Page 10 of Price of Angels

When he rounded the corner at the bakery, and headed toward Bell Bar, his foot slid off the accelerator a moment. Flashing emergency lights, so many of them, turning the night into a disco.

He let the truck coast to a halt. Something had happened. Not a drunk customer, too late for that. This was an employee who was hurt. This was…

He gunned the engine and parked along the empty curb, hitting the pavement at a fast walk, breath coming in thick, smoke-like plumes in the frigid night.

As he approached the side-alley that ran alongside the bar, he saw that the paramedics were standing back at the sidewalk, hands at their hips, looking grim. There was no helping whoever was hurt, then.

“What’s going on?” he asked, tone harsher than he’d intended, and the paramedics snapped around to look at him: young guys, wide eyes, big arms.

He wasn’t wearing his cut, so neither of them gave him the usual cautious look. One said, “A girl got attacked. One of the waitresses, I think.”

There was a sudden, unexpected tightening in Michael’s chest. “Which one?”

The paramedic shrugged. “Dunno. She’s got dark hair.”

Holly. Shit.

One of the cops was walking back toward the front of the building from the alley, talking into a walkie-talkie.

“Hey,” Michael called to him, and he glanced up, looking harried and aggravated. “What happened?”

He jerked a thumb over his shoulder, back down the alley. “Girl got–”

“Yeah, I heard. I wanna know who it is.”

The cop scowled at him, one of Fielding’s young flunkies.

“I’m looking for my girlfriend,” Michael lied. “She works here.”

The cop’s expression changed, became less pissed-off, and more careful. “The bartender inside says her name’s Carly.”

“Carly?”

“Yeah.”

Not Holly.

The relief had physical ramifications, a loosening of all his sore digging muscles. The release of a deep breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding.

“Not Holly?” he asked, just to be sure.

“I said Carly, didn’t I?” the cop snapped.

Michael nodded. Not Holly this time, no. But it could have been.

I want to understand, Holly wrote, because she couldn’t settle down and relax.I didn’t know a man had it in him to refuse. Deny himself? Or else he doesn’t like me. Yes, that has to be it. He doesn’t like me. Then I won’t have another shot with him. No means no. What will I do? He was my best hope…

The telephone on the end table rang beside her, startling her, sending her leaping from her spot on the couch.

“Damn,” she murmured, pressing a hand to her stuttering heart. The journal had flown out of her hands and landed with a smack on the boards. She bent to retrieve it, closing it up tight and holding it to her chest, before she answered the old curly-corded landline.

“Hello?”

“Holly, dear,” Mrs. Chalmers’ voice filled her ear. “Are you alright? You sound out of breath.”

“Fine, ma’am.” She took a deep breath and forced herself to smile, knowing the expression would work its way into her voice. “What can I do for you?”

“Nothing,” the kindly old widow assured. “But someone rang the doorbell in front.”

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