“Turn out the lights or I shoot.”
Shoot before he got the money? Well, she didn’t intend to point it out. She doubted she could speak anyway. Her mouth felt dry as cotton. Since they’d never had a robbery, she decided to do whatever he wanted and quickly turned out the main store lights. He yanked the plug on the neon OPEN sign. Weak light shone through the hall from the kitchen.
Cold fear raised the hairs at the back of her neck. No one would attempt to enter the store with it dark and the sign unplugged.
The gun Madeleine hoped a threat was pulled from his pocket.
She held her breath and got very still seeing him reach inside his jacket. “Put your cash in this,” his fake low voice cracked. He tossed a small gym bag across the glass counter. Her back hit the counter behind in an attempt to catch the clumsy throw.
Her mind raced. The bread slicer there would be too heavy to lift and smash into his head. Her elbow knocked several angel tins to the floor. She sucked in a breath. The crashing sound of tin on wood reverberated with internal tremors. Would she die like Danny?
The ruckus made the kid’s head jerk toward the front windows then back again. “Leave them.” The gun waved then steadied when she stood stiff with a tin in her hand. She flung it at his head like a Frisbee. He ducked and it hit the wall behind him. More noise. She silently cursed the angel spread across it for not helping her hit the mark.
“Idiot.” He came closer to the counter. “Hurry up.”
She was an idiot. Who mocked a plea for divine intervention with a gun aimed straight at their heart? She tapped a finger to the register’s computer screen to bring it to life. They really did need a new register. Theirs was torturously slow. Talk. Talk to the kid. “I know who you are.”
“Yeah?” He raised his eyes to stare through the shanks of hair with orange streaks.
Talk. “You’ve been in here before. But you colored your hair. Do you go to Lincoln High? I went there.”
“It’s a hell hole.” He waved the gun. It shook. “What’s your problem? Open the register. Now.”
Her finger trembled against the computerized screen. “I can’t. It’s already locked for the night.”
“You think I’m stupid? It’s not like it’s on an alarm or anything. I worked in a store. I know how it works. Unlock it.”
“No. You’re not stupid. I’d never say that. I’d say you’re very smart.”
“Shut up.” He shoved the gun closer and reached around the screen to tap it to life. “Doesn’t look closed to me.”
“Okay. I’m trying.” Don’t be a hero, Madeleine. Give the kid the money. She saw his shoulder flick up and down as he rocked from foot to foot. The register drawer opened. He licked his lips. Talk. “You want the change too?”
“I don’t know.” His voice pitched high. “Just the bills and hurry. No. Throw in the quarters.”
The total contents of the register barely filled a corner of the bag. She knew there wasn’t anything under the cash drawer, but stalled to lift it and peer underneath. Maybe someone would see the scene inside the darkened bakery and call the police. She did her best not to show the fear as her body trembled beneath her clothes. Talk. She tried to make eye contact. “You don’t want to do this.”
“Says who?”
“You could get hurt.”
“How? I’ve got the gun.”
He made a grab for the bag, and she pulled it back. Stupid. Talk. “If you kill me, I won’t care. My husband’s dead.”
“Boo hoo.” The gun shook again, and he switched hands.
“I hit a switch under the counter. The police will see your gun and shoot you. You don’t want to put your parents through the pain.” Hopelessness shone in his dull eyes and sent a deep chill over her.
“Shut up. They don’t care,” his voice quivered.
“Of course they care.” Courage she didn’t know she possessed wrapped her like a cloak. A warm veil of bravery hid knees that knocked. Or stupidity. She wasn’t sure. Talk. “Think this through. You’re a good kid. I can tell.”
“Shut up or you’ll be dead. Give me the bag.” He lunged. She tossed the bag at him not willing to take any more chances.
The blur of motion outside the front window caught in her peripheral vision. Jess crashed through door with such force the heavy glass cracked. “Get down!” he shouted at her.
The kid turned and fired shots.
Pop! Pop!
Chapter Ten
Jess hit the hooded figure with a full body tackle and readily disarmed him. A young male, he realized, who got off a good kick to his shin. He grunted. “Don’t be stupid here. I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Screw you.” The kid swung his arm out from under Jess’s body in a wild grab for the gun.
