Angel's Breath (Fallen Angels - Book 2) (11 page)

I sighed. “Maybe I’d better start from the beginning.”

She didn’t say anything, but the slight tilt to her head told me that, at the very least, she was listening.

I explained that Chuck had been offered a contract for big money to find information on Worldwind Avionics, something that wasn’t on the internet, but required a physical presence, and had come to me with a proposal.

“And you just went along with it?” Stacy asked, giving me a look that yelled,
how could you be so stupid?

I shook my head. “I said no. I didn’t want any part of it.” I sighed. “But then I got in that accident at work yesterday.”

Stacy pursed her lips. “You thought you could score a payday and run before your parole officer found out about you getting fired.”

“Yeah.” I grabbed the steering wheel harder. “I couldn’t go back to jail. It would have destroyed my mother.” In a smaller voice, I added, “And it would have wrecked things between us.”

“You thought wrong,” Stacy said. “I’m not that shallow.”

I felt like an insect. “I’m sorry.”

Stacy asked, “So you changed your mind to help my brother and cash in? And how were you two going to explain all this afterward?”

I sank into the car seat. The truth was I hadn’t really thought that far ahead. I had just assumed both Stacy and my mother would forgive us once we had the cash in hand.

Stacy lifted her hand to forestall any possible excuse. “Never mind. Just tell me what went wrong.”

I laid it all out for her. I explained everything from getting inside the building up to how I had changed my mind at the last minute and sent Chuck home.

Methodically, I gave Stacy a point-by-point account of what had happened in David’s office. I told her how the entire contract had been a setup to give him a patsy for his father’s murder. Trying my best, I recalled what Terence and David had said to one another, about inheriting the power.

Stacy interrupted. “You say it as if it’s something different from money or owning the company.”

I fell silent for a moment before telling the rest of the story.

An hour ago, I hadn’t believed what had happened in David’s office. Now, after experiencing the incredible force that had led me to destroy my house—and kill my mother—I had to face the possibility that something supernatural had possessed me.

“Before David shot his father, Terence said he was trying to hold ‘it’ in. The moment he died, I felt … an enormous surge of electricity run through me. When Al came at me, some kind of force welled up in me and it threw him across the room.”

I looked over. Her eyes were wide, disbelieving.

“At the house, I did the same thing to Al’s man, Tom, when he hit you.” Of course, Stacy had been unconscious at that point, and hadn’t witnessed anything that happened after that. No wonder she was looking at me as if I belonged in a psycho ward.

Stacy licked her lips. “What?” she asked after what seemed like an eternity. “You think you just suddenly got super powers?”

“As crazy as it sounds, yeah.” I nodded.

“This sounds … incredible.”

I said, “I know I sound crazy, but I swear it’s the truth.”

It took Stacy some time to absorb all the information I had given her. I couldn’t tell whether she believed it all, just parts of it, or thought I was crazy as a loon.

Without warning her, I hit the brakes and pulled over.

“What are you doing?” Stacy said.

I said, “I just saw an SUV turn onto your street ahead.”

Stacy looked around. “We’re four blocks from my street. How can you see that far?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. This morning, if I didn’t wear my glasses, I wouldn’t have been able to read a stop sign if I was standing right in front of it. Now, I can see everything.”

“And then some. I can’t see more than a block away. Are you sure about the SUV?”

I nodded. “It’s the same one Al used to drive me from the hangar to the parking lot yesterday.”

Stacy gave me a wide-eyed stare.

“All right, wait here,” I said, and turned off the ignition.

Stacy grabbed my arm before I could open the door and step out. “Wait, what are you doing?”

“I need to be sure.”

“Let’s just take off,” she said. “You told me you checked the house. Chuck isn’t there.”

Scanning the street ahead, I said, “We need to get back to your place and see if Chuck left any sign where he went.”

“There’s no need,” Stacy said, and there was a note in her voice that made me turn and look at her. There was a humorless smile on her face, as if she had put together the pieces of a puzzle and couldn’t quite believe the result.

