Gunning For Angels (Fallen Angels Book 1) (11 page)

Jack watched them disappear, w
ishing he was a fly on the wall. He unlocked the driver’s side door, but Enid slapped it down, locking it. 

Jack frowned and, using his clicker, unlocked it.

She slapped it again.

“What the hell…!” 

“How’s it feel?” Enid said tauntingly. “Child locks also work on
immature adults
!”

“Open the door, you little…!”
             

“What?”
Enid asked with narrowed eyes.

Jack bent down, enunciating his words, “Open. The. Door.
Veronica.”

After a long moment, a scowling Enid allowed Jack to unlock his door. He got in.

“No fun being treated like a kid, is it?” Enid sniped as Jack started the car.

“
I’m
not the kid.
You are
.”

“I’m not a kid,
” Enid said, tossed her head. “I’m a young woman on the verge of
womanhood
.”

“Before you start booking the honeymoon suite for you and Dudley-Do-Wrong over there, you need to step back from the ‘verge’ before I knock you back.”

“Violence!” Enid exclaimed in mock shock.

“Until I can deliver you back to wherever or whoever you belong to…” Jack abruptly stopped, remembering that Sam had told him her mother was dead.

“I’m not going anywhere and you can’t make me.”

“How old are you?”

“Gee, I don’t know, how’s your math?” Enid pretended to get out an invisible calculator and punch in numbers, “Let’s see, a drunken one-night stand, nine months…”

“All right! All right!” Jack waved her into silence.

Almost all our desires, when examined, contain something too shameful to reveal.

–Victor Hugo

“The kid has eyes for you,” Bud told Chip, their footsteps echoing under the domed entryway.

“She’s just a kid,” Chip shrugged.

“What do you want?” Eve’s voice came from above.

Bud and Chip looked up.

Eve stood at the top of the staircase, one hand gracefully resting on the rail as she gazed down at them. She had a sheer wrap over her still-wet bathing suit. Bud heard Chip’s breath catch and immediately regretted bringing him along.

Why didn’t I listen to Bunnie?

Bud felt his alarm growing as Eve sauntered down the stairs, her eyes focused on Chip with the intensity of a cat eyeing a bug.

Bud glanced at Chip and was startled to see he had a besotted expression that could compete with the way the kid had been sopping Chip up with her eyes.

“Should I have the maid prepare a guest bedroom for you, Detective Orlean?” Eve smiled, sweet as saccharin. “You’re here so much, I’m thinking of declaring you as a dependent on my 1040.”

Bud felt a dull ache in his jaw and realized he was clenching. He took a deep breath and said in a controlled voice, “DNA confirmed the
body is Daniel Hargrove.”

“Oh!” Eve staggered back.

Chip bounded forward, wrapping his arms around her waist to steady her from falling. She leaned into him, fluttering her eyelashes up at him. Chip gazed down at her, his face flush with emotion.

Bud grunted in disgust, stepped forward and roughly shoved Chip away. Eve staggered, almost falling. She caught herself and glared at Bud with hostility.

“Dad!”

Eve’s eyes lit up in delight as she met Bud’s eyes and repeated,
“Daddy?”

“Are you all right?” Chip asked Eve.

Eve was in the process of melting him a smile that Bud instinctively knew would nail that kid’s feet to the floor. Bud grabbed Chip, hauled him across the floor and shoved him out the front door like he was an eight-year-old. Bud had a glimpse of Chip’s shocked face as he slammed the door behind him, locking it.

“My, my, my,” Eve purred. “What a pretty boy you have.”

Bud breathed heavily, not daring to speak.

“Why’d you bring him to me? A gift?”

“You sick, twisted…!”

“Don’t worry, detective, he’s too young for me. I like my men older and…” Eve leaned in, touched his collar where it met his skin.

Bud shivered.

“Wiser.” Her breath was hot against his neck.

Bud her shoved away and got out as fast as if he’d been standing in an open flame. He was unnerved by the deeply unsettling sensation of being unsure of who he was trying to save – Chip…

Or himself.

Is it not these well-fed long-haired men that I fear, but the pale and hungry- looking.

–Julius Caesar

Enid was dying to ask Jack where he was going to be dumping her off, but didn’t want to give him the satisfaction. It didn’t matter anyway – she came, she met her “father” and…

I want to punch his stupid face!

Every time she thought about how he locked her in the car like she was some idiot kid, she felt a hot rush of stinging tears. Not only did he humiliate her, he did it in front of the most incredible guy in the entire world.

Chip.

The sound of his name was like honey and butter. His face, his body, the sound of his voice was chiseled in her mind, and she luxuriated in the memory of when she first saw his gorgeousness standing there like he was a normal human being.

Not!

Then she remembered Jack hustling her to the car and
humiliating
her right in front of the only man she knew she could ever love!

She looked at Jack – calmly driving the car – ugh! She wanted to reach her hand into his chest like a ninja-magician-warrior and rip his still-pumping heart out and feed it to his stupid face!

She clenched her fists, unaware that a maniacal smile was distorting her face.

Jack glanced at her. After a moment, he asked, “You need me to stop? You look like you’re trying to pinch a loaf.”

“How could you embarrass me like that?” Enid yelled.

“What the hell ar
e you talking about?” Jack said, surprised.  

“Take me to the bus station.
”

“You’ve got no money.”

“I’m sure I can find some pedophile who will be willing to defile me for ten bucks!”

Jack clenched the wheel.

“What do you care, anyway?” she demanded.

“Does this have something to do with –
Chip
?”

“No!” Enid snarled.

“Then get your bowels out of a bind and stop acting like a spoiled brat.”

Enid crossed her arms, staring forward.

