“Ah well, you think that because you mortals have odd ideas of what we angels are like. Now, would you please get out of bed so we can get something to eat? This body is weak with hunger. What an annoyance this is. How often do I have to feed it?”
“Once a month,” she said, smiling sweetly. “And give it something to drink every two weeks.”
Laughing, he said, “Up! Get dressed.” Then he stood back and looked at her. “It’s very strange seeing a person’s body through mortal eyes. Usually, I just see spirits, but seeing you like that is quite interesting.”
Emily flung the covers back over her body. “Go outside and wait for me. Keep hidden and don’t let anyone see you.”
“My wish is your command,” he said then looked puzzled at his own words.
Emily couldn’t help laughing. “Go on, get out of here,” she said as she threw a pillow at his retreating form.
Chapter 6
NO, NO, NO AND DOUBLE NO,” EMILY WAS SAYING. SHE was sitting with Michael in a back booth at a truck stop eating blueberry pancakes. At least she was trying to, but he kept eating half her food as well as his. He said he was trying to decide whether strawberry pancakes or blueberry were better.
She lowered her voice. Not that anyone was looking at them. From the look of the men in this place, half of them were wanted by the FBI. “I am not going to take you home with me. I am not going to hide you. I am not going to take you to the old Madison place so you can snoop around. That house is falling down and it’s dangerous. Not to mention that it’s haunted.”
“Haunted? What’s that?”
“Ghosts! Stop that! That’s my pancake. Yours are on your plate. Look, it’s not polite to eat off another person’s plate. At least not if you aren’t lovers.”
Immediately, he looked hurt. “But, Emily, I’ve loved you for thousands of years. I love all the people in my care. Well, maybe I love some of them more than others but I make a supreme effort.”
“We’re not lovers. Actually, we’re not ‘in love,’ either.”
“Ah, I see. Sex. We’re back to that.”
“No we’re not. We can’t get back to something we never got to in the first place and stop doing this to me!”
“What?” he asked innocently.
She narrowed her eyes at him until he grinned.
“All right, back to the subject. Emily, love, I need to see that house. If it’s as you say it is, then maybe it’s what I was sent here to fix.”
“What are you going to do? Perform a séance?”
She could tell by his expression that he had no idea what that was. “You sit around a table, usually with a person who is a spirit medium, then you call a spirit up and ask questions and—” She stopped because his mouth was definitely twitching in laughter.
“What have I said that is so very hilarious to you?” she hissed. “And you take one more bite of my pancakes and you’ll lose a hand.” She held her fork aloft, ready to jab.
“I’m just trying to understand what you said,” he told her, and she could see that he was working hard to keep from laughing out loud.
“No you’re not. You’re not trying to understand anything. You just want to make fun of me.” Grabbing her purse, she started to leave the table, but he caught her hand and instantly she calmed and sat back down.
“Emily, I don’t mean to offend you—I really don’t. Why can’t you just look at me as though I come from a different country and my ways are very different from yours?”
“Another country?” she said. “You come from an insane asylum and I’m not going to help you do anything whatever on this earth.”
She sat there with her hands folded across her chest, knowing full well that she looked like a sulky little girl, but she couldn’t help herself. He seemed to bring out the worst in her.
“Hear that, Mr. Moss?” Michael said casually. “To talk to a spirit we have to sit around a table and call you up. You know, I think I remember seeing a few of those things. Emily, you loved them back in…when was that? I think it was about 1890. Or was it 1790? What do you think, Mr. Moss?”
“Very funny,” Emily said, her arms still folded. “Talk to your imaginary friend and make fun of me.”
“Are you going to eat that?”
“Yes!” Emily said, although she was full and didn’t want another bite. But she stabbed what was left of her pancakes and put a huge bite in her mouth.
“Emily,” Michael said softly. “I don’t mean to make fun of you, but I think I see things differently than you do. There are spirits everywhere. It’s just that some have bodies and some don’t. There really is no difference.”
“And I guess you can see the ones without bodies,” she said, her voice dripping sarcasm.
Michael didn’t answer but looked down at what was left of his pancake.
“Well?!” she demanded. “Can you or can’t you?”
His head came up, his eyes fierce. “Yes, of course I can. And it amazes me that you can’t. Can’t you see Mr. Moss sitting right here beside me?”
In spite of herself, Emily glanced to his right, then back at him. “I guess you’re going to tell me that this truck stop is haunted and there’s a ghost sitting next to you.”
“Mr. Moss says he is….” Michael paused, then smiled. “I don’t understand this but he says he prefers to be called ‘anatomically challenged.’ He’s a very nice man, and he says that the next time we come here we have to try the sausages. Maybe we could order some now.”
“No!” Emily said. “You’re going to get fat. Would you please stick to the subject?” She would have died rather than ask him such a dumb question, but she couldn’t resist. “Are you telling me that you’re talking to a ghost right now?”
“Well, more listening. He says it’s been a long time since anyone’s been in here who can hear him. He says this modern world is really sad because no one believes he exists so when he tries to talk they don’t listen. The only people who listen are ones who are crazy or on lots of drugs.” Michael leaned toward Emily. “He says being a ghost in modern America is a very lonely life.”