“Tough guy, huh?” Having a longer arm reach despite his handicap, Jess batted the gun across the floor. The boy whimpered as Jess flooded his ear with graphic details of what a gun did to flesh, his mind flashing back to the day he’d lost his arm.
He led a patrol of Marines into a hot zone on the outskirts of Kabul. December nineteenth. Routine except for two first-timers scared to death. Private James walked a few steps in front of him. Private Blaine at the rear. A doughy built kid with the face of a ten-year-old the guys called Tator. He told them to stay close and “do not” do anything stupid. Ear ringing POP POP POP accompanied the fiery sting of flying debris. They scattered for cover in burnt-out hovels once homes.
“You’d better cry, son.” Jess huffed as he struggled to keep the boy pinned to the floor. Pain shot up Jess’s arm when teeth sank into his hand. He pressed the teen harder to the floor for fear he’d wiggle free. Damn, the kid was strong or hyped up on drugs. “Now that wasn’t smart. Madeleine, call the cops,” he shouted.
“They’re on the way,” he heard her muffled voice.
Jess jerked his head toward movement. Madeleine? “Stay in the back. I’ve got this handled.”
The teen spewed endless profanities and grunts determined to escape. It could have been another time, another place the writhing form beneath him so similar to Private James.
No time to make a plan, the high whistle of incomings filled the air. On instinct, he grabbed the fatigues of Private James. He hurled the boy’s body to the ground. Correction. The hard imprint of a hand on his back catapulted him to the ground. SWOOSH preceded a silent vacuum that covered and sealed him and the soldier beneath him. Multiple explosions erupted around them. Flashes of angry hot orange. Heat. The ground shook.
Chaos broke out. Returned fire. Men screamed in pain. There were shouts. The hand pinned him to the ground. Rage spewed from his mouth as he tried to free himself. If Tator had thrown himself on top him to be a hero in saving an officer, he’d pummel the kid’s rear end when this thing was over. He prided himself in keeping his men safe. Not the other way around.
Jess smacked the kid when he managed another bite, this time to his stump. It took every ounce of restraint to keep from doing serious damage to the screwed up kid, when he caught sight of two police officers pounding pavement in route to the bakery, then inside. “I’ve got him,” one said.
Jess rolled off to surrender the kid to a pair of handcuffs. But at that moment, he didn’t see the teen. He saw the young Marine, Private James.
He rolled off Private James to rub cobwebs from his face and discovered he had no hand. Holy moly! He ducked his head at the sound of wings. Another incoming? Loud flapping. His imagination? Damn! His hand, forearm were blown to bits. Where was the pain? Another hard flapping. Like a huge injured bird the outline of a bigger-than-life image shimmered. A winged man? It confused him. Then he smelled burnt feathers, no flesh. More gunfire. Men shouting. Heat. Pain. Black out.
Chaos filled the bakery as new officers rushed in the broken door. Today would have a different outcome than two years ago. Jess stood a second trying to gather his composure, stunned to have fully remembered the attack outside of Kabul. He fought the urge to cry out in anguis
h as he had that day. Hopeless despair at the sight of Tator’s lifeless form sprawled out over rubble. Five men dead. He missing an arm. Private James a leg. Dear God, he hoped it a one-time show.
“You hurt?” a police officer asked.
“No, sir.” Jess ran a hand across his face and rushed over to Madeleine behind the counter. Terror contorted her pale face. He gently pried a cookie tin from her white-knuckled grip and set it on the counter before shucking off his jacket. His chest heaved. “You okay?”
She stepped forward to bury her face into the heat pouring off his chest, shaking like a leaf. Jess cradled her close, kissing her sweet smelling hair, nothing like the battlefield he’d just relived. His voice shook with emotion. “I’ve never felt more handicapped than this very moment.”
“Me neither.”
He chuckled. “Oh, Madeleine. We’re a pair.”
She wrapped her arms around him and held on tight. “Something helped us,” she mumbled against his chest.
