Faithless Angel (13 page)

“What about me and Jason?”

“You two will be fine. Jason’s sound asleep, and you’ve got my beeper number if there’s a problem, or you can call the station. You know the routine, honey.”

“I know.” She shook her head and cast troubled eyes on him. “I don’t like it here. I wish we could go back home.”

“This is home now, Rachel.”

“Things are different here. People are different. Jason’s new friends …” She gave him a pointed, wide-eyed stare. “I really think you should stay here tonight. It’s just one night.”

“One night I can’t possibly miss.” He paused in buckling on his holster. “What is it about Jason’s new friends that’s got you so wound up?”

She looked undecided for a long moment, then
shook her head. “Never mind. You go on. I’ll see you in the morning.”

The urge to go to her, pull her into his arms and reassure her nearly overwhelmed him. But a lifetime of hiding his emotions, holding himself in check, always being the silent pillar of strength—a position forced on him by circumstance and a mother who neither loved nor wanted him—won out over the softness his little sister stirred. “I’ll be back soon. I know this graveyard shift is hard on everybody, but it’s just for a little while, until I make detective. That’s why we came here. So I could move up the ranks. A few more months walking the night beat and then we’ll have enough money set aside to get a better place. A nicer neighborhood. It’ll be better than Restoration. You’ll see.”

She gave him a smile, but the worry never left her eyes
.

“Be careful.”

“Sleep tight, sis
….”

Her troubled eyes had followed Jesse all the way to the station and on his shift that night. He’d been right in the middle of a raid on a crackhouse when he’d felt the twist in his gut, the dead certainty that something was wrong—

Paper rustled, breaking his train of thought, and his gaze shifted to Trudy. She sighed and snuggled deeper into his jacket.

He spread a blanket around her, tucking in the edges. Then he placed the bundle of food near her guitar and pulled a note from his pocket.

If you need help
, he scrawled in big black letters, along with the address for Faith’s House.

“Hey—” Trudy’s startled voice came up short as she scrambled backward. “Oh, geez, you scared the
crap out of me!” She clutched the blanket around her. Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “What are you doing here?”

“I thought you might be hungry.” He picked up the bundle of food and handed it to her.

She gave him a wary look that quickly disintegrated as she stared into his eyes. Then she peeled back the plastic wrap and sank her teeth into a cold piece of fried chicken.

“So what’s the catch?” she said in between mouthfuls. “I mean …” She chewed some more and swallowed. “There’s always a catch. You didn’t just bring me this stuff free of charge.” She waved the chicken leg at him. “So what do you want?”

“For you to consider leaving this place. I can hook you up with someone who could help you.”

“Shit!” She threw the chicken bone at him and he ducked. “I knew it! I knew you were too nice to be real. You’re a pimp. A damned, dirty pimp. Look here, I ain’t into that, you hear?” She started to scramble free of the blanket. “You can take your stuff back and stick it where the sun don’t shine—”

“I’m talking about a shelter.” Her movements instantly stilled. “I’m not a pimp. I work at a place called Faith’s House. It’s a shelter for kids like you.”

“You might as well be a pimp, ’cause I hold shelters in about the same regard, and I ain’t going to one. I like it fine right here.” At his pointed look, she added, “Okay, it’s not all that great, but it’s not bad either.”

“It’s a filthy hole in the wall. You said as much yourself the last time I saw you.”

“Things have changed. This is my place now. I even cleaned up.” She pointed to a broom leaning against the far wall. The bristles were grizzled, half
of them missing, but he could see where she’d swept the floor.

“People were murdered up here,” he reminded her. “One of them right there.” He pointed to the familiar stain and then the spot just to the right where Jason had taken his last breath.

“Maybe … I mean, I know what went down, but it don’t seem creepy to me.” To emphasize her point, she pulled out a small switchblade. “I can take care of myself. I ain’t afraid of nothing.”

“I’m not talking about a physical threat. This place”—he looked around him—“it’s a bad memory. It
feels
bad.”

