Halos (19 page)
S
TEVE’S CHRISTMAS SHOPPING LIST WAS as basic as it could get. Some little gadget for Dave, a hat or socks for Ben, chocolates for Karen and Mary and Diana, and dolls for the little girls. He’d also give Stacie and the other shopkeepers a scented candle or decoration of some sort for being his neighbors. That was it. No extravaganza, no shipping dozens of packages, no stuffing things under a tree.
He paused. Should he get something for Alessi? She had been helpful. And it would be glaring to leave her out. But what would he get? He was notoriously bad at choosing. Barb had returned most of his gifts for something she actually liked.
He frowned. He could just do chocolates as for the other women. But that didn’t seem right somehow. Alessi’s comment about Ben stuck in his mind. If she was the kind who matched a person to a gift, a generic box of chocolates might not seem special. Not that it had to be special. He pulled that thought out by the root.
Nothing extravagant, certainly. A book? Too easy. And then it came to him. While Alessi watched
The Bishop’s Wife
with Dave and Ben and their respective lady friends, he drove once again to Phyllis Bartle’s house.
Debbie met him at the door with a smile, but no hugs or patting followed.
“Hi, Debbie. Is your mom home?”
“Sure.” She scooped up the pug and started down the hall. The other two dogs, a shepherd mix and a tawny mutt, bounded over and sniffed him. By their breath, he guessed they’d just eaten something he’d rather not know about.
Phyllis was in her sewing room, machine whirring and piles of fabric cut in small squares all around her, like the peasant daughter in Rumpelstiltskin trying to spin gold from heaps of straw. She looked up.
“Steve, I don’t have that gal’s car.” He smiled. “I didn’t think so.”
“What brings you back, then?”
“Angels.” He looked at the shelves around the walls, stuffed with cloth angels in myriad colors. Some wore little country dresses; some were lace and ribbons. Some had tiny wigs, others yarn hair, and a few were topped with something that looked like dried grass. “I’d like to buy one for Alessi for Christmas.”
Phyllis stopped the machine. “Take your pick. I’m making a delivery tomorrow and those shelves will be bare.”
She sold very well out of a gift shop in Chambers City, and he was glad he’d caught her before she took this batch out there. But looking at the dozens and dozens of angels on the shelves, he froze. How did he know what Alessi would prefer? Phyllis started the machine again, unconcerned by his inertia.
Debbie set down the pug and walked over to the shelf beside the window. She took down an angel in stiff white fabric with thin lacy wings. Her hair was shiny strands of curling golden thread and her face had sweet, painted features. Debbie handed it to him, and he touched the halo made of twisted gold wire.
“She’s my favorite,” Debbie told him. “Give her to Alessi.”
Steve cradled the angel in his palms. Yes, it was a good choice. And he had no doubt Debbie knew who it was meant for. He smiled. “Thank you.”
“Eighteen dollars,” Debbie said.
More than he’d intended to spend, but Phyllis and Debbie lived on the proceeds from their angels. He took out a twenty. “You keep the change for helping me choose.”
Debbie smiled broadly. “Thanks.” She folded the angel in tissue, then put it in a paper bag. Steve left there, certain he had exactly the angel that was meant for Alessi.
Steve was still out when
The Bishop’s Wife
ended, but Alessi had her key, so she headed for the store. If the moon was there, it was muffled in thick wooly clouds and gave sulky light at best. Good thing she knew the way.
The warmth and joy of the old movie stayed with her. She imagined the ice rink with strings of white bulbs and the angel Dudley making everyone a great figure skater. She laughed at how easily they believed it was their ability. If you didn’t recognize the magic, you could get conceited. Like the princess who refused to marry the frog in
East of the Sun, West of the Moon
. She sure paid for that mistake.
She crossed the intersection where the streetlight showed the heavy sky with no stars breaking through, passed Hawkeye Gifts, then turned into the narrow alley to go in through the back of Bennet’s. The tiny lot was dark and silent, her steps in the snow the only sound. Not even the cloud blanket took the edge from the cold. It would probably snow soon. And like anything else that came too regularly, it was losing its magic.
She had the key ready when she reached the door. She inserted it. A sound like wind, and she was struck and engulfed by cold; shocking, stunning, soaking cold. Gasping for breath, she looked up through dripping hair. A blazing light glared, sending needles to her brain.
She raised an arm to fend it off, seeing nothing but orange spots behind her eyelids. She jerked the door open and flung herself inside, slamming it and panting and shaking so hard she thought her teeth would come loose from their sockets. Her spine stiffened and trembled at once, causing spasms to connecting tissue.
She pulled Steve’s jacket off, and her wet hair slapped her neck. She stripped the black cable-knit sweater and groped for the blanket on the cot. Her hands were palsied and stiff, and pain shot up her arms. If she ever wanted to know how a coach felt after victory, she knew it now. Only it had been so cold to start with, the icy bath was nothing short of cruel, and she had no victory to soften the blow.