“It’s just you and me, Madeleine, just you and me.” He stroked her hair.
They rocked in the embrace, trying to settle their breaths as if they’d run a marathon. Relief she’d not been seriously hurt almost overcame him as she clung to him for dear life, needing him.
“I think an angel was here,” she murmured.
“Shhh. You’re safe now.”
Madeleine’s teeth began to chatter. “I asked for help. He told me to talk. He...” She grabbed a quick breath and turned her head sideways to glance at the tin on the floor. “He sent you. She’s a he. He’s real.”
Jess pulled back to look her in the eye. “You’re upset, Madeleine.” The flashback hovered at the edges of his mind. No, angels did not exist. He refused to believe it no matter what he remembered or what he thought he saw in vivid detail. Memories that had tried to surface over the last few weeks in glimpses he dared not acknowledge.
Still, trauma did strange things to the mind. Madeleine had just stared down the receiving end of a gun and asked for help. Then thought she’d seen something, no different than his experience. It was just the mind playing some trick to displace the fear.
They broke apart when a police officer came over to ask questions.
“Oh no.” Madeleine put her hand over her mouth as Jess turned his head to where she stared. One of the refrigerated display cases and several cakes were blown to smithereens.
“Can you tell me what happened here, miss?” an Office Zander asked.
Jess welcomed her back into the shelter of his body as she slipped beneath his partial arm and grabbed hold of his flannel shirt sleeve below the stump. Did she realize? Apparently not. She touched his stump, patted it, wrung the empty shirt sleeve and told her story with a shaky voice, distracting the cop. Jess bit back a grin.
“I was about to lock up when he came in. Said he had a gun and to turn out the lights. He unplugged the OPEN sign. I was afraid he’d lock the door, but he didn’t. Then he pulled out the gun. Told me to put the register money in the duffle bag.” Jess glanced at the duffle in possession of a nearby cop and felt Madeleine pat his stump again. Hell, it was unnerving him now. They gazes held a second and he realized she wanted him to know it didn’t bother her.
“After you gave him the money, what happened?” Officer Zander asked.
“That’s the thing. I didn’t at first. Give him the money.” Her words came in rapid bursts. “I was stupid. For as long as I can remember, my parents have instructed those working in the store to hand over the cash no questions asked. No one ever thought we’d have a robbery, but they were always firm about it. I can be stubborn and was mad he’d steal from them, when I’d been so nice to him. They work so hard.”
“So you’ve seen him before?”
“Yes.” She drew in a big breath. Jess wiped a tear from her hot cheek with his thumb, her arm tightening around his waist. He listened to her give her account. Her bravery to stand her ground in what could have been a very bad situation astounded him. And scared the hell out of him. Why didn’t she just give over the money? Still, pride and love swelled in his heart along with some silly warm gratitude she would treat his arm with casual comfort not grossing her out.
“Then you know him?” Jess heard Officer Zander ask.
“No. Not really. He’s been in the store a couple of times over the last few days. He’s dressed different today, but it’s the same kid. We talked a little because he had questions about the store. I should have guessed something was off, but he seemed like a shy kid who liked donuts.” She shrugged more calm now. “He seemed so twitchy I worried he’d shoot me whether he had the money or not. Some voice told me to make him talk. Make him think. Throw him off balance. I know that sounds crazy, but I think it was an angel.” She said with such conviction the officer visibly flinched.
“An angel?” Officer Zander asked, wide eyed. “Your parents are right. You should have handed over the money without question.”
“Give her a break. She’s upset.” Jess scowled.
“I’m not upset.” She slid out from under Jess’s protective hold and spoke to him not the officer. “Okay...so maybe it wasn’t an audible voice. It was inside my head. But what if Danny watches over me and sent help? Sent you, Jess. I’ve heard of such things. And, and I saw a brilliant bar of white light on the dark floor near you. Over there.” She pointed to where he’d pinned the boy to the floor with his body. “There were no lights on in the main store and no way did it come from the back kitchen or outside. I felt something, too. What else could it be but an angel? Don’t tell me different or that I’m upset. I know what I saw, what I felt.” She set her jaw and tilted her chin up.