“A couple of times Chuck told me that if anything bad happened, I should cut all ties with wherever we were living. Just get as far away from my job or the house as fast as I could, destroy my cell phone because ‘they can track that’, and cut up all my credit cards. He said he could find me wherever I went—that he had his ‘ways’, or something.” She clicked her tongue and let out a short laugh. “He only talked like that when he was tanked, though, so I thought it was just the beer talking. He was always reading up on those online conspiracy theories that no one really takes seriously.”

“Everyone has quirks,” I said by way of consolation.

She paused in thought. “Since our parents died when we were kids, it was just the two of us. I’m sure he felt the responsibility of being the older one. He always took care of things for us. I thought it just got too much for him once in a while.”

“Do you think this might be the real reason you guys move around so much?” I asked. “I know it’s probably none of my business, but—”

Stacy nodded. “It’s possible. Truth is, before I met you, I never really got too close to anyone. Sure, I make a lot of friends wherever we are, but nothing that kept me from going along with Chuck when he said we had to move to another city for a new job of his.” She took a deep breath. “Maybe it was because he was close to getting caught. I don’t know. I guess in the back of my mind, I knew something was up, but I didn’t really want to believe it.”

I put my hand on hers. “I’m sorry, Stace. Really.” When she looked up at me, I could see tears forming in the corner of her eyes. I said, “We’ll figure out a way to find him.”

Taking her cell phone out of her pocket, she clicked one of the buttons to bring up her contact list.

“I thought you were supposed to destroy that, from what Chuck told you.”

Laughing, Stacy said. “That’s just too paranoid for me.” With that, she auto-dialed and put the cell phone to her ear. After a few seconds, her face darkened. Motioning to me with the phone, she said, “ ‘The number you have dialed is unavailable at this time.’ There isn’t even any voice mail.”

Sliding the front half of the phone up to reveal a keyboard, Stacy tapped out a message with her thumbs and sent it. “Worth a shot,” she said.

“What now?” I asked. “Just sit around and wait?”

“Maybe we don’t have to,” she said. With that, she dug through her purse for her key chain. Flipping through the keys, she found the one she was looking for and held it up.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Every time we came to a new city, Chuck would open a safety deposit box for all of our personal and financial information. Maybe he put something in the box that would help us find him.”

* * *

The one thing I knew was that I was past the point of exhaustion. Lack of sleep, combined with the adrenaline-fueled events of the past few hours would have been enough to overwhelm even the heartiest of people.

But my bone-numbing tiredness could not get me to stop thinking about that extra normal ability. What was that thing that had overtaken me? Was it a dormant part of me that had super powers? Or was it something else that had taken hold, like a virus? How come I had the eyes of an eagle now, when just a few hours ago, I had to wear very thick glasses? I glanced at myself in the rearview mirror. My cataracts had started to become noticeable in the last few years, forming a milky covering over my iris; now, my eyes were clear and bright.

It was real. I knew I hadn’t imagined my house in pieces, or my mother lying dead beneath the rubble. All of that was a direct result of this thing that had manifested in me in David Matheson’s office.

I couldn’t think clearly. All I knew was that we had to find Chuck, get as far away from Seattle as we could, and then I would sleep for a year.

I followed Stacy’s directions to the bank, all the while struggling to keep my eyes open, but I forced myself to stay alert, watching for either Al, or for any police that might be on the lookout for me. I didn’t know whether my parole officer had found out about my being fired yesterday. I was certain, now, that David would keep a lid on it—he obviously wanted to get me first—but I couldn’t take the chance. I made sure to avoid running red lights, speeding, or doing anything that would attract unwanted attention.

“It’s over here,” Stacy said.

Traffic in that area of the city was a nightmare at the best of times. It was just at the tail end of rush hour, and finding a spot to park proved tricky, but I persevered and saw a young man in a hoodie heading for a car up ahead. I slowed down, enduring the blaring horn from the driver behind me, and scooted in as soon as the young man left.

“I’ll wait here while you go in,” I said, putting the vehicle into park. “Last thing I want is to get my face on their security cameras.”

