Faithless Angel (4 page)

No more, Faith told herself.

She reached for the papers. The moment her fingertips brushed one folded corner, a strange numbness gripped her hand. The documents sailed to the floor.

Odd
. She flexed her fingers. They felt fine now. A ripple of apprehension seeped through her, but she quickly shook it away and reached again.

A large, scarred hand beat her to the task.

“What are these?”

“Just some papers.” She held out her hand.

“Important?”

“Very.” She swallowed against the sudden tightening of her throat. “Can I have them back?”

He hesitated a moment before placing them in her palm. “Thanks for the job.”

“No thanks necessary. You earned it.”

“And you nearly got yourself killed. Do you always
live so dangerously?” His voice was rich, deep, unsettling.

She swallowed. “It’s what I do.”
Did
, she silently corrected. Being a foster mother to a group of troubled teens brought a fair share of danger, but that had never put Faith off. Sure, there were dangerous instances, but she’d always believed that you get out of life what you give, and she’d always given love, hope, help.

How foolish. The world didn’t work that way. Tragedy struck in the blink of an eye, no rhyme or reason to it, and no number of good deeds could prevent it.

No more
, she told herself.
No more
.

She went to unfold the papers, but they slipped again from her suddenly trembling fingers to land in the puddle of coffee she’d spilled earlier.

“Damn it.” She wiped at the liquid on the pages, but the ink had already started to run. “Great. Now I’ll have to wait until Monday for another copy.” She closed her eyes in frustration. She wanted out, yet she found herself more trapped at every turn.

“Copy of what?”

“I’m sure Bradley has a ton of work for you.” She folded the soggy papers and stuffed them into her bag. “Tell him I’ll talk to him later.”

“You’re leaving?”

“Yes.” With her response came the tiniest spasm of guilt, so small she immediately pushed it aside.

She inched past Jesse, ignoring the strange heat that shot through her when she brushed against one lean, muscled arm. She moved toward the back door, but a large hand closed over her shoulder and brought her to an abrupt stop.

“Thanks again,” he said, the words enough to send
a tremor along her nerve endings. “You won’t regret giving me this job.”

She stared at the toes of her worn flats, resisting the urge to turn, to look into his eyes. “I already do,” she whispered, her voice so low she wondered if he could even hear it.

If he did, he gave no indication. He murmured a quick, “I appreciate the chance,” then let his hand fall away.

She forced her feet forward, fleeing the office into an afternoon that had turned even bleaker since the early morning. More rain, more rumbling thunder, and the ever-present feeling that somehow, in some way, Jesse Savage was responsible, not only for the storm that raged around her, but for the faint stirring of emotion within.

Nothing had changed, Jesse thought as he wiped a hand over his rain-slick face and squinted into the darkness. With the sky thick with clouds, dusk seemed more like midnight. But even the darkness couldn’t hide the dilapidated structure that stood at the corner of Walter and Carpenter, smack-dab in the middle of the Third Ward, one of Houston’s high-crime slum areas.

The condemned building had only three stories, but they seemed to tower over him. Grafitti covered most of the fading brick. Nothing but empty black holes existed where windows had once been what seemed like ages ago, though it hadn’t quite been a year.

Funny how things could change in the blink of an eye. One minute the building had been modest but clean, home to several families with tight incomes, but now a bitter desolation surrounded the entire place, as if the end of the world had come and this
building was all that remained. No people. No life, just a vacant, intimidating shell.

Only the faint gleam of a candle from an upstairs window gave any indication that somebody still lived there. Illegally, of course. The neighborhood had taken a nosedive from bad to worse, and the few tenants who stayed inside were here because they had noplace else to go.

But Jesse had someplace to go. He had something better waiting for him, a chance to ask forgiveness and ease his guilt, and Faith was his ticket to peace.

He pushed her image aside—her pain-filled green eyes, her delicate features that reminded him of a china doll he’d found in an old Dumpster in back of Restoration, Texas’s only five-and-dime.

