The Angel Alejandro Read online

  Paulette’s breath hitched and her body shook with sobs. “I didn’t think I’d had that much. It was still early, but it was dark.” Tears streamed. “I didn’t see him. I just … didn’t see him.”

  Alejandro tilted his head, his eyes pools of compassion as Paulette pulled a tissue from a box and pressed it to her nose.

  Ill at ease, Madison cleared her throat. “I think we’d better-”

  “His name was David,” Paulette said, “and he was eleven years old. He was on his way home from a friend’s house.” Her shoulders shook.“I killed him. I killed him … and I left. I was so scared!”

  To Madison’s shock, Alejandro reached out and placed his hand over hers. What the hell is going on?

  His touch seemed to calm the woman - she sniffed, straightened, and met his eyes, her confession coming out in a strong, confident stream. “They never knew who did it. For the first year afterward, the drinking got worse, but I never got behind the wheel. Then, I went to A.A. I got a sponsor, and I told her everything … except that. I did the twelve steps, but it was half-assed, because I never admitted what happened that night.” Her chin quivered. “I thought that if I made amends for everything else I’d done, that would be absolved, too.” Her eyes pled with Alejandro. “But it wasn’t. It’s been fourteen years, and I dream of that little boy every night. I still wake up crying.” Her face crumpled.

  Alejandro patted her hand.

  “I’m a murderer,” she whispered.

  Madison gaped, wondering if her head wound wasn’t more serious than she’d thought. It was as if she’d blacked out and come to in the midst of a very different conversation.

  “You are not a murderer.” Alejandro’s voice was like satin.

  “I just can’t live with it anymore.” She honked into her tissue. “And I can’t tell his parents. They died.”

  Alejandro patted her hand. “You have suffered for this enough. Go on with your life, be kind to others, and help them learn as you have learned.”

  Paulette stared. “You don’t think I should go to the police?”

  ”No human law could make you suffer more than you already have.”

  Paulette wiped her nose and stared at her hands for a long time. Then she looked up, her eyes bewildered as if she were coming out of a trance. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know why I told you all of this.”

  “You needed to. You will be better now.” Alejandro rose from his chair.

  Madison fumbled to her feet, unable to tear her gaze from the woman. “Thank you for your help,” she said, feeling numb and far away.

  But Madison was invisible to Paulette as well. “Thank you so much,” she said to Alejandro.

  They left the office quietly, like parents creeping from a sleeping child’s bedroom.

  On the other side of the door, Carly sat immersed in her book. “Have a great day.” She watched Alejandro’s ass as they passed.

  “What the hell was that?” asked Madison as they made their way to the car.

  “She was a troubled woman,” said Alejandro. “She will heal now.”

  “But … what was that?”

  Alejandro shrugged.

  As she unlocked the car, a wave of dizzy nausea set her teetering. She put a hand to her head. I am not going to the hospital, she told herself. It will pass. And it did.

  “Are you all right?” Alejandro made a move toward her but she held up her hand.

  “I’m fine. Get in. I need to stop by the shop and see how Dette’s doing, then I need to go home and get some sleep.” She looked at the golden-haired stranger with the silvery-gray eyes, and for a moment she saw two of him. “We’ll figure out where you belong later.”

  She pulled onto the road, and although the sun was blanketed in thick quilts of dark clouds, she had to squint against the brightness of the day. They drove in silence, Madison’s mind still reeling from the motel manager’s confession. The secret had clearly been mounting for years and, like a shaken can of soda pop, exploded. But once the secret began to spill, it was as if Madison hadn’t even been in the room - it was Alejandro she confessed to. Madison glanced at him.

  He stared out the window, his handsome face contemplative. He seemed tired. His vanilla scent filled the car, softening the pounding hammer strikes within Madison’s head and calming her sour, spinning stomach.

  As they approached the stop sign at Cameo Drive, the edges of Madison’s vision darkened. A sharp migraine began doing its worst behind her eyes. She gripped the steering wheel as the world - a photograph burnt at the edges - zoomed in and out. A cold sheen of sweat chilled her. She pulled the Beetle to the side of the road and brought her hands to her head. Concussion. She’d hoped it hadn’t been anything so serious. “Shit. I think I need to go to the ER.” But she wasn’t sure she could get herself there. “Do you know how to drive?”

