Angel With an Attitude

by Carly Bishop

  “She went quite pale. It would be an understatement to say she was taken off guard. I believed at the time that her reaction meant that the last thing Gina Sellers wanted was to be stuck nannying her own child, with the status of a servant, but I could have been wrong. In any case, Ian’s offer was obviously not what she had been hoping for. She asked for a few days to think about how it all might work, to think, she said, what would be best for Seth.”

  “Did Bruce know any of this?”

  St. John frowned. “Bruce?”

  “Did anyone else know, for that matter?” Isobel persisted.

  “I can assure you there were only three people on the planet who knew of the offer. Ian Candless, Gina Sellers, and me. Why do you ask?”

  “Because if any of them—Bruce or Conrad or Harrison, or even Kelsey—knew what was up, that their father was about to claim another heir, and an illegitimate one, wouldn’t that be motive enough for murder?”

  St. John’s features hardened. “It would. If they knew. The possibility has certainly crossed Ian’s mind, especially after last night. There have been no breaks in the police investigation. He has hired his own investigators. I believe it is his intention to establish a personal bodyguard on the estate before the day is out.”

  “For Seth?” A chill took hold of her. She knew in that instant that Angelo himself would somehow turn up as the bodyguard hired to protect Seth. The possibility that it was one of the Candless heirs who had contracted for the murder of Seth and his mother was nothing more than she and Angelo had suspected from the start, but for Candless to believe it of his own sons and daughter?

  “For Seth, of course,” Sinjin confirmed. “And for you, as well.” He sighed heavily. “I’d like to believe he’s mad to think any of them capable of such a thing, but frankly, I don’t know anymore. Another encounter like the one you had last night might not end so harmlessly.”

  “If no one knew, though…is it possible that your conversations with Candless were overheard?”

  “No. When we spoke of these matters it was in the limousine on our way to other things, and the partition is always raised. Not even the chauffeur could have overheard. But I suppose it is possible that in some cruel, perverse moment Ian might actually have told one of the family himself.”

  “Then it’s possible that at least one of them knew—and knew enough to want Gina and Seth dead?”

  “It’s possible.” St. John’s jaw tightened. “Harry is a loose cannon if ever there was one. Conrad…well, Conrad is an angry young man, to say the least. He will cut any corner, take any risk to stay on top. Bruce would have done anything to protect his mother from these indignities, and Kelsey…Dear God. I would not have thought it possible until she became pregnant with our child, but she is over the edge with the notion of Seth usurping her father’s attentions and fortune.” He paused, then returned to his original point. “So you see, Isobel, you would be well advised to simply leave. Find another family needing your services. Is it worth your life to stay?”

  “My life,” Isobel interrupted fiercely, taking Seth into the protection of her arms, “will have been for nothing if anything happens to this baby. I’m staying.”

  He shrugged. “Fair enough. You know the risks.”

  St. John left then, leaving with her the envelope containing her employment contract. It was only afterward that another question occurred to her, not one for St. John himself, but one that instead went to the heart of Gina’s murder. Having read Isobel’s mind, Angelo sat with her, nodding slowly. They were on exactly the same wavelength.

  If it was true, and St. John had not been lying for his own reasons, that virtually no one but he knew of Candless’s offer to Gina, how had the immigration investigators learned of it in time to make their Trojan horse pitch to Gina? Either St. John himself had tipped off the INS, or one of the family.

  Rocking back and forth as she sat cuddling Seth, Isobel shook her head. The sun shone brightly. The scent of flowers everywhere mixed with the salty spray of the ocean and the vegetation washed ashore. All her senses were tuned to the real world. Still, she felt as if she were missing something essential.

  “I don’t get it, Angelo. Even if Candless told one of the family about Seth just to be cruel, who was served? Who could possibly have benefited by letting the immigration investigators in on the offer?”

