She Speaks to Angels: YA Angel Thriller (AngelFire Chronicles Bk #1)

by Blackwelder, Ami

  I couldn’t believe what just happened. No one could. Another suicide to add to the growing list of suicides at this school, and though there had been prior deaths, I had never actually witnessed one myself. I typed into my cell as fast as I could. Thoughts escaped my mind quicker than my fingers could push the miniature buttons. My first text went out to Jennifer and then to Molly. Jennifer had to hear from me first. This news would crush her and she would need me to be strong.

  Jennifer,

  Did u hear? Tommy Bachelor fell from the rooftop and landed on the ground outside English class. OMG! We’re all stunned! I’m so sorry. Here for u if u need me.

  Ali

  As I watched out the window from my desk, a ray of sunlight danced over the sparkling glass and a crowd of administrators surrounded the body. Principal Patty’s voice sounded over the intercom. “Because of an emergency regarding a student, we will be canceling classes for and the rest of the week.” Sirens sounded in the distance and came closer with each second. Police surrounded the body as my NOOK slowly faded back to black.

  Ignorance

  “Ignorance is bliss,” Molly replied at the park picnic park table. “Better if we don’t push our noses into someone else’s business.”

  I fidgeted with my galoshes until I finally curled one leg under the other. “Tommy died for a reason. Doesn’t that reason bother you?” A gust of wind blew past and tousled my hair.

  “How would we ever know the reasons? We can’t read his mind,” Molly retorted as she fixed her favorite avocado-colored scarf, which draped on her neck, a scarf that accented the green in her irises. A scarf her mom knitted for her when they couldn’t afford a heater in the house.

  Sniffling, Jennifer desperately wanted to join the conversation, but couldn’t speak without shaking and bawling. She tended to her wool mittens instead. Red-eyed and disheveled, she reminded me of an old rag doll. Dressed in heavy beige coats, knit hats and boots, the three of us stayed relatively warm in the 30-degree weather. We were well acclimated, since we were all born and raised in New City.

  “There has to be something we can find. He was popular, for heaven’s sake,” I insisted as Molly stared at me incredulously. “Girls loved him. Teachers adored him. Doesn’t make any sense.” I shook my head.

  “Why? His best friends don’t even know why. Why does anyone do it?” Molly plopped her hand down on the picnic table, the hand holding the fanning paint brush. Dabbing her ocean blue canvas with specs of white, she created a snowy effect. “Maybe he just couldn’t take the pressure of being popular anymore.” When she rolled her eyes, I knew what Molly was thinking. She didn’t like the so-called jocks. Suicide or not, she didn’t want to give them any more of her time. But I didn’t want to let it go, couldn’t let it go. Something about it nagged me.

  “Because...people just don’t go killing themselves for no good reason.”

  “If you care so much, maybe you should write something up for the school paper.” Molly tilted her head to me, and I lit up like a neon light. “You know...like one of those in-memory pieces.”

  I had thought of it before. I could satiate my persistent curiosity and complete an assignment all in one. Every writer needed a muse, and Tommy would be mine. A muse from the grave.

  “We could work on it together...like Bonnie and Clyde.” I grinned as a snowflake dropped from the pines above and lit on my long lashes.

  Tightening the hug-grip around her chest, Jennifer sniffed one last time before raising her gaze.

  “Wait, wait, wait...first of all Clyde was a guy,” Molly interjected, “and I’m not going to be the guy in this scenario. More like Rizzoli and Isles. And second, I am n-o-t going to be a part of this.”

  “Why not? Could be intriguing. Today is Wednesday and we don’t have to be back at school until Monday. What else are we going to do?” I rationalized.

  “I’ll do it.” Jennifer interrupted, the sound of her voice almost foreign at this point in the conversation. We both jerked our heads in her direction. Wiping her nose with the back of her coat sleeve she held a sneeze and repeated more firmly. “I’ll do it.” Her big brown eyes widened as her lips tensed.