“Not to me.” She grew quiet for a long moment. “I know it ought to scare me, but it don’t. I feel sort of, I don’t know, protected, I guess. I been alone most of my life, but here, it feels different. Like I got company.” She stared at him. “You believe in ghosts, like friendly ones?”

“Like a guardian ghost?”

She nodded. “I never bought into any of that crap, but since I been staying up here … It’s like I feel a presence, you know?” She pointed to the bloodstained floor, all that was left of Jesse’s old life. “When I’m in that spot right there, it’s like I can feel that guy. Like his ghost is here watching over me or something.”

He laughed, a bitter sound that made him grimace. “There’s no ghost up here. And if there were such a thing, the guy that died right there wouldn’t be anybody’s guardian; I can guarantee that.”

She leaned forward. “Did you know him? Is that why you came here the other night?”

He stared into the darkness, his gaze fixed on the broken window, where cool air whistled in, flapping
the plastic covering that someone had tried to tape in place.

“Yeah,” he said after a long moment. “I knew him, and trust me, he wouldn’t be anybody’s guardian.”

She settled into her corner, tucked the knife against her chest, and pulled the blanket up around her. “Tell me about him.”

“Why?”

“ ’Cause I want to know. I feel like I already know him in a way. Sometimes when I’m sitting here, I look across the room and I swear I can see someone. Just the faint outline, but it’s there. Like somebody’s watching me.”

“Nobody’s watching you, honey. But they should be. You’re too young to be out on your own.” He settled down on the floor, his back against the wall, his legs stretched out in front of him. He sat there for several minutes before he finally found his voice, and his courage.

“He was a cop from a little town called Restoration, no more than a couple of thousand people—just on the other side of Fort Worth. The town was small, all of two cops on the entire force, with very little room for advancement, so the guy packed up his brother and sister and moved them here. More money, better opportunities. They’d moved into this neighborhood temporarily until the cop could save up enough money for something better. He was this close to making detective.” He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. “He really wanted that promotion. He’d been looking to buy a little house on the south side, near Channelview. A little place, three bedrooms, a yard.” He stared at her then, their gazes colliding. “Really clean, you know?”

She nodded, as if she could see his dream, or rather, her own. “Yeah. Clean.”

“He was so busy hustling after this promotion, he didn’t spend too much time at home. He never had to worry about his kid sister; she was really smart, an A student, always followed the rules, an all-around good kid. His brother was another story. He was smart, but impulsive, and if there was trouble nearby, he was always neck-deep in it. That’s what happened that night.”

“The night of the murder?”

He nodded. “Restoration was a small, hole-in-the-wall town. No drugs. Very little crime. They moved here, and all of a sudden they were surrounded by scum. The kid brother fell into a bad group of kids who ran drugs for a local dealer. He wanted to fit in, to be liked, to make some of the money he saw his friends flashing around. Anyhow, he started running small amounts of crack for this dealer, and skimming off some of the cash on the side. The dealer came after him. Here.” He glanced around the room, his gaze cutting through the darkness. “The sister was asleep in the other room. The kid brother was right here, having a showdown with the dealer. The cop came home in the middle of the meeting and all hell broke loose.”

This ain’t none of your business, Savage. It’s your brother we want. We got a little lesson to teach him
—

“Holy crap.” Trudy’s words shattered the voice that haunted Jesse’s thoughts.

He closed his eyes. “It was all over so fast. The dealer pulled a knife. The cop drew his gun, but he didn’t have a chance to use it. He went down with the first plunge of the blade.”

Jesse winced. His hands started to tremble and a wave of pain washed across him. The voice blared in his head with renewed determination.

You’re home early, cop. Way too early
…

“… know so much?”

Jesse shook away the past. “What?”

“How do you know so much?”

“The cop was … my friend.” He ran tense hands through his hair. “We were tight.”

“Hey, that’s tough, man.”

“Yeah.” He climbed to his feet. “There’s the address for the shelter. Think about leaving this place.”

“I ain’t going to no shelter.”

“Think about it.”

“Mind your own business.”

He was halfway to the door when he heard her voice.

“You ain’t gonna call CPS on me, are you? I’ll just take off. I been that route before.”