She didn’t have to wonder who did it. The person who had hung her bra was on the roof. He’d waited there for her with his ice-water tub, waited for her to stop beneath him, unsuspecting. He knew the shock would paralyze her. And the light. It was calculated cruelty beyond a rocky snowball.
Alessi grabbed a wad of paper towels and mopped her hair as she headed for the telephone. The skinny directory lay beside it, and she flipped through for the sheriff’s number. He would never get there before the person escaped the roof and fled into the night, but he could see her soaked things and …
Steve’s words came back to her.
“You’re the only one who’s seen it. It’s your word alone.”
And his telling the sheriff about the other times hadn’t mattered. Cooper Roehr would think she’d soaked herself, set it up to beef her story. No witness. And she’d be dragging him out of bed and creating a disturbance. She hung up the phone and drew the blanket tighter around her. Dragging back to the cot, she stripped her wet jeans and created uncontrollable kinetic energy inside her own skin.
Ben and Dave were taking Mary and Diana home. And what would be the good of troubling them anyway? Whoever did this was gone. They might find his marks in the snow, where he huddled on the roof and even how he got up and down. But there’d been the tire circles, too, and that hadn’t mattered.
She pulled on Steve’s sweats and the dry T-shirt, then squeezed out the wet clothes over the sink. She wasn’t injured. It could have been worse. And from now on she’d use the front entrance. There might not be anyone around, but the light from the intersection gave some illumination at least. And maybe she wouldn’t stay out past dark or go to the house at all after work.
She frowned. It wasn’t right. She should have the freedom to come and go like anyone else. Her shivering increased, and suddenly the word
persecuted
seemed appropriate after all. But why? What had she done but follow her hope?
Steve went into the house and found the television off and the room empty. He had tucked the little package inside his coat just in case, but no one was home. Or the guys had gone to bed. But as he stood there he heard a car outside. He went to the front door and held it for Ben.
The sky had lowered with clouds, heavy with snow. All day they had fattened, but no snow had fallen. It would be a good one when it came. “Got Mary home?”
Ben nodded.
“Did you or Dave run Alessi back?”
Ben pulled off his jacket. “She went herself, as soon as the movie ended. Dave was getting cozy with Diana, and …” He shrugged and reached for a hanger.
Alessi had felt extraneous. Nothing like a fifth on a double date. He shouldn’t have left. Not that it would have been a triple, but it might not have felt as awkward for her. “She walked to the store?”
Ben nodded. “It’s not far.”
It wasn’t. But Steve was not easy about it. He went to the phone and dialed the store. After two rings Alessi picked up. Her greeting sounded shaky.
“It’s Steve, Alessi. I wanted to make sure you made it in all right.”
There was a sound that might have been chattering teeth. “Yes. I did.”
“Everything all right?”
She sighed. “Yes.”
Okay, so his perceptions were poor, but he could swear things were not okay. He waited for something to come into his head. Communication had never been his strong suit. “Are you sure?” The pause was long enough for him to wonder if he’d insulted her. Then she started to cry.
He hung up and took his keys from his pocket. Something had told him to call; something had made him doubt. He didn’t usually trust his intuition, but in Alessi’s case, he seemed to hit it pretty close. The cold struck him as he got back to the truck, then drove to the store and parked. A wind had come up and bit the back of his neck.
He reached the door and smacked into it with an elbow and forehead as his feet went out from under him. The whole stoop was ice, wet glare ice and what looked like cubes, the sort you bought in a bag. He gripped the knob and pulled himself up.
“Alessi, it’s me,” he said before opening the door.
She was huddled in a blanket, her hair wet and lips a lavender gray. Tears beaded her lashes like dew, but she wasn’t sobbing. She said, “He was on the roof with a bucket.”
More than a bucket by the spread of ice outside. “You saw him?” She shook her head. “I looked up, but he had a light. Really, really bright.”
Steve crouched down and took her hands between his. They were ice-cold and shaking. He chafed them gently. “You’re freezing.”
“I’m getting warmer.”
“You should come back to the house.”
“No.”
So that was still a stubborn point. She did not want to be scared off. But this was more than scaring. He’d started with a snowball, teased her with the bra, and scared her with the mask two nights ago. You could call those pranks, but this had progressed past taunting. “It’s gotten physical. I’m not sure you’re safe.”
“I have a right to be here.” Her face pinched with pain and indignation. “It might be nothing more than my own little corner and my own little chair, but can’t I ever have my own place, somewhere I belong?”
“Yes.” Steve cupped her hands and blew on them. “But I want you safe.” More than she wanted what mattered to her? She had admitted wanting her car back; now she wanted a place to belong. But what if both those things made her a target?
She sniffed. “Could you set the alarm?”
He looked at the door and sighed. “I guess I could.” Why this person had targeted Alessi, he didn’t know. Maybe for no reason except that she was new. And alone. “But I wish you’d come back with me.”
“I’m sure he’s long gone. He probably expected me to call the sheriff.”