  “You will? Why?” Molly cocked a brow and spun her body around on the bench to face Jennifer better. Her fingers inched across the table and found Jennifer’s mittened hands. “You don’t have to do this just because...” she didn’t want to say it aloud, but Molly had a way about her. Truth, whether crass or not, always popped out of her uncontrolled mouth. “... You liked him.”

  Blushing, Jennifer tilted back and the freckles on her cheeks almost faded away. “I am going to do this because Ali is right. Tommy was not the sort to commit suicide. He had everything going for him. With his death this makes...” she paused in thought counting on her fingers, recollecting the names listed in the morning paper, “five deaths from Millennium High in seven years!”

  “Don’t forget Emily,” I reminded them, and they each wrinkled their foreheads in confusion. “The girl who was found dead in Central Park. She went to the school too...and just because she didn’t die on school grounds doesn’t make her death any less odd.”

  “Something is going on at this school, and I’ll be damned if I’m just going to sit and do nothing.” Jennifer got her mojo back, a newfound task of investigation motivating her out of her misery.

  “Well damn, if you two are going to go at this then...” Molly raked her fingers through her shoulder length cut and sighed, “then I might as well do it too.”

  Jennifer and I both turned at the same time and grinned.

  “What else am I going to do until Monday without the two of you?” Molly reasoned.

  “It’s settled then. We are officially the unofficial team investigating this suicide,” I added as another gust of wind brushed through the park, brushing over Molly and Jennifer.

  “Don’t get too excited.” Molly pushed herself off the bench, brushed her hands against her jeans and stood beside me. “I’m only doing this to avoid being appallingly bored.”

  I stood with one hand still on the picnic table. “Good enough reason for me.”

  “Where do we start?” Jennifer tied her red locks into a bun and then returned the knit hat to her head. A few loose strands escaped as color returned to her face. She began to look more alive and less like a rag doll or the living dead.

  Looking over my shoulder, I stared at the school in the distance and pointed. “There.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Molly gawked. “The school is locked up. We will be breaking and entering.” Turning her head to Jennifer she finished, “Surely you can understand the insanity of this proposal,” she stared at the girl-in-mourning. “Your father is a lawyer. What kind of time can we serve for this crime?” she asked with sarcasm in her tone.

  “We are not going to get caught.” I encouraged them. “Besides, this is our only lead.”

  “Lead?” Molly scuffed with hands to hips. “What do you plan on finding at the school anyway?”

  “Tommy’s locker.” I planted my feet firmly on the dried leaves and the two stood silently as strange wisps of fog swirled past our ankles; a thick and silvery-grey kind of mist. Tucking her paint brush and canvas into her satchel, Molly shoved the knapsack over her shoulder as Jennifer led us to her Sedan parked at the curb. The only one of us with a car, she came in handy.

  Keeping the speed limit, she drove for five minutes and then headed into the lot across the street from Millennium High. With the parking lot vacant of cars, her red sedan stood out like a sore thumb, but we either drove or we walked for twenty minutes, and Jennifer wanted to make sure we had a quick get-away vehicle. Across the street we saw an arrangement of police officers circling outside the English classroom. The room set toward the front of the building a few rooms down from the main office. Police cars were parked in the office parking lot, and I kept my eye on one cop in particular, Samuel Maney.

  “Hey, isn’t that your older brother over there?” Jennifer poi
nted. Slapping her hand back down to her jeans, I responded harshly.

  “Yeah, no shit Sherlock.”

  “How are we going to avoid all these cops?” Molly shook her head and uttered a sigh as her mind whirled in search of a solution. With a roll of her eyes, she turned to us.

  “We’ll hop the fence at the far left. The office hangs more to the right anyway.” Molly sure had a way with breaking and entering! Sneaking over the wire fence, Molly insisted on going last. If the police saw someone coming in she didn’t want the some one to be her.

  “Are you going or what?” Jennifer pushed my bum from underneath with a squat in good cheerleader form as my galoshes poked through the holes in the chain linked fence. Staring at the school’s chained doors ahead, I remembered a back entrance, one I had seen a janitor use months ago.

