Edgewood Series: Books 1 - 3

by Karen McQuestion

  We didn’t see her skin healing as much as we saw her body relax as the pain lessened. He ran his hands up one side of her blackened jeans, over her abdomen and back down the other leg, then repeated the pattern over and over again. She stopped screaming after a few minutes, and began to whimper quietly, and then some time after that, even the whimpering stopped. Finally, she just regarded him with large eyes like a child watching something happen to someone else.

  I was so concerned with what was going on in front of me that I didn’t notice the group of people walking toward us from down the road, until Jameson stood up and said, “What’s going on here?”

  All of us except Russ and Mallory turned our attention to the group of Peruvians headed our way. Men, women, small children—they looked like they came from the village. None of them looked menacing, but still our group became tense. Jameson called out something in Spanish and one of the men in the front yelled something back. I caught the phrase, “Ángel quemada,” and groaned. “Not this again,” I said.

  “You know what they’re talking about?” Jameson asked.

  I sighed. “Yes, it came up at the airport when I was detained. There’s this legend about the Ángel quemada. She’s an angel that appears as a human girl with half of her face burned. Then there’s something about a firestorm and she can fly when she’s invisible and she travels with a man who can heal the lame.” It all came out in a rush, but the pieces clicked together in my brain as I spoke. I’d been offended at the airport and the Mercado when they’d thought the legend was about me, but the truth of it was—I was the Ángel quemada. Half my face had been burned and I traveled with Russ, who could heal people. And the explosion fit the definition of a firestorm. Did the legend foretell of my existence, or was it all just a coincidence?

  The Peruvians edged closer, watching Russ and me with interest. There were about a dozen of them, more if you counted babies and toddlers. The shy smiles on the women’s faces erased my alarm. They didn’t mean any harm; they were just curious. Jameson and one of the men carried on an animated conversation. It was about Russ and me, if their pointing was any indication. I really hated that I couldn’t understand what they were saying. If I ever got home, I was definitely learning Spanish.

  “What’s he saying?” I asked, giving in to curiosity.

  “A girl from the village saw you flying over Mallory when she was lying in the ditch,” Jameson said. He illustrated with a swoop of his hand. “She knew right away that you were the Ángel quemada. She ran home to tell her mother so they could have Russ cure her little brother.” He pointed to a girl about nine or ten, standing next to a woman holding a baby. I nodded like of course, but part of me wondered how it is she saw me when I was astral projecting. David gave me an incredulous look and I knew I’d be getting questioned about this sometime in the near future.

  “Did the explosion wreck anything in their village?” Kevin asked.

  Jameson translated the question.

  We all understood the answer. “No.”

  “That’s good.” Kevin nodded.

  A few minutes later, Russ stood up and shook out his hands. “I feel like I’m finished.” Kevin and Jameson helped Mallory to her feet, and the Peruvians murmured in amazement. One teenage boy began to clap and when the others joined in, Mallory managed a weak smile.

  “How do you feel?” David asked.

  “Tired,” Mallory said. “And thirsty. But mostly tired.”

  “Incredible,” David said, giving Russ a sideways glance. “I’ve never seen anything like it.” He turned back to Mallory. “Are you in any pain?”

  “No, it’s gone. I just feel thirsty.”

  “Poor little lamb,” Mrs. Whitehouse said. “I’ve got a bottle of water in my bag. Let’s get you settled.” While Kevin and Mrs. Whitehouse helped Mallory into the helicopter, Jameson addressed the group. There was a lively back and forth, and finally he said to Russ, “I’ve told them we have to go right away, but they’re most insistent that you heal the baby.”

  Russ looked a little dazed actually, like healing Mallory had sucked the life out of him, but he nodded and said, “I’ll see what I can do.”

  The woman stepped forward with the baby in her arms, and pulled the blanket away. The baby’s older sister regarded me with narrowed eyes. Russ went up to them and rested his hands on the sleeping infant’s stomach. “Right here, I think,” he said, focusing his vision on that one spot. “Something is wrong with his digestion and it’s keeping him from growing.”