He was far away from his hometown now, from those days when he’d still had a little faith of his own. It didn’t seem right to think of someone like Faith in a place like this. This was Jesse’s own private hell, where his demons lived and breathed. Where the past called to him and beckoned him inside.

Even as reason screamed for him to leave, to walk on by and go back to the foster home, he couldn’t make his feet move. He knew why he’d come back, and he couldn’t resist the lure of this place. Maybe if he saw the inside one last time, just once, he could quiet the demons and get on with his business at Faith’s House. Maybe …

He climbed over the board that read
KEEP OUT
and blocked the main doorway. Inside, the hallway was pitch black. The heavy scent of rotten food and urine overwhelmed him as he moved into the darkness toward the staircase at the far end of the corridor. His boots echoed in a steady rhythm, in tempo with the rain that pounded down outside.

Jesse climbed three flights of stairs, feeling eyes peer at him from darkened doorways. No one said a word, but he sensed their presence. These were the people with nowhere else to go. Society ignored them. The city wanted them out of sight, and so they came to places like this, to escape the rain and the cold of the streets. Only, inside wasn’t much better, with its filth and the rats and the awful smell.

The faint glow of a streetlight spilled through an open window, illuminating the faded yellow tape that blocked the doorway to apartment 3B. He stopped and simply stared for a long moment, wondering why he’d come back. Why, when he’d wanted only to leave the past behind and get on with eternity. With forgiveness.

His hand shook as he snatched the tape aside and walked into the all-too-familiar room. Debris littered the floor. The wind gusted through the windows, the edges jagged with broken glass. Rain drip-dropped in one corner from the leaky ceiling Jesse had patched at least a dozen times in the short three months he and his brother and sister had lived here. As soon as he’d sealed one leak, another had sprung.

He almost smiled; then he caught sight of the dark stains that covered the rotting floor near the far corner of the room. He didn’t want to look, but something deep inside—the rage, the fury he’d felt that night—refused to allow him to look away.

Funny. The stains didn’t even resemble blood anymore. His own blood that had soaked the floor in this very spot. His own life that soiled the rotting wood.

Well, lookee what we got here!

The voice exploded inside his head, and he clamped his hands over his ears. But it came again,
vicious and relentless and determined to make him remember.

Jason, what’s going on? Who are these guys?
Jesse heard his own voice, remembered the confusion when he’d rushed inside the apartment. The agonizing scene he’d stumbled upon.

“Jess, please just turn around and leave,” his younger brother, Jason, pleaded. “You don’t want any part of this.”

“That’s right, pig,” the man muttered to Jesse, his face hidden beneath a heavy black beard, his lips twisted in a cruel smile. “This is private business, my business, which means it ain’t none of yours, cop.”

“Like hell. I want to know what this is about. Now!”

“Now,” the man scoffed. “The pig wants to know now, so I guess we better tell him.” He motioned to Jason. “Your brother here has been moving a little merchandise for us,” the man said. The knife in his hand flashed like silver fire in the dim apartment light. “But he ain’t been what you might call a model employee. He’s been holding out, ain’t that right, Jason? And now he owes us.” The man advanced, moving the knife closer to Jason, who took a step backward, fear filling his deep brown eyes
.

“No!” Jesse pushed in front of his brother at the same time that his younger sister walked out of her bedroom
.

“Jesse!” Her frightened scream pierced his ears
.

He whirled, gun drawn, but the warning came too late. The knife plunged down. Again and again and again
…

Jesse sank to his knees, gripping his hand, which throbbed unmercifully. He stared down, expecting to see the blood again. There’d been so much. Spilling from his hand, his chest, his neck …

There was nothing now. Only newly healed skin and the pain of those few moments as his life had slipped away. He’d listened to his sister’s dying screams, his brother’s final gasps, breathed his own and wished with all his heart he could do something, say something.

The words had been there on the tip of his tongue, yet he hadn’t been able to speak them, no matter how he’d tried. The pain had swamped him, paralyzing his vocal cords. Then he’d taken that last, final breath, and the opportunity had been lost.