  “I could try.”

  “Never mind.” It occurred to her that none of this would be happening if she hadn’t been so foolish as to patch the roof in a rainstorm. God, what was I thinking? But it was too late for that. She rested her head on the wheel, taking slow, steady breaths, waiting for the nausea to pass. The sudden warmth of Alejandro’s palm on the back of her head startled her.

  White light flashed behind Madison’s eyes, and she froze, paralyzed.

  His hand tensed, just a little, and vibrating tendrils of warmth moved like soft bolts of lightning into her skull. She heard a quiet crackling, like the popping of a blazing fire, and a sharp citrusy scent - like a freshly peeled orange - pervaded her. The pain peaked, dancing like pinpricks at the center of her wound - and then it was gone.

  Madison raised her head. There was no dizziness, no nausea, and her vision was crisp. She looked at Alejandro, baffled. “What did you just do?” Her voice was thin.

  Alejandro blinked. “I do not know.”

  She watched him, suddenly overcome with the feeling she had known him before, or had been meant to know him. There was a sense that meeting him had been fate - as if her father, handsome, wise, and strong, stood for the beginning of her life, and this man, young and beautiful and strange, stood for another beginning. A beginning to something more meaningful than she could presently understand.

  * * *

  Blood in the sky, dripping, raining down on the town of Prominence, flowing in rivulets against window glass, and rushing in violent rivers down the streets.

  Beverly Simon’s breath caught as another image came.

  A thin blood-spattered hand is reaching, clutching at empty air as thunder crashes, booming and splintering as if the sky is being cracked open. Bells are ringing, their peals of warning rising, their echoes mingling with the overlapping screams of the dying. The hand convulses, the fingers curl inward like a dying spider.

  A new image.

  A man turns and walks away. Beverly can’t see his face, only the blunt heels of shiny shoes - sparks flying as they strike the ground - and the flutter of a trench coat shuddering behind him, billowing and snapping on a violent wind. The man’s stride is quick; his steps hard, fierce, and sure of themselves as tiny fires blaze from the cracks his shoes have left in the earth. Then the man is gone, but the fires swell, dancing toward one another, reaching to unite. They merge and expand, blazing together in crackling, deadly harmony. The blood rains down, but it does not stifle the fire. The Hellfire.

  Beverly gasped.

  “It’s him, isn’t it? It’s Roman?” Abigail Strane stared at Beverly from across the velvet-draped table, her pet pill bugs forgotten. “He’s made contact?”

  Beverly watched one of the bugs unroll itself and begin making its way toward the crystal ball. “No.” She didn’t have a clue what had just happened, but she was confident that it had not been the spirit of Roman Strane.

  “Well then, what was it?” Abigail twisted in her chair to look around.

  Beverly swiped her hand across the Tarot spread in front of her, nullifying it. “I don’t know.” She’d only experienced a few visions s
o powerful and none had been accompanied by such intense feelings of dread. She hoped it wasn’t premonitory, hoped it was just a typical glimpse of tangled images that ultimately meant nothing. Somehow, she didn’t think this was the case. Fire. Blood. Bells. A man in a trench coat. They seemed unrelated, too fragmented.

  Abigail’s eyes settled on the framed photograph of her late husband propped on the table. Despite the fact that he’d been dead for nearly a decade, Abby carried it everywhere - a clunky kind of talisman. Clutching the frame, she buried Roman’s scowling wizened face in her bosom, and spoke in a confidential tone. “My husband doesn’t know it yet, but -” her free hand traveled to her belly “-we’re expecting.” A tendril of smoke floated past from the incense stick on the hearth, and Abby watched it, her eyes sparking with wonder. “Roman? Is that you?”

  “That’s great news about the baby,” said Beverly.

  Abigail was pushing seventy-five and this was not the first time she’d announced her imaginary pregnancy.

  Abby placed Roman back on the table. “Mary.” She nudged one of the pill bugs that were her constant companions. “You’re going the wrong way.” Another poke. “Other way.” Poke, poke. “Look over there. Ishmael’s waiting for you!” She sighed, exasperated.