He shook his head. “I told you before that I wouldn’t.”

“Thanks for the food and the blanket.” Her words followed him out the door.

His legs made quick work of the hallway, then the stairs. With each step, the walls seemed closer, caging him, strangling him, and he struggled for each breath.

You’re home early, cop
.

It’s your brother we want
.

Your brother
…

The words pounded through his head, making him sorry he’d come back here. He didn’t want to remember. To feel the pain again, to hear that damned voice.

To feel the hatred stir to life.

Peace
, his soul cried.
Peace and forgiveness and Faith
.

He didn’t bother walking to the front of the building. Instead he headed for the nearest exit once he reached the ground floor. Wood groaned and
cracked as he thrust his weight at the back door. He burst out into the night and leaned over, gasping for air.

Calm, he told himself, but his heart pounded furiously. It was so damned loud. Why hadn’t he listened to Rachel? Why hadn’t he stayed home that night? Why had he moved them from peaceful, crime-free Restoration to this drug-infested city? Why, why,
why?

Breathe, he told himself, and he did. Over and over until his lungs relaxed and he managed to straighten up.

His gaze went to the small row of sheds out behind the apartment building. One had a door hanging half-off its hinges; the other had a broken window. The paint was peeling, the wood rotting in most places. His gaze went to the third one. It was shabby like all the rest, but the door was still in place. The windows had been broken out, but they were too high and small to attract vandals, the shed in much too sorry shape to entice anyone.

Walking over, Jesse fingered the padlock on the door. It didn’t budge. Still as sturdy as the day he’d snapped it on. He hunkered down and moved a small rock near the corner of the shed. A hole about two inches wide sat beneath the rock. Jesse shoved his hand just inside the hole. Metal brushed his skin. Bingo.

He slid the key into the padlock. The shed door creaked open. Silence yawned at him and he walked inside.

The motorcycle was still there underneath the tarp, and Jesse couldn’t help but smile. No one in this broken-down neighborhood had ever fathomed what lay hidden inside the rotting shed. Then again, it had been just under a year. Sooner or later someone
would have broken in and taken the bike.

He didn’t worry over sooner or laters. He concentrated on the now and his incredible good fortune. His hands trailed over the frame, pushing away the layer of dust that coated the shiny chrome and paint.

“I don’t know anything about motorcycles.” With a critical eye, Jason surveyed the piece of junk Jesse had found at a local salvage yard
.

“That’s the point. We’re going to learn. We’ll put it back together ourselves.”

He and Jason had managed to get the entire thing rebuilt, complete with a new motor, tires, and a paint job, in the first two months they’d been here. Jesse had thought to keep his brother occupied, take up his time so he didn’t miss Restoration all that much.

Bitterness caught in his throat. Apparently restoring the machine hadn’t taken nearly as much time as it should have. Jason had still had the chance to fall in with the wrong crowd and find himself a mess of trouble.

Jesse tamped down the regret and concentrated on the motorcycle. Wheeling it out into the lot, he did a quick check of the motor. Other than a thick layer of dust, everything seemed intact. He straddled the seat, flipped the key, and kicked the starter. The motorcycle coughed, sputtered, then died. He tried again, and again. Finally it caught.

Jesse gunned the engine with one hand and trailed his hands over the initials carved into the handlebars. He and Jason had done that first thing before they’d ever started to piece the ’79 Harley back together. They’d marked the bike as theirs, without any words having been spoken between them.

That was the problem. Jesse had always held his feelings in, never one to open himself up to heartache twice. He’d gone that route before, poured out his love to a mother who’d never loved him back. A woman who’d treasured a bottle of cheap bourbon more than her own son. And so he’d held back from his siblings.

But he had loved them. That was why he’d headed to work every day, pulled double shifts, provided for them as best he could. Why he’d uprooted them and brought them to Houston. For a better life.

And the entire time—ten years of being their provider, their protector, their mother and father—he’d never once said the words. He’d done to them what his mother had done to him. And though he knew instinctively that Martha Savage had loved him in her own way, he’d always wanted to hear her say it.