  “Going, going.” With one more big push I leapt over the fence and landed squarely on the other side. Although I had long legs, my incessant clumsiness demanded her assistance. “Ok, your turn.” I watched Molly strain with bent legs to hold Jennifer.

  “Wait! How are you going to get over the fence?” Jennifer craned her neck back and squinted eyes at Molly. “You should go first. I don’t need as much help. I’m taller and have cheerleading tryout experience.”

  “Whatever.” Molly rolled her eyes and dropped her hands, dusting them against one another as Jennifer’s boots hit ground.

  “Ok, get up.” Jennifer put her hands together and formed a tight net for Molly’s feet. One foot at a time, Molly crawled up the fence and jumped over to join me. Jennifer reminded us both of Spiderman on acid trying to cross the fence. Her performance made us laugh.

  “This way.” I waved for my clandestine team of two to move forward. They surprisingly followed without question. Skirting around the corner of the building, I could see in the distance and for just a second the chalk outline of Tommy’s body near the English classroom before the police surrounded him again. I breathed heavily and then we headed to the back door.

  “What are we doing here?” Molly complained. For a budding artist she complained and worried a lot.

  “This was a stupid idea.” Jennifer shook her head. “Why did I agree to this again?”

  “I know the janitor. He will be cleaning all week.” I knocked with a loud thud several times and chewed my gum.

  “You know the janitor?” Molly’s brows stretched into one fine line. “What does that mean? Are you two like on a name-to-name basis or something?” Her lips puckered as she tried to hold in a laugh. “Do you two share private time together?” Her giggle escaped, and Jennifer joined in on the joke which came at my expense.

  Jerking my head around I retorted, “No, we don’t hang out. I helped him out several months back. He owes me one.”

  “Helped him out with what?” Jennifer’s head shot between Molly and me.

  “I saw him studying an English grammar book once at lunch time. I volunteered to help him learn the rules.” I said nonchalantly.

  Molly jumped when she realized who it was. I felt the jolt on my back. “You’re talking about that Mexican guy, aren’t you?”

  “Alberto.” I said firm. “His name is Alberto.”

  After I knocked several more times with a closed fist, an older man with graying, balding hair and wrinkling skin swung opened the door. In the dark blue uniform, he pushed his yellow bucket-with-mop to the left. A red tool box set to his right, and his expression showed his recognition.

  Holding the door with one hand, I spoke. “Thank you, Alberto.”

  “What you doing here? School closed.” He sounded unnerved.

  “Yes, yes it is. But I need a favor. You know, favor? Like when I helped you with the English grammar.”

  “Yes, yes...grammar,” he nodded with a relinquishing smile. “What you need?”

  “We need to come inside.”

  “Why?” His heavy accent made his questioning all the more palatable.

  “We...” I fumbled and Molly jumped in.

  “We forgot our reading assignments, and we have a big test Monday. We can’t fail or we might not graduate.”

  “Ah.” Alberto rubbed his forehead with his hand. “Fail.” Shaking his head, he waved us in. “Cannot fail.”

  “Thank you, Alberto,” I said sincerely before stepping past him into the hallway.

  “Yes, thank you.” Molly smiled while Jennifer ducked in quietly.

  Loosening the buttons on our coats, we headed to Tommy’s locker. He was a junior like me, so we shared sections, but since his last name began with a B and mine an M, our lockers were on different rows.

  “This way.” Molly’s steps revealed more fervor the closer she came to the B lockers.

  “I’ve seen him here many times,” Jennifer confirmed in front of the second locker from the end.

  “How do we get in?” I worried for the first time, unsure if my investigational plans had unraveled already.

  “Leave it to me.” Molly winked and began her magic. I knew I didn’t bring her along for nothing. Spinning the lock, we watched the notch pass number after number while Molly leaned her head closer to the numbered wheel. Listening, she stopped the spin.

  “You can hear the clicks?” Jennifer gasped and drew close to her.

  “No,” Molly pulled a screwdriver from her back pocket. “I’m going to bust it.” As she squeezed the screwdriver underneath the locker door open, Jennifer and I turned to each other for a quiet laugh.