  Beverly, grateful for anything that would distract her from the terrible vision, tried to guess which one was Ishmael. She hadn’t a clue, and doubted Abigail knew.

  Satisfied that Mary the pill bug had been placed on the proper path, Abby looked at Beverly. “Well? What did he say?”

  “What?” Beverly realized she’d been drifting.

  Abby clucked her tongue. “Roman. My husband. What did he say?” She shook her head sadly. “You kids these days. You just don’t listen.”

  At thirty-four, Beverly was no kid, though she appreciated the epithet. She gave Abigail a weak smile, wrestling the same moral dilemma that came with each of Abby’s visits. Beverly didn’t have it in her to tell the woman that she’d made no contact and that, in fact, she doubted contact with the dead was even possible. But it’s always possible to comfort the living. “Roman says he loves you and he misses you very, very much. He says he’s waiting for you but it’s not your time yet, and he wants you to be happy until he can see you again.”

  Abby’s eyes widened and she gasped, astonished by the otherworldly report. “That sounds just like my Roman! That’s exactly what he’d say!”

  Beverly had passed along the same message a dozen times over, but for Abby, it was always the first time.

  “And what about the …?” She pointed at her belly.

  Beverly nodded. “He’s very excited about the baby. He says he can’t wait.”

  Abby clapped her hands together, the beam of her crooked dentures brighter than the candles that blazed in the votives between the women. “Oh, I just knew he’d be happy about that!” Her glee was contagious. She picked up Roman’s picture and kissed the glass. “We’ll be so happy, Roman. So happy.”

  One of the wandering pill bugs came perilously close to the table’s edge on Beverly’s side, and anxiety flashed in Abby’s eyes. “Oh! … Get Moses!” She pointed a panicked finger at the bug, and with a gentle smile Beverly gave Moses a little tap. He pulled himself into a ball and Beverly rolled him carefully back.

  Abby sighed with relief and fanned her bosom, clearly pleased with Beverly’s on-the-spot emergency response.

  “We don’t want Moses to get lost,” said Beverly.

  We certainly don’t!” Abby stroked the bug gently, then reached beneath her chair for her black trash bag, which Beverly knew was full of tangled, ratty wigs of every imaginable color and style.

  Beverly understood the picture and the pill bugs - Abby was lonely - but she never could figure out the reason for the wigs. As evidenced by the woman’s stringy thinning pate, she didn’t wear them, but for reasons known only to Abby, the wigs were important.

  Abby stood and Beverly frowned at her stained, moth-bitten Hello Kitty T-shirt. I wish she’d wear one I gave her for Christmas. But she knew Abby wouldn’t part with this one until it turned to dust and crumpled from her plump frame. It, too, was important to her.

  Abby bent and recited the names of her pill bugs as she gathered them into her hand; they were all named for biblical characters. Beverly wondered why, but didn’t ask.

  Abby held her bug hand close to her face, warning Moses of the dangers of roaming too far on his own and instructing the others to learn from his nearly-fatal mistake.

  Beverly led Abby to the door. “It was lovely to see you again, Abby.”

  But Abby wasn’t listening, and that was probably for the best. She would have only reminded Beverly that she was mistaken, and that this was her first visit to the Psychic Sidekick. It was always Abby’s first visit.

  Beverly pulled the door open. “You have a safe walk home, okay?”

  “Thank you, dear. It was such a pleasure to meet you.” She stared at Beverly’s hair. “I once had hair that color. That exact shade of auburn.” She touched her own as if trying to recall what had happened to it. “Did you know that, dear?”

  “I didn’t know that, Abby.” Another lie. “You stop by and see me anytime, okay?”

  “Oh! I almost forgot to pay you! Where are my manners?”

  Beverly put her hand on the woman’s arm. “Your money’s no good here, Abby.”

  But Abby wouldn’t hear of it. She dropped her wig bag and thrust her hand into her pocket and began rooting around. “A service provided is a service paid for, young lady!” Her hand emerged, closed tight around something Beverly was sure to regret accepting. “I insist!”