  “Si, si,” the mother said, nodding vigorously after Jameson translated.

  “Absolutely amazing,” David said.

  Russ closed his eyes, and when he opened them a few minutes later, he exhaled in relief. “Okay, it’s done.”

  The mother asked if he had fixed her baby, and when Russ answered, “Si,” tears of happiness flowed down her face.

  I can’t tell you how many times I heard the word, “Gracias,” in the next few minutes. Russ was hugged and kissed by most of the women in the group. Some of the men clapped him on the back and shook his hand. All of them wanted to touch the miracle man. The older sister beamed, grinning from ear to ear, now that her baby brother was cured. Down the road we saw another scattering of villagers heading this way and the ones closest to us called out excitedly to the others, telling them what had happened.

  “Jameson, Russ, Nadia,” David said, his voice firm. “Everybody get aboard, now, before we have a mob scene.”

  As the helicopter rose above the crowd, I watched as the Peruvian villagers raised their hands to say good-bye. I waved back, even though I was pretty sure they couldn’t see me.

  When we’d been in the air for about ten minutes, it occurred to me that we’d left something important unfinished. I leaned my head back, closed my eyes, and thought, take me to Mr. Specter. I felt the familiar sensation of leaving my body, my essence pulled back toward the site of the explosion. A thick cloud of smoke hovered over the ground. Ashes drifted in the air. If I had been there in person, I wouldn’t have been able to breathe. There was no sign of Mr. Specter. Nothing at all. I tried to move through the smoke but something kept me from going beyond that point. I’d never been stopped like that before, but then again, I’d never looked for someone who’d been in an explosion. A feeling of doom came over me and I wanted nothing more than to be back in the safety of my own body. Take me back to the helicopter, I thought. I want to go back.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

  Russ

  David flew us to an airstrip run by the Praetorian Guard and from there we traveled by van to what they called a secure hotel, which basically meant that we had the whole floor of a Marriott, with armed guards standing watch by the elevator and stairwell. We were instructed to keep the windows and blinds closed, for safety reasons.

  Mallory was checked over by a doctor. The burn on her legs, he said, was equivalent to that of a bad sunburn. He gave her a tube of salve and said it should be better within a few days. No one mentioned how she got burned, and the doctor didn’t ask.

  At the hotel, I was paired up with Jameson again, but this time Mrs. Whitehouse insisted on staying with Nadia and Mallory, so the staff brought another bed to their room. We all cleaned up and then had room service. Kevin came to our room to eat. He’d been assigned a room by himself and was feeling lonely.

  “I can’t tell you boys how many times Sam and I talked about this day,” he said, when we were eating our cheeseburgers. “I’ve been involved with the Guard for sixteen years and I always knew one of us might have to take one for the team, but honestly? You don’t believe it’s gonna happen until it does. No, I take that back. I’m still having trouble believing it. I keep thinking there must be some mistake, that Sam will walk through that door and everything will be okay again. He was one cool dude. My best friend.” He pulled a comb out of his back pocket and ran it through his hair. “My best friend,” he repeated sadly.

  David had promised we’d have a briefing the n
ext day, and cautioned us against sharing too much information, so I didn’t correct Kevin and tell him that his best friend had really been playing for the other side. It would have broken his heart, anyway, and Kevin seemed like a decent guy. We’d all had a rough day. No need to make it worse.

  But Kevin was on a roll now. “What they’ll probably do is say he had a heart attack on the trip and send us back with an urn full of ashes. That’s what they’ll do.” He dipped a French fry in ketchup. “Which sucks because he went down like a warrior and won’t get credit for it.”

  It was so, so hard not to say anything. I was glad when he finally left, and I could talk to Jameson alone. I told him my side of the story and he told me what happened after we’d left the convent. He and Kevin had gone to find Mr. Specter right after Nadia had burst in trying to warn them about the Deleo. Jameson had never actually had the Deleo strapped to his head. Kevin had some concerns about using something not approved by the Guard, and Mr. Specter had gotten flustered and defensive.

