He was the definition of ruggedly handsome.
The other man defied definition. Even seated, Jesse could tell he was the approximate size of a refrigerator. He was midnight black, completely bald and completely expressionless. One of the man’s eyes was pitch black; so dark, the pupil was no longer discernable. The other was covered in an eye patch.
If Gabrielle was claiming she had a friend here, Jesse was seriously starting to worry about what kind of book clubs she was joining. Both the men turned towards them when they walked in and were eyeing them with open hostility. Jesse was just starting to prepare for a fight, when a new voice rang out.
“Gabby, you horrible cunt!” They both spun as a blond woman in her mid-thirties rounded the bar. “It’s about time you came to check out the new digs!” The woman was pretty, but in an incredibly rough way. Her hair was bleached blonde, with a good four inches of dark roots sticking out of the top. A four-inch scar ran from right under her right nostril all the way up to her ear. Her eyes were red-rimmed and bloodshot, as though she’d been up for a long period of time.
Gabby let out a sigh of relief next to him and the men went back to their chess game. “Sal!” Jesse watched in shock as his princess raced around the curve of the mahogany bar to hug the blonde woman. “I’ve missed you so much! You really have to stop disappearing.”
Sal gave a crooked smile. “It’s kind of my thing.”
“But six months?”
Sal sighed. “What can I say? Mistakes were made, peacocks were stolen.” She waved a hand clutching a cigarette. “It’s all water under the bridge.”
Her eyes met Jesse’s and for a second, he was taken aback. Her gaze was familiar. Her eyes were the eyes he’d seen before. They were the eyes of a kingpin telling him to throw a fight. They were the eyes of a boxing ring doctor who told him one more concussion wouldn’t matter. They were dangerous eyes.