  “Okay, Abby.” Beverly opened her hand and Abby proudly plunked something warm and rubbery into her palm: it was a sticky, lint-covered cinnamon bear, and Beverly thanked the gods for it. Last time it had been a dirty sock, and on another occasion, a handful of cigarette butts. Nothing had been worse than the petrified dog poop, though.

  “And young lady,” said Abby, gathering her wig bag, “remember …” she pointed to her abdomen then brought her index finger in front of her lips.

  “I won’t tell a soul.” Abby’s pregnancy was always a secret.

  The woman gathered her bag and Beverly watched her bustle down the sidewalk, turning left off Cameo Drive, heading to her cluttered tin-can mobile home a few blocks down.

  Beverly pressed herself against the door and took a slow breath.

  She hadn’t felt right since the vision had struck. Her heart beat a little too hard, her face was a little too warm, and pressure was mounting behind her eyes. Despite her resolve to ignore the vision, her memory replayed it on a loop. The pale clawing hand. The merging of the screams and the bells. The blood and the fire. The man in the trench coat. Were they metaphors? Metaphors for what?

  Something’s coming …

  Bernadette Watkiss

  At O’Riley’s Rocks, Bernadette Watkiss filed her acrylic nails. She’d had them done at Vang’s Bangs, and vowed no one but Evelyn Vang herself would touch them again. She hadn’t been able to get an appointment with her, and instead, that insipid Rebecca McNair had done the job - and Dette could see the lack of craftsmanship. The acrylic was overly thick in some places and the nails varied too much in length. She wasn’t sure about the Fire Engine Red that Rebecca had suggested, either. Dette generally preferred plums and violets and now she knew why. I look like a whore.

  The only customers at O’Riley’s were a middle-aged couple in matching Bodie the Ghost Town T-shirts emblazoned with an abandoned saloon. How anyone considered a bunch of crooked shacks an attraction, Dette couldn’t figure, but whatever. Hopefully, they’d purchase something; Madison had been on her case lately about drooping sales.

  “Let me know if I can help you find anything,” Dette said. There. Customer service at its finest. “We have Bodie key chains and letter openers.”

  The couple offered awkward matching smiles to go with their awkward matching T-shirts. They were obvi
ously tourists on their way back from their real destination. No one came to Prominence on purpose except during the Founder’s Day Fair, still a month away.

  Husband and Wife moved to the glass case of semi-precious gemstones and admired a massive glittering geode. Wife nudged Husband and pointed at it. They whispered in library tones, probably astonished by the price.

  Dette went back to her nails.

  A jangle of bells announced a new customer. She looked up - and froze. It was Madison, but she wasn’t alone - and the man who accompanied her brought Dette’s breath to a halt.

  Madison greeted the customers and offered assistance. They declined, both staring at Madison’s companion, who flashed them a breathtaking smile. Even Husband blushed and fidgeted. Wife beamed and giggled, oblivious that Husband was considering switching sides.

  Madison made her way to the counter, leaving her friend staring in peculiar fascination at a spinning rack of postcards. “How’s business?”

  Dette gaped. “Who the hell is he?”

  Madison waved the question away. “I don’t even want to talk about it.”

  Dette hopped off her stool. “Well, you’re going to.” She grabbed Madison’s hand and pulled her around the counter.

  Madison called over her shoulder, “Just a minute, Alejandro. I’ll be right back.”

  The gorgeous guy said, “Okay,” in a silky tone, nudged the postcard stand and stood back, startled, as it spun.

  In the office behind the counter, Dette pushed Madison into the swivel chair by the computer. “Talk.”

  Madison sighed, and recounted the events of the past 24 hours.

  “He doesn’t look like an Alejandro,” said Dette.

  “That’s the thing. I don’t even know if that’s his name. I don’t think he knows his name.”

  “He has amnesia?”

  “Or something.” Madison paused. “There’s definitely something wrong with him.”

  Dette cracked the door and peeked out. The gorgeous stranger was jabbing a finger into a piece of petrified wood. He tugged at the collar of his white aviator shirt, but Dette was more interested in the pair of butt-hugging khakis, and the size of his black hiking boots. She didn’t believe in love at first sight, but a man like this could change her mind. “He dresses nice.”