Stacy took a deep breath, set herself, and flashed me a hopeful smile. “I won’t be long.” With that, she got out and strode down the street toward the bank.

I schooled myself to remain vigilant. The odds of anyone knowing our location were slim, but if the events of the past few hours had taught me anything, it was that anything could happen.

Despite my efforts, however, I soon found my head nodding and my eyelids growing heavy. Before I knew it, I fell into what felt like the deepest and blackest sleep in my life.

My slumber lasted for about five minutes, because that’s when the patrol officer tapped the window with his baton.

Chapter Fifteen

I jerked upright
and jammed my thigh on the steering wheel. Disoriented, I looked around wildly for a way to escape, but my seat belt was still fastened.

Looking across the passenger seat out of the window, the police officer, bending slightly at the waist, sported a grumpy expression. He mimed rolling down the passenger window.

I leaned over and did so.

“This is a loading zone, son. Ten-minute maximum. It’s not a camping site or a motel.”

“Uh,” I said. “I’m just waiting for my girlfriend.” I pointed toward the building. “She’s doing some banking. She’ll be back soon.”

“I need you to move your vehicle,” he said. “I won’t give you a ticket if you are in compliance.” With his baton, he motioned to the other side of the street. “There’s pay parking right over there, and metered parking at the end of the street.”

“Thank you, officer,” I said and fumbled for my keys. Starting the ignition, I waved at him. “I’m moving now.”

The relief I felt as he took a few steps away, resuming his patrol, was enough that I let out my breath loudly, unaware that I had been holding it.

Just as I put the car in gear, the officer turned around and put his hand up to stop me. He was looking at something at the front of the vehicle.

Silently cursing, I shut off the ignition.

Stepping back to the passenger window, he spoke to me in a more serious tone. “Please step out of the vehicle, sir.”

“Is everything all right, officer?” I asked, leaning over and talking through the open passenger window.

He glanced at me and then pointed at the front of the car. “Could you tell me what happened here?” he asked. It was more of an order than a question.

I felt my heart sinking and my stomach heaving at the same time. What the hell was he looking at? Briefly, I had a selfish notion to start the car and speed off, but I knew I wouldn’t get far, and I couldn’t just leave Stacy behind. She deserved better than that.

Reluctantly, I got out of the car and walked to the front of it to see what had caught the officer’s attention.

It was only when I was on the passenger side that I saw it. I hadn’t even realized it earlier, but the headlight was busted.

A broken headlight would ordinarily have been enough for any police officer to pull me over and give me a ticket or a warning, but what had the officer’s undivided attention was my mother’s cordless phone handset resting in the cavity of the light well.

“Can you explain how that got there?” he asked me.

It must have happened during that tornado I had created after…

“Uh,” I said, and could feel my face flush as I struggled to come up with a plausible explanation.

The officer pulled his notebook from his belt. “I need to see your driver’s license, registration, and insurance, sir.”

The moment he saw my parole card, or called in my license, he would immediately contact my parole officer—and then it would all be over for me.

Again, I entertained thoughts of flight. As if he could sense something was up, the officer slid his baton back in his belt and then rested his hand on his sidearm. “Sir, I asked for your driver’s license, registration, and insurance.”

“Yeah,” I said, finding my voice. “It’s in the glove compartment.”

I paused long enough for him to nod for me to proceed, and stepped over and opened the passenger door. Opening the compartment, I made it look as if I were having trouble locating the documents while my overtired mind struggled for a way out of this situation.

“Is everything all right?” someone asked, and when I popped my head up, I saw Stacy approaching. She had a thick brown envelope tucked between her elbow and ribs.

“Ma’am,” the officer said. “Do you know this gentleman?”

“Of course.” Stacy looked back and forth between us. “He’s my boyfriend, Rich. What’s this all about?”

Now that part of my story had checked out, the officer seemed to relax a notch. “Traffic violation, ma’am. Your boyfriend has a busted headlight.” He pursed his lips. “And it looks like it was broken with a telephone.”