  “I don’t know either, Iso.” Angelo shook his head. His hair shone like a glossy fur in the sunlight. His face had become so dear and familiar and necessary to her again, that sometimes she could not breathe when he was around. Times when an expression took her back, or a smile took her where she’d never been. Now it was his utter concentration, the way his brow creased and the smile lines about his eyes deepened in thought.

  Her heart knocked about. Seth patted her cheek, seeking her attention. She smiled for him while returning her attention to Angelo’s words, putting aside how she had already come to depend on his being there, and how he might never be again when this was all done.

  If he knew her thoughts, he feigned otherwise. “Remember this, though. You suspected from the minute those INS investigators, Terrence and Landau, came knocking at Gina’s door, that it was because of them—or her involvement with them—that she was murdered.”

  For a second, Isobel relived that terrifying moment that had reminded her so graphically of Angelo’s own murder, and of the power of the state and its police, and the abuses of that power. But Seth reached up and grabbed her lower teeth, drawing her from the memory. She pretended a moment to gnaw on his tiny fingers. He screamed with the sheer delight of it. She steeped herself for that brief time in the baby’s joyful innocence, but she couldn’t get the puzzle out of her mind.

  “I can’t begin to figure this out. Someone called the INS. Someone alerted them to a possibility of getting a stoolie into the Candless estate. Does that mean Candless Industries is exploiting illegal alien labor?”

  “I would bet the farm on it, if I had one to bet. The question is whether Ian Candless is aware of it, or if Conrad, for instance, has brought in the illegal laborers without his father knowing about it.”

  “Why Conrad?”

  “Remember, he’s the one who runs labor management for Candless Industries.”

  “Okay. Suppose it’s Conrad who’s exploiting the cheap labor. Suppose he’s even responsible for bringing the laborers across the border illegally. Someone else had to know about it, because someone did tip off the INS. Doesn’t the whole family stand to lose if there are penalties or convictions?”

  “It depends on what you mean by losing, Iso. The family fortune couldn’t be touched in legal proceedings for the exploitation of illegal immigrants. Only Seth threatened the heirs in that way.”

  “Could it have been a disgruntled employee? Could that be why Candless went off on that tangent about the specter of money changing people?”

  “What is the likelihood that one disgruntled employee looking for a way to blow the whistle would also know anything about Seth’s existence?”

  “I see what you mean,” Isobel agreed, helping Seth balance as he wobbled on the blanket before her. “Candless might have told one of his sons or Kelsey about Seth simply to be spiteful, but no one outside the family, surely. It has to have been one of them who tipped off Landau and Terrence. But why?”

  Angelo’s expression hardened and his eyes narrowed, then he let his gaze wander a moment out to sea. “Think about this, Iso. Look at this scenario—and let’s suppose this is all driven by Conrad.”

  “Because he is head of personnel and labor at Candless Industries?”

  Angelo nodded. “For argument’s sake, suppose you’re Conrad and you’re about to get exposed—nailed by immigration for illegal labor practices. Suppose that you know the Feds are sniffing around. That they’d do anything to get a stoolie into your operation, even into your own house. Suppose if you just had a little time to clean up your act, maybe get your illegal employees out of your factories and int
o other jobs or out of the country, there would be no case left against you or the company—so the best thing you could do would be to create some diversion to gain a little time.”

  Isobel began to catch a glimpse of the whole that Angelo spun, the story he wrought. “All of that makes sense. Go on.”

  “Now, add to that this other little melodrama with Gina and Seth—an illegitimate heir and his upstart mother,” Angelo went on. “Now, not only are your illegal labor practices about to blow up in your face. Now you’re faced with a family crisis as well. Your father is about to announce to the world his paternity of a bastard child, and if you know anything about the man, you know he’s doing it at least as much to cut you off at the knees as because he cares about that baby.”

  Isobel nodded, feeling sick at heart, sick to her stomach. This part was really nothing new. From her first night here, witnessing the interactions among the family as they were introduced to Seth, she knew that Candless was using Seth as a threat, a club to be wielded over his other children’s heads, and his wife’s, for as long as he lived. Hot, fierce emotions clouded her mind, and she couldn’t think now where this was going.

