Angel Baby (Heaven Can Wait)

by Laura Marie Altom

  “Faster, faster!” Geneva cried in the back seat of Sam’s police cruiser, bobbing in her cloud bubble as he chased down the bad guy. “Get him, Sam! Get him!”

  The deviant driving a beat-up primer gray Lincoln pulled off the old Highway 74 and onto John Peter Road. This particular stretch was dirt, and she’d have given anything to be able to slap Sam a high five for taking the curves good as any NASCAR driver.

  She popped onto his front seat, loving the fierce look of concentration in the police chief’s stony gray gaze as he pressed even harder on the gas. To coin a phrase she’d learned from her new friend Elvis, geez, what a hunk o’ burnin’ love.

  Back when she’d been alive, Geneva’s friend Mindy used to live out on this road. About a quarter mile ahead there was a wide spot that school buses used for turning around. Sam used it now to pass the bad guy, effectively cutting him off by vrooming over the low water bridge, then slamming on his brakes, using his car as a barrier to stop the Lincoln from getting across.

  Sam jumped out, running around to the opposite side of the perp’s car to the concrete pilings placed to stop debris from taking out the bridge when the water was high. Today, though, the water was low. Maybe a couple of feet deep—five or six feet deep in the fishing-swimming hole old folks and kids used for weekend entertainment.

  The road narrowed with steep embankments on either side, leaving no opportunity for the Lincoln’s driver to turn. Either he had to back all the way to the school bus turnaround or surrender. Or Sam supposed there was always Option C—go for the Dukes of Hazard maneuver and try blowin’ straight through his car.

  Aw, Christ on a cupcake…

  From across the river came a series of deep vrooms.

  Sam darted out from behind his concrete wall just long enough to see a flash of light behind the Lincoln’s tinted windows, then all hell broke loose when the kid gunned it, rear tires sending dirt, dust and gravel flying halfway across the county.

  Frozen by what he could only guess was morbid fascination, Sam watched the whole thing unravel. The Lincoln hitting the bridge at what had to be fifty, a barefoot woman wearing hip-hugging, belly-baring jean cutoffs and a leather-fringed halter leaning against the driver’s side door of his squad car, then moseying across the bridge.

  Wait—was she the woman from his dream?

  “Nooooo!” Sam shouted, springing into action in what he prayed would be enough time to shove her out of harm’s way. But before he even reached the bridge, the driver must’ve caught sight of her and instinctively veered, for the Lincoln careened off the low water bridge and dove nose-first into the deepest portion of the fishing hole, the grill of the car stabbing into the clay bottom with such force that it landed straight up, rear-end ten feet above the water’s lazy flow. The driver must’ve fallen face first into the horn—it hadn’t stopped blaring since impact.

  No way…” Sam looked first for the girl, then back to the driver. But the girl was gone, and that horn grated on what little remained of his last nerve. After wading chest-deep to the Lincoln to check on the driver’s status, he made the sloshing, cold-as-hell trek back to his car to call Thelma.

  Looked like they’d need a tow truck, ambulance and the fire station’s hazmat crew. No need for the EMT guys to hurry.

  The driver was already dead.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  “That was some stunt you pulled,” Teach strolled across the bridge, right through a tow truck and a burly guy named Ed who had hair the color of a dusty potato. “I don’t know who taught you that, but Mr. Big asked me to inform you that physical manifestations are strictly prohibited for a student at your level.”

  Geneva stared him down. “You’ve got to be kidding. What else was I supposed to do?”

  “Let Fate take its course.”

  “If that guy hadn’t swerved, Sam could’ve been killed.”

  “What’s it matter to you? You’ve stated on more than one occasion that you can hardly stomach the lawman.”

  “Yeah, but…” Geneva let her words trail off in favor of watching the man she was starting to love to hate.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  “I’m sick…” Sam shook his head. “There had to have been something I could’ve done. It didn’t have to end this way.”

  The fire chief looked to the wall of green beside the creek before emitting a sharp laugh. “After what we found in the trunk of that boy’s car. And after I think about how long all that gas is gonna be clogging up this creek—a creek me and my dad and granddad, and now me and my boys fish in, that kid can go straight to Hades.”