“Well,” Emily said slowly, looking about the restaurant. “I think I need to use the ladies’ room, then we’d better head out.”
“What’s a powder?”
“A what?”
“Mr. Moss says you’re going to take a powder.”
“That’s right. I’m going to go to the powder room.”
“He says you’re going to run away and leave me here because you think I’m crazy. He says he sees it all the time. If that’s so, Emily, I wish you well in your life and hope you have every happiness.”
“You are a truly horrible person,” she said, glaring at Michael. If he’d protested or demanded that she stay, she could have walked out, but how could she leave a man who wished her happiness? “I’m going to the rest room now and I want you to pay the check while I’m gone, and when I return I don’t want to hear one word about Mr. Moss.”
Michael turned to his right. “Sorry. Maybe next time.”
Emily didn’t respond but turned on her heel and walked toward the rest room.
When Emily returned, Michael was waiting for her outside the restaurant. It annoyed her that he was becoming so familiar. Sometimes she felt like she had spent more time with this man than she had with Donald. But then she and Donald were always working on one of his stories.
“I think we need to talk,” she said seriously, planning to start with the speech she had written in her head in the few minutes they had been apart. He couldn’t go home with her, so she had to leave him somewhere else. They just had to figure out where was safe.
Safe for a man wanted by the FBI, the Mafia, an enraged wife and the media. Not to mention bounty hunters and—
“Worried about me, are you?” Michael said, and seemed to be extraordinarily pleased at this idea.
“Not in the least,” she answered, walking through trucks parked in front and back of the restaurant. S
he had parked her little white Mazda more in the woods than in the lot, hiding it behind the trailer of an eighteen-wheeler that looked as though it hadn’t been moved in many years.
“It’s just that we have to figure out what to do with you. You can’t possibly go home with me, so we have to come up with somewhere else you can go. Or someone you can call to help you. Or maybe you can—”
“No!” Michael said sternly as Emily reached out to put her key in the car door lock.
“You don’t have to unlock every door,” she said in disgust. “I know you want to practice your magic but—”
Abruptly, harshly, Michael pulled her away from the car, and with her back against his chest, she could feel his heart pounding. A glance up at his face revealed that he was glaring at the car as though it were something malevolent.
“W-what is it?” she whispered looking back at the car. Her own heart was beating hard and fast.
“There’s something wrong with that machine,” he said. “It has dark colors around it.”
It took her a moment to realize what he meant. “An aura? Machines don’t have auras.”
He didn’t bother to answer. “I want you to go into those trees—far into them—get down on the ground, cover your head and wait for me. Do you understand?”
He had his hands on her shoulders, and when he looked down at her, his eyes were burning; all Emily did was nod yes. Then he released her and she walked quickly toward the woods, giving her car a wide berth. And once she hit the tree line, she couldn’t stop herself from running until she stumbled and fell against some shrub oaks. Obediently, she got down on the ground and covered her head with her arms.
It seemed like hours went by, but when she dared lift her head so that she could look at her watch, she saw that only a few minutes had passed. When fifteen minutes went by and she’d heard nothing, she began to feel foolish. What in the world was wrong with her? Why had she so blindly obeyed the orders of a man she knew to be insane? A car having bad colors around it, indeed! Did he think she was born yesterday?
But in spite of her reasoning, she stayed where she was. When she heard a noise in the bushes, she put her arms over her head again.
“It’s me,” Michael said, “and I think the danger is past. Is this a bomb?”
Emily looked up to see Michael standing there. In his hand appeared to be sticks of dynamite with wires dangling from them. “I…I think so,” she said. “But my experience with bombs is limited. Shouldn’t you, ah, get rid of it?”
“How, exactly?”
“I have no idea. Did you find it on my car?” She almost choked on the last word, as her throat was suddenly very dry.
“Hooked to the bottom. Mr. Moss told me which wires to cut so the machine wouldn’t explode.”
“And you,” she said, looking up at him.
“No, I’m afraid I didn’t know which wires so he—”
“No, I meant that you would have exploded as well as the car.”
“Ah, yes, this body would have.” He took his eyes off the thing in his hand to look at her. “That would have been a shame, since I would have been sent back to work without finding out what evil is around you.”
“I think maybe you’re holding the evil,” she said. “Couldn’t you get rid of that thing?”
“Yes. Mr. Moss says there’s an old mine shaft around here that needs filling up. If I throw this down it, it will explode and fill the hole. Emily, stay here and stop worrying about me. Mr. Moss knows what he’s doing.”
“Great,” she said. “A ghost showing an angel what to do with sticks of dynamite. I can’t imagine what I was worried about.”
Chuckling, Michael went off into the trees while Emily stayed on the ground and waited. It seemed like a long time before she felt the earth rumble under her body and knew that the explosion had taken place. Only after Michael reappeared and she knew that he was safe did she get off the ground. Even then, her legs betrayed her, and she would have fallen if he hadn’t caught her.