Jack said, “You are along for the ride and I expect you to retain some semblance of a good attitude.”

“Good luck with that,” Enid retorted. She stared out the window, watching as the scenery changed from upscale manicured lawns and golf courses into something that looked more like how she envisioned the Wild West would have looked. Her stomach rumbled as they passed a  “Welcome to Carefree” sign. Jack slowed the car to a crawl through a town of quirky art galleries
, kitschy western stores and restaurants with names like “The Horny Toad” and “The Satisfied Frog.”

“You hungry?” Jack said
.

Enid made a disparaging face that she hoped kept her “eat crap” attitu
de intact without quite saying “no” to the food. Several moments later, Enid felt her heart sink when she realized Jack had taken her reaction for a “no.” 

He turned up a dirt driveway. An occasional saguaro jutted out, but the landscape was mostly low brush and mesquite trees. Turning a bend, Enid was startled to see what she could only describe as a homemade Jesus garden. She glanced at Jack and saw that he was as surprised as her.

“Relatives?” Enid asked wryly.

He gave her a look.

It was sheer Christian-crazy – from the store-bought Jesus statues to the handmade signs with dire warnings, Enid stared in amazement
.
There had to be a hundred of them.

Enid read aloud from a sign in red spray paint, “I will make mine arrows drunk with blood and my sword shall devour flesh.”

Jack parked in front of a giant agonized face of Jesus. Enid got out of the car, glanced around nervously. “Seriously, what’s up with the…?”

“This time, you stay in the car. This will only take a few minutes.”

“How much?”

“What?”

“Like you said – I’m broke. How much will you pay me to wait here?”

“Not one damned dime.”

Enid shrugged. “I don’t like your odds.”

“This is work. Wait here and when I’m done, I’ll buy you lunch.”

Enid made a face, shrugged. “I don’t want to meet your girlfriend anyway.”

Jack gave her a look and walked to the house. Enid thought she saw a curtain twitch, but wasn’t sure.

Enid got out and leaned against the car, looking up at the giant saguaro cactus that loomed near the house. If it got knocked over in a storm, it looked like it could crush the house. If it got knocked over
right now
, it would squish Jack like a bug. Enid smiled as she imagined the horrified look on his face as it crashed down on him. Enid shaded her eyes to get a better look and was startled to see a hawk perched on top, staring at her like she was prey.

“Turn ‘round, hands up!” a woman’s voice rasped.

Enid jerked forward, hands flying into the air. Her eyes darted around the yard, unsure of where the voice was coming from. 

Maude Brisquet, a wizened woman who looked like sixty going on six hundred, was coming from behind the house, a shotgun pointed at Jack. Her loose-fitting housedress flecked with flour puffed out, revealing spindly legs. Her brown eyes in her wrinkled face reminded Enid of the hawk, which, at the sound of the woman’s voice, had taken flight.

Terrified that the old witch was going to shoot Jack, Enid bounded forward, shouting, “Hey!”

The old woman spun around – and the shotgun was pointed at
her
. Enid let out a croak that, in her head, translated to some magical words that would make the old woman drop the gun. 

“Take it easy,” Jack said, his voice surprisingly soft and calm.

Enid glanced at him, too scared to speak.

He met her eyes and gave her a “let me handle this” look. 

“Gov’ment?” Maude barked, aiming the shotgun at Jack.

“No ma’am. I’m a private detective. I mean no harm. I came to ask you some questions and I’ll be leaving.”

“Be leaving is right!” Maude motioned him to his car with the shotgun. “Git!”

Hands high, Jack cautiously picked his way through the Jesus art. “God bless you, ma’am.”

Enid blinked in surprise.

Jack gestured to a homemade statue of Jesus hanging on a twine-tied cross, “In the name of Jesus, God bless you for spreading the good work…”

Maude’s eyes narrowed suspiciously.

Jack’s face transformed. “Rai
sed up in the blood of Christ – on my knees every morning and night, praising the Good Lord, praising Jesus Christ Our Savior.”

Enid’s mouth fell open.

The old woman’s grip on the shotgun wavered as she called out, “What you want?”

“With all due respect, ma’am,” Jack said softly
, “I had some questions about – your daughter.”

“Don’t have no daughter but the one burning in hell!” Maude gripped the shotgun tighter, her finger twitching on the trigger.

Enid’s mouth went bone-dry as she watched Jack smile gently. “Yes, ma’am. I hate to bring up painful memories…”

“My conscious is clean! Nothing painful for
me!
”

“Ma’am? May I…?” He nodded toward Enid, “It’s my daughter I’m thinking about.”

Enid jolted, shocked at the sound of “my daughter” coming from his mouth, but then remembered that he was in the middle of a string of lies – calling her “daughter” was as sincere as the rest of it.  

“I was hoping I could trouble you for a glass of water – for my daughter?”

Maude frowned, glanced at Enid.

Jack turned his eyes heavenward and quoted, “Whoever drinks of the water that I give will never be thirsty again. It will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

Maude’s eyes changed from hostile to unsure, the muzzle of the shotgun dropping subtly.

“Well,
devil’s nightgown
,” Maude said, dropping the shotgun to her side, “I guess if you was up to no good, you wouldn’t be bringin’ no child.”

Enid frowned.

What the frig?!

“Come on then, kiddie.” Maude gestured for Enid to follow her.

Enid stood frozen, too surprised to lower her hands.

Maude walked past her, tapped her butt with the shotgun, “Come on now.”

Enid jumped forward, sending Jack a desperate look.

“I think
the child
might be hungry too,” Jack said with a smile.

Enid scowled at Jack, who didn’t even try to conceal that he was laughing at her.