  “Where the heck did you get that?” Jennifer questioned as her fingers reached to touch the tool.

  “When Alberto was busy with you.” She looked at me and winked again.

  “You know, for a girl who worries so much, you sure are full of surprises.” I added.

  “You have no idea.”

  Leaning into Molly, Jennifer watched as if she had never seen the act of vandalism and destruction before tonight. Best of friends, the three of us really could not have been more different. But maybe our differences are what have kept us friends all these years.

  CLANG-BANG-GLONK. The locker door swung open, and Molly slid the stolen tool back into her jean pocket with a satisfied grin.

  “Let’s hurry up before Alberto catches onto us,” Molly warned and stood at the end of the aisle like a guard dog. Unlike Jennifer, Molly’s smarts didn’t revolve around books. Street smarts had kept her strong all these years. Who could blame her? With gypsies for parents, she was lucky to have stayed in one place for the past four-and-a-half years. Technically, I knew Jennifer a year before meeting Molly, because Molly came to middle school at the start of seventh grade. But we always said we all knew each other since middle school; no one but us needed to know the technicalities.

  “What are we searching for?” Jennifer rummaged through the locker like she was on her last bottle of pain-killers. A notepad dropping to the floor, and I knelt to pick it up.

  “I don’t know just yet. Something, anything to let us inside his mind.”

  Flipping through the notepad, I saw sketches of wings and the sun, bright light and dark shadows, followed by some blank pages. Toward the end of the notepad more detailed sketches revealed faces. Not so much detail that I could make out anything specific, but enough that I felt like I had seen the images before. But where?

  “What did you find?” I nudged Jennifer in the shoulder.

  “Not much yet.” We both eyed a shiny square device stuffed in between a thick book and a set of folders. As both of our hands hit the device at the same time, Jennifer released her grip. “Go ahead.”

  Yanking the Kindle out of his locker, I touched the screen to turn it on and watched a set of marked books flash before my eyes. Dictionary of Angels. Angelology. The History of Angels. The Dark and the Light: A Contemporary Expose of Angels.

  “What do you think this means?” I tucked the Kindle under Jennifer’s chin. “Why would he be so obsessed with...angels?”

  “I don’t know...” Molly turned toward us. “But Alberto is head
ing this way and so we’d better rap this illegal activity up.” She had a way with words. It wasn’t so much the words as it was the way she used them, as if everything that came from her mouth carried the same weight. — I’m so hungry. My dog just died. I want to see that movie. Worrywart or not, her street skills and perspective sure came in handy.

  “Grab the folder,” I urged Jennifer before as I shut the locker. I had the Kindle and notepad in my back pockets, and Jennifer carried the folder of papers. We met behind Molly and marched up the hallway like a strict platoon of soldiers.

  “Got it, Alberto! Thank you, sir!” Molly bobbed up and down as she walked, offering the janitor her gratitude. We each gave a courteous smile in passing.

  “Now we even.” Alberto nodded to me and I sighed. Damn, I could have really used another favor. But we got more than I thought we would, and this information would definitely keep the three of us busy a day or two.

  Sleepover

  I turned the volume up on my stereo. My favorite song played, and I didn’t want to have to listen to Mom and Samuel arguing again. Italian families could be rough that way. We each had our own strong-willed opinions. I’m sure the disagreement went something like this:

  Mom: “I don’t want you working so hard. It’s dangerous.”

  Samuel: “It's my job, Mom.”

  Mom: “Don’t you remember what happened to your father?”

  Samuel: “How could I not remember?”

  Mom: “Well, you sure don’t act like it. His heart went...just like that!” Smack of hands. “Do you want to leave me too?”

  Then tears. Always tears.

  Samuel: “I’m sorry, Mom.”

  Hugs.

  Samuel: “But I can’t just quit the force.”

  This is how the emotionally-heated conversations usually occurred. But this time I didn’t need any more details. Not yet anyway. I would pick Samuel’s brain later. Right now, I wanted to go over everything we had found with Molly and Jennifer.