Jesse gasped for air. Heat surged through his body. He slammed his fist against the floor and threw his head back, staring at the collection of
shadows that blackened the ceiling. He wanted to scream, to shout, to cry, but he couldn’t. Not in this place. Here, rage dominated his emotions, refusing to let him feel anything except the hatred of that night.

The bearded man’s face filled Jesse’s thoughts, his eyes black and cold and glassy. Even a year hadn’t dulled the picture, eased the anger, or soothed the regret.

What about an eternity?
The words whispered in his head like a cool wind easing the blistering heat inside, and Jesse opened his eyes to stare up at the sagging ceiling, at the pinpoint of light that pushed its way through, like a moonbeam directed at his kneeling form.

The light grew brighter, swirling around him, comforting him, along with the voice.

An eternity, Jesse. Remember that. We’re offering you an eternity
.

Jesse fixed his gaze on the light and prayed for strength.

Like a wave of peaceful serenity, the sensation washed through him, from the tips of his fingers to his toes. He opened his eyes in time to see the light fade into nothing more than a crack in the sagging ceiling. Then came complete darkness.

A second chance
. The voice drifted through his head, calming him and keeping his emotions from boiling over.

And though Jesse didn’t want to think of her, Faith Jansen’s image pushed its way into his mind, reminding him of his purpose. The one and only reason he’d come back in the first place.

Not for vengeance. But for forgiveness. For Faith.

He managed to climb to his feet.

“You all right, mister?” The small voice came
from one darkened corner of the room.

Jesse’s thoughts disintegrated as he stared at the young girl, no more than thirteen or fourteen, who materialized from the shadows. A street lamp sent jagged shafts of light through a nearby window, illuminating her emaciated form. Concern sparkled in wide eyes that should have been wary when gazing at a man like him.

But he wasn’t an average man. He was more, and perhaps she knew that, though he knew she hadn’t seen the light. That vision had been his alone, a link to the other side. Still, she sensed something different about him, and it kept her rooted to the spot when otherwise she might have bolted.

She wore a tattered sweater, oversize jeans with holes at the knees, and boys’ hightop gym shoes that looked at least three sizes too big. A smudge of dirt marred the otherwise smooth features of her tanned complexion. Tangled shoulder-length blond hair surrounded her small face.

“What are you doing here?” Jesse’s voice sounded harsh even to his own ears. She didn’t seem the least put off, however.

“Keeping dry,” she said. “And staying away from the rats. They don’t like it much up here, and that suits me just fine.” She pulled an object up in front of her, and Jesse noticed the battered guitar she held.

“You all by yourself?” he asked.

She shrugged. “Got a few friends downstairs, but they don’t like to come up here much. They say it’s kinda creepy, considering what happened and all. You heard the story?” She took a step closer and added, “Some people got murdered up here, least that’s what they say.”

“No kidding.” The words were more of a comment than a question.

“Honest. One guy got sliced up right there where you’re standing. Lot of folks say his ghost lives up here. Can’t believe even a ghost would live in this run-down hole. Maybe one of them fine houses over in River Oaks, but not in a gutter like this. You ain’t a ghost, are you?” she asked, her face hinting at a grin, the expression making her look much younger, much more innocent than he’d first thought.

“No.” Jesse flexed his fingers, the cold biting into his skin—living skin. He was all too real, a predicament he was about to do his damnedest to rectify.

“I didn’t think so. Ain’t no such thing anyway. That’s what my ma used to say. Ghosts live in your head. Ain’t nothing to be frightened of in the world ’cept what you can see and touch. People are who you got to watch out for.”

“Sounds like good advice.”

“Yeah, my ma was good at giving advice. It was staying around she had a hard time with.” Pain flashed in her eyes—eyes that contrasted with the innocence of her face and made her look old again. Old and used. She shook her head, as if to shake away the memories. “It doesn’t matter anyway. I get along just fine without her.”

“Fine, huh?” Jesse glanced around the room. “Living up here with the filth and the ghosts is fine?”

“It ain’t that dirty, and like I told you, there ain’t no ghosts,” she pointed out, gripping her guitar.