“It’s all right,” he said softly, holding her in his arms while he caressed her hair. “Really, Emily, we’re both safe now. You can relax.”
“Who did that? Did they want to kill you that much?”
“That bomb was for you, not me,” he said softly.
It took her a moment to comprehend what he was saying. “Me?” She pulled away from him. “Are you telling me that someone wanted to blow me up?”
“Yes.”
She stepped away from him, and the absurdity of his words gave her her strength back. “So I guess it had my name on it and that’s how you know. Of course, the fact that you’re wanted by every criminal in the country could have nothing to do with a bomb, could it?”
“You’d think that,” he said, frowning in thought. “But I could feel that the bomb was meant for you. Who would want to kill you, Emily?”
“No one. Absolutely no one in the world, that’s who.” Turning, she started back toward her car. Right now she didn’t care whether there was another bomb attached to it or not.
Michael caught her arm. “You can’t go home alone, if you’re thinking of leaving me here. Emily, someone wants to kill you, and whether you believe that or not makes no difference. I know the truth.”
“Release me or I’ll scream,” she said.
“Then what will happen?” he asked. She could see that he was not being facetious, but merely curious.
“Aaarrgh!” she growled. She jerked away from him, then started walking again.
But when she got to the car she hesitated before putting her key in the lock.
“It’s safe now,” he said from the other side. “Really, the machine has a nice clean color around it now.”
Emily gave him a look of disgust, then put her key in the lock and turned. She didn’t realize she’d been holding her breath until she let it out. Since all doors opened when hers did, Michael slid into the passenger side and put his seat belt on.
“You can’t go with me,” she started. But he wasn’t listening to her; he was staring out the window. “Looking at dead people?” she asked nastily. “Remind me not to visit any graveyards with you.”
“Every spirit leaves a part of himself at his grave,” Michael said absently, then looked at her. “Emily, how long does it take to drive to your house?”
“An hour and a half.”
“Is there another route that will take longer?”
“Through the mountains can take all day, but I want to go home!” she said fiercely, not thinking about what she was going to do with him if he was still with her.
“Then let’s go the long way. I think we need to talk.”
“About what?” she asked warily.
“I want you to tell me everything about yourself. Everything mortal that you can think of. We have to find out who tried to kill you.”
“First of all, no one has tried to kill me. I’m the one who is practical, boring, sensible and unadventurous, remember? Who in their right mind would want to kill me? And, besides, why would it matter to an angel if I were killed? Not that you are one, that is. But people die hideous deaths every day, so what does one small-town librarian matter?”
“I don’t know,” he said thoughtfully. “I’m beginning to ask those same questions myself. Why was I sent here? What evil surrounds you that would compel an archangel to send someone down to look into it?” Turning, he looked at her profile. “But something is very wrong if anyone would want to destroy such a lovely person as you. Emily, you are a good, kind person. Maybe I shouldn’t say so, but I have always liked you the best of all my people. You’ve done so many good things in your life and have loved and helped so many people that you’ve attained quite a high level, you know.”
“No, I didn’t know,” she said, part of her thinking that what he was saying was ridiculous, the other part flattered. Maybe when an angel said you were good it didn’t mean the same thing as it did when they called you that in seventh grade when you refused to smoke
what they were offering.
Emily swung the car a hard right when she saw a sign that said SCENIC ROUTE. They did need time to talk, so maybe a trip through the mountains was as good a time as any.
Chapter 7
BY THE TIME THEY REACHED THE LITTLE GROCERY store in the mountains, Emily felt as though she’d been cross-examined in a murder trial. Michael sure could ask questions! And in spite of herself, she was becoming involved.
Once she got over her anger at thinking of the absurdity of someone trying to kill her, she began to look at all of it as the plot to a murder mystery. Except that, try as they might, they could come up with no reason for anyone to want to murder her.
“No, no,” Emily was saying as she picked up a red plastic basket at the front of the little store. Except for a man dozing behind the counter, there was no one else in the wooden-floored country store, so she felt free to talk to Michael over the shelves. “I still think you’re wrong,” she said fiercely. “I think you are the target, not me.” She glanced at the man behind the counter, but his head was back against his chair and his mouth was open.
“I know what I know and I know that bomb was meant for you. What’s this?” he asked, holding up a bottle of heavily sugared fruit juice.
“Nasty, horrible, vile stuff. It’ll rot your teeth on the way down.”
“Sounds great,” he said, dropping it into her basket. “The problem is that you have your mind made up and won’t look at alternatives.”
“Okay, so what would be the motive of anyone wanting to kill me rather than you? I’m not rich and have no chance of an inheritance. I certainly don’t know anything that would make someone want to kill me. I’ve never seen a crime. So why would anyone want to knock me off?”
“Jealousy?”
At that Emily smiled broadly. “Right. My two lovers are ready to kill each other over me. Put that back! Why do you always pick up the most non-nutritious things in the store? That pink icing will make your intestines glue shut.”
Michael gave a one-sided grin then dropped the cakes into her basket. “Look at this! It’s cold in this case. What’s in these cartons?”