  Sam looked up, shaking his head. “You don’t mean that.”

  “The hell I don’t. You have any idea how much damage that punk has done in our town?”

  “You pretty sure he’s the one?”

  “You tell me. Though the other fires showed no blatant sign of accelerant having been used, just to be sure, I’m gonna get a gas chromatograph up here from Little Rock. What else would a kid his age be doin’ joy ridin’ with twenty milk jugs of gas and a bunch of dirty rags stored in his trunk? You’re damned lucky nothin’ set it off. And if he was so innocent, why was he runnin’ from you in the first place?”

  Sam rubbed his aching forehead. “Don’t know. It was a slow day and the Boy Mayor had just rode my ass like Zorro about my department needing to bring in ticket revenue, so when I saw the kid speeding with a busted brake light I decided to take my frustrations out on him. Shocked the hell out of me when he ran. And now this gas thing. How do we know he wasn’t just working for a lawn company and made a run to fill up their tanks?”

  Frank slanted him an incredulous look. “How long you been police chief?”

  Sam sighed. “Long enough to know better. Much as I’m having a hard time believing it, I guess I just killed our arsonist.”

  “Correction, old friend,” Frank slapped Sam’s back. “Our arsonist killed himself.”

  Round about eight-thirty, when Jonah glanced through the kitchen pass-through to see Sam stroll through into the diner wet, dirty and reeking of gasoline, he hustled through the swinging door, leading the room in a round of applause.

  Sam flashed the dozen customers a wave. “Y’all stop,” he said. “What happened this afternoon isn’t something I’m proud of.”

  “But just think,” Randy, the UPS guy, said, “of how much more of our downtown you must’ve saved.”

  Sam mounted a counter stool. “You don’t know that. We’ve got a long way to go until it’s proven he’s our man.”

  George said, “Frank told me there’s not a doubt in his mind this is our guy.”

  Sam shook his head. “I’m glad Frank’s conscience is so clear. Mine, on the other hand, could use about a pound of hamburger and an extra-large side of onion rings.

  “You already had that for an after-school snack,” Jonah thoughtfully pointed out.

  Sam flipped him a halfhearted bird.

  “Okay, then, looks like you’ll have it again for supper.”

  When Jonah returned to the kitchen to get started on Sam’s order, he heard the bell over the front door jingle but didn’t pay much attention—that is, until he was back at the grill, back at his view of the pass-through, watching the Boy Mayor saunter up to the counter to shake Sam’s hand.

  “Who’s that?” Angel asked from behind him. She’d been in the office nursing Katie and missed Sam’s big entrance.

  “The infamous Boy Mayor.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “I’ve seen him.”

  “Sure. He’s always lurking around town, trying to convince voters he cares.”

  She shook her head. “That’s not it.”

  Still pondering where she’d run into the man, she pushed through the kitchen’s swinging door and pasted on a bright smile. After all of Sam’s asinine accusations, he wasn’t one of her favorite people but, tonight, in ridding the town of that arsonist, even she had to admit he’d done them all a big favor.

  Who knew? May
be the diner would’ve been next? After she gave Sam a stilted thank-you, which he awkwardly accepted, the town’s Boy Mayor offered his hand for Angel to shake.

  “And you might be?” he asked.

  She fought to hide a grin. Sam and Jonah’s name for the slight man fit. The fact that the mayor had baby cheeks that looked as if they only needed shaving once every other week didn’t help, or his button nose and comb-over hairstyle, or the khaki pants and white button-down he wore, complete with tie and suspenders, that looked more like a school uniform than mayoral garb.

  Sam said, “This is the woman I’ve told you about, Mayor. Jonah’s wife.”

  “Oh—of course. How could I forget?” Angel surrendered her hand to him, and in that instant blinding pain seized her left temple.