  “I didn’t have time to get the official seal of approval, Kevin,” Mr. Specter had said sarcastically. “But this is a completely safe measuring device. Do you think I would take risks with these kids if that weren’t the case?”

  After listening to them arguing for a few minutes, Jameson said he was going to go back and check on Mallory. And that was when he realized that Nadia and I weren’t around. “We looked for you,” Jameson said. “None of us could believe you’d leave without your things. I thought maybe you were just walking around the grounds, but then someone noticed Professor Neverman’s SUV had been jacked. I said no way could it be Russ. He doesn’t have it in him.”

  “Thanks,” I said, wryly. “But you’re lucky you didn’t get the Deleo treatment. Nadia was right. It would have messed with your brain.”

  “Not my brain,” he said, tapping on his temple. “This thing is indestructible.”

  After we’d stacked the plates and pushed the room service cart out into the hallway, I told Jameson I had to talk to someone and I’d be back in a while. He’d figured out how the remote control worked and found some raunchy show with dancing women, so he didn’t mind me leaving at all. When I left, he was sitting back against his headboard, a contented smile on his face.

  Ever since I’d gotten back into the helicopter after curing the baby, I’d been waiting for a chance to talk to David Hofstetter alone. When we were airborne, I noticed that David’s box—the one he’d carried out of the facility that now sat at my feet—had gotten jostled and the cover had slid to one side. I leaned forward in my seat to adjust it, and something in the box caught my eye. A framed photo partially covered by some paperwork. I shifted the contents and when I pulled the picture out, I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was a photo of someone I knew well. Frank Shrapnel Becker, my nephew. He hadn’t been posing for the photo; it appeared to be a candid, maybe taken from a distance. I looked at the picture and then over at David, who was unaware of how fiercely I studied his face.

  When I first saw David, I thought he seemed familiar. I assumed it was from viewing Mr. Specter’s age-progressed photo, but I knew now that wasn’t it. He seemed familiar because he and Frank looked so much the same. David was Frank’s dad, I was sure of it.

  Carly had never revealed the identity of Frank’s father. We all assumed it was a nameless one-night stand, or someone she didn’t want to have associated with her son due to a criminal record or addiction problem. This kind of scenario had never occurred to me. Carly had seemed pretty convinced that David was dead, so how had this happened?

  This wasn’t a subject I wanted to bring up in front of the others, or yell out while he was piloting a helicopter. The time had to be right. And the time was now.

  I nodded to the armed guard standing in front of the elevator before knocking on David’s door. When he opened it, he had a smile on his face. “Hey Russ, I was hoping you’d stop by.”

  “Are you Frank’s father?” The words just spilled out.

  He looked thoughtful. “Come on in. We’ll talk.”

  Once inside, he gestured for me to take a seat in an upholstered chair by the window while he sat on the edge of the bed. “So how did you figure it out?”

  “You are Frank’s dad then.” I stared at him. “Did you swear Carly to secrecy or what? You know all my relatives think she’s this big slut because she couldn’t come up with his father’s name.”

  He ran his fingers through his hair, mussing it up and making him look even more like Frank. “No, I didn’t swear Carly to secrecy. She doesn’t know.”

  I chewed my lip trying to figure this out. “She wasn’t there at the time?”

  “No, I—” He held up a hand. “You’re not going to make this easy for me, are you?” I didn’t say anything. “I guess not. Okay, I’ll just tell you. It was one of those times when I went back to Edgewood in disguise. I followed her one night. I know it sounds creepy. I just wanted to see her.” He traced the pattern in the bedspread, remembering. “She went to a bar with two of her girlfriends. I sat off to one side and listened to them talk. Carly is just, well, she’s your sister, so you know how she is. She’s great. The best. There’s no one like her.” He looked up and smiled, just a little. “I sent two rounds of drinks to them anonymously, and I didn’t think she knew it came from me, but she must have figured it out because she came over to thank me.”

  “And she knew it was you,” I said.