He grinned at the fire in her eyes. “Babe, you can bet I won’t be saying it again.”
“He fired two shots at you, Jess. Two.”
“Wild shots.”
“Do you really think he accidentally missed?” Madeleine’s slash of a dark eyebrow arched, her pretty eyes steady above rosy pink cheeks. Oh God, how he wanted to kiss the breath out of her in the heat of the moment. But it became obvious she wasn’t done. “I’m telling you. Something told me to talk when nothing but fear filled my head. I was so scared I had sawdust for brains.”
“Mule brains. My sister has them.”
“Oh, and you’re not stubborn? Why haven’t you called me?”
“Uh.”
“Because you’ve got mule brains, too.”
Officer Zander cleared his throat. “If I’ve other questions...”
Commotion at the entrance caught their attention. Grams Belmar pushed in front of Madeleine’s parents and into the bakery. “Where’s the robber. I want to see the little twerp with my own eyes.”
“Sorry, ma’am. They’ve taken him to the station,” Officer Zander said.
Janet beat a path across the bakery to wrap Madeleine in a crushing hug, crying. “I shouldn’t have left you alone.”
“She’s fine,” Grams butted in and placed her hands on her hips. “I want to know what happened here.”
Madeleine recited every detail of the robbery minus the angel embellishments. Although Jess was certain she’d not forgotten the subject. As evidenced by her eyes finding his from time to time, during her account.
“And you’re not hurt,” Janet asked.
“No, thanks to Jess.”
Not in Jess’s mind. Madeleine had saved her own hide. He’d merely kept the teen from getting away with armed robbery. An argument for another time. Jess gave Madeleine a soft smile and left to help her dad clean up the shattered cake case. They also retrieved boards from the basement and secured the broken glass on the entry door, the lock thankfully in good working order.
Belmar Bakery would open tomorrow no matter the robbery attempt.
It would be Christmas Eve.
“We need to talk.” Madeleine stopped Jess and craned her neck to be sure her family in the kitchen, getting ready to leave. “But not tonight. Are you free for dinner tomorrow night? I know its Ch
ristmas Eve but we close at five.”
“Are you asking me to dinner?”
“I am.”
“For you, I’m available.”
“I’m not so sure about that, but I need to tell you about the—”
“You two coming?” her dad hollered.
“Give us a minute.”
“Don’t forget to set the alarm on your way out.”
“I won’t.” The back door shut and she finished her thought. “Angel.”
Jess groaned. “I’ve seen too much to believe anything other than my lurking outside trying to get the guts to see you happened here tonight.” He flinched as if jabbed.
“You’re wrong.” She twirled around to leave. “Come on. Dad will come back in if we hang around too long.”
Jess entered the dark hall that connected the bakery to the kitchen and came to a sudden stop. “What the...” He took a step back, brushing a large cobweb away from his face. Nothing could be found. He started through the hall again. This time hitting an invisible wall of cobwebs that brushed over his face. No. Feathers. The shimmering form of a battlefield angel made an unwelcome impression upon his mind. Shivers pebbled his skin and ran down his spine. Wonderings that began a couple of weeks ago, the smell of burnt feathers, thoughts of angels, all that hocus pocus drivel he’d become adept at pushing from his mind since Afghanistan for fear he was going insane. Suddenly, it seemed possible.
“What’s wrong?” Madeleine stared at him puzzled.
“Nothing.” He walked through the hall and stopped to stare at the short expanse he cleared without anything but air to pass through. “My car’s out front.”
“You can’t go out the broken door. I’ll drive you around. I’ve got my Mini back. You were right. It wasn’t the battery. It was the ignition. The mechanic thinks a corroded wire snapped in the cold.”
“You should have let my guys fix it,” he said distracted.
Madeleine noticed Jess rubbing his arm above the stump. Her smile faded as she stared at his hand. “He bit you? We need to get you to an ER.”
“Huh?” Jess glanced at the top of his swelling hand, the skin red and broken in three spots. “I’ll clean it at home. Let’s go.”
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