  Even for one of her concerts, the backstage crush had reached almost unbearable proportions. Booze and cocaine were just the appetizers to what she soon feared would become an all-out orgy. Once upon a time she’d thought she’d be into that sort of thing. She’d thought good, old-fashioned rock and roll was her ticket out of the lame hometown where she’d ripened into womanhood, only to feel like she was withering on the vine.

  After a month in LA, she’d signed with a legendary manager and the rest had been history. She hadn’t known just how rare her easy success or her talent were until it was too late to salvage either.

  Tonight she longed to run and hide. Drown her sorrows in a liter of vodka or rum. But now, she thought, rubbing her rounded tummy, she couldn’t even do that. Tabloids accused her of getting fat, but only her manager and a precious few others knew the truth.

  Would the baby change things?

  She hoped so, but gazing across the smoky, noisy room at Talon, her baby’s father, she doubted that where he was concerned anything would ever change. A brunette with practically neon fuchsia stripes in her hair had laid herself out in front of him, begging him to do body shots off her.

  She’d been watching for a good ten minutes as he’d nestled his shot glass between the woman’s ample breasts and wrapped his lips around the glass, jerking the shot back, only to spit the glass out before sucking fresh-squeezed lemon juice off yet another bare-chested woman’s nipples. Then he’d sucked salt off yet another.

  Sickened by what her life had become, how far it had strayed from the only things she’d ever wanted, which were to belong and be loved, she looked sharply away, right into the face of a clean-cut kid, eyeing her black leather stage get-up that, with its Empire line, managed to hide her tummy while thrusting her breasts high enough to be the answer to his every wicked prayer.

  “How much?” he asked above the music’s throbbing beat.

  “Excuse me?”

  He waved a twenty in her face. “What’ll this buy me?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.’’

  “Sure you do…” He tucked a stray piece of her hair behind her ear. When her only answer was a blank stare, he said, “Oh, I get it, this is all part of the game. You play hard to get, then I cough up more dough.” He withdrew his wallet from his back pocket, fished through, then presented her with a hundred. “Don’t want it said that I’m cheap.”

  “Oh, no,” she said, slapping him hard enough that her fingers left an imprint on his boyishly pink cheek. “Lots of sins are forgettable, but being cheap isn’t one of them.”

  “You okay?” the Boy Mayor asked, tightening his hold on Angel’s hand.

  She blanched. “I—I haven’t been feeling all that good.” Not knowing what else to do, she pushed through the kitchen door and ran out back, dragging in gulps of rich river-musky air. Out here, a symphony of tree frogs and crickets did the only singing, and she was glad, for all of a sudden, far from bringing her joy, her musical talent scared her—bad.

  The diner’s screen door creaked open only to slam shut.

  “Angel?” Jonah strode across the small patch of lawn.

  “Over here,” she called from the river’s edge.

  “What’s the matter? Sam said you turned marshmallow white, then ran outside.”

  She smiled. “It was nothing. Just too much excitement, what with the arsonist being caught, meeting the mayor, the kitchen’s heat. You know… Too much.”

  Cupping her cheek, searching her face in the sliver of yellow light escaping the diner and the pale wash of moonlight filtering through the canopy of leaves, he said, “You scared me. I didn’t know what was wrong.”

  She threw her arms around him for a tight hug. “Nothing.” As long as I have you, nothing could ever be wrong.

  In the morning, since Katie was still sleeping at six, Jonah let Angel sleep, too, calling Leon to stop by and give him a ride, just in case his-soon-to-be-official wife wanted to drive herself down later.

  The breakfast crowd was nuts.

  All the old-timers had a thing for Angel and when they found out she wasn’t there to croon Patsy Cline’s greatest hits over their biscuits and gravy, there was grumbling all around.

  At eight the phone rang. It was Angel, wanting to know why he hadn’t woke her up. Just hearing her voice caused a fierce rush of affection to streak through him. Unlike Geneva, who’d slept till noon every day without giving it a thought, Angel not only had an amazing work ethic but a conscience. She was incredible. And he loved her. And come hell or high water, on June fifteenth she’d be his.

  They talked for a few more minutes, but he could tell she was still groggy, so he urged her back to bed, wishing like hell he was home to share the bed with her.