  “Yes,” he said. “She knew. Or she thought she did, but I was ready with my story about being David Hofstetter’s cousin, and by then she’d had so much to drink she wasn’t entirely sure. Afterward she told me that she only went back to the hotel with me because I reminded her of David.”

  “Have you been in touch with her since then?”

  “I wanted to, but no.” He shook his head. “It’s not that easy living this life. I can’t think of myself. There is so much more at stake.”

  It wasn’t easy for him? I felt a knot in my throat that I had to force down. “There is a ten-year-old boy who thinks his father doesn’t give a rat’s ass about him. Have you ever thought about him?”

  “Every day, Russ. Every single day.” He got up and looked out the window, disregarding our safety instructions. “I’ve tried to do what I can. I’ve sent her money anonymously, but she just gives it to charity. I’ve had her apartment monitored for safety purposes, but she finds the bugs and destroys them.”

  “That was you?” I stood up, aghast. “She thought the Associates were bugging her place. She’s moved umpteen times and changed phones even more than that to get them off her trail, and it was you? How could you do that to her?”

  “What else could I do?” Now it was his turn to get irate.

  “Oh, I don’t know. How about trying to be a father?”

  His fists curled up by his sides. “I want that more than anything, believe me, and I’m working on it.”

  “Well, work a little harder.”

  The room was silent for a minute and then he said, “So what’s Frank like?”

  “Frank’s about the coolest kid I’ve ever met,” I said. “He likes to collect stuff. He has a lot of nervous energy, but we know it’s not ADD because he’s been tested. Sometimes he drives me nuts following me around and talking non-stop, but he’s so good-natured it’s hard to stay mad at him. He likes comic books and looking at the stars. When my mom has a headache, he can tell by the look on her face and he’ll go get her the bottle of Excedrin. He hates cleaning his room, but he’ll help my dad clean out the garage without complaining. Frank is a great kid. You’re really missing out.”

  “I know that.” And then David Hofstetter began to cry. Real tears, the kind that would be embarrassing out in public. He sort of sniffed, but he wasn’t trying to hold back. I went into the bathroom and came back with a box of tissue. He pulled one out of the dispenser and wiped his eyes. “I have a plan,” he said, taking another tissue and blowing his nose. “A plan to retire from the Guard. I’v
e already talked to my superior about it, and it’s been approved. Once that happens, I’ll move back to Edgewood and see if Carly will let me be part of Frank’s life.”

  “And part of her life?”

  “If she’ll have me.” He sat up straight. “Which I very much doubt. Carly is strong-minded and I’ve been gone a long time. Add in the deception and everything else, and I’m thinking it’s a long shot.”

  I sat back down. “You’re probably right.”

  “Well, you didn’t have to agree with me.”

  “Sorry.” I asked, “So when is this retirement going to happen?”

  “That would depend on you.”

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE

  Nadia

  After Mallory had showered and been examined by the doctor, she seemed almost back to normal. When we finished eating and had put our trays out in the hallway, Mrs. Whitehouse said she was tired and climbed into bed, pulling a sleep mask over her eyes. Within minutes we heard snoring, interspersed with occasional snorts and whistles.

  “Hey Nadia, you want to see something?” Mallory asked in a conspiratorial whisper. She pulled down her pajama bottoms to reveal her bare legs. “What do you think of this?” She pointed to a spot on the inside of her thigh.

  “Your burn?” There was no way I was getting any closer to look.

  “Not just my burn. Here.” She tapped with one finger. “Part of the burn is darker and it’s in the shape of a heart. Isn’t that something?”

  “I guess.”

  Mallory pulled the bottoms back up. “It’s like Russ marked me with his sign. You know what?” She leaned in and spoke quietly so Mrs. Whitehouse wouldn’t hear. “I’ve changed my mind about Russ. I didn’t see it before, but he’s really kind of manly. The way he saved me, picking me up and carrying me back. And then healing me when I was in horrible pain. I really felt a strong connection. I think I’m in love with him. Seriously.”