  “I’m sorry. I’ve lost track of your story.”

  He gave her a bittersweet smile that managed to convey something wicked too.

  “Don’t say it. I don’t want to hear any more about my poor, inadequate, little mortal brain stem.”

  He reached toward her, and though there was only his spectral form before her, nothing of any real substance, she felt the touch of his fingers, a warmth, a sparkling, suffusing tension. He looked at her with such longing that her throat simply stopped working.

  “Angelo.” His name was little more than a strangled cry.

  “Iso, I can’t do this anymore. I can’t be here, and not here in the flesh. God help me, I’ve fought it, but—” His voice, deep as darkness before the dawn, cracked. “I don’t want to fight anymore.”

  Tears gathered in her eyes, her chin began to quiver. She loved him so profoundly that only her overpowering love for the innocent babe on her lap could ever matter as much.

  More.

  She had come to life again to care for this baby, and nothing in heaven or on earth would get in the way of doing that to her best ability. Nothing. But she ducked her head, so full of emotions now that she couldn’t speak, couldn’t answer Angelo, couldn’t let him know what flights of fancy her heart was tempted to take if he would but come to her in the flesh…and stay. She simply didn’t believe he would, in the end, forsake everything he was for her.

  But he knew, as he was wont to do whenever she was speechless or silent by choice. He knew.

  He kissed her then, over the babe’s sweet jostling head, bringing his spectral lips to her flesh ones, his human intentions to love her, his heart on his spectral sleeve, his fate very nearly sealed in a kiss that didn’t really exist.

  She felt it nevertheless—the desire, the heat, the longing, the promise. She pulled back, afraid not to, equally afraid to go where this would lead before he could make this decision. They must first unravel all the twisted family intrigues that had, in all likelihood, led straight to Gina Sellers’s murder.

  “Are you going to somehow arrange to be the bodyguard hired for Seth?”

  “It is already done, Iso. In a little while, I’ll leave and arrive back here as the bodyguard from the agency that handles the estate security.”

  “And then you will be..flesh?”

  He nodded. “But not without my powers.”

  It was not the absence of his angelic powers she feared, but the powers of a human male who owned her heart and soul. If he should change his mind—

  “I won’t…change, Iso. I can’t.”

  She straightened. She would only believe it was true when it was true, when…if he ever gave up his angelic powers, and all the responsibility that had defined him for five hundred years.

  “Please. Finish your story. How do the two problems collide, the illegal immigrants and Gina Sellers’s death?”

  He sat back. He would have to be content with her faith, until he made his decision known in heaven. He set aside the issues of his immortal heart and returned to her question, to his story.

  “The heirs had two problems, Iso,” he recapped. “One or all of them, depending on who knew about the illegal labor pool, but certainly Conrad. This couldn’t have gone on without his explicit knowledge and support. So I think we can take Conrad’s involvement for granted. And then Seth came into the picture. Conrad needed the time to make the labor problems go away. He needed a diversion, and they all needed to be rid of Gina Sellers and her bastard baby.”

  “You’re assuming one or all of them heard about Seth from their father?”

  “If one of them knew, all of them did, Iso.”

  “And are you saying Gina’s murder was their solution to both problems?”

  “It makes sense when you think about who it is that’s in jail, charged with Gina’s murder.”

  “The illegal immigrants…” Isobel shuddered in dismay. “Dear God. The Candless heirs set Gina up to be murdered, didn’t they?”

  Chapter Twelve

  Angelo nodded grimly. “Someone did. The only ones with any more at stake than the heirs were the illegal immigrants themselves. They are always the ones with everything to lose. Think about this, Iso. We know it was illegal immigrants who pulled off that drive-by shooting. What would motivate them to murder Gina?”

  “They had to believe she was somehow going to expose their illegal status to the INS.”