  Hands trembling, Angel hung up Jonah’s office phone extension.

  She’d woken from a nightmare, run downstairs in search of her husband, needing his strong arms, only to find him gone. Just like in her ugly dream—she was alone.

  In her nightmare, like the other visions, she wasn’t an amateur performer but a star.

  Traveling from town to town, always visiting, never belonging. A drifter without family or home. She thought her fans would love her. Take care of her. But they only wanted a piece of her. To touch her hair, kiss her. To try taking her to bed. They didn’t care about the hurt deep inside. The gnawing emptiness that no matter how hard she partied or drank never really went away.

  Which was ridiculous, she thought, drawing her legs up to sit cross-legged in Jonah’s big leather chair. Like the house, the chair was old and creaky and had a personality all its own, but it also provided a certain comfort. She loved knowing that, just like Jonah and herself and everything in this house, the chair had a history.

  From outside came the faint whistle of a train passing through. Hearing its lonely wail reminded her how alone she felt without Jonah.

  From down the hall came fitful cries.

  Angel grappled out of the chair to care for her child.

  The nightmare was stupid.

  She was stupid for having given it a second thought. After all, it wasn’t as if she had any real singing talent and, as for her being alone, she had more friends than she knew what to do with. Everyone knew her name and life story and, in less than a month, everyone she knew and loved most would share her joy when she married the man she loved most.

  Scooping Lizzy into her arms, she said, “Momma’s gonna make you the prettiest dress. You’ll be the best-looking flower girl at any wedding ever.”

  Lizzy grinned, and the sight of it warmed Angel soul deep, washing away the previous night’s ugliness and replacing it with sunbeams and rainbows.

  Her, some kind of leather-wearing rock star?

  The very idea was ridiculous.

  She was a mother and a wife and, to prove it, she fed, bathed and dressed Lizzy in record time. After all, she had some singing to do for her husband’s lunch crowd.

  “Ed Jackson, you know better than to leave that car sittin’ there.” Sam rubbed his eyes.

  It was only ten on Saturday morning and already his head felt ready to bust. Christ on a cupcake, Ed’s Tire was one of the town’s still bustling bu
sinesses. Didn’t Ed have anything better to do than hassle him?

  “I think people got a right to see it.”

  Sam groaned. “Come on, Ed, that car is evidence.”

  “It’s also—”

  Jonah stepped outside the diner, Angel right behind him, Katie in her arms. “What’s with the commotion?”

  “See that?” Sam pointed to the mud-coated, busted-up Lincoln the arsonist had been driving. “Ed thinks it oughtta stay right here on Main Street for a while. You know, kind of like a warning to anyone else who gets a sudden hankering to torch one of our buildings.”

  Ed crossed his arms, lips pressed firmly into a scowl.

  Jonah whistled. “That thing’s in pretty sorry shape.”

  “That’s why I think it needs to be on prominent display,” Ed explained. “People gotta know that, here in Blue Moon, we don’t take kindly to folks messin’ with what’s ours.”

  While the men went round and round on the issue of whether or not the car needed to be positioned for public viewing, Angel cradled Lizzy close, nuzzling her downy hair, gently rocking, staring, mesmerized by the crystal hanging from the dead arsonist’s rearview mirror.

  It caught a glint of sun, sparking for just an instant like a child’s Fourth of July sparkler that had prematurely burned out. And then the pain was back in her head, sharper than ever, like a hundred pushpins jabbing her eyes.

  Desperate for air, she ran from the backstage party—the throbbing bass, the booze, the laughing and the cloying smoke from Marlboros and pot.

  At the end of the dimly lit, dingy hall was an emergency exit. And she laughed, figuring if there ever had been an emergency in her life, this was it. Reaching the door, she pressed her palms flat against the cold steel panic bar, gulping frosty late December air.

  It was four days before New Year’s Eve.

  New Year’s, she would be doing a Vegas show, a world away from this Little Rock gig that she’d only agreed to as a favor to her manager, who had ties and debts in the town.