  “Exactly. It wouldn’t be hard to make them believe she was the root of all their troubles. And what else were they going to do? They were still illegal aliens. It’s not like they could walk out and find jobs that would pay even as well as Candless sweatshops.” Angelo gave a shrug. “If I were one of them, Iso, as desperate to stay here and as powerless as they are, taking out a stoolie, even a woman, would seem like the only reasonable thing to do.”

  “And the Candless heirs would have killed two birds with one stone…oh, that’s terrible. I mean—”

  “I know what you mean.” She just hadn’t meant to be crass with her analogy to killing birds. “Someone was killed, Iso.”

  “Gina.” She agreed. “Then, in your scenario, the INS investigation was stalled a little longer without Gina, giving Conrad the time to clean up any trace of illegal labor at Candless Industries. Everything was settled.”

  “Except that the shooters weren’t really interested in killing an innocent baby who they had no clue existed. And no one counted on you saving him.”

  “Angelo, this is all just a lot of speculation! I mean, dear God, how can this have happened this way? Why wouldn’t they have made absolutely certain that Seth was murdered along with his mother? He is really their problem, not Gina.”

  “We’re only accounting for what did happen, Iso. There was Seth, there was ironclad confirmation of his paternity, there was the offer from Candless to Gina through St. John. The INS knew about it and tried to bring her into their investigation of abuses by Candless Industries. Then Gina Sellers is gunned down in broad daylight, in a neighborhood she had no business being in, by shooters who just happen to be illegal aliens…I don’t know. Why would you worry that a five-month-old baby would survive a drive-by shooting? What else is there to conclude from the facts?”

  Isobel shook her head. There seemed no other way to construe the events, the timing. “How are we ever going to prove any of this? Do the police have anything yet? They haven’t connected the gunmen with Candless Industries’ importing of illegal aliens, have they?”

  “They have their suspicions, finally, but tying the two together doesn’t necessarily do anything for their murder case. They have your account, but the other bystanders have told so many stories, there’s no hope of sorting out the truth. They have the guns, the burn marks on the shooters’ hands, the ballistics—all the physical evidence. But the perps aren’t talking, and t
hey’ve got nada from the woman whose house Gina had just departed before the murder. The woman’s story has been that Gina must have come there by mistake, that she turned her away, and that’s all there was to it. She hasn’t deviated from her story once.”

  “What was the woman’s name?”

  “Pilar Sanchez.”

  Seth began to fuss. Isobel picked him up again, crooning comfort and love, then moved aside her clothes to nurse him. “And the police have not tied Pilar to the gunmen?”

  “Not with any certainty. She has her green card and she’s been here for several years. No one has established a solid link to the shooters, and they’ve tried. She doesn’t have a phone, so there are no telephone company logs to show whether a call was ever made to Gina from Pilar.”

  Isobel gave an exasperated sigh. “Why would they risk luring Gina to the barrio anyway? Why not just kill her where she lived, or where she shopped? Wouldn’t they have stood a better chance of getting away with it off their own turf?”

  “Not necessarily. They have the silence of the neighborhood. The eyewitness accounts are a jumble of lies. They’re protecting their own. The us-againstthem mentality is thick, Iso. It’s what’s destroying this country, this city. If I hadn’t intervened, these guys would almost certainly have gotten away clean—even having to back up and get rid of Seth.”

  “But if they weren’t being exploited in the first place, this never would have—”

  “I know. It’s a hopeless cycle. The barrios, the ghettos.” Angelo grimaced. “Pascal is probably right. Retribution and vengeance isn’t going to cut it. Only love will finally make a difference.”

  Isobel laughed out loud at his sourpuss expression. An Avenging Angel of the Lord could hardly tolerate the pantywaist implications of love being the only answer in a world gone mad.

  He looked at her longingly, then looked down, and Isobel knew in that telling instant that it was his love for her that made a dent in his fierce and fearsome sensibilities, that made him see how Pascal could be right.